JDA Lecture

This lecture—as well as the readings—broached several subjects which, honestly, I’d never even considered. I think this fact reflects the inability of people who don’t have to face these issues to really understand the damage inflicted. For instance, I’ve never realized the obstacles that a “trans”-gender person must face on a daily basis. Clearly, I have heard of the violence and bigotry that goes on, though I rarely think about the emphasis but on gender labeling. I found this aspect of the dialogue extremely interesting. Matt talked about the birth of a child and how the very first thing said about that person is either “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl.” This is so ingrained into our society that it never even crossed my mind as odd. Just like I’ve never considered the existence of a boys’ bathroom” and a “girls’ bathroom” odd. It’s so easy for me—a relatively feminine, straight female—to never give a second thought to either of these things. For Eli and Matt, however, they could be issues that have plagued their thoughts since childhood. I think that this hugely pertains to “understanding human behavior.” It would be impossible to understand how Matt and Eli look at these problems vs. how I look at these problems without considering our involvement with the actual problems. Because I am not forced to give myself what I deem an insufficient label, I don’t think I can fully understand how Matt and Eli feel when they are forced to do just that.

This desire of society to designate everyone as either male or female was one of a few examples the two speakers gave of “whose bodies we value and whose we leave out?” Another example was the relatively new issue of genetic testing. Eli mentioned that since the emergence of genetic testing, women are now encouraged to test their babies during pregnancy. As a result, a mother can know before the birth whether or not her child has the propensity to develop Down’s Syndrome. Not only that, but if the child DOES have this propensity, many doctors will actually encourage the mother to have the fetus aborted. As a result, approximately 90% of fetuses who have to propensity to develop Down’s Syndrome are aborted. If this is not a statement about what society deems valuable and invaluable, I don’t know what is.

I think that we could have some really interesting discussions on this topic of society’s habit of putting value on bodies. How has it changed? It seems that we’re putting more value on African American bodies…they have civil rights, our new president is black. But has the internalized racism of American people really dissipated? This is quite possibly one of the root issues that influences understanding human behavior, or more specifically understanding why humans treat other humans the way they do.

Spanking

I found these articles interesting, the yes (Gershoff) side more so than the no (Baumrind, et al.). Personally, I am supportive of spanking children and even some cases of corporal punishment. I wish that the no side would have presented more arguments actually supporting spanking; Baumrind, et al. merely disqualified Gershoff. Several of the comments were legitimate and were helpful in clarifying Gershoff’s meta-analysis, but honestly I found the article pretty dull.

One thing that neither of the articles really mentioned that I believe to be the key factor in whether or not spanking/CP is successful is the issue of emotion. In my opinion, a parent should not physically punish their child if their emotions are too strong at the time. For instance, if a child does something that really infuriates the parent—whether it’s breaking something important, deliberately disobeying, fighting with a sibling, etc.—then the parent must wait until their emotions die down before administering punishment. If not, the act of punishment is not objective and there is too much potential for a parent to get carried away. This objectivity is imperative in administering a successful, appropriate spanking, etc.

Another issue that I feel is important was brought up by Baumrind, et al: the use of CP as a supplement to another punishment. It’s not so much this exact issue that I think is noteworthy, but rather the inclusion of conversation in CP. If the child is not fully aware of why their being punished, then it is completely pointless, and obviously detrimental. However, I believe that both before and after a spanking the parent should discuss what happened with the child, making sure to ask them if they understand what they did wrong. Afterwards, the parent should emphasize the fact that they don’t WANT to spank the child, and that the child can prevent this from happening by simply following the rules. I would even say hugging the child afterward and telling them you love them is good. The purpose of CP is the short-lived pain that it incurs. Once that is done, there is no need to add any kind of emotional of verbal pain to that.

A few other topics that weren’t discussed were the differences between different children. Personally, I was a bit of an angel-child. I’ve been told that I was spanked once, and then never needed it again. Apparently my parents would threaten from time to time and that’s all it took. My cousin, on the other hand, was a year older than me, raised in almost exact similar conditions, and was the biggest hell-raising little boy ever. He was spanked routinely, though it was always paired with the type of conversation I mentioned earlier. Despite this, spanking didn’t phase him; he couldn’t have cared less. It’s instances like these two that illustrate the different effects that spanking can have on different children. Also, I didn’t agree with the statement by Gershoff that CP shouldn’t be utilized because it can ruin a good parent-child relationship and can make the child angry at the parent. Last time I checked, the majority of punishment techniques will make a child angry at their parent. Whether it’s spanking of time out of taking away a toy, children aren’t supposed to enjoy punishment….that’s the point.

No one would contest the fact that a truly loving parent will discipline their child; no good parent wants their kid to end up a little hellion. In accordance with this, I think that spanking can be an act of love. It shouldn’t be easy for a parent to spank their child, but it should be done with the goal of teaching the child and helping them to become a well-behaved person.

First club visit

Today I went to the Boy’s and Girl’s Club for the first time. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with several things. Based on the conversations we’ve had and what we’ve heard from people who work there, I wasn’t expecting much facility-wise. I know that it’s not ideal conditions, but the Club was much nicer than the afterschool program/summer camp where I worked throughout high school. All of the kids seemed to have something to do, including a big screen TV with a Wii. Obviously there are other programs out there with much better resources and facilities, but the kids looked like they were having fun and they all looked happy.

In addition to the facilities, I thought our Conflict Resolution session went extremely well. I wasn’t able to go to the actual first session, so this was the second time that Cait, Brady, and Laurel had been there. There were six kids, something which I found pretty manageable compared to the 15-20 I had everyday this summer. Obviously it wasn’t perfect, they were talkative and goofed off a lot during the role playing exercise we did. For the most part though, they payed attention and participated much more than I was expecting. Based on their comments, I could tell that they remembered things from Tuesday, which is great because the main thing we’re worried about is whether or not they will retain anything we teach them. Not only that, but they were very respectful when we were talking and seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing. According to the others, it went much better than the first session, which matches what the other groups said about the first session being the hardest. In fact, as we were leaving one of the employees said that we must have really been holding their attention because they weren’t acting up as much as they normally do and it looked they were really interested.

I’m very excited about the ropes course on Saturday. I think that letting the kids do something fun like that will further develop their desire to interact with us. Honestly, I’m not expecting the Conflict Resolution program to transform the kids lives and completely alter the way they deal with other kids. I think a realistic goal is to at least impact them enough so that they personally consider the things they learn whenever the encounter conflict. I doubt they will do much as far as trying to influence others, but I hope that they internally change some of their conflict resolution ideas.

Brown Symposium

The fist lecture I went to was “How God Can Change Your Brain” by Dr. Andrew Newberg. I found the topic extremely interesting; I’ve always been intrigued by the physical effects one’s religion can have on them. One of the experiments that Dr. Newberg discussed that I enjoyed was about the brain activity in the frontal lobe during prayer. A brain scan was made on a nun while she was in prayer and compared to her baseline scan; the increased activity in the frontal lobe during prayer was indicative of the high amount of attention and focus she was exhibiting. The same types of scans were done on an atheist who was asked to contemplate the idea of God. The scans showed no increase of activity in the frontal lobe. This is logical because it would be difficult to focus attention on a concept in which you do not believe. Another thing that Dr. Newberg stated as a driving force behind his research was that science can’t prove the existence of God, but it can show how God affects us, which is something that could be just as informative.

The second lecture I attended was “Evolution as the Theory of Choice for the Study of Religion” by David Sloan Wilson. While I don’t quite agree with statement made by Wilson that religion is “100% a social construct,” I did find some of the lecture interesting. One of the studies that was discussed was particularly so; two experiments were done to examine the effect on egg laying productivity. The first breeded the most productive individual chicken from each group, and the second breeded all the chickens in the most productive group. The chickens from the first experiment ended up killing each other and the three left were featherless because they plucked each other. After six generations, the chickens from the second group had a 160% increase in productivity and were all healthy. This difference occurred because the chickens from the first experiment were working as individuals to benefit themselves, while the chickens from the second group were working together to benefit the group. Though they were doing this unknowingly, I think it could say a lot about human behavior. It reminded me of the concept John Nash came up with in “A Beautiful Mind” (and obviously in real life). He stated that everyone is most successful when taking each others’ success in to consideration, as opposed to only thinking of their own success.

I would be really interested in hearing the thoughts of others in the cohort, especially those with agnostic or atheist beliefs. I think that it is important to discuss these things and that discussion can often reaffirm one’s beliefs, whatever they may be. Religion is such an integral part of “understanding human behavior” I really think we should spend some time on this.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Although this wasn’t the first time I read Tuesdays with Morrie, I feel like I appreciated it more this time. In fact, I feel like my appreciation for the book will continue to increase as I begin to resemble the main character, Mitch, and his preoccupation with all of the superficial things life holds. However, reading this time I felt a bit conflicted. Last time I read it the concepts seemed so simple: don’t get bogged down in things that don’t matter, stay close to your family and friends, love everyone. As a college student—especially at a school like Southwestern—I think I’ve become very caught up in planning for the future: internships, grad school, careers, etc. As a result it’s difficult to acknowledge the fact that a job/salary/position is not going to be the end all/be all of our lives. So when I was reading about Morrie “scolding” Mitch for getting too caught up in his job, I was torn between all of the planning that’s going on and the idea that there are and will be more important things in life.

However, I don’t want this conflict to negate the fact that I really like this book. The idea of “love or perish” is one that is very familiar and comforting to me; my family lives by the words “love one another.” This is something that I feel any and everyone can benefit from, and a goal I try to aim for in my daily life.

I think that it would be impossible to fully discuss our topic of Understanding Human Behavior without covering death. Morrie often mentions, and I think we can all agree, that people’s priorities and outlook on life changes drastically when they discover exactly how much of that life they have left. People who had no interest in their fellow human beings suddenly crave relationships; people who continually put things off become eager and anxious to begin those same things. I also think that how a person handles their own death says a lot about them. Morrie’s response, for instance, suggests that he is happy with the way he lead his life and how it turned out. I also think that by being at peace with his situation, it shows that he is confident that everyone he loves is quite aware of his feelings.

I’m interested to see how everyone in the cohort feels about the conflict of striving for a successful career versus focusing on the more personal things in life, or if they think it’s a conflict at all. I definitely believe that both can be achieved, though I’m not sure how easy that may be.

Boys and Girls Club

We talked a lot about what, if anything, we’d like to get out of our service project. I think we toyed with the thought that we shouldn’t want anything out of volunteering, and that wanting to be personally fulfilled defeats the purpose of a selfless act. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to personally benefit from a volunteer project. I love kids; they make me laugh. In the long run, I think going to the Boys and Girls Club could have a great impact on these kids, but I’m sure that one day in the near future when I’m stressed and just want to get away from school, this could be the perfect way to do that. We also have the benefit of being with the kids for a limited amount of time. That sounds bad, but I simply mean that by visiting once a week, or once a month or whatever we decide, we won’t become bogged down in the everyday stresses that working with kids can bring. I worked at a kids’ summer camp for two years and by the end of two months I’ll be honest I wasn’t as excited about going to work as I was at the beginning of the summer. For this project, though, we won’t have to worry about that and we can just enjoy spending time with the kids. So I guess one goal I have for this project is pretty selfish (come on, we’re all selfish, it’s not just David): a way to escape from my hectic schedule for a bit and do something that I enjoy that actually benefits others….rather than just watching TV or Facebooking…..

Another goal I have for this project is kind of a smaller version of our group goal (to form relationships with others). While forming relationships is the long-term goal, I think that the being able to interact with people who aren’t just other students to complain with or a study buddy is a great opportunity. I genuinely enjoy being around/getting to know people, and when you’re at a place like Southwestern, though we certainly have a diverse set of personalities, we’re all somewhat alike: hard-working college student (hopefully), teenager/young twenty-something, etc. I think that getting outside of the SU bubble will be a breath of fresh air that might keep us a little more sane as the semester goes on.

Personally, I would like to go to the Boys and Girls Club with a small group at first. I’ll be more comfortable that way which I’m sure will make the kids more comfortable and fell more at ease. As far as structured games/activities are concerned, I think we would be better off just hanging out with the kids and maybe just participating in whatever they’re doing at the time. I’m afraid that if we come in right away and say “OK now we’re all going to do this…” we may come off a little more authoritative than we would like. Eventually, I think it would be fun to incorporate some group activities, I just feel like we’ll have more success with that after we’ve gotten to know the kids a bit.

I think it’s kind of pointless to go to the Club for less than an hour at a time. It will take a little while for the kids to warm up to us and if we take off right after that happens it probably won’t work very well. Honestly, though, I don’t think I’ll be able to go more than 3 times a month…..probably more like 2. I don’t know how often everyone else thinks they’ll be able to go, but I think if we’re going in groups of 2-4 at least every other week, then we’ll have at least one group there each week. Maybe that’s less than everyone is wanting to go, I guess it just depends on how all of our schedules look.

End of semester reflection

So far, I’ve enjoyed Paideia much more than I was expecting to. I didn’t exactly expect to hate it, however I’d heard from several upper-classmen that it really depends on your cohort and your professor. Fortunately, I feel that our cohort meshes pretty well, and Dr. G is just awesome. I think the night on the sport court really helped with that, it’s hard to still be unfamiliar with people after some friendly competition.
I really like the way our class is set up, with the Newsweek readings and blogs. The readings were really beneficial, considering I probably wouldn’t otherwise be keeping up with current events. I think the blogs added to the “informal” nature of the class, for some reason I don’t mind writing a blog as much as I would mind a response paper.
As negative as this seems, one of the best parts of Paideia for me has been being required to do things that I would never do on my own. For instance, I wouldn’t have normally attended a luncheon about the campaign (hence the “personal stretch”), but it was definitely something I needed to do. I think this is somewhat common, however, since I remember people saying they were glad Paideia would force them to study abroad; which is another thing I’m grateful for, because I’m sure I would find some excuse to avoid going abroad if it were not a requirement.
I think we made definite progress as a group. We covered a good amount of the 50 facts and got to talk about some really interesting topics. I enjoyed getting to know everyone’s opinions and where they stand on different issues. This is particularly valuable, since I know that one of the main objectives of Paideia is to bring together students of different backgrounds and majors. I honestly don’t think I would get to interact with this type of diverse group without participating in the program.
This blog wouldn’t be complete without a little discussion about our civic engagement project. While I didn’t vote for the Boys and Girls club, I’m still excited about the project. In my actual CE blog, I was totally in support of the BGC, and I have some fun ideas. I’m just a little hesitant about going one at a time, though I think that if we go in small-ish groups we could organize some sports/games/activities, which I think we somewhat discussed earlier in the semester.
I’m looking forward to next semester and putting our CE project into action. I think that once we start going to BGC and interacting (with the kids and with each other) and discussing our experiences our group dynamic will improve even more.