Joliet Central High School

Joliet, Illinois

Teacher: Michael Reilly

 

 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

by Jason Knight

Grade 11

 

 

 

When something unfavorable happens in your community, do you ever wonder why?  Do you ever think about what you could have done to obstruct it? Do you feel you are partially responsible?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, maybe you ought to  ask yourself what you've done for your community in recent memory. Do we as citizens of the United States of America have a responsibility to improve our communities today?

                       

As I exist in the year 2000 being the tender age of 17, I see many changes that need to be made in communities in this suburb of Joliet, Illinois. It is up to our community and our community alone to make improvements. It is impossible for and outside force to make human beings change, we need to make the change ourselves. Everyone can make a difference in the community and impact someone else's life. If you are sick of catching a bad rap because of where you are from (which is not your fault) take the initiative to improve your neighborhood to erase the stereotypes. We cannot turn to the government to ameliorate all of our problems. The community will not change unless we change, because we are the community. 

 

We should be responsible for the things that go on in our community. If we claim to take pride in where we live then we should care what happens and be working to help eradicate the negatives and enforce the positives. If there are kids that need to get off the streets then we should petition city hall and get more centers open for after school.  Make a personal effort to affect the lives of the people in you community. Little things that you may think are insignificant at the time may turn out to alter someone immensely in the long run.

 

What I believe to be the most important issue in the role of personal responsibility is the upbringing of children in today's society. I believe this is the underlying factor for all terrible crimes committed by teenagers and present-day adults. Now I am being brought up in a semi-strict Christian household. My parents instilled in me the values of an upstanding person and Christian. While I don't agree with everything they have done raising me, I think they have done a pretty decent job.  I have good morals for the most part and I am not out in the streets selling drugs or getting in trouble with the law. It is the parents responsibility to teach their children right and wrong. They should be taught at an early age the consequence of their actions and be disciplined with consequence when they do wrong. When children are young parents have the opportunity to almost mold the child into a good person. Most of all parents should make sure your children know that you really love and care about them and want them to follow the right path.  This above all is the key role of personal responsibility in the community.

 

A growing problem across America is the huge unemployment rate if we are to move everyone out of the poverty bracket (16,000 for a family of four) we need to find a way to give the unemployed and those in dead end jobs a way to get ahead in the work place.  We can do this by either hiring them yourself (if you own a business) or try to get them into a higher learning course, such as computers, so they can get a decent job.

                       

A major division in the community is the generation gap between the oldest and youngest generation. There is a certain phobia between these two groups. Each has a fear that the other is not feeling were they are coming from. A remedy to this problem is to set up a type of buddy system and pair up and old person with a young person and let them talk and share ideas and interests. This way the older people can endow the younger generation with some of their wisdom and experience and in turn the younger can bestow some of  its youth onto the older person.

 

Divorce has been increasing rapidly in this country. People seem not to believe in the sanctity of marriage. With plenty of old timers in American communities that have been married for upwards of 50 years or more, there should be plenty of counseling for the engaged couple to see if they are really ready to enter a marriage. The government makes it very easy to just walk out of a marriage you don't want to be in anymore.  Maybe if it were tougher people would think twice and try to reconcile with the person they say they love. 

 

What all of these things can do and what the whole point of my essay is to find someway, somehow to MAKE A DIFFERENCE!  Only you can do it for yourself, so you have to decide to get up and make a change. We do have a role of personal responsibility in improving the quality of life in our communities today. Whether we sits around and be a bad role model for others in or community or stand up and take responsibility to show how much we love the community