Paving the Way to A Better Future
In “Sabrina Needs Her Identity Back” and “Islands of Decency” both writings explore the concepts of education and its importance in order to prosper in this country. In “Sabrina Needs Her Identity Back” by Peter Orner, he tells the story of Lorenas journey into this country and the challenges she faces while trying to go to school and working full time without documentation. Lorena says that “We risked our lives to come to this country, and I had the opportunity to go to school. Because I don’t have many tools to defend myself with, I know that knowledge is the only thing that I can arm myself with” (Orner 202). She further implements this belief by taking an internship in North Carolina which serves to educate farm workers on their rights as workers and the dangers of the chemicals that they work with. Lorena believes that her job as a human being it to educate these vulnerable workers so that they are not mistreated or taken advantage of. She states “My mission is to change one person’s life. Educate one person, so that if their boss tries to be bad to them, they’ll say ‘No, I know you can’t do that, that’s against the law’. If I can do that then I’ve done my job as a human being” (Orner 194). In “Islands of Decency” Myles Horton talks about his journey as an educator and his belief in a different approach to school and education. Horton believes that his job is not to teach out of a book, but to give his students the resources to question and decide for themselves which will also allow them to teach themselves. He believes that his job as a human being is to allow his students to learn for themselves and not force an education on them. He states “My job is to try to provide opportunities for people to grow (not to make them grow, because no one can do that), to provide a climate which nurtures islands of decency, where people can learn in such a way that they continue to grow” (Horton 133).
Lorena’s work as an activist and educator helped to attain better working conditions for farmers living at the camps. She helped educate families on the dangers of pesticides and even helped start a law which protects workers from unsafe working conditions that lead to heat exhaustion. This is important to Lorena’s identity because the farm workers reminded Lorena of her parents having to work hard in order to build a life for themselves here. She says “I’ve always reminded myself that the only reason why I am in school and have a good job is because my parents did backbreaking labor so that I could go to school. I’ve always felt that I needed to give back to those people, because those laborers out there in the fields are like my parents” (Orner 190). Horton dealt with the social issues of labor union workers and decision making. He talks about taking a position and making decisions which is something that these union workers have never had to do before. He states “Practice in making small decisions can also add to people’s experience and connect them to larger issues. Any decision that has social ramifications, however segmental and small, can be an important decision which value judgements play a role” (Horton 138). These issues are important to their sense of meaning because both are related to the goals that they are trying to accomplish. Lorena and her educating of farm workers and Horton with his attempt to teach union workers the importance of making their own decisions and educating themselves. Both social causes fight for the education and upstanding of labor workers and help fight for better working conditions.
Horton’s ideas run contrary to traditional thinking in the sense that he believes in fighting for what you believe in without violence. He states that “I do not believe in neutrality. Neutrality is just another word for accepting the status quo as a universal law” (Horton 139). He argues that you need to take a stand for what you believe in. In order to do so, you either have to go along with everyone else or differ from the normal way of thinking. “You either chose to go along with the way things are, or you reject the status quo. Then you’re forced to think through what you believe. If you’re going to be for something then you have to know that there’s an opposite that you’re against” (Horton 139). This all ties back to the idea of educating people in the importance of making their own decisions and the impact it can have on all of your future ideas and decisions. Lorena also sees the importance of educating people in order to move forward and be able to achieve more in life. If she had not informed the farm workers about the dangers of pesticides, they would have continued to unknowingly expose their children to all of these harmful chemicals which could negatively affect their health later on in life. Education not only benefits the students, but also the teacher because of the difference they are making in the lives of others.
In order to take a stance on something you believe in, you must be educated on the topic first so you can be able to decide what it is that you can do to fix it. It is my belief that people would be able to make more educated choices on the topics that they choose to fight for if they are given the necessary information to see the pros and cons of both sides of their cause. Horton states “When people open something up to you, you’ve got to deal with it. You have to act on what you believe and when people see how you act, they understand what you believe” (Horton 142). As a nursing student, I want to be able to educate my future patients on all of their options for healthcare so that they have the necessary tools and information to make decisions for themselves. Like Lorena, my parents too immigrated here from Mexico in order to provide a better life for me and my sister. I feel like I have been blessed by being given the opportunity to go to school and work for a better life for myself. I hope that when I become a nurse I will be able to work in a community clinic serving the less fortunate people of my community.
Extra Credit: You Had One Job
In “You Had One Job” a bomb diffusing robot experiences the ethical dilemma of having to do the job he was ordered to do, even though it involves killing someone. The robot states that he has been programmed to protect all lives, but in this case, he has been ordered to kill a person making a bomb threat in an apartment building. If the person making the bomb threats does not die, then a lot of innocent people who cannot evacuate the building in time will die as well. The robot had to make a very difficult decision which he is not programmed to understand. The truth that this robot reveals is that a person is not ordinance, and due to the robot’s actions, this person became an ordinance. Miles states that he was designed to be superficially damaged, but his actions left a mark deeper than that. At the end, he states that he could really use a high- five, which I interpreted as needing to be comforted. This robot wasn’t able to process the extent of the events that were happening but still followed through with his orders because that’s what he was told to do. The connection between his dilemma and larger social/ethical issues is that in todays society there have been a lot of recent events of police shootings in the media. This leads me to question how do you know whether the decision to end someones life is justified or not? What exactly causes a person to be considered an ordinance or worthy of living? Police in today’s society are also taught to shoot if they feel threatened, but is there more that we can do as a society in order to help prevent these events? This story causes you to question what exactly determines the value of someone’s life and if the action of killing them is justified or not. It leads you to ask if one person’s death is justified if it means saving the lives of hundreds more?
