US Prisons: Myth vs. Mayhem

This article states that our prisons, as well as the Federal Government behind our prisons, are not doing their jobs correctly; giving us statistics, facts and situations to back it up. Prisons have gone from being a 'scared straight' model to just being another place to rep your gang and lay your head for a while. Instead of trying to instill concepts of what they should be striving for instead of what they are decidedly striving for, the prisons are bringing them in and sending them off to do what they were on the streets, the only difference is now they have a large, confined audience. Instead of taking them out of their environments and changing their pace, they are just putting them in the same rut, even letting them get farther into their trends. If people aren't subjected to different environments and don't see a change in others, what would provoke them to change?

I'm not exactly sure what would help change the prison system for the better. From experience within my family and throughout my life in general, I know that people will always just do what they want. You could give them everything they would ever need to be on a "straight and narrow path" but that doesn't mean that they will follow the trail. Every single person's mind works at a different pace with different motions inside of different parameters, yet we all try and treat them the exact same as the others. It's not shocking to hear that our systems aren't working because I don't believe that there is really one set way to get every person who has fallen of the path, a way to climb back up. 

Should We Have Compassion?

Compassion is described as 'the understanding or empathy for the suffering of others.'

While I agree with it, I believe that compassion is not just having empathy for the suffering, otherwise it would just be empathy. I think that having compassion should be people completely involved with the situation of suffering. Anyone can say, "Oh that's sad," or "Gee that sucks," but it takes true compassion and will/want to get involved and change what you see needs it. While I know that not everyone has a section in their brain/heart/soul for this specific feeling, I believe that they should, even if it is small. If there was more compassion and care for others in the world I think that we would be a much healthier and happier place when it came to wars, wildlife, and just all around. Of course you should not spend all of your days completely absorbed in other people's misery, but it also wouldn't be bad to help those that need it from time to time.

If you were suffering, wouldn't you wish for compassion from others?

Bring on the Learning Revolution

I really enjoyed watching this video because I believed that everything he said could not have hit the nail on the head any harder.


In his speech he talks about how everyone is just trying to 'improve a broken model,' when it really needs to be transformed and revolutionized. Over the years education has just turned into an industrial business, pushing everyone through the assembly lines, slowly weeding out the 'broken' pieces. And through these years and today it seems that more and more pieces are falling off of the line. I'm not entirely sure how it has come to this but I really wish that people would realize that pushing towards a process instead of actualization is not the way to move forward. Humans are diverse, humans are customized, humans are organic, and we cannot flourish under one 'right' standardized method. Everyone holds natural talents somewhere inside, and he states that education strips us of this. It only scrapes the top and feeds what is brought forth instead of digging deeper to find what else is there. He states that education is, "not about scaling a solution, it's about creating a movement," and I believe that if the education system was opened up to let everyone dig deeper then not only would it be transformed, it would be completely revolutionized for the better. 

My First Post!

I've designed my blog to reflect my simplicity. I'm not too big on fancy designs or logos, I'd rather things be chill and simple.

What is most important to me is how I treat myself and others. I take care of myself and the people I care about to the best of my ability. I am constantly helping myself and friends to learn new things, build up relationships, and just give everything I can. 

I am in school to continue my education; I love to learn anything I can, whenever I can. I'm also here to possibly find something that I could completely fall in love with, and work to succeed in.

From this class, I hope to learn how to write better essays, and to just write better in general. I also want to learn how to grasp deeper concepts of books, this is usual difficult for me.

What I value most is just building myself into someone that I am proud of. I like to challenge myself to get to these places, and always work hard to complete my challenges. So hopefully working hard to get what I want will do nothing but push me farther forward in my career.