Thesis Proposal Defense (Thesis Sample)

Thesis Proposal Defense
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Thesis Proposal Defense
Introduction
The 21st century came in with new inventions, changes, improvements on the past inventions and above all, great lifestyle changes. It is during this time that ‘career women’ came into the world’s vicinity with more and more women choosing to pursue their career dreams instead of settling down, getting married and starting their own families. Consequently, the advent of the ‘career woman’ brought with it a new era of fatherless families. Though most women found this new phenomenon in the world better than getting married, they were not aware of the effects that the so called fun-families would bring to their children. Fatherlessness is one of the main reasons behind the failure of most kids in school, social and general life. Fatherless kids are more likely to drop out of school and take part in criminal activities as compared to children with a father figure in their lives. One of the areas which are affected by fatherlessness in life is athletics, as well as, academics. Thus, the rationale of writing this paper is to discuss the effects of fatherlessness homes among athletes in the world today in colleges and other professional entities. This paper will take into consideration the examples presented in the book “Beyond a Coach’s Influence” (Norman & Erdos, 2000).
Review of the literature
Apart from the teachings he had gotten in life, Grant in the book also had a dream, which enabled him to up his ante by expanding further on the vision he had for his future. At the time, his enhanced goal in life was to be the head football coach in the Southwest Conference, the key premier athletic conference in America. Although he was only fifteen years of age, he was able to deduce the fact that the level of coaching in Southwest Conference was the highest, and that was where he wanted to be. This dream gave him the motivation to work hard. The story gives an insight of how hard life can be for children from fatherless families pointing out the fact that even the most obvious activities that most people assume to be easy can be quite a task for such children (Jackson, 2008). From the story of the coach, it is not easy dealing with boys from fatherless families because of the various psychological and even emotional problems they may have. The main problem is the fact that a person who has not idea what it is like to come from a fatherless family cannot understand the plight of such children easily.
The strong spirit and passion that Grant Teaff had in his life are some of the things that made me interested in reading his book and taking time to review his life just to find out exactly how he managed to be successful. Through his passion, strong spirit and great resilience he managed to play for eight years after he was done with high school and college and eventually became a coach for 38 years. His hard work and resilience also enabled him to serve as the executive director among the largest football coaches association in the world for nearly two decades. Through his experiences and the lessons he learned in life, he got to the point where he could say for sure that coaching is an absolute profession in life and that it gives players and coaches a chance to make a difference. Grant’s story is also quite catchy and educational because of the way he learned how to take coaching as a special profession (Sharma, region, Baxter, Moran, Vaziri, & Narayanasamy, 2008).
Among the difficulties that Grant faced as a coach was getting some the boys to behave and be disciplined in their personal lives because they lacked a father figure in their lives, thus, he not only had to act as a coach, but also play the role of a father to some extent. This was quite a challenge because it is not easy to take the two roles at the same time. Some of the boys had anger management issues, and they believed that they did not need anyone to tell them what to do in their lives. This is not only a problem among athletes, but most other children from fatherless families. Such children are used to their own independence especially if their mothers are too preoccupied with other things to take any notice of their children’s behaviors. This is not a new problem in the world, as Grant gives an example of the transformation that occurred in the 1960’s that led to the occurrence of issues that coaches had never had to deal with in the past. This caused coaches and teachers in the American system to deal with the by-products of the changing society over time (Glatthorn, 1998).
Grant points out that, coaches have always had to handle the challenge of keeping up with the competition and rising to the top when it comes to dealing with the needs of their players. A keen lesson that readers can learn from this story is that the attitude plays a great role in changing or shaping the destiny of most individuals. This implies that human beings need to adjust their attitudes to some degree if they are to achieve success in life. There are numerous individuals in the world with negative attitudes in what they do, and this is mostly caused by their nature that facilitates a negative approach in life (Jamieson & Orr, 2012). Grant advises his readers to create a positive attitude in life as he also did the same, and he got to learn the advantages of having a positive attitude. As a matter of fact, he gives an example of the time in his life when he ran short in the attitude area, just as did some other members in his first football team. Later on in life, one of the members wrote to him apologizing for what he termed as ‘crappy’ attitude while still at McMurray College. There are numerous people who have the talent, ability, skill and knowledge to do great things in life, but their negative attitude kills their abilities. According to Grant one of the ways of achieving success is by changing other people’s attitudes because they also get the motivation to want to be the best, and produce nothing but the best (Mullins & Kiley, 2002).
One of the things a reader can learn from Grant’s story is the importance of seeking help whenever the necessity to do so arises. Grant states that because these are teachers and coaches, just like anyone else in the world face social issues. Such issues include engagement in inappropriate behaviors, lack of values, bad attitudes, and negative behaviors. We learn from the book that all these aspects form part of the human nature, and it is only natural to have people with these traits. This individual should not shy away from seeking help in case such issues ever arise. Just, in the same way, as the coaches in AFCA realized the importance of seeking for help, so did they also realize its advantages as they discovered solutions to some of the problems they faced (Blankenhorn, 1996). This led the AFCA to identify the key issues to some of the problems that coaches faced and prioritized these issues while finding the main cause of these problems. People can only manage to find solutions to the problems and challenges they face by paying keen attention to the causes of these problems and trying to figure out ways of handling them better. The AFCA managed to deal with its issues and come up with lasting solutions by identifying some of the challenges and problems that most coaches had to encounter. According to a list AFCA formulated, the following were some of the problems they faced;
Peer pressure: Examples include gangs, alcohol or other drugs, premarital sex, and criminal activities
Disrespect: Examples include disrespect towards other teammates, coaches, authority, and parents
Entitlement: Examples include lack of dedication, selfishness and |the-world-owes-me” attitude
The home: Examples are poor parenting or parental pressure, lack of a father or a male figure in the family
Character: Examples include lack of values, untruthfulness, dishonesty, quitters and questionable integrity
Accountability: Examples are responsibility, attitude, self-discipline and personal behavior
After listing the issues or problems that coaches faced, the AFCA was in a position to come up with a list of plausible solutions for the identified issues. In the same way, other people can use the same approach to deal with some of the issues they face in life, and come up with reliable solutions (Donson, 2010). Some character traits such as criminal behavior, joining gangs, drug and alcohol abuse, lack of a father figure and lack of self-control are common among the young people and the same solutions that apply in coaching can also be applied in life. Grant presents a useful discussion in his story and further analysis of his work gives helpful information on how to deal with numerous issues in the ever changing societies in the world (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 2011).
Methodology
Among some of the methodologies that Grant uses in his book to present facts is the use of statistics or numerical data. This methodology presents an accurate and reliable way of giving real life examples and real figures on some of the important issues that he describes in the story. Grant presents some of the statistical data achieved through research and other studies to explain some of the issues that coaches have to deal with. These statistics present numerical data on facts such as the rates of suicide among children from fatherless homes; the rates of youths in State institutions from fatherless homes; adolescent patients under medication for substance abuse from fatherless homes; and the number of children exhibiting behavioral disorders who are also from fatherless homes. These statistics show that most of the percentages of children in these categories are high. With such statistics, therefore, coaches u...