Reflections+MP

Reflections Page:

Body Image in America: Media images of the unattainable thin body can be found almost anywhere. These media images are seen on billboards, magazines, in commercials and in ads. There has been continual interest in women’s body image throughout the years. Media messages screaming “thin is in” may not directly cause eating disorders, but they help to create the context within which people learn to place a value on the size and shape of their body. To the extent that media messages like advertising and celebrity spotlights help our culture define what is beautiful and what is “good,” the media’s power over our development of self-esteem and body image can be incredibly strong. What we need to be teaching our children, and adults for that matter, is that character trumps body image without a doubt, every time.

Education in America: Education in the United States is mainly provided by the public sector with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state and local. Child education is compulsory. Public education is universally available. School Curricula, funding, teaching, employment and other polices are set through locally elected school boards with jurisdiction over school districts with many directives from state legislatures. School districts are usually separate from other local jurisdictions, with independent officials and budgets. Educational standards and standardized testing decisions are usually made by state governments. In the year 2000, there were 76.6 million students enrolled in schools from kindergarten through graduate schools. Of these, 72 percent aged 12 to 17 were judged academically "on track" for their age (enrolled in school at or above grade level). Of those enrolled in compulsory education, 5.2 million (10.4 percent) were attending private schools. Education in America is not as effective as it should be because of a number of problems inherent within the system. Because of the way issues of political and social differences have infiltrated educational policy and decision-making, students are not being offered a sound way of dealing with diversity or understanding how to manage differences. Furthermore, in the midst of more large scale debates centering upon sociopolitical questions, there are more concrete problems that are not being dealt with such as the issue of cheating in schools and even the imbalance and potential unfairness of the grading system.

Two generations after the end of legal discrimination, race still ignites political debates — over Civil War flags, for example, or police profiling. But the wider public discussion of race relations seems muted by a full-employment economy and by a sense, particularly among many whites, that the time of large social remedies is past. Race relations are being defined less by political action than by daily experience, in schools, in sports arenas, in pop culture and at worship, and especially in the workplace.
 * Race in America:**

Are Americans Afraid of Change: At the beginning of the year, I conceived of what it meant to be an American in terms of words like freedom, opportunity, patriotism, and enduring images such as our flag and the marines at Iwo Jima planting the US flag. I focused on the concepts familiar to many Americans, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal opportunity, and patriotism that did not devolve into nationalism. With the readings of this past year, however, my focus has shifted away from those key words that seemed to define what it means to be an American in an overly positive way, and I am now aware of the strong vein of selfishness that also runs through our American character. This selfishness does not necessarily negate the positive aspects of the American character on which I was focused earlier; rather, it lends a sense of completeness to my vision. No country is either all good or all bad; America is no exception. My first inkling of the pervasive selfishness that runs through our American past and present came as I read //Democracy in America// by Alexis De Tocqueville. His discussion of the ways in which the “haves” in America are more often than not unwilling to sacrifice their possessions in order to ensure that the “have nots” rise above poverty disturbed me. I had never truly considered why, even with immense social and financial inequality, this country maintains political equilibrium. De Tocqueville’s perceptive discourse on American selfishness illuminated me regarding the price the poor pay as inequality is maintained in this country.

pucker-americancharacter Education in America MP Race in America MP Are Americans Afraid of Change MP