Confessions of a Public School Teacher: A 35-Year Veteran's Assessment on How Public Education Can Make the Grade By: Michael Marra A veteran teacher of 35 years, Michael Marra believes deeply in education’s power to change lives. His enthusiasm for helping children realize their full potential lies at the core of his lessons. His efforts to make history and economics classes relevant to students’ lives, both inside and outside the classroom, permeate his lively teaching style. Marra’s philosophy on how best to improve our public schools does not sit well with teacher unions. He believes strongly that tenure, seniority and near-endless due process protect poor performing teachers and need swift, meaningful revision. On this, Marra is unwavering, and he presents refreshing suggestions for unlocking what he believes have become the greatest shackles on American schools. Readers will be well informed to make their own assessment on these critical issues. Part memoir, part argument and part how-to guide for aspiring educators, Confessions of a Public School Teacher is a must-read for anyone who believes true learning and development to be worthwhile pursuits. Marra’s quest to leave the classroom a bit better than he found it is both his greatest support of those we cherish dearly—our children—and an invitation for the reader to join the conversation.
Exploring right and wrong and good and evil on the mean streets of New York City, author Michael Marra presents a second collection of twelve short stories in When Angels Cry . Drawn from Marras experiences growing up in New York City, the narratives illustrate that there is redemption among all of lifes murder, corruption, betrayal, passion, and greed. In the selection More Than a Cloud, the family of a former boxer waits expectantly to hear the outcome of his liver transplant. In The Confession, Father Murphy has heard everything during confessions throughout his twenty-six years at Saint Rosalies Church in a crime-filled area in Brooklynuntil two men separately confess to the same brutal murder of a family of five. In The Piano Man the Nassau County Police Department investigates the murders of young women whove been garroted with piano wire. When Angels Cry provides insight into lifes stark realities, but also shows there are bright spots in the darkness among us.
In tales exploring dark, primal desires of man, Michael Marra creates intriguing characters facing police corruption, revenge and murder that catch on quickly and arrive at seemingly obvious conclusions, and then discover that things are not always as they appear to be. These absorbing characters learn to expect the unexpected in Marra's hard-boiled menageries. Life's lessons can manifest themselves in strange, unforeseen ways. No Less a Man sheds light upon behavior, other people's expectations concerning it and the impact of these expectations on others. Beyond Your Means provides a glimpse into the extent of what some people will do to live the life they feel they deserve. Yet perseverance and cunning don't always guarantee success. A man in One for the Money goes to extremes to surreptitiously acquire money, love and the most powerful job in the world. A Host of Suspects is a collection of stories full of gritty, corrupt worlds in which the line between right and wrong, free will and destiny, and good guys and bad guys is often very hazy. Enjoy the lurid environments in which murder, greed, seduction, betrayal and passion provide ingredients propelling their residents to do things they never would have imagined.
Essays on Japan is a compilation of Professor Michael F. Marra’s essays written in the past ten years on the topics of Japanese literature, Japanese aesthetics, and the space between the two subjects.
In Japan’s Frames of Meaning, Michael Marra identifies interpretative concepts central to discussions of hermeneutical practices in Japan and presents English translations of works on basic hermeneutics by major Japanese thinkers. Discussions of Japanese thought tend to be centered on key Western terms in light of which Japanese texts are examined; alternatively, a few Buddhist concepts are presented as counterparts of these Western terms. Marra concentrates on Japanese philosophers and thinkers who have mediated these two extremes, bringing their knowledge of Western thought to bear on philosophical reinterpretations of Buddhist terms that are, thus, presented in secularized form. Marra focuses on categories relevant to the development of a history of Japanese hermeneutics, calling attention to concepts whose discussion sheds light on how Japanese thinkers have proceeded in making sense of their own culture. The terms are organized under three headings. The first deals with koto, which in Japanese means both "things" and "words." Koto is the center of a series of interesting compounds, such as kotodama (the spirit of words) and makoto (truth), that have shaped Japanese discourses on philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and religion. Writings on koto by twentieth-century philosophers Watsuji Tetsuro (1889–1960) and Omori Shozo (1921–1997) and Edo-period scholar Fujitani Mitsue (1768–1823) are included. The second heading is dedicated to two well-known aesthetic categories, yugen and sabi, which point to notions of depth in physical space as well as in the space of interiority. The University of Kyoto aesthetician Ueda Juzo (1886–1973) guides the reader through a history of these concepts. In the third part of the book, notions of time in the form of ku (emptiness) and guzen (contingency) are examined through the work of Ueda’s colleagues at Kyoto, Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990) and Kuki Shuzo (1888–1941). Perceptive and erudite, Japan’s Frames of Meaning will become a landmark resource—in particular for the insights and provocations it offers to contemporary cross-cultural philosophical dialogue—for anyone interested in traditional and modern Japanese thought.
Modern Japanese Aesthetics is the first work in English on the history of the Japanese philosophy of art, from its inception in the 1870s to the present. In addition to the historical information and discussion of aesthetic issues that appear in the introductions to each of the chapters, the book presents English translations of otherwise inaccessible major works on Japanese aesthetics, beginning with a complete and annotated translation of the first work in the field, Nishi Amane's Bimyogaku Setsu (The Theory of Aesthetics). In its four sections (The Subject of Aesthetics, Aesthetic Categories, Poetic Expression, Postmodernism and Aesthetics), Modern Japanese Aesthetics discusses the momentous efforts made by Japanese thinkers to master, assimilate, and transform Western philosophical systems to discuss their own literary and artistic heritage. Readers are introduced to debates between the unconditional supporters of Western ideas (Onishi Hajime) and more cautious approaches to the literary and artistic past (Okakura Kakuzo, Tsubouchi Shoyo). The institutionalization of aesthetics as an academic subject is discussed and the work of some of Japan's most distinguished professional aestheticians (Onishi Yoshimori, Imamichi Tomonobu), philosophers (Kusanagi Masao, Nishitani Keiji, Sakabe Megumi), and literary critics (Karatani Kojin) is included. Modern Japanese Aesthetics is a sophisticated and energetic volume on the process that led to the construction of aesthetic categories used by Japanese and, later, Western scholars in discussing Japanese literature and arts. This important work will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the formation of a critical vocabulary in Japan. Modern Japanese Aesthetics: A Reader is a companion volume to A History of Modern Japanese Aesthetics (UH Press, 2001).
Filled with insights, original conclusions, and alternate readings of historical evidence.... What Michele Marra has done is to illuminate the political intent in artistic creation and thus add new depth to our historical understanding." --Japan Times
This series of interpretations of selected classics examines premodern Japanese literature from the perspective of conflictual ideologies. Professor Marra's analysis of such works as the Ise Monogatari, the Hojoki, and Tsurezuregusa highlights the existence of discontent in the authors of the so-called high tradition and explains the means these authors used to express their social dissatisfaction in literary texts. His aim is to recover the validity of the historicist approach in literary studies by focusing on the importance of the context in the formation of the text. The text is seen as a product of ideological manipulation on the part of those who, by reading, writing or editing, appropriate it according to specific and private concerns. Professor Marra displays both sensitivity to the texts and a comprehensive grasp of Japanese and Western scholarship in making his argument that aesthetics and politics in premodern Japanese literature are mutually defining.
The year 2010 marks the thirteenth centenary anniversary since the foundation of Japan's ancient capital, Nara. This first English translation of 259 poems by Aizu Yaichi (1881-1956)-the Japanese aesthetician and poet who put Nara back on the cultural map in the first half of the twentieth century-is by way of commemoration of the event and includes a selection of outstanding color photographs of Nara's main architectural monuments and landmarks to complement the poetry.
Tap into the gold standard on central nervous system infections: Infections of the Central Nervous System, 4e is now fully revised and updated to accommodate the wealth of new CNS information discovered over the past decade. More than 90 leading experts contribute chapters, providing comprehensive, up-to-date information. With a broad scope and thorough detail, the text addresses pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and therapy of various CNS infections and related conditions. Features: Every chapter has been extensively revised and updated, nearly half with new author teams NEW chapter on acute encephalitis NEW clinical information on treatment of tuberculosis, non-tubercular mycobacterial infections, brain abscess, and Lyme disease NEW color design and color images Numerous diagrams, figures, tables, illustrations and photographs demonstrate the content Evidence-based references
This work identifies interpretative concepts central to discussions of hermeneutical practices in Japan, and presents English translations of works on basic hermeneutics by major Japanese thinkers. It concentrates on Japanese philosophers and thinkers who have brought their knowledge of Western thought to bear on philosophical reinterpretations of Buddhist terms that are, thus, presented in secularized form.
An invariant object recognition system needs to be able to recognise the object under any usual a priori defined distortions such as translation, scaling and in-plane and out-of-plane rotation. Ideally, the system should be able to recognise (detect and classify) any complex scene of objects even within background clutter noise. In this book, we present recent advances towards achieving fully-robust object recognition. The relation and importance of object recognition in the cognitive processes of humans and animals is described as well as how human- and animal-like cognitive processes can be used for the design of biologically-inspired object recognition systems. Colour processing is discussed in the development of fully-robust object recognition systems. Examples of two main categories of object recognition systems, the optical correlators and pure artificial neural network architectures, are given. Finally, two examples of object recognition's applications are described in details. With the recent technological advancements object recognition becomes widely popular with existing applications in medicine for the study of human learning and memory, space science and remote sensing for image analysis, mobile computing and augmented reality, semiconductors industry, robotics and autonomous mobile navigation, public safety and urban management solutions and many more others. This book is a "must-read" for everyone with a core or wider interest in this "hot" area of cutting-edge research.
Over the last decade, it is becoming increasingly clear that diabetes mellitus is a global epidemic. The influence of diabetes is most readily apparent in its manifestation in foot complications across cultures and continents. In this unique collaboration of global specialists, we examine the explosion of foot disease in locations that must quickly grapple with both mobilizing medical expertise and shaping public policy to best prevent and treat these serious complications. In other areas of the world where diabetic foot complications have unfortunately been all too common, diagnostic testing and advanced treatments have been developed in response. The bulk of this book is devoted to examining the newest developments in basic and clinical research on the diabetic foot. It is hoped that as our understanding of the pathophysiologic process expands, the devastating impact of diabetic foot complications can be minimized on a global scale.
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