Debate on liberal education

I'm not sure if this post will count but I will post anyway. I panic in the public eye, especially if I have to give a presentation, therefor I was not effective at making my point on education. Basically, my overall thoughts on this subject are in agreement with a liberal education, which includes your basic curriculum along with the ability to gain insight with hands on solutions to problems that may arise. Creativity may resolve a certain problem better than a book smart individual, or it may be the other way around but at least we would be using our options instead of narrowing down our alternatives. Our society has done a great job of taking care of ourselves but seems to have overlooked our future generations and their children's well being. Instead of taking jobs that encourage or promote overall wellness, our past generations have looked at income facts, figures and comfort over the well being of our neighbors, planet, and  wellness. Society seems to have hit an all time low when it comes to publications and media. The truth no longer matters as we rationalize our actions and impacts. Our political system is pure chaos at this point, societies messages to our youth are immoral or lack value, seniors may literally be worrying themselves to death over their means of survival, doctors make millions while the people stay sick, and children who really need help may not qualify or receive assistance due to lack of communication.
   
A secondary education is going to have lasting effects on our children and the way they use or loose their mind since it takes place throughout this stage. If we challenge our youth to use their minds and be creative, they are more likely to retain the knowledge. If we drill it in, they may get burnt out and become used to the same old thing verses new and exciting knowledge and concepts. Science is based on theories, so whose to say what theory is best overall? If it is a fact, then it is a law, not theory. Wouldn't it be nice to raise our kid's in a place where they are able to become as great as the universe allows them to be?

Intention is another study that is rarely given proper credit! Research proves amazing thing about the use of intention. If we are creating the best future we can, then why are there so many negative intentions and beliefs regarding it? For every chart we measure or rate by, we are setting a guideline that only has negative intentions when not met and very rarely places any focus on the true intentions behind it. Society can judge, degrade, and disrespect others around us while we still expect a good outcome? How is that going to take place if they have already set the mental standards to fail? If everyone is looking for what's wrong, who looks for what's right? The minds capabilities, is a field that all humans should learn to practice, use, and transform to a higher level than the one we remain on at this time!

Hurray! We can breed!

"Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are tabula rasa….  An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess.  An instinct is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge.  A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living.  And even man's desire to live is not automatic… Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it."  Ayn Rand

Human beings are social creatures by nature - without someone to feed and protect an infant, that infant will die.  Most of us develop with the innate capability to learn (DeCasper & Fifer with their nonnutritive nipples), and the few instincts we do have upon birth (Meltzhoff and facial mimicry) are meant to solidify our place in the social hierarchy.  Infants require years of supervision and guidance (i.e. language, fear, empathy, memory) before we trust them to fend for themselves as young adults.

There is merit in the notion that "good enough" parents are just that - thousands of years of evolution back up the claim that children will turn out just fine as long as you don't beat them, starve them, or emotionally/psychologically torture them.  Placing blame solely on parents for the minor aggravations or misdirection in your life is like blaming Maytag for burning your chili.  Were you stirring it often so it didn't settle?  Did you have the burner on the simmer setting instead of rolling boil?  Even if your parents never taught you to cook, either friends and YouTube have given you pointers by now or you've learned from smoky, rancid experience.

There are several stages of life we travel through (Erickson, Piaget), countless facets of influence, and at the end of the day research into genetics is relatively unexplored compared to the centuries of philosophy we have behind dissecting the human being.  While nature very well may determine intelligence (MZT vs DZT), nurture more often than not determines moral and social standing (Bowlby).  Personally, I've debated this topic with myself for years.  Based on personal experience with my own mother, I've come to a very important conclusion - even if I am working to overcome the lack of nurture in my childhood, my nature is to seek a life outside of the confines of that definition.  I am driven to become more than what I was raised to be - but had I been born to an affluent & affectionate family, would that drive still exist? 

I don't know where we should focus our attention on developing humans.  It shouldn't be a question of crunching enough numbers to create near-perfect specimens, and over the course of this semester I've had a hard time equating the human condition with math.  Studying developmental formulas makes it seem like the normative majority is just a bunch of coincidence converging into a lump of reproductive success.  Trying to decode the mystery of humanity through trending statistics is the same as blaming parents for their children turning sour (or commending parents for raising productive citizens) - sure, there's science behind it, but I don't believe that's all there is to it.  

  

Responce to promt 12/9

I believe her argument does have merit.  She has good points on how we are looking at the belief that parents raise the children too much and not at the other aspects of their lives.  Like peer and societal influences.  I believe one of her strong points in here are that if parents have such huge effects on their children, why is it that if there are 2 siblings, after similarities do to genetics are removed, they turn out completely different.  Also children are not just learning from their parents they are learning what is excepted and normal for their society.  Like how they should act whether they are male/ female and kid/ adult.  To grow up and be accepted by your society you must adapt and act like them.  It is more about the child’s environment as a whole and adapting to the society norms expected of you, depending on age and sex, which you live in.

Prompt for 12/9, to be completed by 12/12

You recently read a chapter by Judith Harris on the role of parents, peers, and genes. Consider her argument from all theory and research we have discussed throughout the semester. Does her argument have merit? Explain why you think her explanation is sound or unsound. Based on if she is correct or not, explain where we should focus our attention for developing humans.

Potato responce

I believe the most controllable and changeable factors to juvenile delinquency would have to be the peer factors.  Our peer groups have a great influence on our lives especially when we are in our middle adolescence or teen years.  From the moment we start school of any kind we are constantly with our peers or friends.  Now whether the children like or not parents can have control on whom they have as their peers and whom they hang around.  Starting by choosing a school or daycare, ect. of which they want their children to attend.  They can search until they are content with the people and children who will peers, involved with that facility.  From the beginning this can instill a sense of who may be good peers and who may not be.  I also believe that environmental factors fall into this because you as a parent or who ever from controlling what schools they are going into are controlling into what environment they are going to be included into.

            I believe the factors that should least focused on are the individual factors.  I think that these individual factors can be results from all the other factors in the lists in the Potato.  So instead of being directly main factors in juvenile delinquency they are more of round about effects are caused by the other factors.

Oh, The Potato

Many of the factors shown in the potato model for juvenile delinquency are so tangled up in one another, it would be difficult to tease them apart. Family factors such as inappropriate discipline, poor monitoring, physical abuse, and delinquent siblings could affect both individual and peer factors. The lack of self-control or low intelligence could be allowed/encouraged by poor parenting––parents who are do not monitor their children could be missing (or apathetic about) their child's intelligence issues, and abusive parents could be teaching their children that low-self control (as exemplified by lashing out at others) is normal. Both intelligence and control issues could cause rejected status. The influence of delinquent siblings could lead the child to deviant friend groups, and possibly serve as another path to rejected status. Out of the bunch, though, Environmental factors seem to be all encompassing, as low SES or group norms could strongly influence family factors, individual factors, and peer factors in some cases. Every factor shown in the potato model has influence over one of more of its fellows.

Theoretically, family factors would be the most changeable or controllable. Ideally, one could just pluck individuals from their toxic home lives and place them in a safer, healthier environment. Juvenile delinquency would have lost the round! Hooray! However,  things aren't quite that simple in practice. Kids can't be removed from their homes willy nilly, and the system set in place for the kids who are removed from their families is terribly overloaded. Also, some kids may spend x-amount of time at a facility, being healed, evaluated (intelligence-wise), encouraged, and taught to deal with their emotions, may get themselves off the path of juvenile delinquency– only to be sent back home! The cycle continues. I suppose peer factors could be changed by changing schools––new peer group, new peer status–– however, the individual may fall back into old habits, and old peer status as a result.

Environmental factors should certainly not be ignored, however they appear to be the least changeable when compared to any of the others, as group norms and SES would be near impossible to change, unless Daddy Warbucks is looking for children to adopt.

prompt for week 12/02/13

Juvenile delinquency is a growing problem in our constantly changing society.  Many young people have little if any respect for themselves or their peers.  I think that the parent family factors and individual factors are the most changeable and controllable.  Parenting classes can provide individuals with some guidelines to help with monitoring and discipline and hopefully prevent parents from sending mixed signals to their children.  Positive reinforcement is a great self-esteem builder and teaching parents how to discipline their children without destroying their self-esteem could be an effective way to battle this issue.  Providing the best education possible to all children at every level of learning should be a top priority in the United States.  The young people of this country are its future and should not be pushed through school without the appropriate knowledge and capabilities to succeed.  It sometimes appears that teaching is focused more on meeting a standard than actually teaching the material.  A healthy and happy home environment plays an important part in a child’s development and growth.  If the foundation as not stable and supportive at home it hinders the child’s ability to succeed.  Setting guidelines for study time and play time can be the first step in building the structure in a young person’s life to help them succeed. 

Peers and the environment would be hard to change so it is important to instill self-confidence and support in children at a young age.  This can help them to feel confident in their own skin and not fall prey to peer pressure.