Whatever Happened to Common Sense?

This article brings up a seemingly complicated issue (as stated in the article). Should the internet be filtered in pubilc libraries. The author suggests that it is simply common sense to filter the internet. I wonder though, how much restriction would be placed. Would it become impossible to gain access to important websites such as those on sexually transmitted diseases for a research paper for health class. I think this issue can be solved by librarian monitoring, and not standing over the shoulder of a student on a computer but simply filing through the area. Most students if they catch an adult milling past them, will not be thinking of finding pornography and if are afforded the opportunity to (if it is a link in a websearch) are unlikely to follow that link due to fear of being caugt. Just a thought really.

NEA Code of Ethics, Chapter 1

First off, I want to make sure it is understood that Socrates' dog is mortal.... I just thought that may be the most important thing I read in these chapters. Although they were important to understanding how ethical arguments (and logical arguments in general) tend to occur. I felt like this chapter was speaking to an audience with a severe difficiency in education. As if we were never taught that if A=B and B=C then A=C, transitive property.

The situation with Mr. Pugnacious is slightly more interesting. Simply because as an ethical situation it has no clear right or wrong answer. Involving a young boy who likes to start fights with other kids, and his abusive father, the teacher is torn between telling the truth or lying to prevent Johnnie from getting beat by his father's belt. She tells the lie, but is unsure how she feels. This gets to the heart of what ethics is all about.

Caring (#3)

Caring is an important aspect of making moral decisions, yes? You are more likely to save your girlfriend from an attacker than you are some random person on the street. I think for most people this is correct. Does this view of ethics close us off from people that we don't know? I think it possibly could. Though I do not think it intentionally does so. I think the concept of caring relationships, simply tries to describe and recognize that when you care for someone that relationship changes as do the rules that would normally apply to ethical descisions. Sometimes it is not about what is right or wrong, but what is right or wrong for that person. If you have a depressed friend, telling them straight up about their depression and how you feel they are just trying to get sympathy is a good way to help throw them off the top of a building. Sometimes you have to approach things differently depending on the person, depedning on the situation. You may even be able to argue that there is no one way to handle an two situations the same. I think the key point to the article is to explain that to be a carer, you are not just caring for someone, but always have their best intentions in mind in helping them become better people. I think one issue it fails to address, is how do you decide what is right. You can say to care you must do things that help a person, but who is to say how a care decides to help is right? It describes a mother who lets their kid eat junk, is soothing when the child is ill, fails to get him immunized, etc. and says this mother is not a carer. That is fine, I don't disagree with this point, but I want to know why. I want to challenge why things are right and wrong and how do we decide how to care for someone. In the end, I don't think this is really an alternate way of looking at ethical problems, but merely a subdivision of the previous two schools of thought. Simply a way of applying it. In the end you still need some kind of guideline to tell you what is right or wrong, and that either comes from yourself, or from a source outside yourself.

Teaching as a vocation

I agree whole heartedly that a vocation describes work that results in service to others and personal satisfaction in the rendering of that service, as the author puts it. The article talks about jobs, which are significantly different from a vocation. I have had jobs before, many, many jobs. Jobs which simply, provided me my means for survival. Nothing more and nothing particularly less. Thinking of teaching as a vocation, as something that I am called to do, excites me. That is to say, I feel that I have been called to teach music. I intend to devote myself to teaching and have me being a teacher become part of who I am. Though this begs me to wonder, do I feel it is part of who I am already? I would think logically it must be, if that is what I aspire to be. Thus I am already a teacher and am acquire the skills to better teach my students.

The Death of Ivan Illych

I'll be honest... this was a tough read... well.. it was entertaining, but longer than I had suspected. But that is ok, long does not necessarily mean bad. I mean, you have a man who dies for more or less unknown reasons, and his realization that his life amounted to nothing. Or at least, did not amount to what he now though his life should have been. Honestly, that is easy. Looking back on your life in regret takes no particular effort at all, and in the end is nothing more than an excuse to feel sorry for yourself. Hmm, but that's not really the point of the story now is it? Or perhaps it is, don't live life for material and societal position and you will not end your life feeling as if you did not live to an end sastiftying to yourself. Life must be lived to the fullest constantly, and that is a goal worth having.