2011 Question 2: Florence Kelley on Child Labor

                   Before child labor laws, safety laws, and minimum wage, there were no rules to govern the working class, especially children and women. Children and woman would work nine to twelve hour shifts at night to make a living. Florence Kelley was a United States Social Worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. Kelley carefully wrote her essay to convey her message about child labor to the audience. She achieved her goal through the use of ethos, bandwagon appeal, and logos.

                    One of the main strategies Kelley applied was emotion. She knew that to get her point across to the audience, she would have to break their heart with stories of children trying to not die of starvation. “boys increase in the ranks of the breadwinners;” child labor reached its peak during the early 1900s around the time of the Great Depression. A time when most families could barely afford food. Many boys, girls, and women now had to take up jobs at dangerous jobs with horrid working conditions. Kelley uses this example to help appeal to the audience's sense of emotion. “ A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or night. And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.” Here Kelley fires another emotional outcry in to the audience. A young girl who is barely tall enough to reach the tools, will work eleven hours all while the people in the audience sleep. Kelley uses emotion as her main driver in her argument.

                  Bandwagon appeal is another one of Kelley's rhetorical strategies used. She uses this to gather the audience into one mindset. A mindset who's goal is to bring child labor laws and safety regulations to the working industry. “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil.” Kelley uses this paragraph as her main bandwagon appeal. When writing the paragraph, she always used the word “we” implying a sense of unity and that they are one cohesive unit. She also mentions that “ we should enlist the workingmen voters with us,...” She wants men who can vote (people who can make change) to join their cause. Bandwagon was another important technique used by Kelley.

                  Many people think that to persuade someone, you have to give as much scientific evidence as possible. That is false, most people have a moral code they believe in. It is more effective to appeal to their emotion and ethics. But it doesn't hurt to use logic. Kelley sprinkles in logic into her speech. “ In Alabama the law provides that a child under sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does better in this respect than any other southern states.” Here Kelley lists a specific law and how it is applied. She also mentions that this is better than any other countries.

Question 1: The Locavore Movement

            Eating locally does not mean eating healthy or less strain on the environment. The locavore movement is promoting eating “locally” to help local farmers and to do less harm to the environment. But, if inspected closely, there is more harm than benefit. Buying locally may help local farmers but don’t forget about the people who work in corporate such as 1.5 million Sub- Saharan farmers. Also if a corporate farm ships 2000 apples over 2000 miles, that is more apple per gallon of gas than 50 apples from a local farm that traveled 50 miles. Also decentralized food systems would not function in today’s society.

            Locavores believe that eating locally is better for the environment rather than purchase groceries from a mega chain. That is not true though.. “A 2006 academic study discovered that it made more environmental sense for a Londener to buy a lamb shipped from New Zealand than to buy lamb raised in U.K.” (Source C McWilliams). New Zealand lamb is raised on the pastures with a small carbon footprint, whereas most English lamb is produced under intense factory-line conditions with a big carbon footprint.

            While localvorism sounds great on paper, it is ineffectively in reality. There is no set definition to what a locavore needs to eat. They might eat what is grown in their state or within a 50 mile boundary. “some areas might find it fairly easy to eat locally, people in other parts of the  country and world have to look farther afield.” (Source F. Roberts) Localvorism can be compared to communism in a sense that they both sound great on paper but in reality, don’t work out. Additionally localvorism tries to balance out local farming and corporate farming. But that is not possible with a large population to support, food has to be churned out as fast possible.

            The linkage of local farming to efficiently and sustainability is dubious. The locavore obsession with reducing food-miles has been debunked as a false economy that may actually worsen carbon emissions. That’s because the high-volume, long-haul food transportation perfected by industrial agricultural production in the world’s best locations has allowed much low-quality agricultural land to revert to a forested state; while the increasing concentration of people in cities has reduced our disturbance of wild areas.

          Because it would result in a less diversified, more expensive, and less safe diet, locavorism can only deliver the world of yesterday. As many subsistence farmer in any of the poorest regions of our planet can attest, t is a world where chronic hunger, malnutrition, and famine are always just one spell of bad weather away. Locavorism, far from healing what ails us, is a recipe for widespread human misery and ecological disaster.

Question 3: Creativity

            “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” (Albert Einstein). A genius of his time, Albert Einstein, argues the importance of creativity and imagination. The public is becoming less creative, especially children in America- from kindergarten through sixth grade. This is due to how schools are set up to encourage trying to get the highest letter grades and test scores. Creativity is the ability for an individual to “create” or imagine new ideas and creations. Schools should teach creative and independent thinking.  

            What is creativity? Many people talk about creativity and the need for it, but may not really know what it is. Creativity is an abstract concept. One can interpret creativity in many different ways. I believe creativity is the ability for an individual to “create” or imagine new ideas and creations.

            The decline in creativity can be blamed on society and the education system. Society wants kids to go to school and study. Afterwards, society expects the graduates to get a job and help with the labor force that pushes society forward.  The education system has much blame to accept too. The education system teaches students that there are strict boundaries to learning. Also how the education system is set up, students can’t think outside the box. They are forced to think inside the box for the sake of high letter grades and high test scores. Schools should teach students to think unconventionally and freely. Without doing so, students will become less and less creative.

            What is the solution to the problem? We can start by teaching children at a young age that making mistakes is all part of the learning experience. And instead of “traditional teaching” where the teacher explains a concept and students write it down. The teacher should introduce the concept and let the students think critically about. Afterwards, the teacher and students should discuss the concept, throwing ideas back and forth. Also starting at a young age, children should be exposed to a plethora of extra- curricular activities. This way the children get a broader view showing them that reading and writing aren’t the only source of learning.

            The lack of creativity in younger kids is a crisis. The future of America and the world are dependent on these kids. As time goes on, the world will only face sophisticated and harder problems that might not have an exact solution. If we teach children that education is not black and white but shades of grey, they will be creative thinkers that can solve political, environmental, and scientific problems that plague society today. Creativity is one of the most necessary quality of a great leader. The solution to wars, famine, and health care is thinking outside the box.