Month: October 2018

I chose to read chapter 10: “The Art of Metacommentary.” This chapter informs the reader on how to add explanation to your argument so that the reader better understands what you are trying to say so that they don’t get the wrong idea. I chose to read this chapter because I thought it would help me better articulate my thoughts and organize my claims. I tend to struggle with having enough to say and this chapter gave me some tools to fix that. Using these techniques, I revised the following section of my essay:

I believe that the best way to solve any problem is with an integrated approach that incorporates ideas from multiple perspectives.

Revised:

I believe that the best way to solve any problem is with an integrated approach that incorporates ideas from multiple perspectives. What I mean by this is that we should not go into a problem with a closed mind. Instead, we must be open to multiple ideas that may differ from your own that might give you new insight that you would not have thought of on your own. This way we can use them to find the best and most secure way to solve a problem.

Science is a vital part of our future and we must strive to keep it at the forefront of our education. In order to grow as scientists we must integrate new ways of making discoveries, such as art, into the scientific method. A quote from “We Must Protect U.S. Investment in Scientific Knowledge” by Mark B. Boslough describes the importance of keeping the passion for science alive. The quote reads ” unfortunately, even after the successes of 20th-century science, there are a lot of people who still don’t like (or understand) the scientific method. Science is now under attack from many directions.” This means that we must work extra hard to keep the passion for science alive. There are a great numbers of naysayers who reject science and ignore scientific facts. A possible reason for this is that it is not as accessible to many people as it could be. In Yo-Yo Ma’s essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” he talks about the importance of integrating arts and empathy into the scientific curriculum. He states “the values behind arts integration–collaboration, flexible thinking, and disciplined imagination–lead to the capacity to innovate.” Many people are not interested in science because they favor the arts and do not feel like they have the mental capacity to be a scientist. Integrating art into the scientific method will make it more accessible to a greater number of people. Ma’s and Boslough’s ideas can work together to decrease the number of people who claim that science is not as important as it is. Integrating art into science will encourage us to grow our understandings, come up with new hypotheses, and reach a greater audience.

Trying to blend art with math and science is an unnecessary and fruitless idea. These two subject matters exist on two completely different planes and cannot work together. The STEM program has worked for many years and it has been successful. Schools can still provide good quality education and cultivate creative thinkers without incorporating the STEAM education system. Renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma would disagree. He says “The values behind arts integration–collaboration, flexible thinking, and disciplined imagination–lead to the capacity to innovate.” Scientists have been creating new inventions and innovations for years without the blending of art and science in education. The most important piece of new scientific breakthroughs is being able to apply prior knowledge of math and science to what you are trying to achieve. Yo-Yo Ma also believes that focusing education on STEM “is short-sighted.” I disagree with this statement because the STEM system gives students the tools to come up with ideas and innovations for the future using the things they learned in the math and science field. For example, environmentalists have learned about the climate and come up with ways to preserve our future for the long-term. For these reasons, incorporating STEAM into our education is not necessary and will not add much to our school systems.

This essay was written in 2014 by Yo-Yo Ma for the World Post. The site was created through a partnership between the Huffington Post and the Berggruen Institute on Governance. One thing I noticed about his bio is that he is an extremely accomplished musician and is clearly a genius. I also noticed that he decided to use his platform to write this essay and educate people because he knew he could reach a larger number of people.

My personal circumstances with reading this were that I did not know what it was about going in and that I kept an open mind while reading it. I also kept relating it back to the essay we just wrote in class about art and how impacts people. Many of Yo-Yo Ma’s claims were related to the claims made in Southan’s essay. My purpose for reading this text was to learn how we can better integrate art into the STEM ideals. Art and science go hand in hand and I am always open to learning about ways to make education better.

The rhetorical situation in this essay is integrating art and empathy into STEM. The scope is that we cannot reach our full intellectual and innovative potential if we do not emotions and reason into account. Yo-Yo Ma uses many unique words to strengthen his argument. The first word I chose to define is “empirically” which means originating in or based on. He uses this word to explain where emotion is based. The next two words are used in the same context. “Lewd” means, in this context, sexually unchaste. Finally, “lascivious” is a synonym meaning lustful. He used these words to describe why a certain dance was banned in Spain. In the larger context of the paragraph, he is using the dance as an example of how we all share ownership of art and music and that it “belongs to us all.”

Original Quote #1:

Their radical ideas can be summed up in a thought experiment from Peter Singer which reads as follows: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.”

Revised:

Rhys Southan references a thought experiment by Peter Singer that sums of the ideas of Effective Altruism which reads, “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” In other words, it is our obligation to help others if we have the capability to.

Original Quote #2

Zander’s idea of success is much simpler; “I realized that my job was to awaken the possibility in other people. And, of course, I wanted to know whether I was doing that…If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it…I have a definition for success. For me it’s very simple. It’s not about wealth and fame and power. It’s about how many shiny eyes I have around me.”

Revised:

In his TED Talk, Zander discusses his views on success; “I realized that my job was to awaken the possibility in other people. And, of course, I wanted to know whether I was doing that…If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it…I have a definition for success. For me it’s very simple. It’s not about wealth and fame and power. It’s about how many shiny eyes I have around me.” This means that doing good can be as simple as making people feel more powerful and happy with themselves.

These are the paragraphs (the first two) from my essay that I chose to revise:   

     What if you were told that every piece of artwork made was useless unless it was contributing to the betterment of society? Members of Effective Altruism believe that creating artwork is a waste of time. They believe that the time and money spent creating art, music, movies, or other types of media could be used for making the world a better place. For example, in “Is Art a Waste of Time?,” Rhys Southan says that Effective Altruists don’t care about “beauty, knowledge, life or the environment for their own sake,” but rather they care about these things only as much as they contribute to wellbeing. Their focus is to end the suffering, hunger, and poverty of the world and to create global happiness. In the TED Radio Hour episode “How Art Changes Us” Benjamin Zander talks about his experience with conducting classical music. He believes that music has the power to “change us from within.” Music may not affect everyone in the same way but it conveys emotion that they might not have felt before. If the EA wants to bring happiness they use music and other artforms to help them? I think that the EA has good intentions to their work but they can’t exclude these large areas of creativity from which people draw so much happiness. I think that art is not a waste of time and that it can be used alongside altruism to do good in the world.

     In his essay, Southan references a thought experiment from Peter Singer which reads as follows: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” I don’t think that is a fair comparison because saving a drowning child is a firsthand, small-scale issue. The person is witnessing it right up close and can easily remedy the problem. Ending poverty and disease is a much different issue because it is much more difficult to do and also, people tend to turn a blind-eye to problems when they are not up-close. It is unfair to assume that people should dedicate their lives and donate all of their money to the “greater good.” Acts of goodness can be performed on a small-scale. For example, in Zander’s TED talk, he explains that he played music for a group of 12-year-olds and the next day and told him how it had affected him. “He said ‘my brother was shot last year and I didn’t cry for him. But last night when you played that piece, he was the one I was thinking about. And I felt tears streaming down my face. And you know, it felt really good to cry for my brother.’” This piece of art had a positive impact on this young boy and even though this piece may not change the whole world, it still did an act of good.

After Revision:

What if you were told that every piece of artwork made was useless unless it was contributing to the betterment of society? This is a bold statement considering so many of us devote their lives to creating art. While we can all do more to better the world, we cannot flat-out say that art is a waste of time. In the TED Radio Hour episode “How Art Changes Us” Benjamin Zander talks about his experience with conducting classical music. He believes that music has the power to “change us from within.” Music may not affect everyone in the same way but it conveys emotion that they might not have felt before. In today’s world, it is imperative that we strive to do as much good as we can in any way we see fit. I believe that art is not a waste of time and that it can enhance the acts of good that we perform not only by letting people express their creativity and emotions but also to spread awareness of the bad that needs to be corrected.

In an essay by Rhys Southan entitled “Is Art a Waste of Time?” a group called Effective Altruism claims that it is. They believe that the time and money spent creating art, music, movies, or other types of media could be used for making the world a better place. Effective Altruism’s main objective is to end poverty and suffering, and create global happiness. They believe that art does not add to this “net positivity” because it does not directly bring about change or amass enough money to. Their radical ideas can be summed up in a thought experiment from Peter Singer which reads as follows: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” I don’t think that is a fair comparison because saving a drowning child is a firsthand, small-scale issue. The person is witnessing it up close and can easily remedy the problem. Ending poverty and disease is a much different issue to solve because it is much more difficult and also, people tend to turn a blind-eye to problems when they are not up-close. It is unfair to assume that people should dedicate their lives and donate all of their money to the “greater good.”

The first thing I did was shorten my introduction paragraph by cutting out the introduction of Effective Altruism and put it in the introduction of my second paragraph to give the shallow pond analogy more context. I wanted the focus of my intro paragraph to be of my beliefs so I could then strengthen my thesis statement, which I did. These are the main changes I made to these paragraphs besides fine-tuning the language. I was inspired to do this because of the section W-4b from The Little Seagull. It helped me strengthen my claim. Also, section W-4c helped me make my paragraphs flow better. I did this by breaking up my second paragraph into two separate paragraphs and focusing it on the beliefs of Effective Altruism.