the stanford experiment.

The Stanford experiment says a lot about the power of context. the context in the case of the experiment was a mock jail. It was an experiment with a frightening outcome. the captors began to exhibit sadistic behaviors. unfortunately this experiment holds true in the real world. It's one of the most disturbing facets of context in Gladwell's book. It's also a fairly common issue...who remembers Abu Gharib that was just a few years ago and a few months ago we heard about black water. there are all kinds of alarming stats on how often incarcerated women are sexually assaulted by guards.When i read about what guards are capable of inflicting on prisoners it makes me wonder about the human psyche. Is it possible that if put under the right level of stress and supplied with relatively unchecked power that we default to sadistic behavior. Or is it possible that prison guards are a sort of self selecting breed that subconsciously or consciously lust after these kinds of situations. We may all have this capability with in us but are conditioned out of it. If i was ever in the position of a guard i would like to think that i wouldn't resort to this kind of behavior. From my experience with being incarcerated I can tell you that i might not necessarily be able to resist. when i was in jail I didn't feel connected to any thing I felt stripped and raw and dehumanized. I think its very possible that the guards may be reacting to their subconscious worries that they are just one misstep away from being in prison themselves. When they treat the prisoners in completely sadistic and dehumanizing manner it creates a difference between the captor and captive. Its a sick way to comfort yourself when you add the context and stress together with the laws of Gladwell's epidemic people can be caused to do some twisted things.

The grayscale

Morality is many things to many people. It's also many things on an individual level. when i was a kid it all seemed pretty simple a life is a life, premarital sex is bad and drugs just say no. Now i'm seventeen and much to my parents dismay I've grown fast. when you deal with these issues of morality you see how many facets there are too life and how it's ridiculous to make judgments for others. I'm no longer pro-life (anti-choice), I believe sexuality is fluid, personal and there's no set time when its okay to become sexually active. I've learned that saying no to drugs isn't my strong point and drug use is a health issue not a law enforcement issue. I'm not the person I envisioned when i was young my morals have done a three sixty. I think I'm better for it i see things in a gray-scale and I'm not worried about what god thinks. the right choice isn't the same in every context. there are no absolutes. society needs to make allowance for that and people should have the right to choose based on the context of their lives.

If yr interested.

I came upon this post on a blog I read discussing a trend piece that appeared in the ny times about the rise of female teen bloggers.

my uncle mike.

I have absolutely no exposure to school shootings. I don't know what to say about them everyone takes a crack at what they think causes it. could it be lax gun laws, violent video games or school bullies. However all these theories are really just bullshit excuses draw attention away from the root cause. we have a mental health crisis in our country. These people snap and do things because they are sick. We cannot not leave the mentally ill in our country w/o care and not run into these tragedy's.
Although i have no expierance with school shootings i have seen what happens to the mentally ill citizens of our nation. My uncle has skitzophernia, I loved him when i was a kid we played all kinds of games together. we watched movies together and took trips to the zoo. He was very patient w/ me i don't remember him ever yelling at me. my family was up front with me and let me know from a very young age that there was a part of his life he couldn't control. As i grew older and matured he deteriorated. His mental illness wore him down and cost him many things in his life. He didn't have anything to live for. He lived off of government benefits and my grandparents he couldn't hold a job he stayed at his home my grandparents bought him and used his social security check to drink all day. Eventually some events unfolded and he ended up in a nursing home in his late fortys. He has no memory and can barely walk because of oxygen deprivation that damaged his brain. Noone in my family calls it a suicide attempt though, just like no one talks about how when he was in his twentys he tried to burn down the house my mother and grandparents live(d) in. i guess my parents and grandparents chose to ignore these things because all kinds of treatments didn't fix anything he was still sick. they took a path of quite resignation trying to reduce harm along the way. my grandparents became happier people when he was put into a nursing home because now he cant hurt himself or others and he well have people to take care of him. If my family can't take care of him or find him the help he needed i don't want to think whats happening to the mentally ill that are born into working class and impoverished families. The sad truth is these unfortunate and mentally ill individuals are ending up on the streets and in prison because there is no where for them to go. We are running a for profit health care system and very few are getting the care they need. These are the same faction of society that are shooting up schools. you want to feel safe in school then step up speak out and make sure there is universal care available to every American.

In our society we aren't addressing the root issues and we tend to try and punish others first instead of helping them. We really need to implement a new approach to our health care system and devote our resources to helping those w/ mental illnesses. we can pay now in tax dollars or later in the loss of human life, pain, anguish and the cost of keeping mentally ill inmates incarcerated. I say we spend now and intervene and hopefully we can cut down on the human turmoil and violence stemming from mental illness.

Class Ideas

Idea One

Personally so far im fine with the class and like the set up. however i think there are a few things that might be beneficial. One thing that I've heard from people taking the class is that they can't relate to the topics picked. Jen however mentioned that we need to keep the structure. i think a good comprise would be giving the option that for one post a week if one of the assigned topics just isn't doing it for you you can find your own topic and blog it. I think this would be a useful option and add to the over all dialog of the class. I'd much rather read about something original and off the assigned topic than a few bland paragraphs on the actual assignment. since jen wants us reading the book i guess it would make since to not let the option be applied to the reading and response posts. So basically in case thats a little long winded and hard to follow here is the changes i would make to the postings:

• Every week we should be allowed to replace one of the research and linking or OC postings with a topic of our liking.
• Or if we are particularly into one post and ended up writing a Long post we could have it count for two.

I think having the choice to use one of these options each week could bring more variety and flexibility to the class. It would also keep the class on the same track while adding some flavor because this option couldn't be applied to every single post.

Idea Two

alright i know Jen really wants us reading but what if we replaced the reading at least for a few weeks with some sorta of blogging topic. for a few weeks instead of reading a book we could all pick a topic we are interested in and write posts on it with our opinion. i think it would be pretty interesting to read up and follow developments on a certain topic and blog about them. there are so many topics that we could blog about ( technology, politics, whatever) and i think we could learn a lot reading peoples opinions on something they took the time to research and actually are interested in.

Idea Three

I think it might facilitate discussions if every once in awhile for variety we could be assigned to post a response on our blog to something someone else has written in the class. of course it would have to be done in a respectful and well thought out manner. It could a post adding on to what some one else said or debating it. i think this would be a good thing to assign because sometimes i read things other people have written and it gives me a jumping off point to go on a tangent. these tangents cant always just be a comment because sometimes they snowball and develop into something else entirely that deserve there own post. I think this can be really interesting and could add some spice to things. I think this would work really well in conjunction with my first idea. I think it could potentially start a dialog on things that we may have otherwise not even thought to blog about!

SO WHAT YA THINK?

Confusing Crisis

in the last few years ive become more aware of the Palestinian israili conflict. i have no idea what side I'm on and it doesn't really matter. In America i think we hear alot more about the israli side of things since they are one of our few allies in the middle east. What you may not have heard is that right now the Gaza strip is being barricaded by Isreali troops. The Palestinians are running out of Food, Fuel and medical supplies. Recently isreali forces shot and killed a mentally disabled man. France is urging israil to let aide through but, as of yet it has not happened. I haven't heard any of these stories on American news and they sound like something people should know about.

If you'd like to learn more read this article.

to educate the whole human

When researching alternative schools i found a alternative boarding school of sixty students outside of London called Brockwood park school. The school follows the the philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Who was also the founder of the Brockwood school. his vision for the alternative learning establishment was:

• To educate the whole human being
  
• To explore what freedom and responsibility are in relationship with others and in modern society
  
• To see the possibility of being free from self-centered action and inner conflict
  
• To discover one's own talent and what right
  livelihood means
  
• To encourage excellence in academic studies
  
• To learn the proper care, use and exercise of the body
  
• To appreciate the natural world, seeing our place in it and responsibility for it
  
• To find the clarity that may come from having
  a sense of order and valuing silence.

What what i found intriguing about the school was this chunk of their philosophy:

" The young are inheriting a complex world. It is a world in which rapid technological progress goes hand-in-hand with environmental, social, economic, and political crises.Must the young take the world as it is, accepting an education that enables them to 'fit in' to society, or can they learn to question deeply what they see and respond creatively out of a sense of personal integrity that enables them to meet whatever life may bring?"

the value they place in questioning things is amazing i think its great that they foster that sort of enviorment. Also the school is set on an old English country side manner. there are about 60 students age 14 and over. the teachers go by their first name and they emphasizes that they are a learning family. they also feed their students an organic vegetarian diet. The student body is diverse and multi cultural so there is no typical student. The school emphasizes a strong relationship between the community and student.

I like that this school focuses on the ability to question things and the deep personal lesson that come with it.

Okay so i was reading about a different alternative school and one of the things they said was that you couldn't tell the difference between a student-student realtionship and a teacher-student relationship. HOW IS THAT A GOOD THING?