Essay #6: Teachers, students, and the responsibility of educating and getting an education

30 minutes

Students are more responsible for their education that their teachers.

There are students of all ages.  Adult students certainly have a responsibility to educate themselves.  However, students in grades 1 – 12 are minors.  As minors, they do not have the same responsibilities as adults, indeed, when children enter kindergarten, they are not expected to be responsible for too many things, much less their education.

Teachers, on the other hand, are paid to educate.  They follow a curriculum, policy, and procedures set by the state, or by private institutions, and their goal is to facilitate learning.  They cannot force students to learn, but it is the expectation that teachers use techniques to present information that enable the students to understand and learn.

Taxpayers and parents paying tuition are paying learning institutions to provide an education.  Just as we pay for services such as law enforcement, health services, or infrastructure work, and we expect the staff involved in those areas to bear responsibilities, we pay for teachers in schools and expect them to carry out a job.

A class of 4-yr-olds is not expected to sit and learn material all day, but students who are older are asked to work much harder at school.  Children don’t usually get to decide the school they will attend, or the teachers they have, however, they can understand the general concept of education and they understand that society places a value on getting an education, even if they personally do not share that value.  It is the responsibility of parents to prepare their children to be successful adults and one of the 

Essay #5: Understanding a culture through its "foodways"

Studying foodways – what foods people eat and how they produce, acquire, prepare, and consume them – is the best way to gain deep understanding of a culture.

Researching the culture of a people involves learning as much as possible about that people.  Food procurement, preparation, and consumption would be important topics to examine, but a focus on food is not the best way to gain insight into a culture.

When anthropologists make a study of a culture they examine the behavior of the people in that culture and they study items such as beliefs, customs, relationships, economy, politics, and art.  By examining these at length, anthropologists can begin to comprehend the culture, but it is debatable how much study is needed for a “deep understanding” of that culture, or if true understanding of another culture is even possible. Franz Boaz, a pioneer of modern anthropology, introduced cultural relativism: the idea that people observing another culture will always see it through the lens of their own culture, and will judge it based on the norms with which they are familiar.  To overcome this bias, anthropologists sometimes live and interact with the people of a culture over an extended period of time.  Participation in obtaining, preparing and eating food helps to understand the culture, but it would only make up a part of all the behavioral patterns of the culture.

An anthropologist would have difficulty using food practices as a basis to understanding a culture because two distinct societies living in the same geographical area might have similar food because of the plants and animals that are available.  Furthermore, circumstances such as drought, blight, or many environmental factors might alter the availability of certain foods during the period of time that the anthropologist is living in the culture. Compared to food availability, it is less likely that the language, social customs, and relationships will vary in the short term.  That is why it would invaluable to study all aspects of the culture in depth.

The culture of a people is made up of a large number of behaviors.  All of these must be observed and sometimes participated in to understand a culture.  Anthropologists would use the study of food procurement, preparation, and consumption to gain insight into a culture, but would give equal or greater importance to items such as language, customs, and societal roles.

Essay #4: The perceived greatness of politicians

Completed in: ~ 1 hour

The perceived greatness of any political leader has more to do with the challenges faced by the leader than with any of his or her inherent skills and abilities.

Perception is everything in politics. Politicians are painfully aware that their education, record, and proven abilities, can have little to do with how they are perceived by the public.  Instead, they are judged by how they deal with conflicts, and by the ultimate result of those conflicts.

President Abraham Lincoln would not be considered one of the greatest presidents, if not the greatest president, if the Civil War had not occurred.  His skills and abilities before the war are not well known, except to historians, but he is celebrated for being president during a terrible conflict that ended in victory for the Union. He is tremendously admired for this despite his error in judgement concerning General McClellan; an error which cost the North a victory that could have ended the war early and saved thousands of lives.  President Lincoln is considered by many have been an even greater leader than President Thomas Jefferson, a man who arguably had more education, knowledge, worldliness, and ingenuity.

Victory in a conflict is also optimal if a politician is going to be considered great. If the Allied Forces had lost WWII, Prime Minister Winston Churchill would not have been so highly esteemed.  A victory in the war in Vietnam would have made the public view President Lyndon Johnson more favorably, as would have a victory in the Korean War for President Harry Truman.  President Truman is rarely given credit for preventing a third world war.

The public judges politicians depending on the difficulties they face while in office. If those politicians succeed in overcoming challenges, the public holds them in high regards, however, if they are perceived to fail, they are not viewed as great leaders. Rarely is a politician considered great even if he or she has incredible aptitude and experience.

Essay #3 (Complete): Technology and the ability to think for ourselves

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

Humans certainly depend on technology.  We designed it to help us do things faster, more easily, and more accurately.  If it were to suddenly disappear we would be at a great loss and we would need to learn or re-learn certain skills, however, this does not mean that our use of technology has made us less able to learn, to think, to reason, or to innovate.  We can imagine future scenarios in which “intelligent,” autonomous technology makes our decisions for us, but evolutionary history has shown that our success is due to the human brain’s capacity to think independently.

Early humans had very basic problems: food, shelter and clothing. Gradually, as humans formed communities and began to farm, these basic problems were less time-consuming and humans had more time to work on other tasks or for leisure.  By relying on technology to accomplish time-consuming tasks we are becoming more efficient. Our skills are changing, but our capacity to learn is not.  In the next few decades we will have self-driving cars.  Losing our ability to drive is not the same as losing our ability to think.  It simply means that all the drivers who become passengers will be free to do other activities during the time they would have been driving.

Science fiction books and films depict numerous scenarios in which technology gains control of human will.  These fictional scenarios are not positive, even when humans give up their freedom of choice willingly.  This is because humans are innately curious, inventive, and in varying degrees, independent thinkers.  If technology existed that could do all the thinking, decisionmaking, and problem solving for humans, and this gave some people an evolutionary advantage over the independent thinkers, then there truly would be a loss or deterioration of the human ability to think for oneself. 

Humans presently depend on technology to do our tasks more easily, accurately, and efficiently. The skills of an individual who uses technology will differ from those of someone who does not. However, the two share the same capacity learn and to think independently. Until we create a technology that makes it evolutionarily advantageous to do no thinking for ourselves, we will all continue to be creative, able, and intelligent individuals.

Essay #3 Technology and the ability to think for ourselves

Completed in: 30 minutes

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

We created technology to help us solve problems. The areas in which we benefit from technology are vast and at the same time technology creates new problems. We are, in reality, becoming increasingly better at thinking for ourselves.  Today, we have to think for ourselves to solve different problems that we did pre-technology.

There are numerous reasons we depend on technology.  It helps us do things faster, more easily, and more accurately. It is a tool, but not a thinking tool. Part of our ability to think for ourselves is the ability to reason and to make decisions.  Technology cannot do this for us.

Essay #2: True beauty

Completed in: ~3 evenings

True beauty is not found in the exceptional but in the commonplace.

The quote implies that beauty can be measured and that there is “true” beauty and beauty that is untrue.  It also implies that those who ascribe beauty only to things seen infrequently, are missing out on beauty in what surrounds us on a daily basis. However, beauty, of the true or untrue kind, cannot be measured.  Furthermore what is exceptional for one person may be commonplace for another and vice versa.  The author’s intent may be to persuade the reader to search for aesthetic value in everyday surroundings but whether he or she will find beauty cannot be predicted, as there is nothing in either the exceptional or the commonplace with inherent beauty.

Beauty can be defined as a quality that is attractive and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.  Our eyes respond to many stimuli including light, color, form, and movement.  A colorful sunset, fireworks, a rushing waterfall, or an orchid are examples of items considered by many to be beautiful.  But it is not hard to imagine circumstances where someone could feel blasé upon seeing these, or even find items such as these displeasing to the eye.  The reason may have something to do with familiarity (once you’ve seen a beautiful sunset you’ve seen them all), but it has much more to do with upbringing, learning, and experience. Parents point out what they think is beautiful to their children, just as they point out what they find unattractive.  Fortunately, it’s generally agreed upon that beauty and attractiveness is a matter of opinion and if a person wants to expound on the splendor of the mundane and ordinary he or she is certain to find others with similar tastes.

True beauty as such does not exist.  Each person has a unique perception of what constitutes beauty.  People find a wide variety of things pleasing to look at; some of them find beauty in their everyday surroundings and others only rarely. An oft-repeated quote which accurately describes our attitude in this respect is “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Essay #1: Publicly funded research

Completed in: ~ 5 hours

"All results of publicly funded scientific studies should be made available to the general public free of charge. Scientific journals that charge a subscription or newsstand price are profiting unfairly."

The general public should have, and does have, free access to the results of publicly funded scientific research. The journals that currently publish these results and charge for their content are not profiting unfairly. The public has other means of accessing research results at little or no cost.

The general public has a right to know how all public money is spent, including money for scientific research. The information on government spending is available on government websites.  Access to the internet is free of charge at public libraries. A member of the public will need to devote time and energy to locating results of specific scientific studies that he/she may be interested in, and in addition, the results may not be readily understandable to someone without a scientific background. For this reason, it is more efficient for the public to receive information through media outlets.

Scientific journals publish a variety of content. The content may include results of government funded studies as well as results of privately funded studies. Like any publication business, scientific journals need to cover the costs of staff salaries, materials, circulation, etc. Charging a subscription or newsstand price confers value and quality to the publication.  A scientific publication paid for by the government and freely distributed would not be viewed by the public as having value.  It would be costly to the government, whereas private businesses have the incentive to make tailor their product to what readers want, which could include illustrations, interpretations of the study results, competing viewpoints, and other content.  There are journals aimed towards a spectrum of readership, including scientists and laymen. By paying the subscription or newsstand price readers provide an incentive for the publication to create a good product.

Today there are a variety of ways for the public to find results of scientific research paid for by the government.  Federal websites provide information on how much is spent on scientific research and which agencies or scientific institutions are carrying out the work. Those agencies in turn, are required to be transparent about whether their research is funded by the government. The general public has free access to these research results. Scientific journals who include these results and charge for content and not abusing the public, but rather presenting information, as all publications do, in a way that results in the optimum sales figures. The journals have the incentive to present all scientific study results, regardless of how the research is funded, in the optimal way for their targeted readership.