Earthlings

Earthling, one of the most powerful documentaries, shed light on the truth, that each and every day we are all guilty of murdering fellow earthlings, animals."We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals... We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far beneath ourselves. And therein we err, we greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man.”(P.276)



When I was watching Earthlings what always made me turn away was the amount of blood that was poured or spewed out of each animal. The images that were burned into my eyes were of the cows, chickens, pigs, and even dolphins, each of whom were hacked into and had their throats slashed while fully conscious. Seeing their bodies mutilated and convulsing on the floor, left to bleed out, was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. This movie was scarier and gorier than any horror movie I’ve ever seen. What’s most upsetting about this documentary is the truth it sheds on what we all ignore and pretend doesn’t exists, a genocide of animals.



In the dictionary you’ll find the definition of “Genocide: The deliberate destruction of an entire race or nation. The Holocaust conducted by the Nazis in Germany and the Rwandan genocide are examples of attempts at genocide.” This doesn’t mention animals, which isn’t surprising, considering that “slaughterhouses are not made with glass walls.”(P.276) There’s a reason why this issue isn’t always in the news, because like during the Holocaust some people were either in denial about the entire situation, believing that it never even happened. Other Germans who did not participate, but also did nothing to stop it, just remained oblivious to it. If were widen the definition of genocide: to the deliberate destructions of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, and species, then there would be much more controversy. The majority of the population would then be guilty of the mass murders of billions of different species.

After watching Earthlings, I felt sick. I walked to my next class and all I could see was the faces of the tortured animals. Later when I told my friend what I had seen she was immediately grossed out at the images I described. She told me she was definitely not going to see that movie, but I told her that’s exactly what the slaughterhouses and other animal abusers are counting on, that you and the mass population will continue to live your life and remain unaware to this murdering. Just because you didn’t see the holocaust take place doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, the same is true of the deaths of animals. We may not be the ones taking their lives, but the majority of us are not doing anything to stop it.
“If we had to kill our own meat we would all become vegetarians.”(P.277) I know that this is true of me. There’s no way I could ever take the life of a fellow earthling.

Peta:Aganist Animal Cruelty

When I wonder why am I so negative all the time I am reminded by the variety of injustice in our world. Cruelty to animals is one of the most sickening things a person can witness in their lives. “Animals and humans suffer and die alike…[T]he same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel, and brutal taking of life. We don’t have to be a part of it.” (Dick Gregory)Looking into the eyes of an animal, who has been so abused that they shudder at the very noise of your footstep, is so heart wrenching.



I have never really considered becoming a vegetarian before, but looking at the images that Peta had up were really disturbing. The amount of damage that does not only to the animals, but to the environment is enormous. The representative of Peta said that it slaughterhouses do more damage to the climate control problem (global warming) then all the transportations (pollution) across the world does. We murder billions of animals a year, way more than we need to feed the population.



The United States is one of the leading contributors to the problem, with fast food chains like McDonalds. “In the slaughterhouses that supply McDonald’s with chicken, birds are dumped out of their transport crates and hung upside-down by their legs in metal shackles, which can result in broken bones, extreme bruising, and hemorrhaging.”(Peta2) Then we complain about how the obesity rate is reaching an all time high, the obvious reason for overconsumption is the massive quantities of meat that has become available to us.

Alice and Animal Ethics

"Though Alice begins her journey selfish, and unable even to consider the feelings of other before speaking, through her experiences with the diverse creatures of Wonderland, most significantly the personified animals, she is able to learn empathy, and to recognize the shallowness of those who exhibit unrestrained cruelty to those around them."(David Daniel)In this world, Alice has stumbled upon, every animal has its very own voice and opinions. In the story she tries to adjust to this new way, but finds it difficult and often appears to be rude. In her old world things were simple, she would stroke her pets and feed them, but here things become more complex when the animals can chose whether or not they can even tolerate you.



Early on in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, she upsets a mouse by mentioning her cat’s ability to “kill all the rats.” (P.27). After pleading for a short while with the mouse he does return to aid Alice to shore. Alice is indeed selfish in this situation the only reason she apologizes is because there is no one else who can help her. She continues to scare other animals with her remarks about her precious cat Dinah, she goes on to tell a circle of animals that, “she’s such a capital for catching mice you ca’n’t think! And, oh I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” (P.35) I know Alice is new to this world and is just not use to the wonderland, but you’d think she was purposely trying not to fit in with the animal or anyone else for that matter with the amount of trouble she gets into.



After reading both Alice books, I believe that Lewis Carroll’s big question was, what would animals say, if they could speak? So, when he chose to write this novel he incorporated all those answers by giving a voice to those who never had one. This can be seen in, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, when the Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the crown of the king. Alice is amazed to see a real life unicorn is her presence and the same can be said of the unicorn. The Unicorn tells Alice, “Well, now that we have seen each other…if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.” (P.229)

Ethics and the Sympathetic Imagination

“The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.” (P.18) In Convey’s book, the inside-out method point out that quick-fixes are useless, but if your honest with yourself, that’s when you achieve “true success”. The contrast to character ethics is personality ethics, which is when you get what you want “through charm and sill and pretending to be interested in other people’s hobbies.” (P.22) When people rely on others recognition to uplift their own self-worth that’s an example of a quick-fix, that usually doesn’t work long-term.

Ethics


Another point made in Convey’s book, is the effective usage of a positive attitude. “Sometimes the most proactive thing we can do is to be happy, just too genuinely smile…We can be happy and accept those things that at present we can’t control, while we focus our efforts on the things that we can.”(P.90) Getting angry about anything is always taking the easy way out, it is much harder to keep your temper under control. When you do control your emotions you are taking a step toward self-control as well as self-awareness.

Positive


Empathy was mentioned both in Convey and the anthology book, because the term has such a broad yet important definition. In Convey, it says that when we empathize we are taking the time to really listen, without judgment and not jumping to a diagnosis before we’ve examined the entire situation. “When people are really hurting and you really listen with a pure desire to understand, you’ll be amazed how fast they will open up.” (P.252) In the anthology book, empathy is defined as “the power of projecting one’ personality into (and fully comprehending) the object of contemplation.”(P.274L) In other words when you can recognize what someone else is feeling and you’re someone they can turn too.

Empathy

Leadership Vision: Prevention of Drop-Outs

We have all heard the saying, “Children are our future,” but life is filled with struggles and complications that they too must unfortunately experience. Many of these events occur during grade school, and as you can imagine it is a lot for a child to cope with, especially when there is no one around to help. In order to advance our society we must prevent students from abandoning their education. “If we can keep one child in school and learning, we will have gone a long way to making the world a better place.” [1]



To further develop our community we must first ensure that each child is given the crucial encouragement needed in order to become successful. Since many of the students I am aiming this program towards are in underfunded schools my first step will be to achieve the support of the neighboring public. According to Franklin P. Schargel, author of From At Risk to Academic Excellence: What Successful Leaders Do, “he identifies individual risk factors -- personal characteristics, habits, and experience; family situations; and peer and community relationships -- and then address the factors over which school leaders can more directly influence -- school climate and culture, school connectedness, school safety, attendance, and school achievement.”[2] By effectively notifying parents and concerned educators we can improve our chance of reaching other schools. We will inform them of the jeopardy children are facing and the appropriate steps we can pursue to guarantee each child continues their education.

It is also important for me to join on-campus organizations that work with at-risk youth to broaden my network for additional assistance. Their experience could only benefit my vision and help increase my effectiveness. The most important aspect of my involvement with students is to stay consistent with my plans. In order to keep a strong relationship, I will volunteer at local elementary schools and stick to a precise schedule. We will give the children a sense of stability and also establishing myself to community leaders, that this is my passion. In addition, my intent is to encourage the educators to become more involved in after school programs where we try communicating with the children in order to bridge the gap between school and home.

Furthermore, to promote the expansion of my dream I will create my very own non-profit organization. The purpose will be as previously stated, to ensure that each student continues their education. Here, children will be adequately equipped with the components needed to succeed. We will establish ourselves at local schools with the goal of creating committees. These committees will range from, one-on-one & group therapy, study sessions, prep courses for college, diversity enrichment, and other group activities.

For the establishment to continue to develop we will examine our success and show those willing to donate money or time, that what we are doing is making an impact. Taking assessments of not only the student’s academics but, also their emotional and physical state will help us attain sufficient feedback. On top of that we will also give out surveys to each parent, teacher, and school administrator. Here, they can properly grade and comment on our program. With this assistance we can make essential improvements in certain areas to aid in the continuous progressive change of our children’s education. We can also collaborate with other pre-existing clubs that have a similar focus to improve our reputation. My organizations most important focus will be to keep children safe and in school.

The real role model, who shaped my vision toward learning, is my elementary school teacher, Mr.Fleurent. He was a looping teacher, which meant he would have the exact same group of kids for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. He was the first person that would talk to me as if I were a capable young adult whose opinions and thoughts mattered. I have never felt as inspired as I did when he would speak. One of his constant reminders that stayed with me was simply to get good grades, because that would get me into college. His lesson was so simple, yet so effective. I had not once been told by a teacher before that college was an option for me. Considering where I grew up, I was lucky to graduate, let alone attend a university. Mr.Fleurent’s unique methods of teaching inspired me to follow my passion when pursuing a career, instead of my bank account. He took such pride in teaching his class; seeing him do what he loved to do each day made me want the same thing.

“Effective leadership depends first on one’s personal vision and then one’s leadership vision.” [3] A child’s life can be chaotic, with each day comes new worries, and my childhood was no different. After my parents divorced, the moment I came home from school I became a full time mother. I would worry if we would have enough money to pay all the bills. Having enough food for the month was an added luxury if we managed to keep the same roof over our heads. When I went to school I already had a lot to deal with at home so, I was not always focused. When you have so much stress at such a young age, you really do feel like you are all alone in the world and you can’t imagine surviving. It is a necessary precaution to implement a program where the gap between school and home life is bridged; a program where students don’t feel isolated. When I was in elementary there was a program called Communities In Schools (CIS), a non-profit organization that created “a safe place to learn and grow.”[4]



Communities In Schools focuses to keep students in school and continuously learning in an effort to prevent them from dropping out. The summer after my senior year of high school I was awarded an internship working with CIS. I had applied for it months in advance because I was interested in its extensive programs involving one-on-one interactions with children. In high school I had always been drawn to art, and children are rather similar because you need to be creative and patient with both. When I begin to paint, the outside world turns into white noise and all I can focus on is figuring out what the end result of my work will be. Now when I have a child in front me I have the same feeling, and I want to help them focus so they too can make it past the noise and see the finish line, a diploma. I soon realized, through the CIS summer program, that my passion was teaching.

The best part of my day, was when I would find new arts & craft projects for the children to make, and teaching them how to do it. Seeing their eyes light up when they had finished a project made me happy and making sure that these kids had something to look forward to was even better. This propelled me to pursue a career in education. After the summer ended I came to the University of Texas as a Liberal Arts, Psychology major and soon thereafter transferred to the School of Education. My degree now is a Bachelor of Science in Applied Learning and Development with this I would like to become a looping teacher one day, specifically teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Staying at The University of Texas will ensure that I continue to educate myself and become a teacher. Next, I want to better communicate with the youth and get my message of learning to them, to do this I want to get my master in Children’s Psychology.



In my freshmen year at The University of Texas my classes consisted of its core curriculum, the classes that were deemed appropriate for my intended field of my interest. In the fall, of my four classes the one class that I felt applied to my degree was Anthropology, we discussed so many different cultures and customs from all around the world. By increasing my knowledge into various diverse cultures this could only further help me reach more students of different ethnicities and race.
Later, in the spring semester, psychology helped me take a step forward toward understanding what it is that makes children (and every day people) tick. Each day the professor introduced a new concept, theory, and map about the human psych that helped give me a deeper level of understanding of what goes on in the human mind. The purpose of the class was to show that we are always developing new concepts to understand the way we think, as human beings we will continue to evolve and become ever more complex.

Taking a Leadership & Ethics class has given me the time to think about questions I’d otherwise overlook, for instance, “Who are you?” A repeated theory in the Alice book, this was the most influential questions I have ever been asked. The answer has spanned into more than just what you will do for a living, you are not just a career. The essence of who you are comes from what inspires you. What causes you to be passionate? What you would do for free, and what makes you happy? All of these questions that were asked in my UGS course have all led me to the same answer, teaching. I love to teach children. Before I was always hesitant about becoming a teacher, I felt it was not prestigious enough. I had made it all the way to The University of Texas only to aspire to become an elementary teacher. Now, after completing a self-evaluation of the person I am, I can clearly see what it is that has brought me to this point in my life. Through all the adversity I have made it this far I am lucky to aspire to become one of the many who educate our nation’s future.



Over a respectable amount of time and hard work, I would like to see the national drop-out rate decrease drastically. To fully understand and help students I will need to continue my own education here at The University. Completing my degree will only fortify my position that education is the solution. Children are faced with as much tribulations as the next person, but with the added pressure of school breathing down their necks it’s hard to imagine them going through it alone. By giving them giving them the proper attention and guidance we can eliminate the need to drop out completely.



Word Count without Quotes: 1,671
Word Count with Quotes: 1,760

Quotation Citation:
[1] http://www.cissa.org/howitwork.php
[2] http://www.focusas.com/Dropouts.html
[2] http://www.cisnet.org/default.aspsafe place to learn and grow”
[3] UGS 302 Course Packet (P.254)
[4]http://www.cissa.org/howitwork.php
Photo Citation:
[5] http://www.edudecisions.com/articles/teaching/index.php
[6] www.wsnindia.com/images/psychology.jpg
[7] http://www.cissa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12
[8] http://the-office.com/bedtime-story/alice_lg.jpg

Through the Looking Glass: Alice

When I read Alice in Wonderland, the only prior knowledge I had on the subject was once watching the Disney version as a child. I remember my mother telling me that the movie was nonsense and had no valid content. She didn't approve of the smoking caterpillar or a land where everyone seemed to be hallucinating away from reality.



Since I was a child then, my mother's word was law. So, I in turn put the movie and story out of mind. So, when I read the book I kept the same mentality that this story wasn't going to contain anything of use. After a couple chapter (especially due to the annotated notes) you realize how empowering Alice is, which usually isn't the case in most novels. Whenever the lead character is portrayed as a girl, the plot usually consists of her search for a boy (or a knight).

Alice encourages us to, "Not only to venture into the unknown in life, but to venture into our souls and deep within our hearts to find out who we are."(P.208) When were in high school we don't take much time to ponder what it is that makes us...us. We let friends, teachers, parents, and even celebrities manipulate who we are or act like. It takes a tremendous amount of courage and faith, in yourself, to truly be different.



In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, many of the characters talk down to her. They continuously ask “who are you” (P.48), she is obviously offended, yet she never really speaks up. Alice feels overwhelmed by the limitless answers she could give, and the answers that are true. It isn’t till the end of the story that Alice feels more confident with whom she is. The proof is apparent in the courtroom scene, where Alice is brought to the stand to testify. The queen (who is a tyrant) yells, “Sentence first-verdict afterwards,” (P.124) this outrages Alice. She knows this is complete nonsense, which is what she shouts back at the Queen. The Queen of course tells her to “Hold her tongue,” and Alice simply replies “I won’t.” (P.124)
In this scene Alice is finally letting all her pent up emotions out letting the Queen and everyone else in the courtroom exactly what she thinks of all this madness. She is becoming more certain and aware of what makes her a good leader. Her strong defining trait is virtue in her thoughts and decision, always knowing what undoubtly is right and wrong.


In Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, when Alice is finally made Queen, she is tested by the Red & White Queen. They bombard her with many questions and then tear apart her answers to where she feels unsure about she is again. “I don’t know,” (P.153)Alice said to one of the Red Queens questions about addition. This scene reminds me of the peer pressure we feel in high school and college. When someone brings you down it’s makes them feel surer of themselves, so they continue to do it. Those are the individuals are the ones who are truly lost, and have no idea who they are. Alice leadership skill shine through when she answer back (and talks back) to the White Queen, by saying, “Can you do sums?” (P.254)