Religious Education (Catholic) 25 – Page 6

Dead Poets Society Reflection 1

Select one of the questions below and answer it. When you have completed your answers, print it off and hand it in. The reflection rubric will be used to grade this assignment.

QUESTIONS:

1. There is a scene whereby the English teacher, Mr. Keating, asks the students to read their original poems. When he asks Todd Anderson to read his, Todd says, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t write a poem”. Keating responds with, “Mr. Anderson thinks everything inside him is worthless and embarrassing. Isn’t that right, Todd? That’s your worst fear. I think you’re wrong. I think you have something inside that’s worth a great deal.” What is Todd’s self esteem like? What is Anderson so afraid of? Was Todd using one of the evasions of self-esteem? Which one? Could 1 John 4:18, which says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love”, provide a solution to Todd’s problem? Was Keating using love to help Todd?

2. There is a scene when Keating has his students marching in the courtyard. During that scene he tells them, “Conformity. The difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others…Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular. Even though the herd may go ‘ That’s bad.’ Robert Frost said, ‘ Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’” Is Mr. Keating really referring to character or is he referring to personality? Explain with what you learned about character and personality in class. Could John Keating be saying the same thing as it says in Romans 12:2? It says in Romans, Do not be conformed to this world,* but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Organ Donors

Consider the following scenario.

A hospital has several patients on their waiting list (article on worldwide kidney organ shortage) who will die if they don’t receive organ donations. Canada (read article for details) has a organ shortage like all others nations of the world. Some need replacement kidneys, others need a replacement heart, and others need new lungs. Today, supplies of these organs are in very short supply. There is, however, a way to get these much needed organs, and that is to harvest organs from deceased patients without explicit consent. (This article gives the details to proposed legislation in U.K.). Currently , in Canada, people have to sign a donor card and then the family must also agree before organs or tissue can be harvested. The hospital argues that the number of families offended by harvesting organs from a dead relative is a small price to pay when compared to the number of lives that can be saved by following such as practice. Should hospitals be allowed to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent? Here is another interesting proposal. Ontario has proposed withholding drivers license if donor cards are not signed. (See MPP for details)

Answer the question from an utilitarianist perspective. Then answer the question from an altruist perspective. Be sure to clearly show the difference between the two points of view.

Reflection Rubric

Ecological Footprints

Religious Studies 35

As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (Genesis 8:22)

All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster. BARACK OBAMA, speech, Apr. 3, 2006

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday that Canada “must act” to curb global warming after a newly released report that warns humans are “very likely” the cause of the problem.

“The problem is enormous. It’s large, it’s long-term and there are no quick fixes to this,” Harper told reporters in Ottawa. Feb. 2 2007, CTV.ca News (full article)

Global climate change needs global action now. The alarm bells ought to be ringing in every capital of the world.

John Gummer, British Environmental Secretary, quoted by Roy Greenslade, The Observer, 21 Jul 96

Climate change is no longer a doomsday prophecy, it’s a reality.

Astrid Heiberg, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, quoted in Gist Magazine, 23 Jul 99

The following are links to websites with ecological footprints. Go to one or two of the links and calculate your footprint. For the footprint to mean anything, you MUST answer honestly. Then write a paragraph whereby you indicate your footprint(s) and explain what effect your footprint says you have on the biological ecology. You also MUST react to one of the quotes in your paragraph. You may disagree with a quote, but clearly indicate why you disagree with it and provide something concrete to support your point of view. The rubic used to grade this paragraph is on the page titled ecological rubric (right side ). Once completed, print your paragraph and hand in.

I would recommend the following two links

Royal Saskatchewan Museum (short and easy to use)

University of BC (also short and easy to use)

Global Ecological Footprint (very short, probably too short and not as accurate)

Earth Day Network (This is a fun site. It measures in numbers of earths. You just slide the bar to indicate your answer. You can also select basic or more detailed answers. It will, however, take longer to do.)

Best foot forward footprint (short and easy to use)

Temptation

picture-2 It’s midway through the semester, and you are taking the midterm Math 30-1 or 30-2 test. You’ve been struggling all semester in this class, and you know that this test will comprise a big part of your final grade. You feel like you are doing quite well on the test until you come to the last question, which is a problem to solve. It is worth 20 marks and you just can’t remember how to solve it. As it happens, the class math whiz is sitting right in front of you and you can see he’s just finished it. You are close enough to see how he solved it, and you know that the supervising teacher cannot possibly see you if you cheat.

What do you do?