Reflecting on Classes as a Way to Improve Ones Education - Essay Example

it is not enough to say that it is important to have integrity—we must take steps to instill it where it is lacking. A good place to begin in this regard is with Carter’s Three-Step Integrity Model.

To begin with step one: discerning what is right and what is wrong is not an innate behavior or characteristic; it is learned. Education is key to building up this moral faculty. This faculty is built up through experience and principles. In a country as politically complicated and as diverse as the United States, this takes a lot of work. We can’t shirk hard work; we must embrace it.

Step two: Sometimes integrity means acting on what you have discerned, even at a personal cost. In our society, one would call a person who discerns and acts on what they have witnessed or experienced a “snitch”. Many times in the justice arena a person who has witnessed a crime or an altercation definitely could inform at personal cost—whether jeopardizing their lives or the lives of loved ones. An example a little closer to home would be, to discern something about a colleague or family member. This would put one in an awkward position, especially if they have to confront the issue or if the issue jeopardizes the integrity of a company or violates a family member(s) trust; all at a personal cost to that person. This more than likely would cause animosity, fear, loss of friendship, and even, cost them their job or division in the family. The choice is a hard one; turning to faith is the best way to find an answer.

Step three involves saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong. Even if it costs you personally, it is important, to be honest. You have to act on what you understand to be right and be honest with what knowledge you have. This too is part of integrity.

2. Interpersonal relations class. This class reminded me of a personal situation. When I was around 16 years old, the teacher in my class assigned all of us pen pals for the year. The pen pals were to be from the island of Malta, which is a small country in the Mediterranean near Sicily. I had never had a pen pal before. I rarely wrote letters. It could be said that I was a shy child and did not have many friends. So I was a little bit nervous about having a pen pal as I didn’t know how I felt about telling a stranger all about my life. My pen pal’s name was Flavia and we soon began exchanging letters. While I might have been nervous at first, I soon began to enjoy the experience. What I enjoyed most was getting to know another person in the way that I got to know Flavia.

She was the same age as I was and with a lot of the same family background—the same amount of brothers and sisters, for example—and from a similar socio-economic background. At first, our letters simply introduced basic facts about our lives to one another. After a few letters doing this, we began to talk about our routines—the sports we played, the kind of friends we had, and the computer games we enjoyed. The more letters we exchanged, the closer I felt the two of us becoming.

Soon we had graduated to begin to talk about what we thought about our lives, our societies, and our cultures. We began to share personal details; this led to a bond that was built on trust. We both perceived each other as more fully formed people and began to understand what sort of stimuli influenced one another’s perceptions and experiences of the world. Another important thing that made us feel closer together was the fact that over the months that we communicated we were able to establish a kind of narrative of one another’s lives. We were able to have a context in which to put the various things that we said. A statement or observation was not just an island or completely free-floating thing—instead, it was part of a sea of ideas and experiences that had been shared during our correspondence. This too led to us becoming closer together.

When Flavia’s cat, Willie, died of old age, she wrote me a 10-page letter describing how painful it was for her and how she had difficulty expressing her feelings to her family and friends in Malta. When I failed my biology exam she was the first person I told, even before I told my parents. We had a special bond. It was a bond between people who told each other everything about their lives. Even though Flavia and I never met, she found that the textual relationship we had was in some ways more intimate than just an ordinary interpersonal relationship. There was a written record we could refer to and there was a trust built on the written word. Read More