ATA5

When I wrote the paper for assignment 5 I stated that doing good deeds is something I do on a daily basis. Therefore if I were required to do good deeds on a regular basis, it would not impact my life any more than usual. However, after I submitted my paper (this always happens) I had an encounter that changed my perspective. 

I was out eating with a friend and started chatting with our waiter. I told him he had beautiful eyes (blue-green and with a hint of hazel). Then he mentioned the bags under his eyes and how tired he was. That led to him telling us about his father’s declining health and how he was in the hospital all day and did not rest before his shift. I could relate because my own father is have health issues a the moment. I asked him why was he working, and told him he should be with his father. Of course, the world didn’t stop moving and he had bills to pay. Before we left the restaurant I slipped him a $100 bill. I told him I’m sure this wouldn’t cover a day of work, but if he decided to take off and spend time with his dad then I hope it helped. I know money doesn’t solve everything, and I don’t have money to just give away to strangers all the time. Something in me felt like it was the right thing to do. 

Before this I thought doing good deeds was just the right thing to do. My attempt at keeping the world morally balanced (feeding the homeless, paying it forward at a fast food restaurant ). My new perspective on good deeds is that I want to focus on using what I have, be it money or just listening to someone’s problems, to make someone’s life better in some way. Especially when I have the resources (time, emotional availability, and even money).

 

 

ATA4

For this assignment, my husband and I took the styles of love questionnaire where we rated a series of 42 questions on a scale of 1 to 5. with one meaning we strongly agreed and five meaning we strongly disagreed. In the beginning, I was sure I knew exactly how we would both answer, which question we would have similar responses to, and which ones we would differ on. However, some of my predictions were incorrect. Seeing the differences in my expectations vs. the reality of our thoughts on love was very insightful.

I mentioned in my paper that mania love was our most significant discrepancy. My husband scored much lower than I did, and I interpreted this as me being more unsure about myself and my role in our relationship than him. I won’t go into detail here, but some recent changes in our lives (all good things) have made me a little insecure. We discussed this, and initially, my husband didn’t understand where I was coming from which I expressed in my paper. But days later, he told me he thought about it and finally understood. We had a long talk, not just about my feelings but our relationship in general. It was a great conversation, and I feel like we understood each other even deeper than before. 

 

ATA3

After completing the assignment, I encountered a 6th-grade student in a similar situation. I’ll call him Jake. 

A couple of Jake’s classmates were bothering him repeatedly. Even after the classroom teacher, myself, and another teacher assistant attempted to redirect the students, they continued to bother Jake. Jake did an excellent job using his coping skills and ignoring the negative comments, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood but and shouted, “shut the F*** up, you ugly N***s. After he had time to cool off, I asked Jake why he said what he said. He told me, “I just wanted them to stop.” 

Jake’s intention wasn’t to be racist. He just wanted to hurt the other students just like they were hurting him. In my opinion, this is what happened with Richards. 

Using racial slurs is wrong. Saying things to hurt people even if they hurt you first is wrong. Try changing your approach. Find a better solution other than retaliating using harmful words.

ATA1

This first assignment was a doozy. The concept of heuristics was entirely new for me, and trying to think of examples for each concept was a struggle. Because the textbook gave specific examples, it was hard to apply what I had learned to situations in my life. It wasn’t until after I completed the assignment that I began to recognize how I and others use metal shortcuts every day all the time. 

For example, Sunday, I started showing symptoms of being infected with the Covid-19 virus. As a result, I called my mother, a nurse for 23 years who lives thousands of miles away in Texas. Although she has a background in medicine, she has not had any experience caring for patients with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. Her opinion on the pandemic is based on her past experiences with sick patients, news articles, videos, and what others have told her. According to my doctor, I am a healthy, 25-year-old, vaccinated woman.  After a thorough examination, she concluded that I should have a positive outcome, even though I have a preexisting condition of asthma. On the other hand, my mother figured that I was in grave danger. Why? The availability heuristic! My mother made a judgment about my health based on the information she had available to her, emotions driven by the mass media attention surrounding the pandemic thus far. She only knows of the adverse outcomes that make news headlines. I could list several other examples, but I don’t want to write another paper. 

The same week I was learning about heuristics, I also learned the history of abnormal behavior in another class. I learned that abnormal behavior was seen as demonic in the middle ages. There was scientific evidence that supported other reasons, but it was rejected. The consensus was that abnormal behavior was dealt with through exercises and torture. My thinking is that this could be a result of the repressiveness heuristic. The thought that different attributes of one’s behavior fit in a demonic category should be treated as such.