Essential Question Post #11

In my last essential question post, I talked about my essential question (Why do people feel the need to always buy the newest, best, "in" thing? Why are there always so many fads, and why do so many people follow them?) and how it related to one of Mrs. Watson's previous student's quality project because we have started discussing quality projects in class. We will have to choose a topic for our own quality projects very soon, and I think I want to do something similar to her dress project, but not exactly the same thing.

Essential Question Post #10

We have just started to think about quality project ideas in English class. One of Mrs. Watson's previous student's quality project was really interesting to me because it had to do with fashion and fads just like my essential question(Why do people feel the need to always buy the newest, best, "in" thing? Why are there always so many fads, and why do so many people follow them?. In her project, she used parts of her old shirts to make a dress. She wrote a story about each shirt that she used in her dress. Her finished quality project included around 5 stories and the dress that she made out of all of the different shirts. This shows how someone can do the opposite of the normal. Instead of buying something new, she used her old shirts to make a cool new dress. I think that this is interesting because a lot of times people think something has to be new to be "cool", but she used her old shirts to make a dress that turned out really nice. Also, i think it's a really nice, happy feeling when you wear something that you made. When people ask you where you got it, instead of saying you bought it from some store, you can say that you made it and everyone is amazed.

Essential Question Post #9

Why do people feel the need to always buy the newest, best, "in" thing? Why are there always so many fads, and why do so many people follow them?
These are the questions that I have been thinking about in my more recent essential question responses, but I haven't been to sure how exactly I should answer these questions.

Essential Question Post #8

Since my last essential question response, I've been spending more time thinking about my new question. It's true fads are everywhere, and there are new fads popping up all the time. And no matter how soon a fad is over, everyone is already moving on to the next one. They are all buying the new clothes, getting the new haircut, or whatever they need to do to be "in". Another question that popped up in my head as i was thinking about this is: Where do all of these fads come from? I think that maybe fads come from someone creative who is an individaul and wears something just because they like it. Then someone else sees it aand thinks that it is cool too. They decide to try and wear the same thing. This happens a couple more times, and then all of a sudden BAM! There's a new fad. This makes a lot more sense than the whole subliminal messages idea from the movie. But I'm still not sure how to answer the questions that i came up with in my last essential question response: Why do people feel the need to always buy the newest, best, "in" thing? Why are there always so many fads, and why do so many people follow them?

Essential Question Post #7

This past weekend while I was watching a movie with some of my friends at my house, an new essential question came to my mind. The movie was Josie and The Pussycats. In the movie, Josie and the Pussycants become famous because they are picked up by a producer who doenst really nead a good band but any band because they play subliminal messages in the music which cause the people that listen to the music to like or buy whatever the subliminal messages tell them to like or buy. So basically that music company controls all of the fads, and what everybody should buy, wear, eat, and say. Everytime they make a new song, they could make new fads. This helped all of the merchandising companies, and a lot of manufacturers made a lot more money because of this music buisness. This made me start to think about fads in general. Even though in real life, there aren't any subliminal messages in music telling us what all the new fads are, we seem to have new ones popping up almost every week. Basically my new question is: Why do people feel the need to always buy the newest, best, "in" thing? Why are there always so many fads, and why do so many people follow them?

Essential Question Post #6

Recently in english class we watched a video documentary of a man who went to China, and ended up helping a family by buying them a water buffalo. A water buffalo is a huge gift for a poor family in China because a water buffalo helps a famer so much with cultivating the land or it can feed a family for six whole months if you kill it. I thought that this was amazing. I think that this way of helping people is more realistic than Peter Singer's soultion for world poverty, and what Zell Kravinsky did. You don't necessarily have to give money. Instead you can give them something more personal, like the water buffalo. It seemes much more rewarding because you give it directly to the people that you are helping, and in the case of the water buffalo, you know that it's help will last atleast around 15 years, and it will feed a whole family for six months if they kill it. The family who ended up getting the water buffalo were so happy and thankfull that they even cried. The people that gave the water buffalo to the poor family in China felt really accomplished and happy, but Zell Kravinsky was still unhappy, and he never felt like he was giving enough even though he donated all of his money. So, I think that i shyould be doing something more personal to help make the world around me a better place instead of just donating money to some charity. I want to feel like im really making a difference.

Essential Question Post #5

In our english class, we read an article about a man named Zell Kravinsky. He gave up everything that he had, his whole fortune, and donated it all to charity organiztions. He did everything that Peter Singer said to do in his solution to world poverty, and more. Is this really what people should be doing to make the world a better place? I'm sure that all of the money that he donated helped a lot, but it also depends on how wisely the organizations he donated the money to use it. After he donated the money he really didn't know much about what his money was used for, and how exactlly his contributions helped the people in need. I think that may be one reason why no matter how much he did, he still wasn't happy. I also dont think that was what he needed to do to make the world a better place because in some ways he was making the world a worse place, mainly for his family and close friends who worried about him. Also, he barley saved enough money for his own family to live comfortably. His trying to be a morally decent person, help out the people in need, and make the world an all around better place, ended up making his whole family unhappy. So, I think that the best thing to do to try and make a difference in the world is donating your time and effort by voulenteering somewhere or something like that.

Essential Question Post #4

Since my last personal essential question response, I've been thinking about if what Peter Singer says to do in his solution to world poverty is what i should be doing to make the world a better place. I don't think that that would actually be the best thing for me to do. I don't think that I would really feel like I was actually doing anything by just sending away my money in an envelope. I think that for me to feel like I'm actually helping, I need to be involved in the process, and see the results of what I'm doing to help. I think that instead of donating money to make the world a better place, i should donate my time by voulenteering somewhere instead. I went to the humane society a couple times over the summer with some of my friends who voulenteer there once a week. I also have a few friends who voulenteer at the hospital on weekends. Maybe I should do something like that to help make the world around me a better place.

Essential Question Post #3

We read Singer's solution to world poverty in english class, and he says that to do your fair share to help the starving children in the world, we all need to donate at least $200 to an organization that would use it to help kids in need. Is this what I should be doing to make the world a better place? Singer makes me feel really uncomfortable and guilty because he says that if you don't donate, you are killing a child. He makes it seem like you better donate or else you aren't a morally decent person. This is really uncomfortable because he is basically saying that you aren't a good person at all if you don't donate. I don't think that by not donating you are actually killing a child, but you aren't doing anything to help that child either. I don't know if i could do this to make the world a better place and save a child's life because i don't have my own $200 to donate all the time. I would have to use my parent's money, which i wouldn't want to do because it wouldn't really feel like i was actually doing something. I think for me to feel like i actually helped and made a difference, I would have to work for or raise the money myself.

Essential Question Post #2

Today I was with one of my friends from my math class, and we were in the computer lab printing out our math notes. Our math teacher does all of our notes on the smart board and puts them on epunahou so we can print them out. My friend and I like to print out all of the notes from a chapter before the chapter test to help us study. We always feel guilty when we do this because we both end up leaving the computer lab with a stack of atleast fifty pages of math notes. Also, we know that we aren't the only ones in our math class that do this. At least a third of our class prints out all the notes at school at some point, and the other people probably print them out at home. I started thinking about how much paper and ink we are wasting, especially since not everybody recycles, and people probably throw the papers away after the test. You also waste a lot of ink. We all have notebooks for class that we are supposed to take our notes and do homework in. If we all actually copied all of the notes down in class we wouldn't have to waste that paper. Or we could just listen in class and instead of printing the notes off the computer, you could copy them into your notebook from the computer. That way we wouldnt use up so much paper and ink.

Essential Question Post #1

Right now my personal essential question is: What can I do to make the world around me a better place? One thing that I've been thinking about a lot that annoys me is all the trash around campus, especially in the area in between Bingham and Pauahi where a lot of sophomores hang out. There is trash all along the side of the bushes next to Bingham, near the two green tables, and around the trash can that people were trying to throw in the trash but missed. Even though there have been announcements made in assembly about how dirty the area is, and how we should be trying to keep it more clean, a lot of people still litter. Also, no one ever really picks up the trash. Instead they just leave it there for other students or usually the cleaning staff to clean up. Even though I'm not the one who is leaving the trash all around there, I think that i should tryp picking up some of the trash and throwing it away instead of just walking through and leaving it there. That would make the hang out area a much nicer place, and make things easier for the cleaning staff at school.