blog 10

Diversity, Women and Inequality

The Pernicious effect… it makes perfect sense. The rich lack morals, you may try to deny this but it is true. Many wealthy individuals will do whatever it takes to stay wealthy and turn their head to actions that may be questionable. In order to fix this problem of morality we must bring our class gap closer together. This will bring down the wealthy people and set them at a level closer to the middle class where they must practice morals in order to get by. 

Property, a common thought associated with wealth. What if women counted as property? I mean that’s basically what a trophy wife is. Women in this past society had so many restrictions on what they could do. In order to be considered an adequate woman they needed to cater to their man’s needs. The “unnatural distinction” caused women to behave ignorant, during this time it was the best thing a girl could do. By just going with whatever they were told they were in a disgusting way better respected.  

According to Kozol schools extremely lack diversity, diversity indicates a mixture of different races, genders and ethnic backgrounds. Kozol believes that the schools that claim they are diverse are just segregated. You don’t usually see an Asian, African American and Indian all sitting at one lunch table. My definition of diverse is having all different types of people within a given area. Many Africans are considered miss-educated according to Woodson. They are taught to basically hate their own culture and believe that the white way is correct. Woodson believes that the best educated Africans are the uneducated or self-taught because they actually can think for themselves. 

Alternate Education Methods

                                

       Montessori and Dewey are both individuals who created alternative methods to education. Both of them believe that each individual has specific needs which should direct their education. Also the teacher must guide the students through their educational journey.

            Montessori had a basic scientific pedagogy for her method of education, freedom was essential. Students needed to be free to explore, by exploring different objects and problems students would learn how to figure things out on their own. She didn’t believe that schooling needed to be like slavery, children should be comfortable in school and able to move furniture to suit their needs. Stationary furniture can limit freedom while movable furniture encourages engagement with the rest of the people in the classroom. Pupils must be free, without freedom in the class room children will be discouraged to learn and experiment. By allowing students to have more choices they will be able to learn in ways that they want and be able to encounter multiple problems they must solve.

            Dewey had an even more freedom based method, he believed children should be able to do what they want with what they had. He often used the phrase “thinking in education,” which is a process where children participate in a series of activities which provides them with skills to solve problems. The conditions required in a Dewey based classroom are as follows, there needs to be several objects that the kids can experiment with and the teacher needs to allow for multiple hands on experiences. Dewey believes the best process of education is experience, knowledge and then putting these two together to solve a problem. 

Montessori Video

Dewey Video

blog 8

Agriculture vs. Manufacturing

In the mid 1700’s Adam Smith compiled a book which discusses the economic system of England at that time. He examines how manufactures depend on farmers and how trade between towns is superior to trade between nations. The importance of ownership of land is also a big part of the, Of the Natural Progress of Opulence, section of his novel. Smith believes that with owning land the individual has more control of his wealth, the land owner is the first individual to the completion of a final product so therefore he not only controls his wealth but that of the community, with no wood grown on the property owner’s land then there will be no furniture produced by the wood craftsmen.  

I believe that during Smith’s time, his recordings were an accurate representation of what it took for a nation to become prosperous. In our current economy I think farmers play less of a role, technology producing companies seem to fill one of the larger segments in our nation’s trade. Big business owners seem to be the ones that proper over the farmers. Land has lost its value in today’s world. Wealthy individuals seem to want to invest their money into steady stocks of big businesses and education. They want to ensure they will be benefiting from where they place their money and land does not fulfill this obligation.

In regards to Smith’s statement, “According to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce,” I disagree with the first part but in total compliance with the last part. I think manufacturing has overcome agriculture in importance, more money can be produced for the nation through fabricating goods rather than growing products. The time frame to say construct a computer is far less than to grow an acre of corn. Relating to foreign trade I couldn’t agree more, keeping trade within the nation will benefit the specific country because money is being confined to the country. If you are constantly trading with other nations, money is being lost especially if you are importing more than exporting and that is the current situation the United States is in. 

blog 7

What to do About the Poor?

states that America is affluent… I agree and disagree with this statement. Our country in the grand scheme of the world is a very well off nation, there are many employed people, living conditions are adequate and people are well fed. On the other hand, our overall economy struggles, several of our jobs are being sent overseas and wages are dropping for current employees of big corporations. I believe affluent nations have fairly low poverty rates, low unemployment rates and good living conditions. The results of affluent nations include the overall nation taking care of its people who are less off. If they help the less unfortunate people out, then the overall status of the nation will increase. Galbraith

                                                                

If a nation is overall prospering then to a certain extent, it is the government’s job to establish available jobs for the citizens who are struggling to find employment. In order to close the gap between the rich and the poor, I believe employment is the first step. I don’t think the rich need to be punished for being well off but instead the poor need to be driven into work. Our county cannot afford to tax the working class more than what is currently being done, instead the unemployed need to be driven into jobs and start to earn money for themselves.

This link is to an article on CNN which discusses thee rich poor gap. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/sutter-solutions-income-inequality/