Hyndman High School
Hyndman, Pennsylvania
Teacher: Janet Phillips

The Role of Personal Responsibility In Improving
the Quality of Life in our Communities Today

By Allen Waugerman
Grade:  11th

 

I think that community service is a very important role in today’s society. If everyone helped out around the neighborhood picking up trash along the streets, it would greatly increase the quality and neatness of our town. Another way to keep the town looking clean and organized is to take good care of our own private property.  These two acts would make our town so much better if people just wouldn’t be lazy and start helping out.

           

Another very helpful act of community service is voluntarily helping the elderly. We can help them in many ways such as mowing their lawns, washing their cars, and doing some of their household chores around the house for them. Oh yeah!  And shoveling their sidewalks in the winter, that can be really rough on them.  We can also help them by going and spending good quality time with them,  reading to them if they can’t see, and taking them for walks in their wheelchairs when they can’t walk. 

           

Community service is a key important role in our community and it would improve our community very much.

           

Now, I’m going to list some important ways to improve the quality of our town. First we need to get rid of the loitering around the streets at late hours of the night. One way we can do that is by building a recreation center or some sort of hang out spot, where kids and teens can go and hang out and do other things besides standing on the streets, getting cold, and getting drunk.

           

Here is another way that you could get the kids off the street.  Find more interesting things for them to do and have some intermural sports, instead of just having the sports that are school related.  Create some way to keep the kids out of trouble, because if they get a reputation when they are young then the police will think if they were once that way they will always be that way.

           

If the industrial world would show its face in our town, I think that it would help the town in many ways. It would create more job openings, which would do two things:  lower the unemployment rate in the town and create a bigger population. That would give us a better reason for the improvement of our school. 

           

While I’m on the improvement of our school here in Hyndman, PA, I’ll use that as my next topic.  We can improve our school by having our own chance at being our own school district.  I think that Bedford should give us a chance, because I know that this morning we should have had a two hour delay or something because the roads we’re horrible. Just cause it is okay in Bedford, that doesn’t mean that it is in good condition in Hyndman. They could Gerrymander the lines so that the students from Manns Choice could come here, which would give us more students and then we also would have a better reason to fix up the school.

           

Another way to improve the school is to hire teachers who teach Latin, French, and other subjects that we are missing. This could be a real problem come college time. This would also make the numbers in our school go up.

           

Some of the substitute teachers that we get down here are ridiculous. They don’t even have a clue.  I know that they have to have a degree, but there is just something that has to be done about the lack of experience.

           

We really need to get rid of the drugs and alcohol. They are a key problem in the town today. A way that we can get rid of them is to get rid of their sources. We need to have stricter trade regulations because that is where most of the illegal narcotics come from. We need to have better restrictions on the state-to-state transportation of alcoholic beverages. When the cops get an anonymous call about a dealer or user, they should make a bust that instant. Don’t mess around and get some innocent citizen hurt or killed. I also have another big thing that would help alot.  Hire more professional con artists and undercover cops. I know that I can’t tell them from the ordinary, so I don’t know how others can. 

           

The jails and courts should not give dealers or users second chances, because when they are drunk or high they aren’t even thinking about others. All they think about is  themselves and their drugs.  When someone is killed in a car wreck or shooting caused by an alcoholic or drug user, they can’t go back and give the dead a second chance, can they. All I’m saying is if people are going to party, keep it indoors or out of the way somewhere. 

           

If we all could just handle some of the things that I have recommended, our community should improve a great deal. Maybe not right away, but in a couple of years or so we will have a sparkling town for everyone to enjoy.

 

                                                     

 

Answers To Questions Re; Required Reading

 

                1.  How does society invest in marriage in the USA and in Manus?

               

                In the USA the society has changed greatly just like the way marriage has. Years ago people only got married if the   time and everything was right.  These days people get married for many different reasons.  All except for love.  In Manus,  employers hire married people more than single people because they feel that the married people have a greater commitment.

    2.  Interview 10 married people.  State the length and number of each one’s marriages and a line or two     of advice from each on how to maintain a long, happy relationship.

 

                3.  According to Richard Eckersley, what should our collective goal be?

        He thinks our goal should be to dematerialize society without reducing the quality of  life.

 

                4.  Write a worthy goal for your community.

            I think that we need to improve the way that we keep the town. We need to stop the littering, and when we see   some litter pick it up and throw it away. If we all would do something like that, then our town would be a lot cleaner and look more modern.

 

                5.  Comment on the excerpts from “Tomorrow’s Child.”

        I think that  is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard of. Children need to learn that their parents won’t         always be around for them to cry to, and it gives them a better opportunity to become more independent.

 

6.How does the fact the USA is a democracy make lawyers particularly helpful, according to Kathleen Sullivan? How does our diversity, wealth and size make lawyers particularly helpful?

                Lawyers take on so many different other functions that in other societies are being accomplished by the government  and civil service.  Lawyers are also bringing lawsuits on behalf of states regarding tobacco usage. 

    Lawyers step in to help mediate across diversity of custom or what Madison might call faction.       

                The law can help people decide what to do about health care and the longevity of human life.

    In the forth category, size, lawyers help to achieve what economists call economies for scale. They help save money on     repeat transactions, by helping you set up processes, procedures and rules that enable the same kind of transactions            among many people who don’t know each other, in a cheaper way.

               

7. Mrs. Sullivan claims bad practices are changed either by regulations or punitive damages.  Which do you prefer and why.  Can you think of an alternative?

I think that punitive damages are a bad idea and that alot of people just make stories up to get receive some money.  I don’t think that bad practices are changed by punitive damages because in my opinion if you got away with it that would make you want more money and you would commit more bad practices. 

Everyone become honest to the country and to themselves. They’re not just cheating the businesses, but their cheating all of us and our country also.

               

8. Briefly describe three ways society would benefit from the coming retirement of  baby boomers, according to the required reading.

There will be a new wave of the future to bring other future baby boomers into the old slot. The old baby boomers are the healthiest and most educated generation in history. A large number of them will start up their own business. This will give older retirees a chance to work for them and that will give a lot of job openings for nonworkers.

 

9. Evaluate the likelihood of President Clinton’s anti-poverty program making a real impact.  Give at least three reasons to back up your conclusions.

I think that it will make a pretty big impact because the administration claims that it’s policies are now fundamentally better than in the past.  Another reason is this is the first time the government has tried to encourage investment in such places.  Third when Bob Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson visited Appalachia almost four million people have lifted themselves above the poverty line since 1993.

               

                10.  Name three things Truett Cathy and Tom Lewis have in common.

                They both gave to the needy and did things to help the town as kids.  they both were poor and they didn’t both                    concentrate on themselves, but mostly on others. No matter how they’re businesses turned out they kept trying for the                    town sake.