Kadoka High School
Kadoka, South Dakota
Teacher: Teresa Shuck
Have We Abandoned Excellence?
By Jerad Carlson
11th grade
Have we abandoned excellence? This is a question that many people of our
generation have never really thought about. Many people think that they will
never be able to create some of the inventive things that we now use in our
society. But are some of the things that we are inventing actually excellent
in their own way?
Some of our latest inventions may not seem like much compared
to many of the other things that we have invented
in the past; but without many of our
improvements to past inventions, they may not
seem so excellent. For example, we have recently landed a land rover on the
planet of Mars. This was made possible because of some of our former excellent
inventions, like the spaceship. This may not have meant much to people back
then either, but it proved to be a very big step in improving our country. Now
many people may not think much of this recent landing on Mars either;
but when compared to us landing on the moon, I think it is a very big
step. In the future we may also look back on this and think of what this meant
to this country. The landing also shows that we still have excellent things
capable in us, and that we are still trying to better our lives and our
society.
In the last decade, we started to hear of a thing called the Internet;
but to us today, it seems like a very
common thing. If you think of it, the Internet is a really extraordinary
thing. It enables us to do a variety of tasks that were once very straining
and time consuming. Going shopping for clothes would be one of these tasks.
With the Internet these days, we don’t have to
go and load up the entire family and go to a variety of stores for clothes. We
can just go to the Internet and find the clothes we want and order them. Then
in a few weeks they are at your doorstep with you having to do hardly anything
at all. Besides making our lives simpler, it also allows us to communicate to
people in different countries. This may seem like something that we could do
anyways if we did not have the Internet, but with its simplicity and
inexpensive costs of running it is the most effective. With the Internet,
we have been able to connect to many people
in other countries. This lets us get a better picture of what their life is
like and helps bring us all together. These things are why I think that the
Internet is a thing of excellence.
One of the reasons why our country is still looked up to by others is because of our job opportunities, living conditions, and the care we all have for each other. This makes other countries want to be like us. In our country, we have all the opportunities in the world to do whatever we want. We may take this for granted sometimes because we have always grown up thinking that we can be whatever we want to be. This is not so in other countries though. In some countries, you may not have a choice to do what you want with your own life. You are forced to do things that you do not want to for the good of the country.
In our
country, we are also able to say what we want.
This allows many different ideas to come together. When we are able to do
this, we can help everyone satisfy all the things that our country needs and
wants. This is one of the reasons why we are able to live happily together
instead of having hate towards one another, and it is why our country is a
model of excellence to all others.
Overall, the American people themselves determine whether or not we will
produce excellent things; and if the want and desire to do so is there,
it will happen. This is why we are taught at a very young age to do our
best in everything that we can; and with this kind of attitude, we are capable
of doing excellent things. If we did not think like this though,
we would still be settling for how our lives are and everything would
stay the exact same. This is not what we are like though,
and I believe that we are still striving for excellence. Even if our
steps toward improving this country are not noticed right away, they will be
recognized in the future. This is why I believe that America has not abandoned
excellence.
Questions
Q1- Am I really where I want to be?
Yes, I am where I want to be right now in my life. I am doing the best that I can under the circumstances surrounding me and that is all I can hope for.
Q2- Am I moving in the direction that will enable me to make the greatest contribution?
Yes, I think I am because I try to use everything that I do to my benefit, so none of my efforts are wasted.
Q3- If I could achieve my highest goals, what would my accomplishments look like?
If I was able to achieve my highest goals I would be very successful in whatever I have achieved and other people would look up to me as an example of how to accomplish this same task.
Q4- Do I recognize excellence and search it out or do I find mediocre acceptable and am willing to settle?
I would like to say that I recognize excellence in everything that I do, but sometimes I get tired of trying and just settle for what will get the job done.
Q5- Do I seek out people, books, movies, and other things that encourage me to be the best I can be?
Yes, I sometimes seek out encouragement in these things, but most of the times I get encouraged from the actions of people in their daily lives.
Q6- Do I recognize the best in others?
Yes, I like to see myself looking at someone and seeing the potential for success this person has in his or her life.
Q6- Do you agree with Morrow (paragraph seven) that: “Excellence demands standards. It does not usually flourish in the midst of rapid, hectic change. This century’s sheer velocity has subverted the principle of excellence; a culture must be able to catch its breath.”?
Yes, I do agree because we cannot have excellence without standards to compare it with. It also says that excellence does not occur in time of rapid change and maybe this is why we do not have excellence in our society today.
Q7- Interpret this quote from paragraph nine: “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion.”
What this quote means to me is that just because we live in one of the greatest countries on Earth doesn’t mean we can stop striving for excellence and just settle.
Q8- Argue pro and con Morrow’s contention that “ Americans not yet successful (the struggling, the underclass) are apt to aim at ease, not excellence”?
I think this means that the underclass are just settling for how their lives are, and even though it may sometimes help our country to have these workers it is better to strive for more.
Q9- Explain what Morrow means when he says (A) “the confusion contaminates character and disables ambition.” Do you agree?
Yes, I do agree because when someone gets confused they lose track of who they are and are not able to continue on reaching for their dreams.
Q10- Argue pro and con the effect of over stimulation and under stimulation as discussed in paragraph 10.
Over stimulation in our country divides the attention of many of our people so that they are not focused on what they are doing, and people with under stimulation makes them not ambitious enough to do anything.
Q11- Contrast practical excellence with metaphysical excellence as used in Morrow’s last paragraph.
Practical excellence is like the things that we have in our lives that amuse us, but are actually not really excellent things. Metaphysical excellence means that something is actually excellent in its own way.
Q12- “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul”
I like this quote because it means that you determine what you do in your life, whether or not you are going to strive for excellent things or just settle for what you have.
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself”
I also like this quote because it means that you should do whatever makes you happy whether it is creating excellent things or just being an ordinary person.