week 2: world problems
1972 words by kallison
Kelly Allison
It is sad to say, but the world is facing so many problems in the world today that I could blog for the rest of my life and still never finish this assignment. However, it is important to realize that in the world, there are people like you and me who have the ability to take part in improving every one of these problematic situations. It is extremely easy for me to sit here and name problems in the world, but it is much more of a task for me to actually do something about at least one of them. As someone who feels that it is a part of my purpose as a fully-functioning human being to do what I can to make any part of the world just a little better, I am willing to put forth the extra effort to make sure that I can be a part of the betterment of something. As a New Orleans citizen, I witness problems that can be improved on a daily basis. Even simple things, such as the numerous potholes in the streets, could be done away with which could make a person’s day just a little better and run a little smother, pun intended. J Issues such as these, and even issues that people could solve as individuals, should always be taken into account in order to make the world a happier, more livable place. The bigger problems in the world will definitely need a whole community effort to be resolved, but this is indeed possible. I think that the problems of public education, poverty, and misuse of the world’s natural resources are huge. These issues affect every person on Earth in one way or another, and we should be conscious that they exist.
The problem of insufficient public education in this country and the world is a huge issue. The future of the world depends on the minds of the youth which are being educated today, but if this education barely reaches normal standards, students miss out on knowledge which could take our world to unimaginable places. Personally, I have witnessed so many situations where young people are suffering so horribly in school because of underdeveloped lesson plans, unqualified teachers, and unmotivated administrators. For years, my mother worked for the New Orleans Public School System where she was a business manager. She would come home with stories every day about how the learning environment of her two schools was absolutely ridiculous. The teachers would sit at their desks all day and text instead of interacting with the students. The students, on the other hand, would wander the halls all day running errands. There were so many students who had been retained so many times that the administrators decided to just pass them unjustifiably because a 13 year is much too old to be in fourth grade; yet no actions were taken to help these students advance their basic skills. My mom witnessed so many of the fifth and sixth graders who did not even know how to read. This is a skill which should be mastered by first grade, and there is no way that a student can succeed beyond this level without this basis skill. Students would graduate from sixth grade not even knowing the multiplication tables. How will these students make it pass the first week of high school? Exactly. It is an impossible task. This sad reality only sets up for these young students to soon drop out of school completely and become unemployed adults. My sister and I have attended Catholic school here in New Orleans from preschool up until the present. I think that the idea of Catholic education is wonderful, but it is just so sad that my parents felt that this was a necessity for me and my sister to receive proper education. With the huge amounts of tax dollars contributed to public education, there should be absolutely no reason why my parents had to pay those thousands of dollars for our primary and secondary education. Bottom line: it should be provided by the government without question; but, what should be and what is are two totally different things. I know that this atrocity does not exist everywhere, but just the fact that it occurs at all is an injustice to the world.
A second huge world-wide problem is poverty. This is a very obvious problem that I feel is so abundant that those of us who are not directly affected by it do not even think twice about its existence. Poverty is usually the result of many generations of unemployment or very low-income jobs. In this city and across the world, people are living in conditions which are not suitable for human life, and some are lucky if they get one meal a day. Some people at the poverty level are fortunate enough to live in government-issued housing, but for those who are not, they face extremely harsh weather conditions of scorching days and freezing nights. It is hard for me to imagine living in a situation in which I had no clue if I’m going to get a hot meal, get raped during the night, or even live through the night. This is such a hard problem to solve because it is very hard to keep up with the amount of people living in poverty and where they go, but it is a problem that something has to be done about.
A third huge problem in the world is the misuse of the world’s natural resources. It is apparent that, yes, we do need many of the world’s resources to continue with society’s continuously advancing technologies. However, it is one thing to use what you need, and another to abuse something until, eventually, it backfires on you. There are some resources that we cannot get around using, such as fuel for cars and paper, but there are ways to minimize what we use. For this reason, I feel that the problem of the world’s resources can be most feasibly changed by individuals. Personally, I can contribute to this cause by doing simple things, such as carpooling in order to save on gas expenses as well as fuels being emitted into the air and adding to the ever-growing hole in the o-zone layer. Also, I always re-use plastic grocery bags for household uses such as trashcan liners. All plastic bottles and paper materials can be recycled for re-usage because there is no need for perfectly good materials to just be thrown away. I also try to use as little household energy as possible by turning off the TV and light every time I exit a room. Just these minute tasks that we take as individuals could lead to a much more energy-efficient world. Possibly, global warming could subdue, allowing us to stop using energy such as car and home air conditioning which just feeds the viscous cycle. I am working towards becoming a clinical psychologist, and I definitely feel that a healthy world can contribute to the healthy minds of citizens. It is obviously important to be physically healthy, but chemical imbalances in the brain are just as dangerous as any other physical problems. I would love to be able to one day conduct research on how the toxins in the atmosphere affect chemical reactions of the brain. Any way that I could help make people more mentally stable would be an accomplishment for me.
I completely understand this course’s plagiarism policy. Bottom line: just don’t do it. There is no such thing as “The Bible” because this infamous book has had so many different translations over the years, and it means different things to many different cultures. Some bibles consist of just the Old or New Testament, and some have both. Some have certain books added which are significant to certain cultures. “The Bible” is whatever is significant to a certain religious faith. No two types are the same, so there is no one true “Bible”.