Hey Guys,
Read these two articles and the Dew miester on page 357.
The questions are below and don't forget to eat some chocolate before class to promote some active conversations.
George : )
1. In the first article, what similarities do you see in the credit card laws and the ban on advertising smoking to children? Is this a good thing?
2. What do you think Dewey would say about this change in credit card laws and do we have flexible laws that protect children? Does this relate to the Ch.3 Strike article that mentions if it is appropriate to protect the immature for their own good?
3. Dewey-On page 357 2/3rds of the way down the 1st column, Dewey said that “Justice Holmes has generalized the situation by saying that the whole outline of the law is the resultant of a conflict at every point between logic and good sense”. Do you agree? Why or why not?
4.In the second article, What effect does the ruling have on free speech for children and how will this effect teachers, principles and children going forward.
5. In the second article, do you agree that it was an overreaction by an administrator? Would Dewey be pleased with this outcome?
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/college-student-credit-cards-new-law-1279.php
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/ptech/02/16/facebook.speech.ruling/index.html?iref=allsearch
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10 comments:
I believe that we do need to protect our children from things that we can protect them from. I believe it is a good thing. Logically, credit cards and smoking aren't good for adults. Why would we expose young people to those things? I believe these laws do coincide with strike's discussion of protecting the immature for their own good. I agree with Judge Holmes. Sometimes we make decisions and laws because of the times and situations we live, not because they are logically or morally correct. Think about segregation laws, female voting, etc. What they thought was right for the times was not logical. What we think is logical now will seem like nonsense to younger generations. We cannot make decisions without reference to what we know and experience. Think about a decision you made ten years ago,(I would say when you were in your twenties, but most of you are still in your twenties). Knowing what you know now, would you make the same decision? Hindsight is 20/20. Once again this is a dichotomy, you cannot separate your logic from your experience. I am done. I will save the rest for Wednesday. I will eat Peanut Butter since I don't eat chocolate!
I'm with you Billie. Just as we have learned in our technology class, there are way different ways of teaching now than there were even 5-7 years ago. Technology has changed many of our ways of thinking about interactions with one another and with many different decisions and laws that have been made. I think that these articles relay back to freedom of speech. The facebook article specifically because the people were just voicing their opinion. I think if Dewey were around to see how much technology has changed even the education world he would be amazed. Can't wait to discuss!
I read an article on the cover of The Herald today dealing with the new credit card regulations. I would link to it, but I can't find it on the website, so if y'all want to read it, you can go buy a newspaper like in the good ole days! Anyway, this is more of a personal rant than a Dewey or Strike commentary, but personally, I think these new credit card regulations are yet another example of big government getting too involved in the private sector. And it's going to hurt consumers. But one of the craziest things to me is that the government thinks it needs to protect 21-year-olds from their own stupidity. Talk about "nanny-state!" If I want to run up astronomical amounts of debt on my Visa (which I don't), that's my right as an American! It's one thing to limit the ability of children and teens to get credit cards, but 21-year-olds are adults in my book. That's just my opinion.
I am glad to know that Dr. Pope thinks this is a difficult article because I feel like it maybe the hardest so far. I have no clue if this is right, but I will give it a shot:
In this essay, Dewey did not view law as a system of rules. Instead, he thought law was an open system in a never ending process of evolutionary development. Laws need to be changed in order to suit the ever changing nature of the experiment in democracy. Dewey thought that by only viewing basic constitutional principles as they function in specific situations that their meaning can be enriched. In addition, he thought that logic brought results but not the process of legal reasoning. Dewey's experimental logic invited lawyers and judges to use the insights of other disciplines better to predict and evaluate the consequences of judicial decisions.
Regarding the quote of Justice Holmes, I do not feel "... that the whole outline of the law is a resultant of a conflict at every point between logic and good sense." Laws are made due to conflicts and other reasons, but they are not necessarily made between logic and good sense. What is good sense to one is not good sense to another. It really does not matter what was in someone's mind when he/she breaks a law or commits a crime. What really matters is the external effect or consequence of his/her act.
I must agree that this was one of the hardest Dewey pieces that we have been assigned but through this long long article I did find some interesting ideas that can be applied to today's society. First off, on page 355 at the very top Dewey says: "Sometimes human beings act...." I could not agree more with this statement. There are a lot of times when people do not think about what they are doing or even saying, therefore acting out of instinct. Not all instincts are bad as Dewey would agree but to me, it is best to teach the process of thinking before speaking or doing just for precaution. Another quote I found to be quite good was on page 356 in the middle of the left column, "in law we are certainly concerned..." Now a part of me agress with what he is saying here that laws are a way to settle a certain act but I also believe that laws are inplace to often times be proactive in trying to prevent the problem from happening. I know in reality you can not prevent a lot of things because there are a lot of crazy people that would do anything but I do think that there are laws that can be in place to help some things. For example, in Billie's statement she talked about exposing bad things to children and if we know that they are bad, then why would be expose them to our children. For one I think exposing them could have a good effect by showing them that it is wrong but then it could also show the child that it is okay. So I see both sides of the coin. But for things that are morally wrong to society why can we not have laws that could help people from making those decisions in the first place? I know that sounds crazy but I have always been taught to be proactive rather than reactive and I think that that is a stance that maybe society should take as well.
Going away from Dewey and looking at Billie's comment, I can think about a decision that I made not even 10 years ago that I would go back and change my decision. The only thing that I would add to what she says is that sometimes those decisions you made created an opportunity to learn a lesson therefore making decisions in the future different (I think this is what she was getting at!)
I also would like to comment on what Julie said! I agree with her. I have the right to be able to use my credit card however I want and if that means using it too much and not being able to pay it off then I will have to deal with the consequences. I think that children and even teenagers today are lacking the sense of responsibility that our parents had and taught us growing up. How are people going to ever learn if they do not make mistakes?
When I started reading the attached article about marketing credit cards to college students I couldn't help but laugh. I vividly remember leaving a late morning class and being hungry when approached by a guy handing out fliers for free Quiznos. Exciting right?! I walked the block to Quiznos to find a sea of tables and mountains of paper waiting. I did fill out the application and I did get a delicious sandwich out of it, but I knew enough to make sure I understood the terms first and asked questions. As for the issue of protecting the immature, I am afraid it is impossible in this instance as there are many older adults that continue to have problems with credit well beyond the ages the new laws are seeking to target. Age is really not the issue, and I don't think our government should be able to decide for us when we are "mature" enough to make certain decisions for ourselves. In response to the first question, children may not have tobacco or credit cards directly marketed to them, but will be very keen on forming opinions about them based on how these things are treated by their family and friends. You cannot filter culture.
As for the ruling about free speech in the second article, I think Dewey has a great quote about that on the second column of 361 in the first full paragraph. He says that new rules which are made should be considered "as tools to be adapted to the conditions in which they are employed rather than as absolute and intrinsic "principles" ". Since technology is constantly changing we will likely continue to face ambiguous legal cases, possibly even on the classroom level. So taking today's rulings and using them may be fine, however Dewey has wisdom suggesting rules should ultimately have some flexibility.
Wow, some great discussion going on already before class has even started. First off, I have to agree with Meredith, Ashley and Dr. Pope that this happens to be the hardest section of reading we have read thus far, I am glad the whole book isn't written this way.
This Dewey reading was particularly interesting to me because I found that much of what was stated by Dewey and Justice Holmes was common sense. For instance, Dewey talks about how on page 356 that depending on someone's background they might view or make decisions in a different way depending on their own individual experiences. Dewey says on 356 first column at the bottom "in order to make[decisions] wisely he summons before his mental gaze various considerations and accepts and rejects them with a view to making his decision as rational as possible." I think this quote takes into consideration a major maturity factor. Not everyone is going to weigh the benefits and consequences of every decision made. I believe the bigger impact a decision may have on a person requires more consideration than say an impulse buy of a candy bar at the checkout line after running four miles at the gym earlier that day.
The quote George addresses in the questions above on page 357 regarding Justice Holmes, Dewey goes on to say "logic is not the method of good sense." I am reminded of my favorite television show that airs on CBC at 9:30PM on Monday nights called "The Big Bang Theory." It's a story of several scientists who work and live together in everyday society but are geniuses that are lacking common sense and therefore come across many everyday problems that for them require hypothesis and experiments to solve because that do not have a "good sense" of how to go about solving the fact that their apartment is broken into and they are robbed.
Justice Holmes explains on 357 in the last paragraph in the right-hand column, "the actual life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." I believe this ties into the articles George has found today to go along with the reading. I once read somewhere that roughly all of college students upon graduation also graduate with over $20,000 in debt through credit cards and loans. I believe that many of the generations that were born from the baby-boomers (our parents) were "spoon-fed" everything their entire lives, from cars on their 16th Birthdays to having their parents pay for their college education. Many of these children have never held a job prior to college graduation and do not know the true value of a dollar. I agree with Billie that parents do their best to protect their children from the harshness of reality, but what we have created in turn is a sheltered, ego-centric, spoiled generation that now has to have federal laws passed to protect them, so they do not flush their credit scores down the toilet. I agree with Julie 100%, these kids need to be thrown out there and need to test whether they sink or swim. Once you reach 18 years of age you are old enough to know the ways of the world and the consequences of your actions, so why protect them from the enevitable.
As far as the facebook article goes, I believe the girl had every right to state her opinion, but with the ways in which technology is so accessible to so many different people you have to be careful what you post, who it affects and how it can turn around and affect you. This was a major learning experience for Evans and despite winning her case it affected her educational experience. Was it right for the school to remove her from her AP classes based on something she wrote about a teacher on facebook? I don't think so! What did her opinions have to do with her ability to perform on an AP level? Just some food for thought, now that I have written a novel!
When I read the facebook article, I thought the student was right to express her feelings, but did so in the wrong manner. Facebook was the wrong medium to use. It opens the floor for educators to be attacked possibly out of spite and anger and the teacher may have done nothing wrong. This may cause the teacher to loose their job, prevent them from getting another one, or loose their effectiveness to teach others. Had she been older or her parents were aware that she was making the page, the page would never had been created.
Like Julie, I also believe that it's not the government's role to protect people from making poor decisions. However, I am glad to see that universities and colleges are restricting access to credit card companies that used to bombard students with offers. To me, this is significant because the companies specifically targeted students in situations like Rachel's: ones where they entice students with a "freebie" of some sort that is designed to get the student to fill out information and not designed to help a student find the best card for them or to provide information.
I was really surprised to find in this article that some colleges and universities are allowed to release student or alumni information to credit card marketers. This to me is a huge privacy issue as this would be unsolicited information sent to me due to a release of my contact information.
My question would be that there are so many issues with the concept of building credit and not as many options for how to accomplish it without having a credit card but your credit report is so important for jobs, and purchasing big items. Maybe the best option would be to re-vamp the way that people are qualified instead of basing it all on a credit report that encourages people taking out credit cards who do not need them or can get lost in the "fine print".
Just a link about baby names and how people are becoming more narcissistic. We kida were talking about people becomeing worse. Just a link 4 all of u.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100224/sc_livescience/parentschoosingmoreunusualbabynamesnow
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