Education and the Proliferation of New (Old) Concepts

Paul Theobald and Hibajene Shandomo's article reflects on the educational projects the United States has participated in during recent times, as well as during the 1900s. The piece compares and contrasts present education to that of during the founding years of our country. Theobald and Shandomo describe how the struggle between the older agrarian worldview and the emerging industrial worldview have unfolded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as the age-old traditions began melting with the new.

Scholars today have been able to place a value on the importance of depending on our roots in order to better  education. After all, you have to have something to start from right? I get the feeling many times that teachers and professors have a hard time with how exactly to present the information on the subject they are teaching. Personally, I favor a more one-on-one approach and feel that if a professor shows a true passion for the subject that I myself will find that I am eager to learn more and master the subject. The article exposed that issues with education have to do with less quality teaching and how economic distribution comes into affect.

I feel that the strive to gain knowledge and to be successful by way of earning an education is a privilege and something an individual must personally wish to attain. As American citizens, we are fortunate enough to be able to have the opportunities we have as many of those in less-developed countries do not have the same possibilities we do. As the authors state, in order for education to prosper, culture and the economy must both be up to par -- I certainly agree with this as without a standard foundation to base the knowledge around, as well as no funds, there would be very little to work with.

Response to Indigenous Resistance

         Michael Marker's "Response to Indigenous Resistance" tackles the issue of assimilation in the United States during 1960s and 1970s. At this time, the United States was occupied by indigenous peoples and Americans were not happy about this; they deliberately pushed these cultures that were unusual to them, and took their land away. Americans wanted these cultures out because they felt threatened that other groups were occupying "their" property.
         Marker's article reviews the experiences of Coastal Salish people of British Columbia and
Washington State as they responded to education for colonisation in a borderlands
region. As the Coast experienced racism prior to being assimilated, they continued to face the racist policies of nineteenth-century Empire building in the Pacific as those occupying the Northwest continued a struggle for cultural survival in integrated public schools in the
1960s and 1970s.
         There are certainly two sides to this issue; those of the indigenous people who were degraded and blatantly treated with disrespect, and although the superior regions were behaving rashly, they had some school of thought behind their actions -- literally. Hence both the Indigenous understanding of the colonizers and the strategies for resistance are cast in local knowledge. The integration of schools and education into the Aboriginal lifestyle was a way for the superiors to improve their knowledge, and in a way was belittling them.

The Meatrix

I watched the Meatrix I and II videos and thought they brought up a lot of good points. Because they were in the form of cartoon animals and went along with the theme of the famous Matrix movies, it was interesting and easy to follow along. This tactic of appealing to an audience of all ages is important in order to inform a large amount of people, no matter what age and what educational background they have. The videos are appropriate for younger children, and would be good for them to watch as they are presented in a manner with visual displays that may help them get a better idea of just how factory farming cooperates. The videos also provide good humor for an older crowd to be able to enjoy as well.

As I am from Fayetteville, NC we are not a farming town but do have access to livestock and large pastures. Several rural towns are located as near as 25 miles outside of Fayetteville, including Elizabethtown, Steadman, and Clinton. The city of Elizabethtown is well-known for raising hogs and is home to many hog farms that distribute their locally grown products across NC as well as our neighboring states. Driving down Highway 24 and passing through Steadman and Clinton is truly beautiful -- acres on end of beautiful green pastures fill the landscape and many healthy cows, horses, and other various animals are seen to roam about the land. This is how farming should be practiced; in an environment we trust and know that the livestock is produced with quality and care.

The Meatrix video brought up several points I have mentioned in my paper written earlier the semester, which was on the topic of growth hormones in farming. The short film included that constant dosages of antibiotics were added to the feed of farm animals and this overuse of antibiotics breeds superstrains of disease-causing germs. Knowing that we are prone to such dangers from the food we consume is honestly terrifying. Although organically grown food is significantly more expensive than cheap, store-brand food it makes all the difference -- especially if our lives are at stake.

Response to Real Texts Reading on Biotechnology

The reading we were assigned from Real Texts brought a lot of things to my attention. It was pertaining to biotechnology and the way genetically modified (GM) foods have been making their way into the diets of Americans. Scientists, large factory farmers, and businesspeople are all over this idea of enhancing food to have higher crop yields and produce more for less money. Philosophers back up the idea of GM crops by stating that they "ensure that the world's poorest people do not go hungry", when in reality many developing countries do not have the money or resources to benefit from GM crops.

Gordon Conway and Gary Toenniessen's work "Feeding the World in the Twenty-First Century" was an eye-opener as well. The authors touch on the industrial world and its problems with overproduction, as well as underdeveloped countries and how much they suffer due to lack of resources and money. It was astonishing to find that more than 180 million children under the age of five are severely underweight, and that 17 million of these children die each year as malnourishment contributes to at least 1/3 of these deaths.

All in all, the reading covered information about GM crops and their pros and cons depending on the audience. Various types of people are affected by GM crops such as scientists, philosophers, politicians, sociologists, and businesspeople. For example, a person held accountable for a country's finances must be influenced so that solutions are manageable to pay for. On the other hand, a person who writes about ethics must believe that solutions account for long-term affects on people's health.

 

The picture above depicts tomatoes becoming genetically enhanced as they are injected with hormones/chemicals to make them larger.