Dead Teen Walking

At first I didn’t see the two readings connecting at all, but after I asked it was a little more clear to me how they do connect. Both had to learn a sense of survival in the world. Cousin had to learn his survival on the streets with only his friends in which he thought he was doing by robbing with one of his friends. White Fang had to learn how to survive on his own and the motto of his survival was to kill or be killed. These were the words White Fang had to live by not only to stay alive but to eat too. "Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to take care of himself in a mass-fight against him; and how, on a single dog, to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time" (Pg 85/Chapter 3).
My opinion on placing teens on death row is a little cloudy to me still because there are a lot of things that come into play. We could say wait till they are of legal age 18, but like the discussion in class it’s not like when we wake up on our 18th birthday we feel way more mature. They could also just wait out the court date if the teen was close to 18. I don’t think that is right either. I guess I would like to see no death row period. I believe that everyone deserves a chance no matter the crime not saying they’ll pursue that chance but it’s worth a try in my eyes. I don’t know if anyone has ever watched Lincoln Heights a TV show on ABC Family, but they recently had a show about a boy that shot the main characters mother and killed her and he grew up and realized his wrong doing and was awarded that second chance. I don’t think White Fang had an impact on my view at the time I read the article because I didn’t really see the connection and the connection was made about the harsh upbringing but I don’t think that can be brought into play because what about all the others that had harsh upbringings that don’t do anything wrong. It’s a choice that is made by the individual although influenced by society it is our own choice.

"What Makes Us Moral"

While I was reading the first part the really showed me the connection between nature vs. nurture in this article was in the fifth paragraph where they used an example of a preschooler. The child knew not to eat in class because it was a rule set by the teacher which is an example of nurture because it tells how the child would eat in class if the teacher said it was okay, but the child is taught it is against the rules. The same paragraph it is talked about if the teacher says it is okay to push another student off a chair the child will respond “No, the teacher shouldn’t say that,” says psychologist Michael Schulman. This could be an example of nature because it is being presented as the child’s instinct to hesitate to push another child off a chair, but also it could just be the way the child is brought up on how they grasp what is right or wrong.
By reading this article my opinion only grew stronger on how it all depends and differs for each individual. Although, I am leaning a little more towards nurture after reading both the summer assignments and this article because I have seen in each of the readings that a lot of the behaviors whether good or evil is caused mostly by society. The only examples I think are nature can in one way or another relate back to nurture. In my mind I do believe everyone can be influenced one way or another, but for most once they are taught one way it is near impossible for them to switch making it seem as though the first way of behavior they were taught is their nature to others around them.

Summer Readings

The reading I liked the most was Lord of the Flies for many different reasons. The book started out slow, but as I read on I couldn't put the book down. Besides the book being intresting I thought I could relate to Lord of the Flies a lot more than White Fang because the main characters were kids and I could see why they've done some of the things such as wanting to hunt, swim, and just relax instead of building shelters and being responsible for a fire signal. What I found most interesting was how the kids had social problems on the island between them, the rest of the world had a huge social problem of their own. In terms of our topic whether or not if mankind is inherently evil I could see the message of Lord of the Flies how it seemed Jack and his tribe were just evil at heart where as Ralph and Piggy were drawn in by the rest of the guys. White Fang was hard for me to stay focused I just didn't find it that interesting just because the whole storyline wasn't the most exciting whereas Lord of the Flies was very suspenseful towards the end. It was also because White Fang was harder to see the message and to relate to because the main characters were wolves. All in all Lord of the Flies was just a more exciting book to read than White Fang.