Carrollton High School
Carrollton, Ohio
Teacher: Carol Wilking
What Is Your Role?
By Meri Brace
Grade: 12
Times are changing rapidly, and I am sure that they will continue to change as we begin our journey in to the twenty first century. The current day status of the communities around the world is not very good. Every day people, whether they are children or adults, are killed for many reasons; nevertheless, whatever the reasons may be, those people’s lives might have been saved if someone would have just taken the time to listen to what the troubled killer had to say. This is a major problem in today’s society, and I feel that in order to improve the quality of life in our communities today, we need to first start with the individual. I also feel that being a good role model and volunteering can help to improve your community.
If people take the time to think about the past and how gun control used to be, they would notice a big change. Nearly most any walking, breathing, human being can walk into a gun shop and purchase some kind of semi-automatic weapon as easy as buying a pack of gum. Society today does not even think about what these mentally disturbed people are buying these weapons for; they just are concerned about making money. If we look back at all the school shootings that have unfortunately taken place these past few years, we see that these are “babies killing babies” as most people would say. This is the time at which I feel the role of personal responsibility comes into play. If one person would have taken a few minutes out of his day and sat down with the killer of these high school students and asked him or her what each was feeling inside, if the person wanted to talk, or if he or she could do something to help, then maybe these students’ lives could have been saved. I feel that as individuals and students of high schools around the world our role should be to be the kind of person who is always willing to help someone in need; we should always have an ear open to anyone who is in need of being heard. Since these school shootings have taken place, now principals, faculty members, and staff are realizing that they have to watch very carefully how the students are behaving and what comments they may be making. I think the teachers have realized that if they hear any kind of threat or harassing remarks from students, whether they were just joking around or whether they were actually being serious, that in order to keep everyone safe, they need to take everything seriously. As a concerned student, I feel that violence is a major problem in schools today, and I think that our role as teenagers should be to watch out for one another and to try to settle disputes by calmly sitting down and talking our disagreements out with one another.
Another way people could improve the quality of life in the communities today is by volunteering in their local community. Whether a person volunteers at the local soup kitchen or even if they decide to help an elderly person with their shopping, cleaning, mowing, or shoveling, it is just nice to do something that benefits someone else for a change. I feel that this teaches people responsibility, and it should make the volunteer feel good about himself. Not only can people make a difference in their community by volunteering, they can also improve the quality of life in their communities today by being involved in local organizations. Students today are paving the way for the future, and I feel that we as citizens need to set good examples, work hard, and be good role models for the up coming generations. This brings me to my final example of the role of personal responsibility in improving the quality of life in our communities today, and it is becoming good role models.
I feel that in our communities today, there need to be more good role models for children. I think that if there were some people figures that kids could look up to, then maybe kids would not act the way they do. Being a good role model can have many positive outcomes. Many communities around the world today are filled with so much hatred that it is sad to even think about it. I feel that with a little help from some people who really want to make a difference, and are willing to get involved in their community and want to set good standards for kids to go by, communities around the world could start to look brighter.
In closing, times are changing rapidly, and I am sure they will continue to change as the commencement of the twenty first century arises. As we all can see, the current day status of the communities around the world is not very good. In the past few years there has been an enormous amount of high school shootings. As we all know, this is a major issue in today’s society, and I feel that in order to improve the quality of life in our communities today, we need to conquer this problem first. With conquering the gun control problem we need to also volunteer in our local communities and become good role models. I feel that in doing these things, we can reach the goal of improving the quality of life in our communities.
Answers To Questions Regarding The
Required Reading
Q1. Society today has changed greatly from the past. People do not find it necessary to take their marriage vows, instead they just live together, sometimes bring children into this world, and then before we know it, they are with someone else. “As we invest in factories or stores or export companies, so Manus financiers invest in marriages, or more accurately the economic exchanges which center about marriage, “ says Margaret Mead. When people from Manus join in marriage, a large number of relatives invest dogs’ teeth and shell money and the recipients on the bride’s side pay these amounts back later in pigs and oil for a payment for a male child. I feel that in Manus, they find marriage as a sacred event, unlike the USA.
Q2. Couple A = 10 months / First Marriage
Marry for the right reasons.
Couple B = 37 years / First Marriage
Always communicate with one another.
Couple C = 25 years / First Marriage
Be open with your partner.
Couple D = 12 years / Second Marriage
Always work out your problems. Don’t keep them inside until its too late.
Couple E = 50 years / First Marriage
Have trust in your partner; be honest.
Couple F = 20 years / Second Marriage
Stop and ask yourself if this is the one you want to be with for the rest of your life.
Couple G = 29 years / 1st Marriage
Be flexible.
Couple H = 4 years / 1st Marriage
Be true to yourself and your partner.
Couple I = 8 years / 2nd Marriage
Be faithful.
Couple J = 2 years / 1st Marriage
Equally divide the chores between one another.
Q3. I feel that the answer to Richard Eckersley’s
collective goal question depends on how people see whether more is better. Some people think that better means more money;
however, other feel that it’s happiness.
Q4. I feel that a very worthy goal for my community would be to develop a YMCA. Our community needs something like this so the children would have a nice, safe environment to hang out in. With the development of a YMCA, I feel that it would benefit the children greatly because then they wouldn’t always go out looking for trouble if they had a fun place to go to.
Q5. I guess it’s an all right idea to make lonely kids a doll that reminds them of their mothers; however, there is no doll that could take the place of a mother. I feel that the second excerpt of the article is talking about society and I feel that the gap between wealthy and poor will continue to widen.
Q6. According to Kathleen Sullivan, the fact the USA is a democracy make lawyers particularly helpful because they create a form of public responsibility and accountability that would not happen in an untrammeled democracy. Our diversity makes lawyers helpful because we are heterogeneous, and that heterogeneity brings more conflict and less agreement about social customs. This is where the law steps in in order to help mediate across diversity of custom or what Madison might call faction. Our wealth makes lawyers helpful because the United States is an extraordinarily wealthy society by world standards and by historical standards. People worry about having clean air and clean water, but people do not worry in many developing societies. People who worry about health care and the longevity of human life often have to think about what law can do to solve those problems. Lastly our size also makes lawyers particularly helpful. We are a vast, expansive territory in which individuals are far-flung, and we have a lot of corporate and nonprofit organizations operating nationally which cannot take a local view and, therefore, take a national view.
Q7. I prefer punitive damages rather than regulatory. I feel that the less government involvement the better. If we were to settle with regulatory measures we might be sorry. Often times when the government regulates the problem, then the outcome is unsatisfactory. The only alternative that I can think of would be for both sides to just agree, but we all know that this is very unlikely to happen.
Q8. Society will benefit from the coming retirement of baby boomers because they boomers will start their own businesses and, therefore, hire a large number of generation X’ers who will be having families. In addition, many X’ers distrustful of corporations because of down sizing, may go into business for themselves, providing the growing elderly market with home health care, home shopping, travel and recreation, and real estate services.
Q9. I feel that President Clinton has some good plans in his anti poverty program; however, in reading the excerpt and research it pretty much shows that the government is playing a relatively small part and this may well be one reason why the progress will continue. The stock market, being the bull market, definitely makes new investment easier; it is unsure however how much that benefits the poor. Research shows that many companies find that the poor unemployed may not be all that useful. My second conclusion of President Clinton’s program is how the comparison with developing countries is also misleading. Research is showing that the rate of return is not so profitable in the poor areas as with high-tech companies or investment abroad. Lastly, the article states that current policy towards minority owned businesses is unbalanced. The policy puts too much emphasis on bank lending at a time when banks are losing out to new financial bodies. The APIC will help with this imbalance, but it will take time.
Q10. Truett Cathy and Tom Lewis have a lot in common. Three of their common interests that I learned from the reading were they both started homes for children, they were both religious, and they both wanted to see children succeed.