Posts Tagged ‘critical thinking’

response to audit

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Kirsten,

 

I’m just going to throw some random numbers out there and hopefully they will put the hysteria into perspective. I am responding to your article about criminals working in our schools because any story that has an underlying message of “save the children” always sets off a red flag.

The math from your story shows that 1.4% of teachers found in this investigation were revealed to be one of four types of criminals. We are lumping drug possesion, sexual assault, indecent exposure and aggravated assault all into the same category. That means that I could make an educated guess and state that 3.2% of a normal population are criminals of *any* type. If the 1.4% of teachers that you would have us be alarmed about were also of any type of criminal, we could safely assume that whatever background checks are already in place are effectively reducing the criminal population of this group by over 50%. That’s great news.

What if we were to take it a step further and figure out what percentage of a “normal” criminal population consists of the four types of criminals you mentioned in your story? You see where I am going with this?

I am not trying to say that we shouldn’t be worried. There is nothing wrong with wanting to trust who deals with your children. When we take a look at the actual risk analysis, aren’t there better ways we can be spending that money to enrich our children? I’ll leave that thought open for others to decide.

Everybody knows that the quickest way into taxpayer’s pockets is to threaten their children. This can be accomplished by reiterating common every day risks. The secret is to make it sound like a new threat that didn’t exist before the story was uncovered. I don’t blame you for the story at all. Instilling fear into parents moves copy and that in turn holds value for the advertisers who finance your paychecks.

Would it be possible to reverse engineer this story and find out who is backing the proposed legislation? Even doing some critical thinking and researching beyond what I have provided could maybe balance things out. I have no right to call on you as a journalist as a librarian of critical thinking, but I am still inclined to do so.

I do hope that you do not take this in the wrong spirit. I feel that there should be a little bit more research involved when passing on information to the public. Especially when it concerns such emotionally charged issues. Who is really going to be taken advantage of in the scenario that you proposed?

I don’t have the answer, because I don’t know who financed the studies or who is supporting any bills concerning this subject.

original story found here
This was a result of just five minutes of work. I could hope that more intensive research would provide more accurate and applicable information

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Front Page | 1 Comment »

persolinibty

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Having a discussion with a friend yesterday, I understood something that had been bothering me for a while. The basis of what disturbs me is the perception people around me have on responsibility and accountability. I find the whole philosophy of our current thought climate to be lacking. I do not postulate this thesis in order to separate myself from others through intellectual division. I put forth this idea in the hopes that maybe even one person will understand a little bit more.

The conversation revolved around a plant outside of my apartment. It is a lilac plant and the leaves were wilted and dry. This was not due to the season. The leaves were brown because I had failed to water the plant during the summer.

My friend suggested several justifications for why it was not my fault that the plant was not healthy. Some of those suggestions are probably at your lips this very moment. Ready to tell me that among several other reasons, the plant is not mine. I did not place the plant there, away from the sprinklers. It’s just a plant. The person who asked me to be responsible for the plant should have been taking care of it. I am sure my readers can think of a million and one excuses for why I was not directly responsible for the plant being unhealthy.

This is where I beg to differ and I believe that this situation illustrates an environment that surrounds us on a larger scale. I may go so far as to imply that our culture holds the above example to its chest as a core value. “It’s not my fault.” The stories of our current culture are collected and told from the courtrooms. They are no longer told from family units or individuals. Stories are told from the collective. I will touch on that topic later.

My position on the whole matter of the plant was this: The plant was dying because I did not water it. I was aware of the plants existence and I was also aware that the plant needed assistance because it would not be healthy on its own. The reason I am responsible is because I *wanted* the plant to be healthy. If I want the plant to be healthy and I have the means to keep it so, why should I not also be the one responsible for this?

It would not be very becoming of me if I were to express anger or outrage that the plant was dying. It would not be right of me to blame others for the failing of the plant. If I did not have a desire in my heart for the plant to succeed, well, there would be no issue now. Any emotional outburst from a different party would not convince me so. They would have to be very persuasive to make me want what they want. At that juncture I would then be an agent of their desires and no longer a man of my own mind.

I hope you, reader, can follow the path of this thought and see the larger picture that I am alluding to.

I would like to discuss this more in the near future.

Update: What I’m trying to get at, is that it is not someone else’s job to help me get what I want. That is my responsibility, alone. Making others do my bidding only makes me a parasite unless I can help them achieve their wants if they do not have the means to do so.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Front Page | 4 Comments »