Throughout the semester, the topic of my blog and the way I planned to structure my research paper changed drastically. I first was going to use examples of famous people who defy the normal stereotypes laid upon them. I believed that this would have helped the reader relate to the topic, as well as get an insight into the purpose of my overall thesis. But as time went by the topic of my blog shifted towards the scientific aspect of stereotype, and how nurture and nature affect the way we stenotype individuals. At the end, my research paper was half about the problems that stereotype causes, such as being ignorant to the different cultures we interact with every day, and half about a solution. The solution was based on the education system and curriculum not evolving even after we have evolved with new technology that connects us to the world and different cultures. The main issue in my paper was that the curriculum should entail information about the world instead of just about the culture of America.

In class I learned to incorporate a contradictory point in my essay, and proving it wrong. This not only helps add information to the paper, but it helped make my point a lot more strong. At first it was hard to do so, because my adding a point that goes against my thesis I felt as if I was tearing down my point. Yet through our discussions in class, I was able to write a paragraph in my paper about the common misconception and concern the reader might have with my solution, and use it to prove that my thesis was correct, and my solution should be implemented.

While writing the blogs and my final paper, I learned that there are different ways I can fight out a point, and make my thesis stronger. For some reason I always believed there was a certain format I had to use for my papers in order to prove my point, yet with the openness and the freedom that this paper gave us, i was able to explore different writing methods, and different ways of strengthening my thesis. I related most to the lesson on counter arguments. For some reason I had never thought that a point arguing against my thesis would actually help me make my thesis stronger. It was something new I had learned, and I actually enjoyed writing my counter argument.

As college decisions started rolling out last year, it almost became a mutual understanding between the seniors and the teachers that the course load would have to get a lot more lenient. Most of the seniors where going through a serious case of seniorities, this is when my English teacher decided to put on a Ted talk every day of class.

The day we watched The Dangers of A Single Story, by Chimamanda Adichie, her talk and ideas seem to bubble up in me.

All I could think about was how easily I could relate to her talk. Since that day, I have somehow tried to relate things that I learn, and put it into a different prospective. When I decided to write a paper about the curriculum we have in school that doesn’t teach students enough about the different cultures and lifestyles that people have all over the world, I used Adichie’s talk as the bases and then connected It to the main place students learn from. I started to conduct my research a couple of weeks after we were assigned our paper, but stereotype is such a vast topic, that every time I went back to look into it, I found different perspectives. After coming to college I could relate to different people even better, because the Ted talk had opened my mind to a new way of thinking. Throughout the whole process I had a small problem converting my topic into a argument based research because I couldn’t find a reasonable enough solution, yet I found one, but I changed my paper to be half, a problem based and argument based paper. While I was trying to find a solution to stereotype, I learned that we could change the way we learn about the world without traveling. The solution I found to stereotype had never crossed my mind, and now that I know there is a tangible solution, it makes me want to get out there and change the way we teach students.

Today I plan on “live blogging” on a book I am reading. The book is about the different ways we learn as a child; Its called The Unschooled Mind, written by Howard Gardner, and I am live blogging for the sixth chapter.

1:02 PM He starts his chapter describing the most influential social circles, with the brightest minds. He then describes the most essential topics that should be taught to the younger generation if all of the older more wise men had died. Who and what should be taught? What are the most important things ideas that need to be passed on?

1:05 PM Gardner then goes on to describe all the different things that can potentially be taught, “…Fulfillment of certain society roles, transmission of cultural values, or on passing on different varieties of forms of knowledge that have been achieved over the millennia”(116). At this point it makes me wonder what is the one thing that needs to be taught to a generation that will eventually have no one to guide him or her?

1:10 PM The author has a whole paragraph about teaching the next generation culture, so that they can eventually teach each other the different types of customs. For this author, the best way to learn something is not through reinforcement, but through appropriately applying concepts and principles to new questions and ideas through up every day. We learn everyday through living life, by absorbing all the knowledge we can get from the people around us.

1:16 PM Application of knowledge in different ways is what brings us to new ideas and innovations. Have you ever thought about how a new prospective can bring up completely different results?

But what if as children we don’t get to experience different prospective. What if we are taught the wrong idea of a certain subject? What if we were taught that going to Africa meant going to a continent that only had dark skinned individuals, or a continent surrounded by trees and wild animals? Children are susceptible to any kind of information given to them, but if only a certain point of view is presented, then a child is going to believe that an entire continent lives in a jungle

1:23 PM Instead of teaching students concepts, as educators of the next generation we should be teaching them to be able to understand concepts on their own, yet guiding them to think out of the box. We should be allowing them to grow independently, so that they can become future innovators, greater thinkers, and overall just more well rounded

1:31 PM As we grow through our society, we see we favor learning through apprenticeship, either through family or through someone we don’t know. Through the years we see the value or shadowing and doing internships so much more than we use to.

This chapter speaks generally about the way that child development works, and the different ways we subconsciously learn. By allowing mandating society to get more experience, we also force society to learn from the people around them. We all feed off of each other’s knowledge, but this book mentions that as children, our absorbance and retention rate are the highest. We need to have a good system, in order to attain a better way of learning from our mentors.

As we grow and evolve, one easy was of learning new concepts is by assuming, making observations and inducing connections between two things, two people, or two different personalities.

In a blog published by CogitoErgoCogitoSum he writes about reasons why Prejudice and Stereotype is good in society and how it helps us grow as human beings. Cogito explains that by generalizing we are able to deduce connections that help us evolve. He even goes further on by telling the reader that

“Stereotype is healthy and a sign of intellect.”

Cogito explains that the intelligent people form irrational bias and prejudices, because they are the ones that are able to observe the patters in society.

I agree with the author’s point of view when he talks about assuming small things in life to help us grow. Scientific discoveries are made everyday by knowing the assumptions that have to be made. But when it comes down to a person’s character, or characterizing people according to the way they look just because its easier to induce connections rather than getting to know someone for who they really are, that’s where I don’t agree.

Before reading this article I took for granted the fact that a lot of times we make small deductions and connections in life to make sense out of things.  I realized that stereotyping helps when it comes down to understanding a big group of people, but when is comes down to a personal level stereotyping or even deducting evidence doesn’t help actually get to know the person. After reading this article I am interested in knowing the different kinds of connections we make subconsciously, not just on people but in everything we do in life.

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