In chapters four and eight, the book talked about
crime and social control and problems in education. Overall the most
interesting things we read about this week were probably that once a child gets
labeled as a delinquent their tendency to actually commit crimes increases, I thought
this was interesting because, from personal experience, courts try and make an
example out of someone and give a child or teen a harsher sentence, but instead
of helping the adolescent to not commit more crimes, they actually end up doing
the opposite. So it’s surprising that even with that research courts would
continue to hand out harsh sentences for smaller offenses. The other thing I
found interesting was the amount of money that states need in order to fix up
the schools, and that it’s mainly in neighborhoods that are poorer. I think it
just always surprises me how little it seems people want to put into education
but how they expect so much from it in return. I really enjoyed learning about
schools that are “green”. I’ve heard of schools trying to do more for the environment,
like recycling and the sort but I had not heard of schools that go to more
extremes like solar panels and conserving water. I realize building schools
like this is expensive to start with but with the amount of money they get back
from it, that more schools would be willing to try and invest in greener
schools. I feel as if in the chapter regarding crime and social control it would
have been nice to see more stories and personal experiences that could possibly
show the sociological theories at work. I would also like to have read more
about what is being done to possibly have less people arrested for petty crimes
and sent to corrections facilities that actually make them into more hardened
criminals. The topic of education and not enough time and effort put into hits
close to home because my mother has been an educator for over twenty five years
and works at a school that teaches both English and Spanish. But because they
aren’t a main stream school, they receive less funding and instead of being
able to buy materials for their curriculum, they have to spend their own
personal time translating everything made for other schools into Spanish so
that they can use them. Also, the fact that parents complain about how large
class sizes are, for her about 25 students, but aren’t willing to somehow raise money or
bills to help the schools lower class size numbers.
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