Joliet Central High School

Joliet, Illinois

 

Teacher:Michael Reilly

 

 

 

Helping Out In The Community

by Jessica Esco

Grade 11

 

Many families today ask themselves the same question each and every day, how can we achieve a better life. Everyone would love to know the answer to this question. The key answer is personal responsibility is based on self-reliance. That is when you can think for yourself, take care of yourself, and respect yourself and others. An example of someone having self-reliance would be if someone were trying to push you into believing in a certain lifestyle just because everyone else is doing it, and you end living the way you want to. Being yourself and following your beliefs are key in self-reliance. We can improve life for our children and families if we gain more responsibility for ourselves and others in our communities. There are many ways that we as a whole can contribute into helping each other.

   

First of all, the government could help out in a big way. Sure they contribute so much with social services and other organizations, but sometimes they don’t think before they act. For example, say there is a little boy, about seven or eight years old. His mom just died and his dad just lost his job. They have little money and the most important thing in the world they have is each other. Pretty soon they lose their house and are bouncing from shelter to shelter. A person from social services is sent to the shelter to offer some of the homeless people help. The social worker observes the little boy and his father’s lifestyle and soon the boy is taken away from his father and placed in a foster home. The only thing that little boy had left in the world was just taken away from him. Somehow that does not seem right. Instead of splitting the two apart, there should have been some other arrangement. Social services could have some way helped the father get a job, get back on his feet and provide a good lifestyle for his son. This would better the community by decreasing poverty little by little and keeping children out of foster homes. It isn’t fair to punish a little boy because his father lost his job. They say that their looking out for the child’s best interest, but what part of being taken away from your family is good.

   

Another way to help out, is to put a stop to violence and crime in our communities for good. Many parents’ say that they talk to their kids about violence and what’s right, but who are the parents to decide what really is wrong or right. Children will believe anything their parents say with no questions asked. We should therefore encourage them to ask questions though when they do wrong, don’t just yell at them and tell them its wrong or bad. Talk to them, and, if their behavior compares with yours when you were a kid, then share what you’ve experienced and the consequences you suffered. Most kids seem to learn more from examples. If you relate to your kids more, they will find it harder to rebel. They will recognize for themselves what is wrong and right. Maybe one day this will lead to a peaceful community with no crime or violence. Teaching your kids about personal responsibility and respect is key in parenting.

   

Lastly, the way that the older and younger generations find fault with each other must stop for everyone to come together. Adults feel this need to think that kids are up to no good. Some of them are and some of them are not. There is no need for people to stereotype each other, that is the main cause of conflicts. People seem to stereotype kids as drug addicts, criminals, or dumb kids who listen to terrible music. The feelings go both ways though. Kids do the same things to adults. Kids stereotype the elderly as judgmental, strict people who can’t drive. If we all just put aside all of our assumptions and think before we jump to conclusions maybe our relationships would improve. Maybe we could get to know one another and put all of our stereotypes aside.

   

As you can see, personal responsibility is everywhere waiting to be found. We should start concentrating on helping each other out instead of just worrying about ourselves. There are many ways to help out; even the little things can do wonders. If we all could just put our differences aside for once maybe we could make a positive change in our communities. We need to recognize the meaning of personal responsibility and practice respecting each other so we can grow together in a positive direction. If we all just shut our eyes, opened our hearts, and let our personal responsibility shine through we could improve our communities rapidly and live peacefully together.

 

Questions

1.  In Manus many people invest in marriage. They exchange goods so that a marriage

    can be performed. For example, people give dog’s teeth and shell money, and then

    they get paid back in pigs and oil. In the U.S. people don’t invest in marriage as often

    because more people have decided not to get married.

 

2.

Couple 1: They have been married for 16 years, and it was their first marriage. Their advice on marriage is, you both need to contribute to make it work.

Couple 2: They have been married for 3 years, and both of them have been married once before. Their advice on marriage is, make sure you choose the right one.

Couple 3: They have been married 29 years, and it was their first marriage. Their advice, don’t get married at such a young age; live a little before you settle down.

Couple 4: They have been married for 3 months, and it’s her first and his second marriage. Their advice, wait to have kids.

Couple 5: They have been married for 50 years, and it was their first marriage. Their advice, love and hard work can make a marriage last forever.

Couple 6: They have been married for 1 year, and they both had been married twice before. Their advice, choose wisely.

Couple 7: They have been married for 10 years, and it’s his first and her second marriage. Their advice, don’t stay in a bad marriage just for the kids.

Couple 8: They have been married for 33 years, and it was their first marriage. Their advice, the right one is always right under your nose.

Couple 9: They have been married for 7 years, and it was their first marriage. Their advice, every marriage needs trust, love, and cooperation.

Couple 10: They have been married for 4 years, they were both married once before. Their advice, pick a good soulmate.

 

3.

Richard Eckersley said our goal should be to dematerialize society without reducing quality of life. That basically means that we should try and take all of the materialism and need for things we don’t really need out of the world. We should just keep up the standards and value of life.

 

4.

A worthy goal for my local community would be to everyone to gain respect for each other. If everyone respected and cared for each other we wouldn’t have to worry about gangs, fighting, or stealing. Our society would just be better as a whole.

 

5.

The first excerpt is very much true because there are a lot of lonely kids out there who need someone and it’s sad that they have dolls to remind them of their mothers.

 

6.

The second excerpt is true also because as life goes on, seeing as how our country is already so overpopulated, soon Asian and Hispanic people will no longer be minorities. There is such a big gap between children and adults that when children are adults this might be true.

 

7.

Since the U.S is a democracy lawyers can help form a public responsibility. They bring about lawsuits to decentralize the government in which we mistrust so. Diversity, wealth and size makes lawyers helpful because there is so much discrimination, protection, and large-scale organizations, the law is the only way to carry out what is wrong with our society today.

 

I believe that punitive damages are the to change bad practices. Punitive damages make people really think about how to solve things rather then paying them off or shoving a bunch of regulations down their throat. Another alternative may be to combine the two, because some regulations would help enforce the punitive damages.

 

8.

Society would benefit so much from the retirement of baby boomers. First of all, our population is growing and will keep growing. If they retire that will open up more job opportunities for the younger generation. Also, with more jobs open we can establish more health care programs for the elderly and more recreational activities. Lastly, with the retirement it provides opportunity for teenage entrepreneurs.

 

9.

I think Clinton’s anti-poverty plan will not be that effective. He says he will offer small business loans in poor areas, but you need collateral to achieve a loan and many poor people don’t have that so they don’t even bother to apply. Also, because the minority rate is so high, many of the people applying will not get a loan because banks are still racist when it comes to giving money to people of a different race.

 

10.

Tom Lewis and S. Truett Cathy are both religious people, they both attend church. They both ran summer camp programs for children. Also, both have helped out in the education of children. Lewis opened up his own school, and Truett gave away scholarships.