Ode to The Pumpkin Eaters

Moving on from my last post, (which felt more like a rant, rather than a concrete composition) I hope this topic will leave you with lighter feelings than before.  Or perhaps just slightly guilty?  We'll see...

Wether or not we like admitting to it, many of us have been in that stress-sweat inducing situation while sitting in one of those claustrophobically sticky school desks.  You know what I'm talking about!  When you're writing a test that you're unusually unprepared for, and find yourself in a do or die situation?  When your last branch of humility and collectiveness has been brashly broken and your eyes begin to wander in desperation toward your neighbours page?  Oh yeah, I've been there.

It was a friday.  Every friday of my second grade year was a dictation day, right after the last recess.  That bell would ring and stomachs would simultaneous curdle throughout the schoolyard.  We would receive our study words monday, giving us plenty of time to "study" at home.  This week, however, I had not had my parents quiz me in preparation.  I don't remember what word I was searching for on my neighbours page, I just remember the shrill voice of the teacher singling me out as my face flushed strawberry red.

A week later, the recess bell rang and we filed into our 2B classroom.  When I went to take my seat, however, a green cardboard had been folded creating a tiny cubicle of a desk.  On my desk only...  I remember the words "cheater cheater pumpkin eater..." buzzing through my mind, as I wrote the dictation feeling like a horse and buggy - me being the blinded and tunnel visioned horse, while the carriage being my guilt and embarrassment.  It was definitively a day marked in my calendar of morals.

Now that I'm in high school, I know better than to cheat and try so very hard not to give into all the temptations.  Although, It's never hard to find a fellow classmate in the act, or willing to help.  In North American education systems, cheating is highly punishable.  Many students are suspended and
expelled annually, as we often see in the news as scandals.  From a young age, we are taught that cheating in school is unfair and wrong - your eyes belong to your page and your thoughts are your intellectual property.  Although to succeed in high school without really earning it may facilitate those years for you, once you've reached University, life and karma will swamp you with the heaviest and greatest of difficulties.

While researching this topic, one article in the Globe and Mail (which even depicted conflicts from Toronto and Windsor) had me pondering.

Different cultures obviously have different systems of beliefs and morals.  But what about cheating?  At first, I presumed that surely cheating in school would be frowned upon anywhere else, just as much as North America.  It had never occurred to me that it could even be conceptualized in a different way.

Imagine learning in a community struck by poverty, where absolutely everything is shared as a necessity for survival.  When it comes to learning, however, they still value sharing and believe it overpowers. Thus, cheating is the right thing to do; to help one another become better, stronger and more successful.

Or, what about receiving your education in a densely populated country, where the only way to succeed and bail yourself and family out of poverty is absolute, almost impossible, academic excellence?  When you're taught that you must do anything in order to succeed, that the pressure becomes so vast and heavy that it seems like the right thing to do?

Now, what about when these students come from overseas to continue and further their education in places like North America or Europe?  Is it still okay under these new circumstances?  To them, by moral they feel as though they need to cheat.

Wishfully thinking, if it were up to me I'd truly want them to be able to keep their values and remain as they are - being from a completely different culture.  To me, it would seem almost just as unfair to change them and strip them of their cultural values, than to let them cheat.  Nonetheless, I admit that only in a perfect world would that occur.  So in our world, there probably should be a change in the systems, educating foreseeable cheating international students on the rules of our home turf.

What do you think?

Laws and rules aside, is cheating morally wrong? For us? For international students? If cheating was tolerable for international and foreign students, would it be fair for us citizens?  Can anything be done?  Should something be done?  So many questions, all because of an 8 lettered word.


References:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/why-many-international-students-get-a-failing-grade-in-academic-integrity/article4199683/

http://janmagnus.nl/papers/JRM060.pdf

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/24/cheating

From Point A to Point B

"Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth and it happens every few minutes.  The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves.  What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape.  Go to the source and start there."

- Kurt Cobain

No one likes discussing this sombre topic, but it must be done.
Here we go, jumping in head first.
I once read a quote online that stated something along the lines of "if ignorance is bliss, then you must be a rapist" however I can't quite remember the source.  What that quote expresses though, is that ignoring the crime is equally as punishable as committing the crime.  Food for thought...

We all know how horrific and tragic these events can be, so I'm not going to bombard you with gruesome facts.

Back to our beloved friend Kurt.  What he had to say brings up many striking points about the morals behind rape.  Let's start with the basics.  Rape is bad, and I'm sure we all agree upon that.  The topic itself is very controversial and arises many more subtopics to be disputed, like awareness, prevention, recovery, reasons, education and so on...  Morally, it goes against the notions of respect, abuse and sexuality.  

What Cobain said has its positive and negative points.  I don't agree with the use the word women, as though only they are ever victimized.  Men and children are often victims as well, with men and women alike acting as aggressors.  Furthermore, The victims of rape shouldn't have to be educated on how to act in prevention so that they don't get targeted, because ultimately it shouldn't happen.  

It seems as though in society, one of the rules of life seem to be "Rape is bad".  Yet, we've been taught through history, particularly as women "Don't get raped".  By this, they assume things such as, don't dress provocatively, don't roam the streets alone at night, don't put yourself in the situation.  In my opinion, being stripped of the right to dress how I feel and the right to be alone merely because I am more susceptible to it, is absolutely wrong.  Although I feel this way, I understand that not all cases happen under these conditions, some have nothing to do with the victim.

With progression in society, today we reach the realms of a more "Don't rape" type moral.  Sadly, not everything has magically been fixed, rape culture still exists (blaming the victim, sexually objectifying...)  but it is much more advanced than it once was.  It is truly wonderful how society has progressed.  Yet in my eyes, this still poses a problem. 

The plausible aggressors shouldn't be taught not to commit rape.  To me, that means that we view rape as a choice, when it shouldn't be.  We are teaching them to chose not to do it.  Thats like saying, "We hope you don't do it, but if you do thats okay because it was your choice".  It shouldn't even be viewed in that context.  It should be taught to men, women and children alike to respect, love and be compassionate with one another, and therefore not commit it.

The notion of rape being bad in society is constantly being interpreted into a moral ideology that many people abide to, thankfully.  Yet this moral, as I've just shared with you, has been misconstrued into many undesirable points of views.  We've gone from don't get raped, to don't rape.  Now we just need to get to respect one another's personal being and sexuality. 

What do you think?

References:
http://www.marshall.edu/wcenter/sexual-assault/rape-culture/
http://upsettingrapeculture.com/about_the_exhibition.php
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001955.htm

  

Howdy !

Throughout our whole lives, morals, life lessons and consequences have nipped at our heels.  It seems as though growing up there was always a lesson to be learned, even when you least expected it. Now that you're no longer eight years old and learning why hockey shouldn't be played in the house, you still find yourself getting more than you asked for out of everyday events.

Passed down by our parents from their parents, read aloud from children's books, taught in class rooms, reflected upon in the principals offices', discussed in workshops and meetings; these morals (values, lessons, meanings, messages, codes of ethic, whatever you want to call them) are part of our everyday being as we participate (sometimes unwillingly) in society. 

As humans, we have this idea of right and wrong.  Some grasp this concept more easily than others, and many find themselves in a constant battle for what is right.  In my mind, morals are basically the rules of wrong and right.  They persuade, enforce and teach us to consciously and unconsciously make the better choice, although they are sometimes unsuccessful...  However, when they are successful, our choices not only help ourselves, but everyone around us in our society.

Members of the Korowai Tribe (One of the only
photos where they are dressed, thank God)

These morals do vary by culture and living conditions.  Across the world, what may seem completely obscene and wrong to us, is but only good natured and right to them.  Cannibalism, just as a quick example, seems completely inhuman and horrific to our societal morals.  Yet, to the Korowai Tribe of New Guinea, this deed is derived from positive consequences.  To them, they are saving their kin from danger and suffering of demons and illness, so that they and those around them can live peacefully - all the while maintaining respect for their Gods and the values descended upon them by their beliefs.  So moralistically speaking, cannibalism is the right thing to do, don't you think?  For those of you saying no, I understand.  For us, who are privileged enough to have modern technology and medicine, cannibalism seems very wrong.  But for the Korowai people, they don't have the same options we do.  To them, they maintain their happiness and joie de vivre through the practice of culture and religion, be it cannibalism or shrunken skulls.  So for them, would cannibalism still be wrong?

Mark Twain, featuring his beautiful
moustache.

What I'm ultimately trying to express, is how easily the notion of what is wrong and right can be distorted.  Throughout this semester of blogging, I'll be here to exploit the contortion of morals.  I'll be here expressing my views on what is morally right or wrong about several controversial topics in society.

"The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot."
-Mark Twain, "What is man?"

So really, what are morals?  By what are they defined?  By whom are they defined?  Who are we as a society to decide what is right and wrong compared to another a complete opposing society.  More importantly, what do you think?



References:
http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/28/the-culture-that-still-practices-cannibalism/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sleeping-with-cannibals-128958913/?no-ist=