What is it?
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| page 69 |
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes the reading "Risk-takers: Who are they?", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 69-71) invite us to discuss a series of four follow-up questions related to the causes of risk-taking behaviour.
We will discuss the four questions in two sets of pairs.
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Questions
First, Warwick and Rogers' questions 1 and 4.
- Do you agree that young people take more risks than older people?
Why / why not?
and - How do you assess risk in your own life?
- Do you think you do this successfully, or are there things you should do differently? If so, what are they?
You have 10:00 minutes to plan and write a response to these two questions. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 3:00 minutes (Choose your topic. Get ideas. Organize your ideas.)
- writing = 5:00 minutes, and
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
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Second, Warwick and Rogers' questions 2 and 3.
- How do parents, schools, the government, etc., try to minimize the risk that young people take in your country?
- Is it their responsibility to do so? Why / why not?
- Whose responsibility is it to teach children how to calculate risk so they make safer decisions in their lives?
- Why? How can they do it?
You have 12:00 minutes to plan and write a response to these two questions. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 3:00 minutes (Choose your topic. Get ideas. Organize your ideas.)
- writing = 7:00 minutes, and
- editing = 2:00 minutes.
A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it.
This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
I definitely think that younger people take more risks than older people. Now that I'm in the category of older people, I can look back and compare myself now with the person I was 30 or 40 years ago (I'm not sure how trustworthy my memory of 50 years ago is), and I certainly did things when I was in my twenties, thirties and even forties that I would not do today. Moving to Thailand, for example, was a risk, and some of the relationships I entered into and the business ventures were a bit reckless. Some worked out well, but others were disastrous. These days, I prefer a fairly boring life without too much excitement, although over the last year, Covid has forced me to take a few risks as I've tried out new things to cope in the Covid era.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really thought about how I assess risk in my own life until I read the question asking me about it. I suppose I think about how big the changes might be, and these days, I also consider how badly things could do wrong. That's different to in the past, I where I liked change and tended to think only of the potential benefits. Since my life is not a total disaster today, I think my method of assessing risk hasn't been too bad, although when I look back at some of the reckless things I did in my late teens and early twenties, I was extremely lucky not to have met with some disasters.
I get your point. I miss my youth too. When I was a teenager, it was easier to encounter risk-taking activity or make a quick decision without concerning several factors in my life. At that time, I could do everything I want, and it was exciting. However, as an adult, I have many responsibilities to manage. It is not easy to take risks because some decision will affect my whole life. I cannot let it go as I usually do when I was a teenager.
DeleteI agree that young people take more risks comparing to older people because they take risks to discover their lives. As I started to begin an adult, I feel life is so risky. By working long hours to earn money for living, my body and mind are not healthy. However, when I want to quit my job in order to restore my health, my financial is under a risk. Personally, I view risks as opportunities. When I have to decide something important such as pursuing a master degree, I will list out pros and cons before I make a decision. Whether my decision is right or wrong, I think it is my opportunity to learn and experience new thing. For example, my decision of working for a year before I go to graduate school is a right decision because I gained new experience that I never received from the university.
ReplyDeleteYour idea about risks as opportunities is interesting. I also think that risks could bring all good and bad results. Taking a risk is the best way to learn and broaden experience.
DeleteI think the youngsters are taking more risks than the elders. There is multiple reasons about the argument that young people are taking more risks that older people. Firstly, the pupils do not have enough experience in most things compared the the elders. Moreover, the older people have their own money so that if they take the risks and lose the money. Still, they have their money to survive.
ReplyDeleteI assess risk in my own life by finding the best choice to choose, comparing the benefits and drawbacks each choices. I think carefully every time I decide. However, I sometimes choose the wrong choice due to lacking of experiences or not thinking enough.
When I read Aom's point that "the older people have their own money so that if they take the risks and lose the money," that sounded like another reason that risk-takers are more likely to be young. If you have nothing to lose, you might take risks to get something, in fact, if you have nothing, it's sensible to take bigger risks to get something that you would not want to lose. In contrast, older people who have money, or a relationship, that they value, might be less likely to take risks because they don't want to lose what they already have. And perhaps that also explains to some extent why I am more averse to risk taking these days. When everything I had fit in a large back pack, I really didn't have a lot to lose, but today, I have a home crammed with things to make life comfortable and a small, established social network that I wouldn't want to jeopardize.
DeleteIn my opinion, adults have to concern many factors, such as jobs, health, or money, before they decide to do or not to do something. On the other hand, teenagers do not deeply think as much as adults, so they seem to do everything they want. That's why I probably agree that young people will take risks more than older. From my personal experience, nowadays, I do not like to take many risks because it makes me nervous. Thus, I will prepare myself as much as I can. For example, my car is full of equipment such as an umbrella, a plastic bag, and a bag of medicines. I think these items will help me overcome any risk that I will meet.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. The adolescents do not have enough experience so that they probably take more risks compared to the adults. Preparing yourself as much as possible is a good idea to minimize risks.
DeleteI believe that young people take more risks than older people. They willing to explore the new things that might have risks such as adventure sport and travel in the new places. I think sometime, they are lack of experience in something. It may cause some risks more than older people. For example, they might invest in some business that take high risk like bitcoins. In my experience, I asses risk by writing and finding the impacts of that. The impacts might be good and bad.
ReplyDeleteI really like your example. Bitcoins do help me visualize the risk that young people may willing to take compare to older people. However, I think nowadays more older people also take risks as the world is developing. For example, many older generation people take risk for stepping out of their comfort zones to learn how to play social media, line and facebook.
DeleteParents certainly worry about their children taking risks, and I think that pushes parents to push both schools and the government act to minimizer risk. Parents in Australia try to minimize risk by setting rules for their children, such as that they must come home straight after school, or that they may not attend some types of events, such as music concerts, where the parents worry that they will encounter dangerous situations or be under peer pressure to do dangerous things, like taking drugs.
ReplyDeleteIn Australia, there are also legal limits on what children can do. They cannot, for example drive cars until they are almost 17 years old. But I'm not sure that this is to prevent the children taking risks, and my own experience is that when my friends and I started to drive, we tool risks, even, I have to confess, breaking speed limits. That was extremely stupid when I look back now: we could easily have killed ourselves or others in an accident. Luckily, no one at my school did do that. The lower speed limits for young, new drivers are to minimize risk, and although my friends and I did break those laws when we were on country roads where police were unlikely to be met, we always followed the speed rules in town (I think).
Another way that the government minimizes risk in response to political pressure from parents who vote is by banning the sale of alcohol and cigarettes to children under the age of 18. Again, children often get around these laws, most often perhaps by taking the drugs from their own parents wine or beer stores.
Another way that society seeks to minimize risk to children is by including sex education and similar material in school. That was very badly done when I was in school because the old, conservative teachers were often embarrassed to talk about it, but I think it's much better done these days for my young nieces and nephews.
On the whole, I agree with the responsibility that parents, schools ad the government take to minimize risk-taking by children in Australia.
17-year-old driving can cause plenty of problems like what you said. On the other hand, they have to take responsibility such as being on time. As a result, this responsibility will help them during the risky situation in the future. I agree that sex education should be taught in school. In my school life, the teacher did not taught us completely. As a consequence, if the student have been taught completely and correctly, the student will know how to deal with it correctly and prevent the unexpected pregnancy.
DeleteSchool is like a safe zone for students. Government uses law to control the standard of the education. Parents send their children to school to learn both academics and socials aspects. It is their responsibility to plant and take care the young people because they will grow as adults in the future. By having school, students can do right or wrong and they will receive punishments when they misbehave. This allows the young people to learn what is wrong and avoid doing it when they become the adult because in a real world the punishment may be so serious and irreversible. Young people would learn and experience risks as they grow and see examples from adults.
ReplyDeleteA school is a place for children to learn how to live. They can play, study, make friends, and try to do new activities in school. That's why I support your opinion that a school must take responsibility to teach children about risk-taking. I also agree that children will understand what should they do in a risky situation in the real world by adapting the experience they obtained in school.
DeleteParents can minimize the risk that the adolescents take by taking them to do new things. As a result, they will know many things better. In school, they should teach the effective subjects like personal finance, independent living. As a consequence, this life-skill class can help these students in the future. Parents should teach their kids to calculate the risks by letting them make their own decision. Apart from that, parents should give them the pros and cons of each choices without bias. Additionally, if the kids fail, they will realize what they should do next time.
ReplyDeleteI support your idea that schools should also trach life-skill subjects so the students can adapt them to the real life situation.
DeletePersonally, I think Thai students lack in decision-making skill. Many students do not know what they want to be and they just need to take 10 subjects for university admissions. Some parents may persuade their children to be a doctor, engineer or architecture which the children even do not have a chance to discover themselves. By letting they make their own decision with a guideline would allow the kids to grow up.
There are many good way to minimize risk in young people. I think the best way is teaching them to think about risks in both good and bad sides. They can develop their own thinking and adopt into their situation. It is important to teach them thinking themselves. I think parent is the first level to take this responsibility. The reason is they are the closest persons of young people that cloud spend time teaching time. I think making a decision need to have confidence which children could have parents to support.They can tell their children about the consequents of risk and lead to a possible ways.
ReplyDeleteI think that Pueng's idea is a popular one, but I'm not sure that I agree. As the reading "Risk-takers: Who are they?" points out, a large part of our personality traits are inherited from our parents via the genes they pass on to us. The same is also true of our intelligence, hair colour and so on. But after giving birth to us and passing on their genes, I think that peers might play a major role in determining the environment that interacts with our biology to affect the decisions we make, including risk-taking behaviour. Parents are an important source of support, love and encouragement, but I'm not sure that after age five or so they remain as big a source of education and information as our peers.
DeleteBut perhaps this is cultural. Do Thai children typically spend more time with their parents than doing things and interacting with school friends?
Many Thai parents like to reduce the chance of taking risks for their children by helping their son and daughter do some things. However, in my case, my parents raise me freely. They think children will be taught by their own experience. Thus, my parents let me do many activities myself, and they will give me only some advice. For example, my parent let me go to school by myself. However, they told me to beware myself when going outside, what I should do in an emergency situation. I think this is my parents' method to warn me about taking risks.
ReplyDeleteParents and teachers are a person who has a responsibility to take care children. Thus, they need to teach them about taking risks carefully. The government should support them by launching some proper policies.
I agree with Yo about Thai culture. Parents raise children carefully and reduce the risks as much as they can. Nevertheless, children need to learn making a decision and taking risks by themselves. They will be learn from their experience. Parents should teach and guide them in different situations.All level should take an action of the risks in children. I also think that government must take part of decreasing risk in public scale. Children may not lack of experience in worst situations such as abduction and robbery. The laws is important to control these.
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