week 2

Last time in class, it was quite interesting to me the conversation we had about whether or not we believe that recent technology and the globalization of today's society has broken down the sense of community that was once so prevalent in the past as well as the emphasis of structure versus agency. In my mind there are truths to both sides of these ideas. I think that our sense of community has in most cases has been weakened with the introduction of the rapidly growing monster that is the Internet. The advancements in the way that news is received nowadays provided by the Internet has really changed the way people interact and see the world outside of their own existence. The way it used to be was that news mostly spread through towns from neighbor to neighbor by way of word of mouth, which was a way more intimate and physically interactive way of sharing news. But now all a person has to do is log on to their personal computer in the comfort of their home and the first thing that pops up when they get on to yahoo or AOL or whatever web browser they may be using are endless little news bulletins about current events, politics, sports, weather, etc. This totally routes most other outlets for news like newspapers and word of mouth which usually involve some type of interaction with someone that could be considered apart of your community. Whereas on the Internet you can do the same thing faster and more effectively without any interaction at all, not to mention the online community spans over language and culture boundaries instead of local communities that newspapers encompass. That being said, maybe that whole idea is not such a negative thing in the sense that it breaks down the community on the local level, because I would say that it builds a community on the global scale and breaks down the barriers of different nations and cultures and brings the world closer together. So whether or not the beast we know as the Internet is good for the community or not it is definitely necessary for our capitalist society to thrive in this age so we must either get used to it or fail to get ahead in today's globally aware society.

week one

After the last session of class, I realized that I had no clue about exactly what I was getting myself into when I decided to be a History major. I had gone into this department thinking that it all was going to be like what I had enjoyed in high school; learning about history with the teachers basically feeding students the typical story-esque lessons of what happened at D-Day and during the Civil War. I had never really contemplated what I was going to school for or how school was preparing me for my later life. Our "conversation", for lack of a better term, during the recent lecture was a bit of a revelation. The discussion of different theories of how school was using the banking system and the institutionalization of the school system to basically turn young people into drones who are force-fed historical facts and dates without much room for critical thinking or discussion, which in turn leads to people being bred for "cubicle" jobs where they take orders and deal with deadlines and so on, led to a lot of reflection on my part. Thinking about this over the weekend has led me to believe that there is a lot of truth behind those theories. I believe they have affected me personally as regards my ability to discuss things intelligently at times. I sometimes find myself in a conversation with someone where I struggle to speak my mind on some aspects of things, fearful of saying something that might be completely wrong or of being corrected by my peers. I believe my apprehension does have a great deal to do with the way the school system is set up. The lack of encouraging individuality and creativity in class did much to hinder me, deep down, when it comes to these facets of learning and life and really contemplating it for the first time has helped me realize some important things. It's very self-limiting to believe that speaking up and saying something that may be incorrect is worse than not expressing myself at all in public speaking situations. Although it may still take me a while to be comfortable with opening my mouth and speaking my mind, thinking about it definitely does help me begin to be more open about expressing my thoughts and opinions. On the other side of the argument, I also think we can at times delve too deeply into the belief that schools just teach students how to conform into normal, non-interactive, white-collar jobs. In some cases, I think it is necessary and helpful to provide students with a structured learning environment, to give them a solid educational foundation to build on as their minds mature through college and they begin to develop confidence in expressing their own opinions on different subjects.