Surprisingly, Wikipedia didn't have very much information about stereotyping on their website. Which is amazing considering how much the site is stereotyped for being "inaccurate" since anyone can edit it. I contributed to the stereotyping page by adding information about how bias and discrimination play into stereotyping. It was pretty easy just click-on and edit away.
After watching some Tedtalks on what makes us happy I came to the topic of stereotypes-how they define groups of people and effect how others act around these cliques. Beck Blanton explains in her talk the year I was homeless about how “I hadn’t changed, my IQ hadn’t dropped, my integrity, my values, everything about me remained the same, but I had changed somehow.” Check out her whole talk:
I’ve decided to do some more research on stereotyping and how it effects the day-to-day decisions we make. As a result of my research I would like to be able to answer the following questions:
1.What causes us, as humans, to make assumptions about others?
2.How often are stereotypes true?
3.Who creates these ideas in our mind? (ex. Cheerleaders are snobs & football players are popular)
4.How old are we when we begin to judge others?
5.How can we reverse this vicious cycle of stereotyping?
I wanted to understand why it is important to make our agriculture adaptable. This TedTalk by Cary Fowler discusses the issues of climatechange and food supply.
Cary's work in preservation of crop production provides insight of one way peop;e are already preparing for a new kind of agriculture. Check out this Tedtalk by Britta Riley to find out what she's doing to help.
What conclusions about the importance of adaptable agriculture can you draw from these two Tedtalks? How is climate change related to crop production? Can you contruct a model, like Riley's, that would change how agriculture is farmed? What would result if our agriculture was not able to adapt to it's surrounding environment? Can you assess the importance of adaptable agriculture?
I definitely was not successful in learning how to play the acoustic guitar. I’m nowhere close to being able to play You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. No matter how much intrinsic motivation I have to accomplish a task, it really doesn’t make any difference. Unless I have some skill set in what I’m doing, I won’t be able to complete a task, like being able to play guitar. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my fingers are simply not long enough for me to be instrumentally inclined. Maybe it’s best for me to progress in the skills that I already have, such as photography, instead of trying to learn to be good at things that I clearly have no talent in.
I am not as good at playing guitar as I had expected to be by this point in my project. I’m having difficulties getting my hands into positions where my fingers can stretch out enough to reach all the strings I need to hold down, without holding down other strings that are sppose to remain loose. I’m learning that my intrinsic motivations and YouTube videos alone are not enough to help me master playing the guitar. Fortunately, I am currently in Ocean Shores on a church retreat and it's pretty rainy here. So we're trying to keep dry indoors, lucky for me a couple of the leaders here have Music Majors, so hopefully they’ll be able to assist me with my learning adventure.
My learning goal for the next two weeks is to learn how to play You're Beautiful by James Blunt on the acoustic guitar. I have already watched this YouTube video posted by Mahalo
I charted out the chords and associated each of them with a color: G = blue G/F# = green Em7 = yellow Cadd9 = orange D/F# = pink
Then, I put color associated sticky notes on the neck of my sister’s guitar, so that I’ll have an easier time learning where to place my fingers to play each chord. By the end of the next two weeks, I plan to be able to semi-fluently play You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. If I start having difficulties, I have lots of friends that I can go to for help.
This particular Ted Talk from Bunker Roy intrigued me from its title, "Learning from a Barefoot Movement", I wasn't too sure what that meant exactly, but it certainly caught my attention. It turns out that Roy is the founder of the Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India. This extraordinary school teaches students, many of which are illiterate, to become solar engineers, doctors, and other important citizens within the villages they come from.
It was very brave of Roy to set off on this journey. When he first started out he left a life of promise behind him and in 1965 he went and set foot in a village. A place filled with starvation and death, when he said, "It changed my life" that is such an understatement. It turned his whole life around, one simple decision to go see what life was like for people growing up in villages opened him up to an entirely different world from the one he had been living in. I have had the privilege to go serve in a village, like what he described, in Mexico with my church during my Spring Break the past two years and their truly are no words to describe what it's like.
When he described the story of going back home and telling his mother that he wanted to go live and work in a village, I know exactly how he felt. I myself have considered becoming a missionary after I graduate, but just like Roy's mother, my parents are not pleased with the idea because they know that I could have such a good life laid out for me here in the states. They want me to follow the normal patterns of society. To get a higher education, get a well paid job, get married, have children, and "live happily ever after". But until they can go serve in a foreign country themselves, I'm not sure that they will ever be able to understand the drive and the passion that I have to do missionary work. I honestly just don't believe that they fully understand why I want to be a missionary and I don't think they ever will until they are able to experience missionary work first hand.
I believe Roy made a wise decision in going back to the village and starting the Barefoot College. He found a balance between his passion for the people there and his degree in Education. He doesn't teach people how to read or write, but teaches them confidence, as described in the story of the 12-year-old prime minister. He solved real world problems providing education to the illiterate, providing food to the hungry, providing electricity for the village, and eve collecting rain water to help the villagers survive drought.
One of the biggest issues we have in America today is our lack of care towards people in foreign countries. I think it has become too easy for us to just put a few dollars in the church offering or to write a small donation to a private organization, but how often do we actually get involved. We often neglect those who are in need of our help and I feel as if we have let down our world. Americas have been gifted with so many resources, but if we are not willing to go overseas and share those resources with the people that are in need, what good have we really done? Our world is in dire need of people who care and are willing to take the kinds of risks that Roy did. We need more people who are willing to throw their promising and secure future away to help a complete stranger in need. We need to be people of compassion.
