When I was younger, I used to be curious about everything. I was always asking my mom about everything, but what interested me the most was how everything was made, or where everything came from. When I had started school, I realized that all of that was learned in science. Then, as I got older the science classes were fun because the teachers were also fun. Although, when it came to my middle school, a strict, old, catholic school, the teachers there did not care about teaching the kids. They were stuck up on their old and ancient teaching ways, and made learning a living hell. Ever since then, learning about how everything works was boring, or learning how where things come from or how things are formed. I think by then, I liked math better because the math throughout all my years have been taught by an understanding and helpful math teacher. I consider myself very lucky to have had a lot of help with math because now I actually understand it and can help my sister with her math homework. I just think about what if I ever liked science again, would I have had a different major? I chose architecture because I like math, but would I have chosen to be a pharmacist or a doctor?
Author: John Campoverde
Homework 2.1
I think James Baldwin means that teachers are a big influence on society. When kids come from different families, different parts, different social classes, they tend to have false views, false hope, or false information. For instance, if a lower class student has parents that tell them they are never going to make it out of the lower class because their background and people before them didn’t make it, they are going to believe that they won’t be able to make it out of there as well. This wouldn’t be a problem if a teacher were to teach the student about the history of the other social classes and what they did to get there, and how any class can become a higher class. By doing this the student who was told he or she can’t be more than what they are, can strive for a better future. I also think that Baldwin is making sure it is understood that this isn’t a type of communism, it is just basic knowledge and history that shouldn’t be kept from anyone no matter what race, ethnicity, or social class they are. When he states that the world is larger I think he means that you are never limited to whatever is being told to you in the situation you’re in. For instance if in America you are in a place where they restrict your ability to do anything due to discriminatory reasons, then the world is large enough for you to go somewhere you are appreciated and don’t have to take shit from anyone who believes that are superior. In school I think it’s good to learn about different opportunities, and different careers. It took me so long to figure it what career I wanted to pursue, in which I could’ve taken some courses that would’ve helped me in doing so. Although, since we were never taught about the different careers, I would always tell myself I sucked at drawing so I wouldn’t be able to pursue architecture. Now that I am pursuing it, turns out it’s more about measuring and envisioning then drawing, and I am confident in my work.
Homework D.1
What got me confused when reading “Later” by James Surowiecki was when he stated on page 4, “According to Piers Steel, a business professor at the University of Calgary, the percentage of people who admitted to difficulties with procrastination quadrupled between 1978 and 2002.” This made me wonder if this was an ongoing problem that many had, or if it was recently around this age. At the same time, earlier in that page Surowiecki states, “Ainslie is probably right that procrastination is a basic human impulse, but anxiety about it as a serious problem seems to have emerged in the early modern era.” Based on these pieces of text I have come to the conclusion that his point is that there has always been procrastination but the feeling of anxiety that comes with it is more recent. Something that irked me when reading this was the idea in which we fail to predict the circumstances in leaving a task for later. This was a big slap in the face because of the amount of times I unexpected things have happened but I still leave things for last minute. For instance, Surowiecki writes, “Ignorance might also affect procrastination through what the social scientist Jon Elster calls ‘the planning fallacy.’” The author goes on to talk about how Jon Elster thinks people underestimate the scenarios or events that can unwillingly take place. He also goes on to give us a personal example in which things happened, while he was writing this same paper, that were out of his hands. He states, “Each of these events was, strictly speaking, unexpected, and each took time away from my work. But they were really just the kinds of problems you predictably have to deal with in everyday life.” By doing this, the author had most definitely tied his ideas on the unexpected events or difficulties when putting off a task.
