One For All, All For One

I recently read that in Denmark taxes are levied as much as fifty percent sometimes. I cannot imagine Americans tolerating something like that and I think this is sad. The reason that Denmark taxes its members so heavily is to provide guaranteed government funding for all its members. The members get time off for childbirth, regulated work hours, etc. I don’t think Americans would tolerate what they would perceive as government interference in their lives. But I don’t view it that way. I believe in a society that believes in all its members. I have always been an idealist, and probably a bit of a socialist at heart. I simply don’t understand, at a gut level, why we live in one of the richest countries in the world and have 47 million people uninsured. Or why we have tax breaks for the rich while good portions of our population are policed away from public areas for the “crime” of being homeless. I think these disparities between what we profess to believe and the way we actually live make ours a poor, not a great nation.
Instead of increasing the distance between our well-off citizens and those who are not making it, why can’t we craft government policies that benefit all? I don’t know how to do it. But I do believe, feverently, in the right of all citizens to have equal access to good health care, family benefits that allow families time off after giving birth, day care centers that allow women to work and a liberal arts education for all children that everyone can afford, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Imagine what our country would be like if we had in place, preventive programs that provided support for every member of our society. Would things be perfect? Of course not. Humans are not that predictable or easily pidgeonholed. But it would be a great way to show what our values are as a country. Do we value material things more, or people? I think that if we were to begin treating all our country’s members as valuable, we would be on the right path to being a truly great nation.

Full time Idealist

My ideal job is to work in a prison teaching gardening as a therapeautic skill. So far I have nearly gotten my social work degree, but I really like the idea of using plants as a teaching tool. I also want to get a degree in horticulture, and then blend the two skill sets. I would like to work in a prison setting because I believe that people who have been marginalized and face being disenfranchised from the American system need to have a way to reintegrate. Horticultural therapy offers people a way to learn or re-learn nurturing skills that may have been lost in an institutionalized setting. I think being able to nurture something is a significant way to connect with other human beings and "set the stage" for being a valued member of society.

I believe firmly in an America that is inclusive. It needs to offer those who live on the fringes of society a way to become fully functioning members. I worry that we are becoming a country of haves and have-nots, and the only way to fix this is to work at offering opportunities to all our citizens. I think I can contribute to this ideal through using plants to form connection with people. I believe that giving people the chance to care for another living thing connects them, and us, to our humanity. This is my version of the American dream.

School Daze

My best and worst educational experiences at UMBC are different in the details, but boringly similar at their base; both share the common denominator of the instructor as the deciding factor in a good or bad class.

My best class involved an instructor who zipped into the room like a pinball, talking a mile a minute, immediately engaging the class. She spoke loudly and enthusiastically and constantly stalked the classroom. It was hard to not watch her. From the first, she made her expectations glaringly clear, brought up talking points and solicited every member of class for an answer. No matter what they answered, she found at least one thing the person said that she could highlight as a good point. Her tests included detailed study guides and one essay portion that was take home and could be written open-book. Her whole goal was to see every student succeed. You could see she took pride in her students' success. I believe her teaching methods helped me consistently got A's, as did most of her students.

My worst class was also oriented to the professor's behavior. This class was supposedly discussion, but the instructor spoke in never-varying soft voice and sometimes cut people off if their contribution was not, in her opinion, contributing to the lesson she wanted to teach. For paper writing, she gave us a guide that was excruciatingly detailed, but she refused to take questions about those papers during class time. If you didn't understand the study guide, I suppose you were just out of luck. I tried to follow the minutiae of her instructions, but consistently brought back papers with highly critical feedback. This just made me angry and withdrawn in class, which made it even tougher to sit through 2 1/2 hours of her monotone. After 2 weeks, I realized that I would get nothing out of this class, so I grit my teeth and resolved to slog through to the end. I wound up with a B, but I'm still mad about it. Oddly enough, I think this professor cared about her students' grades too. She just didn't know how to motivate.