Summary 2

This is the point were I start to become aware of the situation, and where I start to think that a change must be made in order to make this world, a better world (or at least not worst). Throughout this month I have learned some important facts about human life conditions and the problems of the earth (mainly us).

Some important ideas that I learned:

It feels good to help other people, perhaps this power is the fuel for some people to truly keep helping others. There is a problem though. If you help someone, the person or people that one is helping need to know exactly what we are going to do and for how long. Furthermore, if we are doing a project, this project better be sustainable or else people may feel awkward after a failure thus distrusting any further attempt to help them.

I learned that the system or the society that we live in may not always be as fair as I thought it was because sometimes it could be misleading and/or partial. For example, wealth is not distributed well enough in the world, and some people that really try to be successful, fail because they don’t have enough resources.

I think that above these problems of equality and wealth distribution, the greatest problem that we face nowadays is the destruction of the world and the consumption of natural resources. I think that these problems arise from other two problems which are:
Overpopulation: We have had an overwhelming amount of natural resources in the past century thus it seemed as if the world could really support us all. This problem is enlarged with the ignorance of some people that are not aware of the situation or that simply do nothing about it.
Economy driven society: We no longer care about the care of the world. Instead we seem to care more about the economy. This incorrect idea that we have might be a product of our minds since we think that we are disconnected from nature and we live on an artificial world made by mankind.
To be able to overcome these problems, the society most change the way it thinks. For the time being, we could help by teaching our awareness to other people.

I don’t want to think that we will become aware of the earth’s problems when it’s too late, but it might happen. As an example, when we played the world resource simulation game (with the newspapers), we realize that we were in great trouble only when we stared at the floor (after being told to do so) and saw what had happen to all of our resources. I think that the movie 11th hour documentary clearly shows that there is a problem thus more people need to watch it in order to become aware of the situation.

Conclusion
I think that I have learned a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about. I also started to become aware of some of the problems that we face today, while doing fun activities in class and writing in this forum.

After thinking for a while, I have decided that while I am in Luis Gerardo class, I will teach kids and adults of what we should do to protect our home (the earth). Thanks Luis Gerardo for everything ^^.

8th week

In this week we played two fun games. The one that I liked the most is: The Climate Change Game .

In this game I reached level 10 with good popularity and great environmental care.
What I learned from this exercise is that if we really try to help the nature, we indeed can, will is the only power that is needed. I think that this game was just way too easy because we knew how things were going to behave, but the reality is that systems tend to be more stochastic and the deterministic behavior is hard to measure. Still it was fun and now I know that we should try to be less destructive.

In this week, we also watched the 11th hour movie that deals with the destructive nature of human kind. This movie literally make us open our eyes to “see” that we are relatively a new species but we have caused so much destruction by selfishness thus if we continue with this madness we will eventually destroy ourselves.





I agree with most of the information that is present in this documentary because everything is based on evidence and scientific research. Most of our actions nowadays are economic driven thus we are part of a materialistic society that keeps destroying the world by polluting the earth, changing the climate, deforesting the forest and taking away too many natural resources. Also the human population keeps increasing exponentially because we are using non-renewable resources of energy so the problems of resources will become more and more evident as times goes by.

I think we should change the way we look at the world. The world should not be viewed as an infinite source of resources; instead we should try to live in harmony with nature. It will be too dangerous to corrupt the ecosystem because it gives us (for free) a lot of things that we need like fresh air, food, etc. The problem is that we generally take these benefits for granted hence putting at risk our own existence.

7th week

Resource world Simulation Game
In this game, every student grabbed a piece of paper and placed it on the floor. After doing so, we had to wonder around for some time while the teacher removed some of them. When he made the sign of “stop”, we had no choice but to step on a piece of newspaper.
The newspaper represented the resources of the earth (every turn there would be less resources).
The behavior was as follows
1. Everyone started the game without sharing and they try to find their own piece of newspaper.
2. When there was like 70% of the resources left, everyone started to believe that sharing was a good idea.
3. When we had like 30% of the resources left, everyone started to bring the resources together (pieces of paper) in a false attempt to stop the removal of the resources
4. When we had less than 15% of the resources we stared to share massively in order to continue playing the game.
5. After a while, there was just one piece of newspaper to share among thirty people or so. This time we knew that it was not possible to share it together; therefore we decided to split the resources in parts, so we could still land on a piece of paper.

After playing this game I realized that this pattern is very similar to the pattern that we as humans do to the earth. After we finished the game, Luis Gerardo told us to look at the floor. When we did so, there was nothing but destruction. All the resources that we had at the beginning were all gone and there were just some fragments of what was there before. I think that this is very similar to what is happening today to the earth. Every day, there are more humans, more pollution and fewer resources in the earth.

Sixth week

In this week we participated in two exercises that where fun and interesting. For the former we watch a video dealing with the poor water conditions in Ayole and the efforts that were made to fix successfully this problem. For the latter we played a fun game that had to do with life. In this section I will focus more on the thoughts that I had on the game rather than those of the movie.

In the game we made teams of four people, we randomly (or at least that’s what I think) received a character (photograph of a kid that had a red or blue frame). The game was full of traps, simulating difficulties in life that a person may or may not have throughout his life. The characters that had blue frames always succeeded to avoid any penalty when they landed on these spots, while the red ones where not so lucky (no one except the teacher was aware of this partiality). At the beginning of the game the professor told us that we were going to play this fun game and that the winner will receive one additional point in the grading scale while the looser will loose one.

Since part of our grade was at jeopardy, teams started to behave aggressively and for a moment it seemed as if each other miseries were other people happiness (for some people at least). At the end of the game the majority stated that the game was not fair but I get the feeling that they formulated that decision from empathy without truly judging the system.

In my case, I was in a handicapped team that lost against the other five teams. When asked whether the game was fair or not, I said that the game was fair because:
1. Everyone played under the same rules, meaning that they had the same possibility of receiving a good character or a handicapped one. Furthermore, we tossed a dice throughout the game thus we had a probability of 1/6 of winning and one of 1/6 of loosing the game.
2. We never disagree at the beginning or throughout the game that the system was unfair or that gambling part of our grades was not correct.

After thinking for a while I think the professor was trying to create a cognitive dissonance in the class, in addition, by jeopardizing a small portion of our grades some people may have internalized an attitude. But how good did it work? For people that stated that the game was not fair the empathy and some other feelings were greater at the end, but they didn’t really do anything to stop it meanwhile (thus accepting the reality). If they were playing the real game, this situation might generate even more cognitive dissonance, furthermore with little or not remuneration people might internalize the attitude deeper thus more people will be convinced that this game was fair.

Was my decision correct? Not really, while thinking of this, I missed part of the delusion.
1. We were not given an option at the beginning of the game whether we wanted to play it or not.
2. We were not given an option to quit the game
3. Our grades should be something we earn, not something left to luck.
After some thought, I got to the conclusion that this game was not as fair as I thought in that moment because I was missing these fundamental ideas. I also don’t think that it was completely unfair since, although not given the choice, I had the right to refuse to continue playing the game.

Then, what should I have done, without affecting the dynamics of the exercise? First of all I should have paid more attention to the pattern and the fact that our grades should not be left to luck, instead of thinking of winning or loosing, the probabilities behind them and the fate of our character. After doing this, I should have stood up when it was our turn (especially when we were not winning nor loosing), and claim that the game was not fair thus stepping away from it. (At this point I don’t think the professor would question my decision because it could jeopardize the dynamics of the exercise thus letting me out after unsuccessful tries to get me back in). Although this may not be the best way to deal with the game, I think its elegant and it wouldn’t break with the dynamics of the game ^^;;

After all the meditation, I think that this game was fun and it really made us “see” that the world is unfair and sometimes we must question the system and the society we live in.

Fifth week

This week was very interesting. On Tuesday our class played a fun game where half of the class had to walk blindfolded and the other half had to guide them (teams of two), then we interchanged roles. I don’t really know the name for it, but let’s call it “blind trust”. For the first part we were instructed to guide our partners to walk to a nearby lake (100m + 50m of stairs, 150m) pretending that they where the most precious thing in life. When we changed roles the other teammates where instructed to do whatever they wanted to (the blindfolded people did not know).

For the first part I felt that I was giving protection and that the responsibility of my partner was on my shoulder. While I was walking I felt somehow happy and powerful. That feeling was great and perhaps that is the most powerful charm for helping other people out, Satisfaction!

For the second part my partner started walking me around, but for no apparent reason my partner left me without saying a word. I was thinking that perhaps my partner had to do something but was to shy to say anything. Then all of a sudden someone grabbed my arm and made me run for no reason. Before this event, I was expecting some kind of unexpected situation because it wouldn’t make sense for the teacher to tell them to be kind to us. Although I don’t know for sure, I’m positive that the person that made me run was not my original partner. Since I felt the texture of the ground, my hearing increased and I remembered the scenery I could tell where we where with a precision of 5 to 15 meters of error even though we were running. Since this person did not bring me to far places, he/she had to be from our class thus I started trusting him and started running around at the same pace. After this, this person left me too.

Then a third person made me walk around this area. I think that he just wanted to have some fun bringing me to difficult places and at the end leaving me nearby another blindfolded person. Although the teacher told them that they could do anything (without me knowing), this person cared when I was about to crash. -_-;;

After we finish this exercise we returned to the class and discussed. I think that what we can get out of this experiment/game is that helping other people feels well. We must also remember that it is always a good idea to let people (who are receiving help) know how much time are we going to expend with them so when we leave (if we do), they don’t feel abandoned.

Another thing that I learned is that the majority, if we are given the freedom to do something, we won’t question if that action is right or wrong and instead, we tend to do what everyone else is doing. In my case I think that it is always better to question our actions and think about the situation, we must not rely on our rights/privileges or on our limitations.

Summary 1

After thinking for a while I have decided that I must do the following
1. Be more efficient in what I do.
2. Give myself some free time.
3. Watch more news in order to notice important events
4. Prepare for the future
5. Help my family and the community.

I have learned that I must do things that I really like so I can be passionate about it and follow it till the end. I must think about the future and what kind of person do I really want to be.

I have found out that I have a mature consciousness but I still want to work forward, in order to be a better person. I will also try to work harder in order to get out of a laziness state and start being more productive.

In these four weeks I have found out that there are more people than what I thought trying to make a positive change to the world. For a long time I have thought that by working hard and helping the economy grow, the average living will also raise, although this is not necessarily false, doing something for the community also, might bring better results since we must work and live as a society.
I think that the main problem is generated in the education system.

I think that the ideal education system for Mexico would be.
1. Make more schools so more people get education.
2. Have more vacations and free time.
3. Let students progress in the education systems depending on their abilities (faster, normal or slower)
4. Pursue the ability of problem solving instead of memorization.
5. Inspire the kids in their studies and for the care of the common good.

I think that my social work this semester will be focused in giving classes to people so they can become prepare and start changing Mexico. I will keep in mind some of the points that I mentioned above, hopefully the education system in the future will move toward this approach.

Fourth week

This week we thought about what might be some reasons for the poverty in Mexico.
Some of the factors that were listed were.
1. Poor education and lack of knowledge in poor communities
2. Government since it just gives away money to poor people
3. Lack of job opportunities
4. Natural Resources.
5. Desire to succeed.

From these factors some people think that many poor people have desired to succeed and I agree with them, but I think that in average there are less poor people that really do something to succeed thus they keep doing what they have been doing for long time.
Why do many poor people have lots of children, even though they are poor? Why do some poor people become middle class or even rich if they try? I think that key is “will” and that we should instead inspire this will and open opportunities in poor towns than giving away money.

A nice question was brought up by the teacher,
What still is the reason for not doing community service?
In my case I have done some community service once in a while and the main reason for not doing it now is that I don’t really have time since I’m at school taking the ridiculous amount of 56 credits. Why do we need so much work? If anyone wants to do this then they will have to jeopardize not the fun stuff, but their base of their studies. In the past I haven’t done a lot of things for myself because I had to study, therefore I think that the education system in Mexico is much harder than the US thus it really needs to be modified.