A Little Bit of Both, I Suppose

I've taken an Intro to Psychology course, which is where much of my viewpoint on the subject comes from. Or perhaps it is the way I am with most things, that often time the answer is in between two extreme truths. While I believe that some twin studies have shown that genetics to influence in some way how we develop, I would never say that genetics is the end all be all. It is that feeling that you can't change your "fate" is who you are is because of your genetics.



So I suppose I lean more towards the nurture side, just because of the way I'd prefer to view how a person can develop in a world. It's not really based completely on scientific fact, although I know that genetics do influence our development somewhat. I mean, that is why twin studies are so important, although I have no looked into them as much as I should have. It's the question that if you grew up to act like your father, was it because you grew up around him or because you share your genetics. With the twin studies, that question of where the influence comes from theoretically is taken out of the question. I don't know if the question will ever be quite answered, even through extensive study. But I can say that I believe that the answer is as usual somewhere in between. Where you grow up and who you grow up around is probably just as important as what genetics you have. And I am determined to continue to view it that way.

The Life of a Serial Killer

So, this is a topic that I don't know much about.  However, I know which of the two I am leaning towards based on my experiences and I'm just going to go with it.  I think nurture, a person's environment, has the largest impact on what they end up doing with their life.  Also, as a note, I am not the serial killer mentioned in the tittle...  Just putting that out there.

My own experiences point toward nurture.  I don't know much about the genetics part of nature, but it seems to me that once you are born you make your own decisions based on what surrounds you environmentally.  Now, I grew up in the "definition of normal" house with two parents and two sisters, one older and one younger.  This is just a background for those of you who aren't familiar with my extremely nice and wonderful family.  And that wasn't sarcastic.  I didn't fight with my sisters, contrary to the idea that all siblings are always at each others throats.  There was no reason not to, no punishment if we fought.  We just didn't fight.  We still get along fantastically.  I'm pretty sure that is caused by environmental impact instead of genetics, although your guess is as good as mine at which factor caused it.  Anyway, enough about me.

On to television shows and murderers.  Now, I watch way too much television, and most of it is crime related.  In particular for this discussion, Criminal Minds.  They have a lot of serial killers they catch, and there are many reasons why these people kill.  Some times, they have genetic disorders that make them think killing is okay, or that they are actually doing something good.  This is definitely pointing to the nature side.  However, a lot of the time, the person killing was abused or tormented as a child or teenager, and these events turned them into brutal killers.  This makes sense to me.  Something bad (or, I suppose, good) happens to someone, they never forget it.  It becomes a part of them, even if they end up leading normal lives.  It could affect how they interact with other people, or something as small as what movies they won't watch, but it does affect them.  Experiences in life shape people and turn them into who they become later in life, even if they don't realize it.

So, that ended up being a bit more rant-y then I meant it to be, but I hope I made a point somewhere along the way.  Kathleen is finishing up tomorrow, I can't wait to read what she has to say!

Learning is the point of life

I've always thought of the nature versus nurture debate as the extent to which parents can feel bad for the way they raised their kids. For example, I watched a video in my psychology class where parents of schizophrenics were told that schizophrenia very rarely linked to genetics and I could see their faces fall as they wondered if they did this to their children (I believe currently we believe that parental style has little bearing on whether or not a person will be schizophrenic, which just makes this cruel). Even though we're almost through this week now, I thought I'd clarify what I mean by nature and by nurture.

In my opinion, nature-based traits are ones that you are born with, things that are determined by your genetics before you have any outside influences. When you're a newborn, you're acting solely out of nature's influence. Nurture, on the other hand, is all the ways your environment influences you. Any behavioral reinforcement you've gotten, any learned behaviors are all nurture-based.

Now, when you think about it, life is all about being influenced by your environment. Most days you're on this Earth, you learn more things, have your behavior and your thinking shaped. You learn how to talk to people around you based on what works (and is responded to in a positive way, therefore reinforced) and what doesn't (and is responded to negatively, therefore punished), and you become a better conversationalist. From the day you were born, things that seem innate now, like walking and talking, were huge things you had to learn. I don't subscribe to the tabula rasa theory, which purports that all babies are blank slates, just waiting to learn, but I believe that most things are nurture-based. You may be more inclined to be shy, but if you're constantly thrust into the spotlight and have a positive experience of it, I believe you're more likely to develop outgoing characteristics.

If we're talking about which most influences personality, then we have to define personality. If you act differently toward your parents than toward your friends, does that make you two different people? Most people feel they have one unified personality and just show different sides of it to different groups, but if two traits conflict then what is our "real" personality? And what of flaws? If a person has anger-management issues that they learn to control, are they still short-tempered because that is their nature and something they have to actively control? Or have their conquered that flaw because now the personality they exhibit is calm and collected?

Personally, I think the idea that just because someone has to work at their flaws means they are always there is depressing. I believe that, in almost all ways, nurture overcomes nature. You may be more skilled or more happy or more comfortable when the two are in harmony, but if there is a conflict, I believe you will act in a way more attributable to the behaviors and thought processes you've learned throughout your life far more than what genetic disposition you may have been born with. Most people are out there today doing things we couldn't dream of doing as a baby and all of it feels so effortless. Things we learn have been so ingrained into our knowledge pool and our personality that it begins to feel innate. And personally, with all of the beautiful things in this world that can only exist because of learning, I think it's best that way.

Nature and Nurture: The Allied Powers

Even though our blog topic for the week is on “nature vs. nurture,” I don’t view the two as being in competition with one another.  Aspects from one’s nature and the nurture they receive combine to make up the complete person.  Nature dictates the essence of which one is and nurture influences the way one handles the situations he or she is faced with.  I think that nature kicks in by default when nurture isn’t a big contributing factor to a situation.  And on the inverse side of things, an abundance of nurture means that one will be less reliant on his or her personal nature.  I think it really depends on the person and their individual situation as to which aspect (either nature or nurture) reigns supreme. 

The bulk of my background is definitely in sociology, which is the subject that most people associate with the nurture side of the two.  I’ve only taken an introduction to psychology course, which is usually associated with the “nature side,” so it’s fair to say that I’ve had a lot more experience looking at situations from a viewpoint that examines social activity, while psychology looks at behavior.  But even though my academic focus is definitely more prominent in one area than the other, I don’t think that either nature or nurture is necessarily going to be the most prominent contributor in everyone.  Depending on the person, nature or nurture can dictate more or less of what makes up his or her complete person.  With some people, nature runs more prominent, and in others, nurture may run more prominent. 

I think that a lot of people, myself included, like to think that the things they do and the way that they think is mostly, if not completely in their nature.  Depending on how strong-willed someone is has a lot to do with which factor is more strongly represented in them.  However, stubbornness is something that can also be learned through nurture.  I think that nurture plays a larger role in our complete selves than we normally recognize.  But in the end, both factors have important roles to fill. 

I’m a fairly shy, quiet person by nature, but I’ve learned through nurture that sometimes I have to step out being quiet and shy if I want a chance to do many of the things I want to do, like sing and perform for an audience, for example.  Nurture hasn’t replaced nature, but it has altered nature to an extent. 

The nature vs. nurture debate is a continuing cycle.  Different situations bring out different aspects of our natures.  Aspects from both the “nature” and “nurture” sides affect who we are.  I think that in the end, neither nature nor nurture “wins,” because both work together and figure remarkably and importantly into what we think and how we act.     

Stalemate

This week's topic isn't one that I'd ever really put a lot of thought into.  As of beginning to write this, I don't think I'm leaning toward either side of the topic -too- much, though I'd initially have to give my preference to "nature", or the natural predisposition of people.  Let's explore my thinking together, shall we?

I don't believe that either of the two ideas is completely dominant - rather, it seems like you might be steered toward certain choices by either side.  If you take a peace-loving teenager in North Korea and conscript them into military service, will they change in the process?  ... Possibly, but it seems more likely to me that if the person truly loves peace, they'll hold onto that ideal even through conflicting circumstances.  I don't think that it's necessarily an absolute idea for either side of the argument, though - there are plenty of instances where a well-meaning person was influenced strongly by events outside of their control, and it changed the very core of who they were.

Foreshadowing, using a shadow.  I cannot overstate how much I like this picture.

Let's delve into some more personal examples.  Readers of the blog should have a basic idea of the circumstances surrounding my childhood (and casual or first-time readers should go back and read all of the old entries from all of our posters), so I won't spend a lot of time talking about those.  But I think it would be fair to say that I grew up in an environment ruled by the concept of "no rules".  (Yes, I'm aware that statement is paradoxical.  No, I'm not going to change it.)  One of the most common things to observe in my environment, from as early as I can remember to... well, to present-day, was media based around violence.  Did this constant exposure to violence shape me as a person?  ... Well, it's hard to say.  I definitely have a high tolerance for the presence of violence in media, but I'm definitely not predisposed toward violence as a person.  I try to avoid it, if at all possible (though there are times where I think fondly about it... usually concerning specific people/circumstances).  I think that I'm a clear example of nature winning out over nurture.

On the other hand, however, you have my oldest sister.  She was quite intelligent from an early age onward, and she never got into the same activities that I (and, to a lesser extent, my other sister) did - she greatly preferred 4-H and NJHS/NHS as her activities of choice.  Once she got into high school, though, she changed.  She got into a lot of questionable situations, had her first daughter, started attending (and then immediately dropped out of) college, and it's been kind of a downhill slide ever since.  These days, despite still being reasonably intelligent (with no common sense whatsoever), she's living in a bad situation with no positive prospect that doesn't involve some sort of extreme, stressful change.  Was her genetic disposition flawed from the beginning, to have her life turn a 180 like that?  Or did the environment she was in during her teenage years influence her so strongly that she led herself down a different path than the one she would have chosen otherwise?  Obviously, it's impossible for me to say for sure, but I'm leaning toward the latter.

I could probably come up with more examples, but I don't think that doing so would truly be worthwhile.  At this point, as ideas, I don't really think that either nature or nurture can be considered stronger than the other.  I think it just depends on a multitude of factors... or, sometimes, maybe even on one seemingly insignificant detail.  Who can really say for sure?

Though, I Really Want To Take Psychology

This post will not really be based on any scientific fact or knowledge, largely because I'm neither a biologist nor a psychologist nor a sociologist nor... I'm a mathematician, and how people work isn't exactly my area of expertise. That being said, I'm going to try to bring whatever I can to this topic, and that's a discussion of how much I think (based solely on my own conjecture) one can affect the other and whether or not they're both really important.

Having a genetic predisposition toward some kind of trait seems about as solid as the wording implies. You're going to have a lot of feelings steering you toward one track, but there could be other factors in your environment that may push you toward something else entirely. I think that these factors are the ones that end up mattering. Every time I've met a set of twins, they've been very distinct people, and that's because of the variation in their experiences. I haven't done extensive research into twin studies, so I won't get into that here, but my guess would be that anything indicating a trend would do so with a fairly weak correlation. I mean, by weak, I really just mean no more than 85%, but still.

When it comes down to it, while the distinction between whether nature or nurture determines a particular factor is relevant in understanding how a person got to be who they are, I'm not sure that it's a meaningful distinction in trying to understand who they are. I've heard people that try to imply that traits determined by nurture can't be innate and unchanging features of a person, and this just seems a little... blatantly incorrect. Most of these arguments have been in the context of sexual orientation, so I'm not really sure about how well it applies in other specific aspects, but I do believe that it's possible for characteristics of a person to be unchanging and determined by nurture rather than nature. This isn't to say that all major aspects of a person work that way, just that it's possible for some.

I'm not entirely sure that I actually said anything, but hopefully it'll kick off the discussion for this week in a way that'll lead to other interesting ideas from people that might be more informed on the issue.

Week of 6/24 - Nature vs. Nurture

For this week, we are going to dive into the more science/psychological side of things, talking the debate of nature vs. nurture. Within the psychological community especially (although the topic was briefly addressed in my 100 level Biology course), the debate surrounds which is more important in influencing who you are, nature - your genetics - or nurture - the environment you were raised in.

There have been studies looking into this, specifically with identical twins who grew up with different parents and in different environments, but I am certain our own specific experiences growing up shape our personal viewpoints on which is more important.

So according to my nifty calendar (and the fact the posting order is always the same) Brandon will be starting us off with opinions tomorrow. Let's hope for some very interesting opinions and a fun week!

Annoying Things That People Do

Okay, so this is my first actual post.  I can think of quite a lot of things that drive me crazy is specific situations, but most are just things that I find irksome based on the person or the mood I am in, so I don't think those really count.  However, there are a few things that I dislike in general.

Catcalls.  You know when you are at a band/music concert or a recital and people start yelling their friend's/family member's names?  Drives me completely nuts.  I have sat through way too many of these types of performances, and I don't understand why people insist on doing this.  I mean, I know you want to tell someone to do a good job, but is yelling their name right before they have to remember whatever it is they are performing really a good way to help them do well?  No, it isn't.  It probably distracts them because they hear someone say their name, and the automatic response to that is to look up and find the person who yelled, not to ignore them and concentrate on something else.  It would be so much more considerate to yell their name after they have performed, so that you aren't distracting them and they won't be stressed out trying to remember what to do with people yelling their names all the time.

That's all on that subject.  There is one other thing that I have recently found to be really obnoxious.  Now, I didn't realize this until the last year or so, but I don't understand about half of what comes out of college students' mouths.  They talk about something that they think is the best or funniest thing ever, and they I'm supposed to react in some appropriate way.  When I look at them blankly because I didn't understand the reference to whatever they were saying, or I didn't laugh at a joke I didn't understand (not that I laugh much out loud anyway...), they get offended or confused because I didn't think it was "the best thing ever."  Now, I say a lot of things that most regular (normal? aka, not as weird as I am) people don't understand, but if they look at me strangely I say "don't worry" or "you didn't need to understand."  I don't just stare at someone until they ask how that was an amusing joke/story/whatever.  I have a friend at college who just stares at me with a "that was so funny, right?" grin until I ask her what the point was, and she is shocked when I don't get it (and she's known me for two years now...).  So, yeah.  People expecting me to understand everything that comes out of their mouths when they have known me long enough to know better apparently really bug me.  I don't mean to write so much on that.

Anyway, I think this is where I am going to end this post.  I hope everyone has enjoyed reading everyone else's posts this week on the things that bug them.

4chan, on the other hand, is a completely different problem

When I think about things that bug me, many things come to mind: people who don't give straight answers, people who are indecisive, being purposefully vague, making shoddy arguments, people who'll lie to my face, 4chan...

But a lot of that just happens when I've been wronged. You want to know what I can't stand in a consistent manner that's plagued me since I was old enough to know what it was?

Grammar.

Grammar is wonderful. Grammar keeps words together and it makes them convey ideas. Grammar makes sentences clear and I'm going to list a few of the mistakes that drive me up the wall.

First off, less versus fewer. There are a lot of people that argue that this distinction is stupid, that there are no corresponding words for "more," and that the world hasn't fallen apart yet. I think these people are wrong. Let me point you to the sentence "There are more passionate people on the internet." I'm inclined to think it means more people who are passionate, but you really can't tell. Now let's try "There are fewer passionate people on the internet." Ah, there we go. We're clearly talking about the number of people. Clear. Concise. "There are less passionate people on the internet" talks about the overall level of passion. People on the internet are less passionate than people you find in real life. Still clear, but a completely different message.

The next thing that bothers me is elliptical clauses and how frequently they are misused. Elliptical clauses are clauses with an implied ellipsis (A series of three dots [...] is called an ellipsis, in case you didn't know). They're used in statements like "She's prettier than me," except that statement is wrong. She is pretty in a greater degree than...me. Her prettiness is greater than me. It's like trying to compare two completely different things. I'm not a level of attractiveness, so you can't compare them. You may think the meaning is still clear, but hold on. The correct thing to say is "She's prettier than I" because the implied ellipsis replaces the word "am." She's prettier than I [am].


This frequently is important in statements with objects. "He likes her more than me" means "He likes her more than [he likes] me," while "He likes her more than I" means "He likes her more than I [like her]." We can figure out where the rest of the sentence is if you put in the correct subject/object, but putting in the wrong one makes the sentence not actually make sense. In some situations, it's still clear, but in many, misusing this is conveying the completely incorrect message.


Another thing that drives me insane is phrases like "PIN number," "ATM machine" and "HIV virus." As I've said before, grammar is a tool that helps words convey information; the problem is that the information this conveys is that you don't know what you're saying, that you are ignorant of the words coming out of your mouth and what they mean, to the point where you don't understand that saying "Personal identification number number" is wrong. It makes it seem like you don't know what they stand for but you're saying them anyway, and that's terrible. You don't just start calling people loquacious before you know what the word means and you shouldn't say "ATM" without knowing it doesn't need to be followed by the word "machine."

In short, grammar is a tool that helps makes language understood and that makes it wonderful. Obviously, once you learn how to use a tool, you can start experimenting. The phrase "I don't sports" does not make grammatical sense, but effectively conveys your complete bewilderment by sports by implying you don't even know how to use the word. It conveys an idea and that's wonderful, but at the same time, you wouldn't want to throw out a phrase like that if you're teaching an ESOL class. The whole point of language is to convey ideas and when people don't do that clearly, it just infuriates me.

Which, now than I think about it, is exactly what bothers me about indecisiveness, being vague, lying, and, in a roundabout way, making shoddy arguments. Maybe it does tie together after all.

Those Fickle Feelings

When I started making a mental list of the things that bug me, I came to the realization that things only tend to bug me if I think that the intentions behind the action were sketchy.  That, and things also tend to bug me when I’m stressed out or just plain peeved about something (usually something that is entirely unrelated).  Also, past experiences with the person in question also tend to effect whether what they do or say bugs me or not.  I realize that this is kind of fickle, and yet totally typical. 

I'll keep this short and sweet by saying that I can't think of any specific actions that do or don't bug me regardless of my mood and past experiences.  These two factors heavily influence what I think about an individual's intentions.   I've found that it's pretty easy to convince myself of someone's good intentions if all is well and I'm in a good mood.  And on the flip side, I often have a very difficult time convincing myself of someone's good intentions if I'm stressed out or in a bad mood.  So, I'm obviously more likely to get bugged by things on days like that, even little things like someone letting a door close and lock when I was just behind them.  That being said, I'm usually a pretty positive person.  I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and not let things annoy me.  Even when I'm stressed out, I try my best to not get bugged by things that I can do absolutely nothing about.  Well... it's a goal anyway.                      

  

     

Mosquito Bites, and Other Annoyances

This post has the potential to be fairly lengthy, but for the sake of maintaining interest (and, also, to follow in the precedent set by our previous two bloggers), I'll try to keep it at a manageable length.  ... What -is- a manageable length, anyway?  Whatever, I'm going to write until it doesn't flow easily.

Inconsiderate people.  This is something that I run into, more often than not, at work, and it annoys the hell out of me.  First and foremost on this point are the people who won't get off their phone while I'm trying to help them.  Some people (most people, really) will at least pull the phone away to talk to me, albeit briefly, and some even apologize after they get off the phone.  But there are some people who will stay on their phone and carry on a conversation the entire time they're in the store, and that's just fucking rude.  Particularly if there are other people waiting in line, have the decency to either tell the person "I'll call you back", or step away and carry your conversation on in a place where you won't be holding up (or annoying) other people.  I had a woman stay on her phone earlier today, actually, and she got annoyed at me while I was trying to ring her up.  Why did she get annoyed?  Because I had to ask her things at least twice, because she wasn't listening to me the first time.  Some questions aren't vital - I don't think I offered her a bag for her purchase, and I'm fairly certain I didn't ask her if she found everything alright.  But I do need to know how you want to pay for things, and if you write "See ID" on the back of your credit card, you shouldn't get angry at someone asking for your ID.  ... But, yeah, inconsiderate people piss me off.

Next on the immediate train of thought are the annoying people that want to take up your time talking about... well, anything.  Now, don't get me wrong, if I'm talking to someone that I appreciate and/or have a good rapport with, and the topic is interesting, I'll talk (... well, listen moreso than talk, typically) for ages.  But if you're just spouting random stuff about things that I have no interest in whatsoever, and especially if you're doing it while I'm busy?  We're going to have problems.  No, I don't want to hear about your new strategy for Magic: The Gathering.  No, I don't want to see a YouTube clip of something that you might find amusing.  No, I don't want to talk about how hard it is to find a job and why you'd be perfect to work at Gamestop (though, for some people, those stories are a source of amusement).  I honestly don't think it's -that- hard to tell whether someone's genuinely interested in things that you're saying, or whether they're just acknowledging you for the sake of not being outright rude.  I just wish that more people would take the hint. Most recent case in point?  The cashier in the food court at Target wasted five minutes of my break (... Hey, when you only have half an hour to eat and chill out, every minute is sacred, okay?) with some monologue about... you know what?  I don't even know.  That's how uninterested I was - I didn't even retain a shred of what he was talking about.  But he held up his own line to have that conversation with me.  Why?  I don't know.  I just wanted to eat.

... Both of my things so far are about other people.  I'm not sure whether I'm surprised by that or not, and whether or that's a bad (or telling) thing.  I'm gonna try to get on a different level, though - dishonesty, in general, really bugs me.  Going hand in hand with that would be unethical behavior.  When the two of them combine... ... I want to punch something.  Hell, sometimes I want to punch things even if it's one or the other.  Dishonesty, to me, shows a complete lack of respect for the person you're talking to, and that's frustrating.  I've been the recipient of dishonesty a fair bit over the past year-ish, and it's mostly come from people that I am (was?) close to.  This, as you would expect, makes it worse.  It wouldn't be as impactful if I didn't find out about it, but I always do, one way or another.  I don't understand why you would blatantly lie to something about... well, anything.  Not in a personal sense, anyway.  Some people classify "withholding information" as being better than lying.  I don't agree.  In a way, I think it's almost worse, because it really just seems like lying that you're trying to justify to make yourself feel better.  You might do it with good intentions, but I feel that if there's something that you feel -should- be shared, you should just do it.

Inconsistency in food.  Yeah, I know, that's kind of a 180, huh?  Pizza is something that I eat more of than I should (though I've gotten a lot better about that lately!).  One of the most common things for me to do, if I'm home and don't feeling like either cooking or going out, is to order Domino's.  There are some nights where the order is fantastic, and everything tastes delicious... and there are some nights where it doesn't taste nearly as good.  I understand that this is a fairly minor problem, and that it's to be expected, almost, but it still bugs me when I'm expecting one flavor profile and I get something different.

I've got more that I can write about, but I think I've hit my limit of "easy stuff", so I'm gonna wrap it up here.  Happy rest of the Breather Week, everyone, and welcome, Laura.

Now And Then I Think Of All The Times You Screwed Me Over

I should preface this by saying that I'm a pretty particular person. Even a brief summary of the biggest things that bug me would take thousands of words to scratch the surface of, and I'm aware of the fact that I'm a bit unreasonable. That being said, I'm going to address what I think is the biggest and most appropriate of my pet peeves: screwing other people over by being lazy.

I'm not the best student. It's not all that uncommon for me to just blow off assignments because of stress or fail to study for a test because I'm worried about other things or to settle for a B when I could work a bit harder and pull off an A. I'm prone to doing things that only affect me in a half-assed manner. That's a personal flaw, and it's one that I can accept for myself.

What I can't tolerate is when people take that kind of attitude with any kind of work or project that affects other people. I had a lab group for first semester biology last year that did this. We would set deadlines for everyone to submit their portions, and no one else would adhere to them. I'd always be the one to compile the work, and there were multiple occasions where other people completely failed to prepare their sections, and I would have to redo them at the last minute. The result was usually a shoddy report that we ended up with grades in the 70s for. I got an 88.5% in that class, and about 80% of the grade was group work. I know that I would've had an A in that class if it weren't for that group, because I nailed everything that I did on my own.

I can't understand why anyone would ever screw other people over that badly. Even if the task at hand isn't particularly important to me, if it affects other people at all, then you can bet that I will put 110% in on it. If you agree to do a task that other people are depending on you for, then you should fucking do it. It's not complicated. It's just common courtesy. If you want to be the kind of person that does shoddy work, that's fine. If you're the only person being affected by your poor choices, then that's your business, but don't make that someone else's problem.

Wow, that was a lot more intense and rage-y than a breather week should be. Can't wait to see what John has to say tomorrow. Also, for anyone that didn't notice, we have a new regular contributor this week! Randi's gonna be an occasional contributor now, and the fantastic Laura has taken over for her.

Laziness (or maybe Ignorance)

My biggest pet peeve could be put under the umbrella concept of laziness. I like doing research; I don't like taking stances on topics because I think there is always more information out there that I could consume. If something is in front of you needs to be done, do it. Basically get your shit done, don't be ignorant and I will not be annoyed with you. Perhaps it is not even really laziness, but pure ignorance that bothers me. Or just not thinking about other people around you. Asshole drivers, family members that don't do things until you have to do them, people with opinions that are not well researched. I am a rather logical creature in real life (I amend with real life because games and fictional stories appeal to my emotional side), and I just wish people would take the time to actually try to observe and understand the world.

I like to think I am good at researching. If you can Google well the world is open to you. This post is brief because I really do not have much else to say. I have told you what bugs me. Really, I am a rather content being; very little pushes me to extreme annoyance. It really is ignorance/laziness along with the times that people's actions really bother me (although those are more like specific instances and therefore not really something I would describe under this topic). It is general because I never really like using specifics when talking about myself. I mean, it's general and I could rant on about more specific areas within it, but no, I do not feel like addressing that. So I shall leave it at that and wonder what it reveals to you. 

Week of 6/17 - Breather Topic: Things That Bug You

Hello Everyone!

This is going to be a short post, since the topic is kind of self-explanatory.  This week's topic is things that bug you.  I'm sure everyone has a huge list of things that drive them crazy!  They can be big things or small things, since there is probably a mix that bug everyone.  I definitely can't wait to hear about everyone's pet peeves this week.

Kathleen will start us off tomorrow, and I will come back on Saturday to finish the topic off.

Fundamental Attribution Error

In psychology, there is an effect known as the fundamental attribution error. It's basically the thing that makes it so when you almost miss your exit and have to cut a few people off to get to the right lane, you know it was because you had the worst morning and nothing went right and you were going through your presentation for work and didn't realize your exit was coming up.

If someone else does it, well they should've been better prepared. They have to know they aren't the only ones on the road. You can't believe they'd be so self-centered and just plain stupid.

Obviously, we understand that our environment can affect us. We may snap at a friend because of a bad day at school and a friend can understand that. But that random lady at the store who just death glared at you the entire time you were trying to do your job? She's definitely a bitch. We don't take into account that maybe her environment or situation has caused her to be that way. We attribute other people's actions solely to their disposition or choices.

And I think the criminal justice system makes that mistake a lot. If you live in a terrible neighborhood and have to steal to get by, being locked up for a few years won't change that. You're still poor. You still have no skills (except whatever you used to break into people's houses). Sure, jail sucked, but you were fed and had clothing and were taken care of medically. Jail isn't supposed to be pleasant but it can't be a torture camp. As such, I find it hard to believe that there aren't people out there who prefer jail to their life outside bars. That is not an effective punishment, and the second they're out, people have little reason not to just go back to what they were doing. Even if they don't want to go back to jail, the mindset doesn't become "Don't steal," just "Don't get caught."

The fact is that punishment rarely changes behavior in a lasting fashion. If you scream at your kids every time they get lower than an A or you catch them doing something you don't like, they will stop showing you their report cards and start hiding more from you. Sure, if you put them on a tight leash, they may not have the opportunity to do much, but what happens when you go on a business trip? You haven't changed their attitudes, just their behaviors.

In the United States in 1994, recidivism rates for various types of thievery ranged from 70-79% Nearly 4/5 of people who were arrested for vehicle theft are arrested again within 3 years. That's not just the majority, but the majority by far. That's terrible.

Oddly enough, the same study says that the lowest rate of recidivism came from the categories of rape and homicide, coming in at 2.5% and 1.3%, respectively. These are crimes that the majority of people, including many of my co-bloggers, believe should be punished most severely with the least amount of rehabilitation. And I, for the most part, agree. I believe the relatively low recidivism rate probably has more to do with the long sentencing involved in these types of crimes and the fact that the study only included 3 years.

The fact is that in many cases, particularly those related to theft or drugs, I believe the environment is the problem, and sticking a person in very, very expensive incarceration (It's about $30,000 a year to house a single inmate), just delays the problem resurfacing. I'm not saying the person had to turn to crime; that was obviously their choice, but if they made that choice based on factors that haven't changed, what do you think they're going to do? If it were as simple as "Oh, I guess stealing is bad, I'll get a real job and contribute to society!" do you think they'd wait until after they had a criminal record? That just makes it harder. Rehabilitation in this case would make it so the person has job skills and is ready to re-enter society but with a positive goal in mind. It aims to make it so crime is neither necessary nor desired.

Punishment is supposed to be a deterrent, but if someone isn't deterred from doing it in the first place, it seems like the fear of going back rarely has them changing their behaviors. The fact is that incarceration isn't about the criminals. Sure, sending someone to jail will make the reality of what that means far more clear, but the goal of punishment is deterrence, so if they've gotten to jail, incarceration has already failed. I really think in the vast majority of non-violent cases, the goal should be making the criminal into a person that can contribute to society.

Anyway, that wraps it up for this week. Tomorrow will contain our normal topic announcement and also a special announcement of another kind...

See you all then. :)

Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice

I'll start off my post for this week's topic concerning punishment vs. rehabilitation in the criminal justice system by saying that I'm all for rehabilitating those who can successfully be rehabilitated, but it's often hard to judge who those people are until after they have proven themselves otherwise.  As the old saying goes, "fool me once shame on you, but fool me twice..." you get the point.

I believe that in most first-time cases where mental illness is not a factor, punishment coupled with rehabilitation works as the best deterrent against crime.  I'm a big believer in having the criminal justice system grant second chances, especially to young people who tend to be the most apt to change when given the option of rehabilitation.  However, I recognize that this train of thought is all good and fine in a world that contains infinite resources, but it is very costly in both money and resources to properly undergo both processes.  Since the real world usually forces us to choose one option, I would have choose prioritizing punishment over rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.

My one hope in prioritizing this method in the criminal justice system is that the punishment itself is enough to get criminals' attention and prevent them and potential criminals from committing illegal acts.  However, with our current recidivism rates as high as they are, it seems like punishment itself is not working the way it should.  I'm not saying that we should, by any means, torture or mistreat criminals, but they must be punished for their crimes, and maybe what's going on in our criminal justice system isn't "punishment" enough to deter offenders, wether they be repeated offenders or first-time offenders.  My only problem with rehabilitation is that when our prisons focus on rehabilitating criminals, their time in prison doesn't feel like punishment.  If criminals don't feel as though they are being punished, what's there to prevent them from committing more crimes?  And while rehabilitation does work in some instances, it is simply too risky for our society to rely on rehabilitating all of its criminals instead of punishing them.  There are many people who can benefit from rehabilitation, but quite frankly, there are some people who cannot or will not be rehabilitated.  Unless rehabilitation is coupled with real punishment, I don't view it as a realistic priority for our criminal justice system.

To sum it all up, I think that a combination of punishment and rehabilitation is the best option for our criminal justice system.  Although I think that our criminal justice system needs to put an emphasis on punishment, I also believe that it is important that the opportunity for rehabilitation is available to those who can and will benefit from it.    

        



          

Off With Their Heads.

This week's topic isn't one that I'd previously put a lot of thought into, but as I'm formulating the basic outline for this entry, I'm starting to pull my viewpoint together.  Here we go.

I think that, depending on the severity of the crime, I favor punishment over rehabilitation.  It depends on the severity of the crime committed, and my thought process lends itself toward punishing both the lesser and greater offenses, while rehabilitating the people in the middle.  Let's examine a more petty crime that could be committed - first-offense shoplifting, for example.  If a person goes into a store and steals... well, let's keep it along my "typical" lines, and say that they steal a video game.  I honestly don't think there's an effective way to rehabilitate someone on why they shouldn't steal.  In this instance, I think that the most effective tool at preventing a repeat offense would be to impose a harsh punishment on the offender - most likely in the form of restitution, or a fine, or something along those lines.  The argument could be made that putting a financial strain on someone, in that situation, might actually lead to more theft, in order to cover the financial burden, and that's debatable - but I would hope that having first-hand knowledge of the potential punishment would create hesitation in the person's mind about ever doing it again.

Let's go a bit more severe, in terms of the crime committed - possibly a drunken driver.  This person gets intoxicated at a bar, and while driving home, causes a collision that kills someone.  What to do, in this case?  This is one of the instances where I believe I'd favor rehabilitation over punishment - one could make the argument that the person has already been punished, just by having to live with the knowledge that they were responsible for the death of another person.  I believe that rehabilitating the person in this scenario would prove more beneficial to both that person - it could be possible that the person had something important to contribute to society, and just needed help in battling their problems along the way.  I'd question, also, what kind of punishment would be suitable for this situation.  The most logical punishment would seem to be preventing the person from ever driving again, or, at least, restricting it in some fashion.  But would those restrictions be enforceable, or cost-effective?  The most common thing that I've heard of is an in-car breathalyzer that won't allow the car to start if the user is impaired by alcohol.  But it's not a fail-proof system, and the lower-end cost of such a system seems to be about a thousand dollars a year - that's a hefty bill for anyone to support, whether it be the government or the person needing it.  Rehabilitation seems like it'd have better long-term results, for less cost.

Finally, let's look at a fairly heinous crime - something like a premeditated killing spree.  Let's assume that a person walks into a public area and starts shooting everyone in sight.  There's a lot of death and panicking, and eventually the police arrive and manage to subdue the person before they can do anything like shoot themselves.  Is rehabilitation potentially worthwhile, in this case?  The case could be made that, depending on the person (and their psyche), they have a problem that could be "fixed".  My main concern with this logic, however, is that I don't think there's really a way you can ensure that any sort of rehabilitation would be long-lasting.  If the person just snapped one day, how can you ever really be sure that they won't snap again?  Is a potential repeat of such a terrible incident worth the belief in someone's potential to change?  How can you ever really be sure of the effectiveness of rehabilitation, anyway?  Do we really have the ability to know how much of a hold it has on people, or how much of it might be falsified?

The same thing happens every single time Mario is let loose, despite his rehabilitation...

I'm all for giving people second chances, but some acts are just so heinous and abhorrent that I feel it's more important to prevent the person from being able to commit such an act again.  In a case such as the one I described above, I'd lean most toward life (or, at least, a very long) incarceration of the person who committed the act.  I don't know that I'd have anything against trying to rehabilitate the person, but if that decision was made, it should be done during the course of their punishment, not as a replacement for such.

So, generally speaking, I think that punishments work better as motivating factors than rehabilitation does, generally speaking.  I do believe that rehabilitation has its place in the system, but that it needs to happen in conjunction with punishments, in most instances.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the viewpoints for this week.

For the Good of All of Us

Disclaimer: I know little to nothing about the criminal justice system beyond common knowledge type things. If there are any gross inaccuracies or oversimplifications or whatnot, I can try to address them in comments, but otherwise, I'm just gonna go at it with my very limited knowledge base.

Anyway, the way that I see it, this topic really comes down to one string of questions that gets at a single relevant point: what's the purpose of the criminal justice system, and by extension, government as a whole?

This is a philosophical question that has plagued those in charge of public policy forever, and I don't think we have anything remotely resembling a universally agreed upon answer. However, this is an opinion based blog, so I can use my own opinion as a basis for discussion, so here it is: the purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime. This seems pretty simplistic as a definition, but it really pulls attention to the key point in the struggle between the goals of rehabilitation and punishment, which is really, as Kathleen said, that it just depends on the case.

If someone gets a DUI or steals a million dollars from the government, then they might not actually be a horrible person, just a stupid person that made a stupid choice. Punishing these people is kind of useless. That won't prevent crimes, it'll just make them pissed off at the government. The proper response is to take measures to ensure that they won't commit crimes again, and that requires more than just throwing them in jail or taking away their license for a few years. Basically, in most cases, I believe that rehabilitation should be the primary goal.

However, and I'm going to make a rather huge assumption here that not everyone will agree with, there's still the problem of the fact that Evil (a term that I use specifically in reference to the DnD alignment) does exist in the world. Some people exist that are not going to be rehabilitated, and they're going to continue to cause death and destruction and what-have-you. This is not okay for the rights of the law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, for these people, I think the only currently plausible option is punishment. It's a sad idea, but the truth of the matter is really that sometimes it's the only option.

Well, that felt a little psychotic toward the end. I'm not sure that I actually made a clear point, so here's one now. Rehabilitation should be the primary goal, and if that doesn't work, then the government needs to do whatever is necessary to protect the rest of its citizens. John'll weigh in tomorrow. Until next week, make good choices, and don't embezzle tax money.

It Just Depends on the Case

I am not entirely ignorant of the American criminal justice system. I've had the "pleasure" of visiting a women's prison for one of my college classes. And yet, I cannot make a clear cut decision on whether I prefer rehabilitation to punishment when it comes to criminals. I mean, I know where I stand on things such as the death penalty (I'm against it), but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of how to treat our criminals, I am not a 100%.

When they are youths, I can easily say rehabilitation is the way to go. They are still young enough that perhaps they could change, that we shouldn't lock them up until are older and do not know how to deal with the world. In my opinion, they will probably just end up at they same place they left. So, the youth system should target not as much towards punishment but instead having them learn and become better human beings. Perhaps that is too optimistic, but I would not see it any other way.

What struck me when I visited the women's prison last fall was how much they tried to prepare them for when they left. They could have a job (which payed like less than a dollar an hour), or take classes, or even learn about being a hair stylist. They were being given skills to function in the outside world. I was very impressed by the woodworking they did, making cabinets and other furniture. Others were learning electronic printmaking, and actually made stuff for people outside of the prison to buy. There was separate cell area for the people who were to leave in like 6 months or less, and there were additional programs there, such as training difficult dogs, for them to participate. They were doing their time in jail but learning from it, and how to deal with them coming out on the other side.

I suppose that what I saw there is what I think is a good balance between punishment and rehabilitation, in which the facility probably leaned more towards rehabilitation than punishment. I just don't see the point of just locking criminals away without trying to help them at all and then expecting them to be able to function when we release them. I'm not surprised they would offend again.

And I feel like in some part the one of the ways to change the pattern of criminals is to change the people coming out of prison so they won't be able to influence the youth like that, but perhaps in a better way. I just think rehabilitation would have a better chance of creating a good cycle of change than the other options in the criminal justice system.

Now of course, I do not think we should go around rehabilitating everyone. There is a threshold, at some point you have to think this person will not change. But then, how do we judge that threshold. By length of prison sentence, by type of crime. And that comes in the issue that one size does not fit all, but not everything can cater to everyone. There has to be some sort of standard for how we treat are criminals. They are still criminals; they still did something wrong; they still have to be punished to some extent. And so here is where I struggle with it, and why while I was happy with what I saw at the prison I went to, besides the food, it almost seemed like it was a pretty good deal. Of course I didn't see any of the bad, none of the trouble, but it didn't seem like too bad of a place. But then again we shouldn't be trying to put our criminals in an inhumane environment either.

And of course, I am beginning to ramble. If you haven't figure out by now, I think there is probably a line between rehabilitation and punishment. People see that line in different directions. I think I see that line on how it is implemented in real life. Ideas are nice, but I would much rather see how they work in person than judge them on potential.

So, to sum it up the best I can. I lean more for rehabilitation because I do think people should be given the chance to better themselves and because I think it is better for society overall instead of releasing criminals out in the world who may not care about the punishment given them.

They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab (I said: I really can't afford that)

In the case of deciding what should be more prioritized: rehabilitation or punishment, I stand in the middle. While I believe that rehabilitating violent criminals is a very important thing to do, I also think that punishment for crimes is practically required to maintain order.

There are plenty of crimes and for each a punishment the government finds fit. We have these set rules for a reason. In the system we currently have, the threat of punishment is supposed to be enough to keep people from committing crimes. The downfall is: it’s just not enough. No matter how strict the laws are on punishments for a crime, there will always be people who commit it anyway. This is why punishment for crimes isn’t going to be the end all.

Now, rehab isn’t a way to fix this problem. That’s not the point of rehab. Rehab and punishment are extremely different and really they combat different problems. Punishment is a threat for those who are considering or planning to commit a crime. It’s supposed to hang over their heads and be a sign to the public that we don’t take things lightly. Rehab is something that we should be doing more of the help those who have committed these crimes.

Basically, the reason rehab is an important part of the justice system is that as a country we should care about the mental stability of our citizens, even the ones who have committed crimes. Not to mention the prevention of double offenders.

Many crimes are committed because of psychological issues that can stem from a number of places. A way of better understanding what causes people to do these crimes and therefore knowing ways to take preventive measures would stem from rehabilitation. If we could record information about prisoners while trying help criminals work their way back into a functional member of society is a win-win.

This, however, raises the issue of what our government can afford. Obviously, in today’s society, our government is far more concerned with the punishment side of this argument. And while I would love to have a solid argument for why rehab is more important, I don’t. It is important that we rehabilitate those who commit crimes, but I think the number one issue is getting people who are a threat to the public off the streets.

Not to mention, if we start treating criminals like we owe them the help, how are we showing the victim we are concerned for them? I think the line of how to best handle this is a very tangled one. On the one hand, you don’t want to treat a criminal as dirt. You want to try and help them and rehabilitate them back into a ‘normal’ person or someone who wouldn’t commit the crime again. But, if we focus more on the rehabilitation side and less on punishment for the crime, we’re probably going to offend a lot of victims who didn’t do anything to deserve whatever crime was committed against them.

Overall, I will say again, that the line for what’s right and wrong in this case is far from straight forward. I think they’re both things the government should focus on, but I’m not really sure how I can justify that economically. In the end, I think what we should do and what they can afford right now are insanely different.

Hopefully that stream of consciousness made sense to someone!

Can’t wait to hear what Kathleen has to say!

Week of 6/10 - Rehabilitation vs. Punishment in the Criminal Justice System

This week's topic is rehabilitation versus punishment in the criminal justice system. This is a multifaceted question because it affects so many things. Obviously, the goal is to reduce crime rate, but is the best way to do that by offering severe punishment as a deterrent? Or to provide effective rehabilitation to prevent recidivism?

If we prioritize punishment, are we telling criminals that they'll always be criminals?

If we prioritize rehabilitation, are we being soft on crime?

And in addition to the criminals themselves, how would the country's attitude toward crime affect victims of crimes, especially violent ones? In addition, which options are more expensive? What does the country currently have the money to fund?

The criminal justice system is very important to people of all walks of life because, whether we participate in it or not, crime exists and affects all of us. Many people would agree that the system in the United States needs to be fixed, and I'm interested to see what kind of opinions my fellow bloggers have on how to do that.

See you guys on Saturday!

I Just Want to Speak With a Real Person!

Although I've only taken one course online, my experience with online education has been unsatisfactory, to say the least.  During the last decade or so, the population of residents in my county has grown significantly, and the county's one high school has to educate more students with a far greater student to teacher ratio than ever before.  As a result, there are more students in every class, and the school doesn't have the physical space or monetary funds to hire more teachers.  By the time I reached my senior year of high school, I had taken every math course that the state tests required and the school was able to offer in classroom, and that's pretty sad considering that I'm not very mathematically inclined.  At this point, I didn't really have to take another math class, but the other course options during that class period were limited, so I ended up choosing to take statistics online for community college credit.  The only math options available were calculus and statistics, and there was no way that I would take a calculus class without a teacher in the classroom who could answer the many questions that were liable to come.

I'm usually a pretty upbeat person, so I'll start off by stating the positives of online education:
1) Pretty flexible.  I was able to take my statistics course in a computer lab during a class period in the school day, but I could pretty much do all of the electronic assignments like discussion board postings, quizzes and such whenever I wanted to, just as long as they were completed and sent in by the due date.  The only assignment I had to complete offline and during the class period were the tests, which were proctored.  I had my online class in the morning, so it was nice to be able to use that block of time to study for a class that had a test that day... or to finish reading the addictive Harry Potter series for the first time...  I'm more of an afternoon person than a morning person, so I ended up doing a lot of my work for that class at home after dinner when my mind was fully awake and functioning.
2) Options.  If online classes weren't offered, then many schools wouldn't be able to offer a great variety of courses to students.  Even though my online class was not the greatest, if I wasn't taking online statistics, then I would've had to take up a spot in an elective course, like cosmetology or auto shop, that I wasn't really interested in.  At least I was able to earn college credit for taking online statistics.

 Now that I've touched on the positives, I can move on to the numerous negative aspects of online education, which I feel can be summed up in this two word statement:
Minimal interaction.  I took my online class in a computer lab with a teacher to "babysit", and bunch of other students, each of whom were also taking online courses.  But, there were only three other people in the lab taking the same course I was, so if none of the four of us could figure out a concept, we would either have to wait until the end of the week to get help from the teacher after school, or one of us could email the teacher and hope that she answered the email before the period was over and we wasted an entire class stuck on one particular concept.  This was sometimes made difficult when one of us was absent or doing something else not class related (and by the middle of the semester, no one really did much work in class anyway unless someone couldn't figure out one of the concepts from the day before).  Everyone enrolled in the class at my high school was required to post and answer questions on a discussion board, which was largely unhelpful when it came to fostering interaction between teacher and students, which I gathered was the purpose of the exercise.  Everyone just seemed to be going through the motions so they could get their discussion board points.  Classroom interaction is such an important component of the entire learning experience.  Being able to ask live questions and get live examples is very important to me in a classroom environment, especially in a subject like math.
        
I mentioned earlier that my limited experience with online education left much to be desired.  Now that I've given credit where credit is due, I have to say that while online education has its merits, in my case it just didn't get the job done.  Yes, I walked away with college credit, but I don't feel like I walked away with the knowledge I should have gotten from an introductory statistics course.  While online education may be a better alternative in many situations, it rarely replaces the real classroom experience with constant interaction between peers and teachers.            

Error 500.

I'm fairly inexperienced with online education, in terms of personal experience, so this post will involve my (limited) first-hand experience with the online education system, followed by thoughts and such.

I've taken a grand total of one online class in my educational history.  It seemed like a fantastic idea at the time - I could work on stuff for the class in my bits of free time, at my own pace, with no class to slow me down.  One of my biggest problems in high school was that I learned at a much quicker pace than most of the other people - as they discussed the same things over and over, I grew bored, and things went downhill from there.  But in the online setting, I thought, I could proceed at my own pace, and things would be awesome.

What happened?  I'm sure just about anyone can guess.  I procrastinated, and forgot about the class, and ended up pulling an all-nighter the night before everything was due just to complete the assignments.  I had to race through them, speed-reading to try and grasp the concepts that I'd need for the quizzes and such.  I passed the class with an A (don't ask me how), but that entire experience did a great job of showing me that I wasn't ready for online classes.  By their very nature, they require a lot of self-motivation and efficient time management, and those were two areas in which I was lacking.

Granted, that was years ago - I know that I've gotten a lot better with both time management and self-motivation (well... maybe not so much, with the latter).  But would online classes be a good idea for me?  I don't know.  I'm really not sure whether I learn better from reading or from interpersonal interactions.  One of the key components of any online course is the lack of interaction with other people, so that restricts people who require that sort of thing pretty severely.  As Kelsey mentioned earlier in the week, the (potential) lack of feedback can be both infuriating and crippling.  I don't mind doing something "wrong", as long as I can have my mistake(s) explained to me, so that I won't make them again.  This isn't something that you'll always get with online courses - it really feels like you're expected to somehow know what you did wrong and fix it yourself.  This seems terribly inefficient and... well, stupid.

But for my concerns, I can't dismiss the idea of online classes entirely as a plausible option for myself, or other people.  I'm getting ready to start taking classes again, and I have absolutely no idea how that's going to work out.  Taking online classes would make my schedule a lot more flexible, as long as I motivated myself to set aside an appropriate amount of time for my schoolwork.  It's about 13 miles from my house to where I'd be taking classes, about 11 miles from there to where I'd (likely) be working, and about 23 miles from there back to my house.  On any given day that I both had classes and worked, online classes would cut a third of my commute distance off.  Assuming a minimum of three class days a week, that would quickly prove beneficial.

I really don't know for sure if online classes would work for me.  I do think that they're geared towards a very specific type of student, as has been discussed, and I think that they'll become more and more common as time goes on.  For the sake of our future, though, I hope they don't become the only option available.

I Wish I'd Taken Chemistry in High School

The way that online classes are typically handled is... well, abysmal at best. Requiring a discussion post and replying to X number of classmates on each topic isn't going to get you anywhere near simulating an actual classroom environment. Personally, I think that the problems with the format lie in the fact that most instructors don't really know what to do with it, so they try to approximate a traditional classroom to the best of their ability.

An excellent example of online classes being executed poorly would be... well, every online class that I've ever taken. Most recently, I took a Teaching English Language Learners class online. It followed the same model that every online class I'd taken before then. Read a set of class notes each week, read an article or two, write a reflection, comment on three other people by the end of the week. There were also a few projects thrown in here and there, but this was the bulk of the class. Then the midterm came, and I failed it rather miserably. Why? Because this was not an effective method of learning. There was no actual teaching occurring, and it was too easy to just skate by without actually retaining any information.

However, I don't think that all hope is lost for the prospects of online education. There are a few factors that need to be properly addressed before it can be a valid method, though.

1) Subjects. Online education is just flat out inappropriate for some subjects. The most immediate example that comes to mind would be languages. Some subjects just need that face to face interaction and communication with an entire class that you could simulate with video chatting, but at that point, why bother?

2) Content delivery. Most online classes that I've seen provide content in a way that's simple for the teacher to produce, simple for the student to access, and just... too ineffective. Simple word documents aren't good enough. Content needs to be delivered in an effective manner that can address multiple learning styles, and it needs to do it in a way that only online education can do. Personally, I like the idea of interactive flash-game-type-contraptions that show how things work with a written and spoken explanation, along with questions as students work through it, with explanations for what they may have done wrong provided if they get the wrong answer.

However, the best uses of online education come not through fully online classes, but classes taught in person that are heavily supplemented through online tools. Now, any college student today has used Blackboard or Desire2Learn, and most instructors usually post grades and the occasional handout from class, but what I'm talking about is when it serves a purpose that either can't be served in person or can be served so much more effectively online.

The most prominent example is submitting assignments. Submitting papers and such through an online service of some sort eliminates most of the issues with losing homework between printing it and getting it to class, and it allows the instructor to provide feedback and engage in discussion over the assignment outside of regular class time.

Another example that works particularly well is posting notes online. Now, a lot of people are opposed to this because it encourages laziness, but providing the slides and allowing students to print them and take notes on important points from the lecture is kind of the best thing ever for a student. It allows for having all of the straightforward bits already available and encourages actually paying attention in class instead of just trying to rapidly copy down every word from the slides.

All things considered, online education will never completely replace traditional classes, but it will play a huge role going forward. The availability of online classes for those with limited schedules will increase, and as time passes, the methods of running these classes will become more effective through trial and error, and online components will become necessary at all levels to supplement the traditional classroom environment, all in the name of making the content more accessible to as many people as possible. John will be offering his views tomorrow, and then Pendleton will be wrapping up the week on Saturday.

Educating Online

Personally, I see a lot of potential in online education, although it is not yet where it could be. I do have experience with online education - I took a couple of online classes during high school, so I have some idea how such education works.

My first thought towards online education was the easy one - how it could be used to further education in America, but I would rather focus on the potential in other areas, such as underdeveloped and under-educated countries. Especially in rural areas, where it may be harder to have access to in person education. So I see it as an great asset for undeveloped rural poor countries, and for adult education in others, both developed and underdeveloped.

Of course, I would not argue that we should just give kids laptops and give then access to online education and have them start learning in these developing countries. I think there is more work involved in getting the education set in place in such locations than actually developing an online educational system. Especially when there is a large education gap, especially in adults, I think online education will probably be the way to go in catching up. As with the topic on education reforms, I believe there are already enough wheels turning with online education that people are developing ways to make it an even more effective tool for learning.

In developed countries, I think online education is most useful in adult education. At that point most adults are working, probably have families that they have to support and night classes have been really their only option so far. But with online education, they can learn at home or in the evening and do not have to go anywhere except for tests and such. There are already colleges like Phoenix University that cater to such an age group.

Though, with personal experience, I do accept the criticisms of online education. Some people learn better in a classroom setting, and I personally would never take a class that was critical to my degree online. I see potential for the form of education, but currently I do not think it teaches as well as a traditional classroom setting. I think it is most useful when combined with in class learning, used as an extension but not that only thing. But I think with the growth of technology, online education will become even more viable in the real world.

Uneducated

This topic is going to be a bit difficult for me for two reasons: I’ve never had experience with online education personally and I don’t know much about how it works outside my area.

I will say this: I’m not very fond of it as a theory. I mean, the idea of having the ability to do things on a more flexible schedule in the comfort of my home is nice. But, when you get down to it, there are just too many cons. (I am doing this from what I know of the way online education works on the high school level.)

I think a large amount of the learning process (as Kelsey mentioned) is the relationship you can have with your teacher. If you have a problem understanding then you can talk it through and work on it. The only way you can get through it online is practice in a way that maybe you aren’t particularly good at learning in. While I understand that there are actual teachers, I don’t think they’re very effective because explaining a problem is a lot easier to do in person. Just like explaining the solution is.

I have met people who learn in every different way you can think of. I think that online learning restricts you because it makes you learn primarily through text or video/graphics. But I know a lot of people who are hands on learners who need real life examples or something tangible to learn better. These students would be hindered in an online environment.

I don’t have any personal experiences with online education and therefore I think going into depth about this topic would be misinformed. So, I would love to open this up for discussion and know everyone else’s opinions on the matter.

Sorry for the third week of mediocre posting, hopefully I can respond to comments and make up for it. Can’t wait for Kathleen’s opinion on the matter tomorrow!

"A bit" might be understating it

Hey guys, so I'm starting off this week of online education and I feel compelled to make one thing very clear: I'm going to be a bit biased. I like online education for a lot of reasons in theory, but in practice, it's always managed to injure me somehow.

Case 1: I failed English freshman year of high school and had to take it during the summer. I took it online and was totally unable to go on choir tour because this online class had in-person exams that had to be done in a very strict timeframe. I understand the reasoning behind making sure the person taking the class is the person who's getting credit for it, but this is still stupid. High school English is stupid.

Case 2: Despite what that last paragraph implied, I actually get really good grades. I completed my AS in Computer Science with a 3.8 and had a 4.0 at my previous university. That said, the lowest grade I've ever gotten in a college class was online. Usually, when a teacher assigns readings, I blow them off. They don't really expect you to know it, they just expect you to have a base knowledge so you'll know what they're talking about when they go over it in class. I pick up things pretty quickly so I don't bother. I listen and I pay attention and I absorb information and I learn. For this class, there were obviously no lectures, just reading assignments, so I did them. I read that entire textbook basically from start to finish, and not even just skimming it. I discussed it with friends. I took notes. I wrote papers. I did the assignments. I put up with a group project. I studied.

And I got a C. I've gotten poor grades before in classes (poor like Bs) because I didn't do the work, but it worked well in college because exams were usually weighted higher and I did well on those. But this class? I did the work, but according to the statistics she sent out, I was in the 25th percentile of exam grades. It wasn't that the class was hard, it was that I sucked at it. Keep in mind that this is a psychology class and psych is one of my favorite subjects. It's not like I had a hard time understanding the material; it's not like I didn't do the work; it's not like it was an objectively hard class; I just did terribly.

And my only explanation for that is that the class was online, and I think that highlights a few major flaws with the idea.

1) The lack of teacher-student feedback. Now, I've had online classes (I took 3 last semester) where the professor gave thorough feedback on everything I turned in, or at least everything where points were taken off, but more often than not, that's not the case. In another class I took last semester, I got literally no feedback on anything. I did the assignments on my own time; they were graded at some point in the future; and my grade was literally my only feedback. B+.

Why was it not an A? I don't know. I don't know what I did wrong or what I could've done to fix it. Now, this isn't a problem so much innately with the system as with the professors but the main problem is that even if they give feedback, I have to seek it out. I have to go back to my assignments and stalk them every day until they're graded and hope there are comments there. This makes actually figuring out what the professor wants and improving on it a much more difficult task, especially when...

2) The assignments tend to be all the same. This is definitely a limitation of online software. If you have students in a room together, you can do all sorts of activities. Show a movie; play a game; draw pictures; call on students to explain; have people ask questions; put people in small groups; make a diorama; pretty much anything.

Online? Your choices are mostly read this article; read the textbook; watch this video; write a paper; take a quiz; or complete a worksheet. I've also been asked to listen to music clips but that was a music class and not really relevant in a broad sense. And this is the problem, because if you don't know how to write a paper like your professor wants, she can't write in the margins revising notes. You just get 15/20 and have no idea why. And then you get 15/20 for every other assignment because they're all essays. But I know the main problem, at least for me, is that...

3) There is no room for incorporating other learning styles. When I first signed up for online classes, I had to complete some sort of online course readiness test that asked me about a bunch of relevant things. It asked me about my computer skills, my typing speed, my reading speed, my computer specs, my work-ethic, my degree of self-motivation, etc. You know what it really didn't ask me? If I learn well in a text-only environment. Yes, it was sort of my bad to pick 3 online classes in a semester when I hadn't taken one before, but all signs pointed to "Ooh, I'm self-motivated and love setting schedules for myself. I'll be the best online student ever!"

And that just wasn't true. Like I sort of mentioned before, I work really well in a format that involves discussion. I talk through things to understand them (which I tried to do by commenting on the textbook to my friends), but that dialogue between professor and student is really important to my learning. Without having a single lecture or, honestly, a single word actually written by the professor for the class (All of those powerpoints had different people's names on them...), you might as well have just given me the textbook and the final exam. That is not how I learn. I tried. I really tried, but consistently, my exam grades were lower in my online classes than they've ever been via traditional methods.Not to mention, I don't really remember anything of what I learned. I mean, I didn't know it then, so there's no reason I'd know it now, but isn't that sort of a problem? Honestly, I really think that's because in person, you can incorporate all sorts of different learning styles, but online, unless you're doing video conferencing, there's really only one. And the idea of video conferencing leads me to my next point:

4) Setting up a universal schedule is impossible, or at least highly inconvenient. Some of the main reasons people take online classes is because they work during the day or they travel between two homes or they have children, which sums up to one thing: their schedules are severely limited and they need something flexible to work around it. This means a few things. First, it's really hard to coordinate for a group project. Second, you can't set exam dates that aren't windows and you certainly can't set a location. Maybe they don't think this is a problem for high schoolers taking freshman English, but I could have been busy (and would have been). The same system is in place for seniors who might have jobs or siblings they need to take care of. I've had professors say all assignments are due Sunday night only to assign something due Friday that I never looked at because I was busy during the week. This lack of touching base is something that's hard to work around. It's hard to say things and not know when people are going to check it, which is why it's an even bigger problem that...

5) Some professors still aren't accessible. Again, this is a problem with the professor and not the concept, but it's still something I've run into. One professor in particular comes to mind as being completely inaccessible 3/7 days of the week. Specifically, Friday-Sunday, aka "The time everyone is done doing their weekday stuff and has time to work on online classes." Again, with flexible schedules, obviously some people were working before then, but I think the amount of people who do most of their work for online classes during the weekend comprises the majority. This is one thing if you have physical classes where you see students every other day and are always available at some time convenient for both of you (i.e., during class), but online? You need to be available. Obviously, no one expects a response within 10 minutes (and you shouldn't be asking questions about your assignments that soon before they're due), but you can't block off 3 days where people need you the most.

A lot of these gripes and examples are personal, and I hope they aren't all universal, but I think it does say something about online education: the way it's being implemented presently falls short of what a traditional classroom can offer. Traditional classrooms give you varied assignments and teaching styles along with an actual relationship with your professor. You can ask your professor a question and get immediate feedback that can incorporate drawings and other media and doesn't rely on text alone. You can interact with other students in a way that can actually help your education (e.g., "Wait, so we're doing what on this assignment?") rather than only because you were assigned a group project and you have to talk to these people whose names you won't remember next week. Online education can be an option but I really don't think it's the best way to retain the most information. It's just too limited as it exists now.

Week of 6/3- Online Education

Hey y'all.  For this week, we're discussing online education.  In the past few years, many schools have begun to offer students the option of taking approved courses online for credit.  People have many different reasons for taking online classes.  Sometimes these courses are taken outside of regular school hours on the student's own time, and sometimes they are taken during school in the library or computer lab in place of a regular class period.  Many home-schoolers also rely on online education for some of their studies.  In addition, online education is also utilized by a number of U.S. undergraduate and graduate degree programs.  I've found that many people have differing experiences with online education ranging from terrific to terrible, so it'll be interesting to hear about everyone's experiences and how those experiences have shaped our opinions about online education.
Kelsey will be posting on Monday, and I'll finish up this week's topic on Saturday.
Thanks for reading!
   

          

Sensitivity Level: Maximum

The level of concern that individual people maintain about the existence of violence rarely ceases to amaze me.  I'm in a position where I can observe other people's thoughts and beliefs on a near-daily basis, and the disparity in people's opinions and thoughts can be jarring, at times.  Much like Kelsey's post earlier in the week, my entry is going to focus primarily on video games, because... well, because that's what I know best.

One of the most common things I hear from parents is that they don't want their child to play a game with violence in it.  This kind of request is, by far, the hardest for me to deal with, simply because it's almost impossible to fulfill while making everyone involved happy.  I've lost count of the number of times that I've wanted to enter into a discussion with the parent, if for no other reason than to explain to them that their view on the subject is too broad, and needs specific definition.  The below picture is one of the best examples that I can give anyone.

You don't -actually- get extra lives for killing stuff.  Usually.

Violence is something that exists, in some shape or form, in the vast majority of entertainment-based media that is available today.  From Call of Duty (where you kill people to save the world), to Star Wars (where you kill people to save the galaxy), to Mario (where you kill turtles and other things to save a girl that may or may not be into you) - there's violence everywhere.  You could draw the distinction between games like those and non-lethal violence (say, Pokemon, where the worst that happens is that your Pokemon faints) - but is that really enough of a difference to be consequential?  My basic thoughts on the matter are that violence is something that exists within our everyday life, and I don't think trying to keep people completely sheltered from it is a good idea.

So wait, John, you say.  Are you advocating that people let their kids play whatever they want, do whatever they want, and run rampant, because they're going to be exposed to violence anyway?  No, not at all.  I believe that it's the responsibility of parents and guardians to teach children the difference between real life and a fantasy world (of any kind).  I can speak, personally, from the viewpoint of someone who was raised without any restrictions on the content of things I was exposed to.  One of my earliest memories is of watching the movie Basic Instinct (which is rated R, and very much deservedly so) with my family when I was young.  The experience of watching people get killed didn't desensitize me to the concept - if anything, it helped to ingrain the idea that reckless violence was a terrible thing that I should never do.  Playing "Cowboys and Indians" with my sister when I was little didn't teach me that I should become a genocidal maniac.  ... I don't think it taught me anything, actually, which still doesn't hurt my point.  I don't believe that media on its own is powerful enough to directly influence most of the population.  I believe that the environment people are in, combined with personal experiences, do most of that.  I've seen a lot of parents smack their kids around in the store (or, in some cases, right after they leave the store), and that seems a lot more likely to influence behaviors and thinking than games, in my opinion.

At my previous work location, I had a customer who would come in regularly (at least once a week) with her son to find a game to play.  I spent enough time at that location that I watched the kid grow from a young child to a preteen.  The mom was fantastic about asking questions about the different games - more specifically, about the content within.  One of the concessions that she made early on was to allow him to get the game Halo.  This is typically one of the first barriers that comes down for parents, mostly because in Halo, you're killing aliens.  Which is, apparently, much more acceptable than killing humans.  ... Seems a bit   speciesest to me, but I digress.  Playing Halo didn't change the kid into some monstrous killing machine - he seemed to really enjoy the experience of it, particularly since he could do it with his mom.  Some time later, the two of them got one of the Call of Duty games, hoping for a similar experience.  The kid brought it back that night, and I couldn't help but smile at his reasoning for doing so.

"You have to kill people in this, and that just really makes me sad, because I don't think they're bad people."

This kid, who couldn't have been more than ten years old, was able to recognize that he wasn't emotionally ready to play a war game involving humans.  To me, this is the best indication that the kid is being raised properly (in the area of our discussion, at least).  He hadn't become desensitized to violence - if anything, he seemed to be more aware to the content in the games, and how it affected him.  I've helped a few other kids like this since him, but sadly, they're not as prevalent as I'd hope.

This has turned into a fairly long post, so I'm gonna start wrapping it up - but before I do, I feel the need to point out two other mediums that are violence-heavy, yet more socially acceptable.  I grew up on cartoons, and nearly every single one of them involved violence of some sort.  Even things like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry feature violence more often than not (heck, one side of the Looney Tunes focuses on a coyote trying, eternally, to kill a bird).  But because they're cartoons, I think, there's less worry there about it influencing kids to do things in real life.  I mean, when's the last time you saw someone try to drop an anvil on a bird?

Poor Wile E. Coyote.  He can't win.

Finally, there's been an entertainment medium around for a long time that's naturally violence-heavy.  It's marketed to all ages, and often deals with issues that are rooted in everyday life.  I'm referring to comic books, of course.  The first issue of Action Comics was published in 1938, and it featured the debut of a character named Superman.  A year later, a different publication debuted the character that would eventually be known as Batman.  More and more comic book heroes have shown up through the years, and they've always served as role models, of sorts, for kids.  But they all have to combat the villains with... violence.  Some heroes are more deeply rooted in it than others (I'm looking at you here, Batman), but it exists in nearly every comic out there - after all, one of the key elements to a good story is conflict.  But there's a lightheartedness around comic book violence that somehow removes it from being too influential to kids - I've never heard of someone being desensitized to violence from reading too many comic books.

I think I veered off-topic a few times in my post, but my basic point is that violence, by itself, is so ingrained into almost everything we do that I don't believe it holds enough power to influence people.  I think that the prevalence of violence almost serves to dilute it as an influence for most people - and, as stated, I think that the environment people are in plays a much larger role in shaping who they become.  There may be some level of desensitization that occurs from near-constant exposure to violence, but I don't think that it can reach a harmful level by itself.  In my opinion, there have to be some other external factors.

Thanks for reading through this - hopefully it wasn't too random.  Please feel free (nay, encouraged) to leave any relevant comments - feedback, questions, it's all welcomed.  We'll have a new topic announcement tomorrow, and I'll post for you all again next week.