Benefits of Life Advice?

In discussing Huck Finn during class, we talked about the life advice that Huck gives and receives throughout the novel. He seems to take in the opinions and views of everyone else, while never actually processing it or thinking for himself. From an outsider's perspective, this is pretty easily recognizable. However, I thought about it a little more and realized that this directly applies to my own life.
       There are little "helpful quotes" everywhere, all telling me how to live my life correctly. They cover the Trevian Tracker (the little school assignment notebook) and they plaster the walls of the hallway. When I was in sixth grade I read the "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" quote by Confucius. Not gonna lie, it got pretty old after the first fifty times.
       Personally, I think that getting life advice crammed into your ears is not helpful at all. In fact, it is actually harmful to a person's morality. If an institution wants to impress students with some sort of life lesson, they have to find a more effective way of doing so. 
      The reason why sayings like this are not a good idea is the same reason why we try to discover knowledge rather than receive it in class. If one is simply told something, the message often does not stick. But, it they truly learn it for themselves, it will be ingrained in their minds for a lifetime.
      It is wrong to shove quotes like this at young children and to tell them that they have to live by them to have a successful and moral life. It is not true and it is far oversimplifying ethics. If we cannot honestly trust kids to discover their own moral fibers, then out society is pretty far gone. I believe that ethics should be discussed and discovered, but never wraped up neatly in cute little wall posters. Thoughts?

The Color of Band-Aids

Today in class we examined an article by Peggy McIntosh called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack". It was about the ways that our society favors people who are white over people of color, whether or not it is intentional and purposefully racist. 
         The article consists of a lost of fifty different examples of this phenomenon, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. That aside, number 46, which I do agree with really caught my attention: "46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin."
         I think that the reason why this particular example stuck out to me is because it is something that I take for granted. Of course a flesh-colored band-aid would match my skin color. I also have never really considered the matching a bit deal. Sometimes I even wear blue band-aids with little glow-in-the-dark Spongebobs on them. But the practical applications of a band-aid's color are not really in question here. 
      The real issue is in the assumptions that our society makes based on race and color of skin. We like to call ourselves a "post-racial-America", but even if direct hate crimes and racial profiling have come to an end, all of these little things, like white band-aids add up to a very uneven society. I think that these small, seemingly unintentional and harmless discrepancies are often more damaging to race relations than the larger, deliberate examples of racism. 
    My reasoning is twofold. First of all, I explore the phenomenon of right-handed scissors. Obviously, no one hates left-handed people for being left-handed, yet the average lifespan is shorter for these few. Why? Many things, like scissors, are built for people who are righties. This can make life more dangerous for the minority of people who are not. This is similar to the band-aid story. Small things can add up very quickly.
     The second argument is that when racism takes such a subtle form, it becomes ingrained in society without people noticing it. If we accept these things as normal, we are accepting that one group of people should live with more privilege than another group. Things are overlooked that should not be.
     After reading this article, I think that I have already become more aware of this sort of racial bias in my personal experience.

Superbowl Commercials and Feminism

Like most Americans, I spent this evening sitting around the TV with family and friends, eating guacamole and watching the Superbowl. As much as the football game itself fascinates me, I have always been intrigued by the commercials. Several years ago, I started keeping track of the different categories of ads. For example, a few of the most common types from this year were TV shows, cars, and beer.
       Out of the 113 commercials that aired between the kickoff and the end of the game, 30 were for CBS shows. But the ads that I found the most interesting were far from the most common. They were the two godaddy.com commercials, featuring the "Go Daddy Girl".
    Both the ads depicted a woman being recognized as the Go Daddy Girl. Another woman in the ad then asked if she was "go daddy material". Then she ripped the front of her shirt open, and the commercial ended, directing viewers to visit the Go Daddy website if they wanted to see more.
       My question hardly even needs to be stated. Are these commercials inappropriate? I would say yes. The Superbowl has been branded as a family show ever since the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson fiasco a few years ago. In the years following their "wardrobe malfunction", CBS has tried to make the even more family-friendly  by having much older bands play the halftime show. So why ruin the efforts with such sexist and provocative ads? The network chose to deny other ads on the grounds that they were not in keeping with the station's values. Why on earth did they not deny this one too? I am all for the funny ads, but this one made me feel more like I was about to see pornography.
      If we keep portraying women as sex symbols in media, true equality can never be achieved. C'mon, CBS.

Have You Seen Our Finals Schedule?????

Earlier this afternoon, I was looking up dates for the end of the school year and I discovered some shocking information. According to the official New Trier Calendar, our first day of second semester finals is on a Friday. The weekend after is Memorial Day weekend, so we have the following Monday off. Then exams will wrap up on Tuesday and Wednesday. Oh, yeah. And the commencement ceremony for the seniors is on that Sunday.
      Aside from the problems this causes for my personal calendar, this raises some issues.
      First of all, I think that having three extra days in between the first and second days of finals is awkward and possibly harmful to students' studying. The end of school is a distracting enough time, and to draw finals out for a time longer than necessary encourages end-of-year slumps. Will students really be able to use those three days effectively? I don't think so.
     Also, having a weekend surrounded by finals really defeats the purpose of a weekend. We are supposed to have those two (or three) days to catch up on work and sleep, and maybe to have a social life. But if students spend the weekend stressing about what is to come on during the next week, we can't rest.
    The lack of a true weekend also means that many New Trier students and their families will not observe Memorial day at all. Especially in light of the current war, every American should make that extra effort to acknowledge our armed forces.
     Finally, Memorial Day weekend has traditionally been a family-oriented time. It is the last major block of freedom most people have before everyone parts ways for the summer break. Without it, a lot of annual events and family vacations will likely be forgotten.
    I have a feeling that the reason for this strange schedule is to make extra time for the potential construction over this summer. Is it worth it? What are your opinions?

The Virtue of Incentives in Education

After watching Barry Schwartz's speech in class today, one of the thing that he said stuck out to me in particular. (You can view it here.) He told a story that served as a warning against relying on incentives to live a virtuous life. Apparently, in Switzerland citizens would ask if they would be opposed to having nuclear waste stored in their neighborhoods. Somewhat surprisingly, about 50% of them said that they would be okay with it because they felt like it was their duty as citizens. Here comes the crazy part. Another group of people were asked the same question, but they were also offered six weeks' salary as a compensation for the waste storage in their neighborhood. This time, only 25% accepted the plan. 
       This story clearly demonstrates a very interesting aspect of human behavior. We will agree to do something on strictly moral grounds until financial gain is brought into the picture. Then we suddenly take on a much more self-serving attitude and can no longer do the right thing based solely on what we believe is right an wrong. 
      Since I do not live in Switzerland and no one has ever surveyed me about nuclear waste storage, this specific example does not directly pertain to my daily life, but its message does. Our education system today is largely based on providing students with the incentives to learn. We receive grades for almost every assignment and we make a huge deal about final semester grades. For almost every student at New Trier, grades are a huge motivator to learn. 
     But why not learn just for learning's sake?
      To take myself as an example, I genuinely like to learn. I think new concepts are pretty cool. In Spanish, we are supposed to be learning how to speak another language, but sometimes I feel as if all that I am really learning how to do is get a good grade in the class. If we are assigned two pages in the workbook, I always do them, but I usually do not really put much thought into it. I do the minimum amount of writing so that I can get all of my homework points. I know that I am not the only person in my class who is guilty of this. But when I try to make myself feel guilty about blowing off my homework, I realize that the incentive of getting a good grade in Spanish really hurts my ability to learn properly. I truly believe that if I didn't have to waste so much time trying to get a good grade, then I could properly learn the language, which is something that I am interested in doing even without the grades (which is why I signed up for the class in the first place).
       My final point comes from the Chicago schools. Recently, they created a program that paid students for getting good grades. (I don't know what the current state of the program is, but the basic idea is still relevant.) I think that the problem with adding extra, unnecessary incentives to things is that the new incentives actually undermine the original ones. This "money for grades" program is telling students that getting good grades is not enough reward in itself. For that matter, grades in general send students the message that learning for learning's sake is not worth it. We need that extra validation from an outside source, rather than just being able to be proud of ourselves. I'm not sure that this is healthy.
      What do you think??

One Grain of Rice (Slightly Belated)

When I was younger, one book that both my brother and I enjoyed very much was One Grain of Rice, a folktale by Demi. It is a picture book with beautiful illustrations depicting a historical India. The story goes that a Raja thought that we was wise and fair to his people, most of whom were rice farmers. He took most of their harvest each year to keep safely in the royal storehouses in case of famine. Then, one year, almost all of the crop failed and the starving peasants went to the Raja, begging for the rice that he had promised. But in the interest of self-preservation, he denied them, not knowing how long the famine would last and needing rice for his own feasts. So the people continued to starve.
      Then, one day a young girl was walking past the royal rice-carriers when she noticed that one of their bags had a hole and was spilling rice. Being very clever, she walked beside them and caught all of the rice in her skirt. When they arrived at the palace, she was so honest that she returned all of the rice to the Raja. He was impressed, and offered to grant her any wish. She explained to him that all of the people were starving, and asked that he give her one grain of rice that day, then gave her two the next day, and four the next, doubling the amount each day for a month.
     The Raja agreed immediately, thinking that the girl was foolish to ask for so little. Of course, he had not mastered the subject of mathematics, and by the end of the month, he had given the girl all of his rice. She then turns around and distributes it the the hungry people. One thing to take note of is that despite the fact that he realized that all of his rice was disappearing, the Raja kept his word and did not go back on his promise. 
     There are a few different messages in this story. The first is that generosity is key to success in life. The Raja will not give his people rice, and he loses big by the end of the story. The main protagonist is very generous. She does not keep all of the rice for herself, as the Raja did. I think that this is a great message to send to kids, especially in our material age. The other good message is that anyone can change the government and that even the seemingly smallest person can have a bearing on a ruler.
      A final positive moral is that education is quite important. If the Raja had had as good of a grasp on simple math as the girl, the story likely would have had a different ending. It is clearly saying that knowledge is power.
     In fact, I could not find any examples of bad morals or "brainwashing" in this whole book. Not all of the messages that we give children in media are negative. There are good ones too!

The Ethics of Advertising

The short clip that we watched in class yesterday really got be thinking about the ethics of targeting children in advertisments. Personally, I do not think that there is any ethical problem with targeting the age-group that the prodct is designed for. That is, after all, the most effective way to sell something, which is all any company is trying to do. If the "nag factor" is what makes adults more likely to buy a product, then the realy problem lies in parents' attitudes toward their own children. If a child learns early on that they can get anything that they want from their parents merely by nagging them, then that lesson will stick. The parents are allowing this cycle to begin the first time they cave in to their child's wanting. The lessons that parents teach the children can have much more bearing on the way that their children develop than the media that they absorb. However, sucessful parenting may include limiting this media.
          This said, I did find one study that shows that advertising a certain type of product very negatively effects children, both mentally and physically. This is the advertising of food. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that I came across (view it here) suggests that the main reason that childhood obesity has become such a problem in the past few years is due to food advertisements directed at children. It says that the average child will spend almost six hours in "screentime" (TV, computer, gaming) every day. It also said that every year, each child will have seen over 40.000 commercials on TV alone. I found this to be the most telling sentence: "The majority of ads targeted at children are for food: primarily candy (32%), cereal (31%), and fast food (9%)". Although advertising for toys and chuckie-cheese's is not really that harmful, this clearly is.

       Ads for non-food items will bombard the average American daily for the rest of our lives. What better time to prepare for this than during our childhood, when our parents can help us to regulate our purchasing and consuming? Food advertising, on the other hand, is quite harmful to children, many of whom have parents who also struggle with obesity and overeating. This habit will cause even more health problems later in life that are tied to obesity, causing the health care system billions every year.

      This may seem like overkill to some, but after reading this study, I have come to believe that food products should not be advertised on TV to anyone, regardless of age. Thoughts?