Last week students at Seabury Middle School were asked to choose between two statements about community, and defend the idea in five sentences, using examples and evidence. Here are the statements:
Here are a few of our brilliant, sensitive, and justice oriented students' responses:
A community requires a group of people to collaborate, support each other, and be a family. A kind of example would be the Monkeyshines we were looking for yesterday. All the artists work really hard to make thousands of beautiful pieces and create a really amazing community activity, that gets people to have fun in Tacoma. If people look out for their own self-interests, its way harder (but not impossible) to contribute something really meaningful to a community. When we all help the community together a lot of really great things happen.
I think a functioning community has many members who perform acts of service to better the whole community and not their own immediate best interests. If a community was like this it would function better and be a better place to live. You could ask someone to work on something for you while you work on something for them. Everyone is happy. Things, ideas, and projects would happen more quickly, and once it is done you can work on yourself or something else.
People sometimes are unable to help themselves. So, only the people that could would be good in the first statement. So, it wouldn't be the best community.
If everyone only looked out for themselves, we would not have a good life. There would be litter everywhere. The oceans would be filled with plastic. People would keep cutting down trees and killing animals. If we didn't follow the second statement, we would die.
Following the first statement would cause chaos, while that is what we do now, everyone seems to be at each other's throats at all times. If our attitude can shift from the first statement to the second, we would be far more functional as a whole. If everyone is only out for their best interests, trusting and functional relationships are hard to form. If a whole community is doing acts of service to better it as a whole, the community will be in a far better place.
People need to work together in order for a community to work.
If everyone only supports their idea, we will have a very less social community, and some won't even achieve their goal, because they don't have help.
When people show empathy for each other and their community, that community will rise above others that only look after their individual citizens, and the community will become a welcoming and safe place for people to live.
If everyone in the community acts for other people, then no one will be looking out for themselves, and no one will care about his/her/other self. In this instance everyone will be depressed because of lack of self respect, and the world will descend into chaos.
If you're sick, you can't come to school sick because you don't want to miss school, because it puts others in danger.
You might want to yell at someone to alleviate anger, but that makes others feel bad.
Be nice to others because people will think you're a jerk if you aren't.
Communities function well when everyone looks out only for their own best interests.
A well functioning community has members who perform acts of service that do not benefit them immediately.
Here are a few of our brilliant, sensitive, and justice oriented students' responses:
A community requires a group of people to collaborate, support each other, and be a family. A kind of example would be the Monkeyshines we were looking for yesterday. All the artists work really hard to make thousands of beautiful pieces and create a really amazing community activity, that gets people to have fun in Tacoma. If people look out for their own self-interests, its way harder (but not impossible) to contribute something really meaningful to a community. When we all help the community together a lot of really great things happen.
I think a functioning community has many members who perform acts of service to better the whole community and not their own immediate best interests. If a community was like this it would function better and be a better place to live. You could ask someone to work on something for you while you work on something for them. Everyone is happy. Things, ideas, and projects would happen more quickly, and once it is done you can work on yourself or something else.
People sometimes are unable to help themselves. So, only the people that could would be good in the first statement. So, it wouldn't be the best community.
If everyone only looked out for themselves, we would not have a good life. There would be litter everywhere. The oceans would be filled with plastic. People would keep cutting down trees and killing animals. If we didn't follow the second statement, we would die.
Following the first statement would cause chaos, while that is what we do now, everyone seems to be at each other's throats at all times. If our attitude can shift from the first statement to the second, we would be far more functional as a whole. If everyone is only out for their best interests, trusting and functional relationships are hard to form. If a whole community is doing acts of service to better it as a whole, the community will be in a far better place. People need to work together in order for a community to work.
If everyone only supports their idea, we will have a very less social community, and some won't even achieve their goal, because they don't have help.
When people show empathy for each other and their community, that community will rise above others that only look after their individual citizens, and the community will become a welcoming and safe place for people to live.If everyone in the community acts for other people, then no one will be looking out for themselves, and no one will care about his/her/other self. In this instance everyone will be depressed because of lack of self respect, and the world will descend into chaos.
If you're sick, you can't come to school sick because you don't want to miss school, because it puts others in danger.
You might want to yell at someone to alleviate anger, but that makes others feel bad.
Be nice to others because people will think you're a jerk if you aren't.
