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| Skillful, Unit 8, p. 77 |
On page 77, the introductory page for Unit 8, "Drive", Bixby and Scanlon (2013) present us with the usual large picture and a couple of discussion questions.
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My response
As I thought about the quotations and discussion questions that accompany Skillful's photograph, it occurred to me that there were connections with ideas that came up, both explicitly and indirectly, in some of your recent blog posts and the discussions on them – blogging is a great way to not only practice our writing skills, but to explore issues in a more relaxed way than in more formal work, reasons why, as Bixby and Scanlon point out, participation in online discussion boards is a common part of many academic courses these days (2013, p. 66).
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Questions to respond to
Read these two quotations:
- "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win." (Roger Bannister)
- "Everybody is born with an equal chance to become just as unequal as he or she possibly can." (anonymous)
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- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful reading & writing: Student's book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
The quote are easy to understand.
ReplyDelete"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win." (Roger Bannister) means the one who can stand on their painful or obstacle and doesn't give up while many others tend to stop doing that, then that one is going to win or overcome those who give up.
And "Everybody is born with an equal chance to become just as unequal as he or she possibly can." (anonymous) means we all were born to be equal that means at first we have everything same as everyone, but we can choose to be unequal that is we can improve or degrade ourselves in order to get higher or lower than anyone. That's our choice. The result all comes from what we do ourselves.
I totally agree with those two sentences because it cheer up everyone who read, and also I think most of them must agree with those. And that's quite true in our world. If we can stand what others can't stand, then we can win. Also, when everyone's born, they have everything same, but after that they can choose to be different.
I agree with you that "If we can stand what others can't stand, then we can win". In contrast, I disagree that everyone is born with an equality. Some people are born with visually handicap or learning disorder whereas some are born with fully healthy physical condition. Moreover, factors like family and wealthy are one part of ourselves since we are born which make people unequally.
DeleteAnd some are born with higher intelligence, higher drive, and so on. Behavioural economists such as Dan Ariely and Steven Levitt have done some very interesting work in these areas over the past decade or so, which has contributed a lot to improving of understanding of how these things work. Parents, for example, are generally much less important for a child's outcome than is often assumed, apart from the genes that they pass on of course. What seems to matter for more than parents are peers. Levitt presents some compelling research on this in his essay "What Makes a Perfect Parent", which is based on his own and other's research.
DeleteI agree with your your idea about the first quote. It is true that the one who doesn't give will achieve their goal. However, I disagree with your idea about the second quote. Everyone doesn't have the same background.
DeleteI disagree with your thoughts about second quotation. There are still some unequal factors. Although people are born as the same way, however, compared to the rich family and the poor family, apparently, in the past and even nowadays, if the family is very rich, their children almost can get great education or anything else easily. It seems they get high status easily. So I think they have more opportunities and depends on their different backgrounds, they also can get better resources easily.
DeleteWith these reasons, I don't think people in the world are born the same but we can have the same rights to make use of.
I agree with your first quote that the one who overcome their obstacle will be the one to success. But I disagree with your second quote. Not every person have enough money to send their child go abroad to study. Some person also depend on their parents to get high position easily. There are too many reason to oppose the second quotation. It is also the main reason why has extreme disparity between the poor and the rich.
DeleteWhen I thought about them, I had problems with both of the quotations that Bixby and Scanlon chose for us to read and respond to.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the date of either quotation (I haven't done any research to discover them), but Bannister's sounds sexist. He ignores women and writes as though only men succeed through their own efforts when things are not easy. But I also had another disagreement with Bannister, which is related to the ideas in Stamp's blog on the topic of purpose: I'm not sure that it makes much sense to talk about a man "driving himself"; rather we are driven by the same purposeless forces that run the entirely material processes in our brains that make us, complete with our purposes. I think this is similar to the Buddha's idea of non-self, but I'm not an expert on Buddhism, so perhaps I've misunderstood that. However, I am sure that the amount of our drive to succeed is largely a result of genetics, and fully determined by things that we do not control, so I'm not sure how much credit people can be justly given for having strong drive.
I like the second quotation, the anonymous one, a bit more, but I'm also a bit worried about its meaning for a similar reason: we like to blame people for their lack of drive leading to failure or poor performance, but I'm not sure how much control people have over that. More seriously, the idea of equality is used in very different ways that are often confused, especially by dictatorial politicians of all sorts. The anonymous author of the second quotation seems to me guilty of this confusion, whether accidental or deliberate.
I think, I can disagree with you Peter. I want to talk about fist quotation now. And I am not sure that the amount of our drive to succeed is largely a result of genetics! I'm afraid here you are giving too much importance to genetics. I can not argue that genetics is very important for us, but success in the life or failure does not depend on it. I'm sure that a man does himself. Thats why I'm agree with Roger Bannister: "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."
DeleteNow, lets talk about sexism. I found some information about Bannister. "He is an English former middle-distance athlete, physician and academic, who ran the first sub-four-minute mile" (from Wikipedia). In the past, I am a professional athlete, and I understand what he means. But anyway, let's look at the Oxford dictionary: "a man - human being, human, person, mortal, individual, personage, soul". Perhaps in this aspect this quotation doesn't look like sexism.
Thanks Kate. Yes, in the past, men often used the word man to mean both men and women. So if Bannister said that before around the 1980s, he might have had that in mind. As so often, it's often necessary to talk about what a word means when the person uses it. And 40 - 50 years ago, sexism was almost an automatic default position, as speciesism might be today, and as homophobia still is in some parts of the world. Perhaps if he said it this century, Bannister would update his language. That was my less important objection, which is why I put it first, but it was my response.
DeleteThanks for disagreeing and giving me more to think about. That is helpful.
Thanks for this information. When I'll have time, I'll check it again.
DeleteKate's comment also pushed me to do the quick Google that perhaps I could have done sooner - born in 1929, Bannister is definitely of an age when sexism was assumed without question: everyone at the time (except a few radical women trouble-makers) knew that men were superior to women, whose job was to be a good wife. I'm sure that if he was speaking today, at age 88, Bannister would use different language.
DeleteSo, I want to start from the first quotation. And I have to say that I am absolutely agree with it. I'm sure that the real success is not easy, sometimes a person goes through a lot of problems and barriers. And if a person can solve these problems on his way - he must be win.
ReplyDeleteAbout second quotation, I think, I also can agree with it. I believe that all people are born with an equal chance. But our life is not easy, and unfortunately, not all people have equal opportunities and possibilities. I know a person, and he is very, very smart, but his family is poor, and they don't have enough money to go study in university, for example. But I think if person will be work hardly - he can get all what he wants.
I don't know actually you agree with second quote or not. But what you(also other ones) have written reminds me that actually we are not born to be the same and also each one have difference in chance. So that I want to change my mind with this sentence.
DeleteHowever, that's not totally disagreement from me. I still agree with some part of this sentence as you say, "if person will be work hardly - he can get all what he wants."
To sum up, I disagree that everyone's born to be equal, but I agree that we can work hard to get or to be what we want.
So, I didn't say that all people born to be equal, I means that "Everybody is born with an equal chance to become". Now I don't talk about people who have serious health problems (like in Law's essay), but almost all people in the world. We all have two arms, two legs, two eyes, etc. And we all have equal opportunities in the first days of our life. We all have equal needs. All the rest is already acquired thanks to the family and society.
DeleteI still disagree with you on the second quotation because eventually, we cannot deny that there are things that some people cannot be/get, but some others can. For example, a person who have color blindness will never be a able to be a pilot. Color blindness looks not like a serious health problem in my opinion. Another example, I will never have a chance to be a flight attendance because I am not tall enough.
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ReplyDeleteThe firt quotation, what I understant is people who can take their life at risk on the way to reach thier goal are the people who can succeed. I agree with what Banniaster said (If I understand it correctly) because I also belive that a person who dare to do difficult things, brave enough to face problems and want to move over them is a person who can achieve their goals.
ReplyDeleteThe second one means every one are equal at the beginning of their life, what makes them different is what they can do. In contrast, I don't agree with the second quotation beacause I don't think people are born equaly. Some are born with poor environtment, some are born with perfect family that always ready to support them.
According to your comment, it is very true that people are born unequally, but I also think that what the writer of this quote tries to say is not to let what we were born with strict our dream of something, which is the kind of idea I agree on.
DeleteI have the same idea as you have on the first quotation. People who keep doing what they believe are likely to suffer from many problems. One who braves enough to move over this problems will reach their goals, eventually.
I think the quotes try to pursue people to make attempt to what they want. It is very hard to keep doing what you wish it will have blockages and many obstructions.
ReplyDeleteLook at the first quote, I quite agree that when you feel painful that is a good sign of being successful, most people stop doing what they want when they suffer from painful, but some never stop doing what they want. I think we should keep doing what we decide for.
I strongly agree with the first quotation because I believe that no matter how difficult and impossible it is, everything can be achieve if we sufficiently strive and keep fighting for it. Significantly, problem and obstacle always happen to test our mind and strengthen. If we give up, we will become loser. By contrast, If we move forward and overcome them, we will be very proud of ourselves.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is not born with an equality. In terms of physical condition, some people are innate disabled while some are born with complete 32 organs. In addition, there are some things we are given or restricted since we are born which have an influence on equality. Social status, for example, which is generally classified by wealthy, education and fame. Children who are born in rich family, definitely have better educational opportunity than that of children who are in poverty. However, this doesn’t mean poor children will be inferior to the rich ones forever. We are born with different cost; nevertheless, cost can be increased or decreased depending on our behavior and thought. In addition, as we are a human, we have an ability and intelligence to develop and improve ourselves to be better