Chpater 5....sorry its out of order

This chapter was all about the theory of parenting. The authors are trying to figure out if parenting really is that important when it comes to the outcome of a kid. They then explain the possibility that kids personalities are affected by their peers, schools they attend, and environments. This theory was tested when the Chicago Public System decided to allow kids to have their choice in what school they went to. The data revealed that the school you go to does not matter. This was pretty shocking to me since I am a firm believer that kids’ peers and their environments’ shape their personalities. The book also explained the theory of black kids acting white. This subject is something I feel is very interesting. Fryer said that he studies these types of subjects because he wants to find out why the disparities between blacks and whites are so high. I feel that Blacks overall are at such a disadvantage in their socioeconomic environments. The reason why is because they are in a lose lose situation. If they don’t speak intelligently and try to act “ghetto” then Whites look at them in a bad way. However, if they “act white” then Blacks look at them in a bad way and don’t accept them. So how is a young black man suppose to carry himself? The authors then explain how overall Whites usually outperform Blacks on standardized tests. However, when they controlled the income levels and socioeconomic backrounds, blacks tested just as well as whites. I feel this is more proof of how important education is. Blacks are at more of a disadvantage when it comes to learning simply because they do not have the best resources. When you take control all the outside factors, Blacks and Whites test just as well before they start school but then after years in school Blacks test worse than Whites. The government needs to come up with a way for everyone to have a good solid foundation when it comes to education. The authors then find the correlation between children’s personal circumstances and their school performance. They conclude there are eight factors which correlate with test scores. The authors gave sixteen possible correlations and I guessed which ones I thought were correlated. Out of the eight I guessed, there were six I was correct on. The two I thought were correlated but weren’t were children recently moving and parents reading to their child every night. It seemed logical that if a child moved to a better neighborhood they would do better in school because they would be living in a better environment. I also thought that children being read to each night would help their test scores because they would learn more and understand the importance of reading. The chapter ends when the authors explain that everything that correlated had to do with what parents are instead of what they do. Which sums up the point that parenting is not as important when it comes to school as people assume.

Introduction

The book starts off by explaining the crime rate drop in the United States during the 1990s. The authors go over the possible reasons why the crime rate drops and then concludes by explaining that abortion was the reason. If anyone ever would have asked me what made the crime rate drop in the 1990s, abortion would of never even crossed my mind. It does seem very logical though. The kids who came into this world with parents who neglected them in the 1980s turned out to be criminals. However, with abortion these kids are never born and the majority of children who are born are loved and cared for the way they should be which in the end results in less crime. The main point of the introduction is to inform you on the types of issues the book will focus on. The introduction explains that this book is going to look at the hidden side of the United States. The book explains that the answers “will seem odd” but after being told will be obvious. I mention this line because this is exactly how I felt when the introduction talked about abortion. When the authors explained that abortion was the reason the crime dropped I felt it was such a weird answer. However, after the authors explained it, I really wondered why I was not able to figure that out. Reading this line really makes me believe that I will enjoy this book. I will love for this to simply be a book where they explain a situation and want you to figure what was the cause of that specific situation. After explaining all the reasons you would think, they come up with this crazy solution which after all makes sense. This is what I feel the book will be about just because of that line I mentioned earlier in this blog. If it turns out to be, then this will be one of the few books I truly enjoy.

Chapter 6.....

When I first started reading Chapter 6, I thought that it was going to expand on the subject matter of what makes a good parent. Little did I know the whole chapter was going to be about the importance of naming children. The authors first give an example of this by talking about a father who named one child Loser and one child Winner. Of course Loser turned out to be a winner in life and Winner ended up as a loser. Who truly in their right mind would ever do something like that? Even if you take away the embarrassment of growing up with the name Loser, it would be hard for Loser to get over the fact that his Dad truly thought he would be a loser. I feel the main reason Loser became a winner was because he was motivated to prove to his Dad that he would not be a loser. The book then starts talking about how Blacks come up with uncommon names on a consistent basis while White names are more common. I have always thought to myself that Blacks have such cooler names than Whites. The names are so much more creative and interesting. I never really thought about the repercussions of these unique names. The authors explain how this could affect Blacks because people make assumptions just based on other people’s names. They explained a study that was done where there were two resumes sent in with the same qualifications but one was under a “white” name and one was under a “black” name. It turned out that there were much more responses for the White person than the Black person. I personally think this is just society being ignorant. I mean how could you possibly judge someone by their name? I understand that based on statistics if someone’s name is something very uncommon the chance of them coming from a low income family is high, but there are many people with uncommon names that come from high income families too. No one controls what their name is, and for someone to judge them on what their parents decided to name them is a joke. The authors then explain the most common names regarding low income people and high income. They figure out that the most common names from high income people eventually trickle down and in ten to twenty years these are the most common names for low income people. This seems like a very interesting finding because I would of never recognized this on my own. This chapter concludes with the authors explaining that the name of person won’t affect their personality, but it probably is an indication of the parent’s prediction on how successful their child will be.

Chapter 4

This chapter starts off by talking about a Romanian communist who made abortion illegal. Even though this was way out in left field, I knew that the authors were using this in some correlation to crime. Then the book explains how the crime rate has decreased a significant amount in the 1990s. They give eight different reasons why the crime rate has decreased and then go into more detail if the particular reason really deters crime. The topics which the authors truly believed deter crime were the increase in the number of policemen, increased punishment, and changes in crack law. Increasing the number of policemen seems logical to deter crime because most criminal acts will not be done if these criminals know they are going to get caught. So since more policemen will be out patrolling, most of these criminals who were about to commit a criminal act will not. Increased punishment also seems logical. If I was a criminal and I was about to commit a crime, I would definitely think of the repercussions. If the penalty was one year I think I would have a much different outlook to commit this crime then if the penalty was five years. The book also talked about gun laws and how this issue could possibly deter the crime rate. They explained how if it is illegal to have a gun, then only the “bad” people will get the guns and the “good” people will not have guns. They explain that if everyone could get a gun then this will allow the “good” people to protect themselves and could deter crime since criminals would be scared of the victim having the gun. However, I feel that if everyone could get a gun license then this could actually put the victim in a worse position. If the criminal sees that a victim has a gun, they could feel threaten and shoot the victim which could lead to a severe injury or death. However, if the victim does not have a gun then the criminal will not feel as threatened and will probably just steal the victim’s money. Anyways, after explaining all the possibilities that would deter crime, the authors then went back to abortion. The book theorized that higher abortion leads to less crime. I was thinking that this theory makes a lot of sense. Abortion gives women the chance to decide if they want to have the baby or not. When there is no choice, these parents must have their baby and usually if you don’t want to have a baby there is a legitimate reason why. This kids grow up with the wrong guidance or in really bad environments and this leads to them being involved in crime. When these parents have a choice if they want the baby, then all the babies that are born come into this world with parents who are ready for a baby. It seems logical that these babies will have better guidance since the parents were ready for them which would lead to less crime. It’s too bad that after explaining this whole theory the authors conclude by saying this theory is wrong.

Chapter 3

This chapter was by far the most interesting chapter in the book so far. I was extremely shocked when the book explained the whole drug organization. I never would have thought that drug dealing was run like a true organization. It shocked me that these gangs have a central organization where if you are the main guy at one region you could eventually be promoted up to the top. I thought that these gangs were only regional but this explains the amount of power that gangs have since they run nationally. It baffles my mind though how the foot riders are willing to take on the risk of being killed just to be paid 3.30 an hour and have the slim chance to be promoted. This opens my eye to how truly hard it is to grow up and live in this type of environment. The fact that these kids would risk their lives just for the slightest chance of an opportunity shows that there needs to be something done about this. The book explained how most of the people who live in these areas would be willing to take a job anywhere, but that they would never have the chance to be employed. Basically, this chapter went from being extremely interesting to very upsetting just because of the hardships people living in these areas face. Later in the chapter the book talked about the cocaine craze in the 1970s. The book explained how Oscar Blandon was protected by the CIA when distributing all this cocaine. Right when I read this it made me think of the movie I just saw which was called American Gangster. This movie is also about the sellin g of cocaine in the 1970s in New York City. This movie was based on a true story and the movie implied that the United States Military helped this one man flourish with his cocaine selling. The cocain would be transferred from somewhere in Asia to the United States by military planes. This is a very scary issue to deal with. Cocaine is one of the main reasons that our society has become more dangerous and there are numerous stories out there which explain that the government is one of the drivers in this. Overall, I can’t really get a grasp on the main point of this chapter. It seems at the end of the chapter they explain that the crime rate since then has decreased and that the next chapter will explain this. I’m assuming the next chapter will tie in with this one and I will be able to understand what the main point is then.

Chapter 2

This chapter basically deals with the power of information in society. This chapter gives two prime examples of how important information can be. It first talks about a man named Kennedy who joined the Ku Klux Klan just so he can one day bring them down. Kennedy found out all the information he possibly could about the Klan. He realized that the reason the Klan was so powerful was because of the secret society it was and how no one knew much about it. Once he was able to inform society on all the secret information of the KKK, the leaders felt that the value of the KKK was forever tarnished. This example shows how important information is. For years people were trying to figure out ways to stop the KKK and no one could really figure out how to stop this irrational behavior and powerful group. Who would of ever thought that the only way to bring them down was to expose every aspect and secret of the KKK. The power of information could also be an extreme disadvantage to people. The book talks about selling your home and how information is a main component. Even though the seller of the home should be in control of all the information, it is unfortunate that the real estate agent has all the information and understands it all. This makes the real estate agent so powerful since they can take advantage of the seller of the home. Going back to the first chapter, the worst thing is that the agent has an incentive to not expose all the information since they could make more money. In all, it seems that the book is going in the direction where each chapter is about a different idea but they are all somehow correlated. For example, real estate agents use the power of information to their advantage and the reason they do this is because this tool gives them the incentive to make more money.

Chapter 1

I am the type of person who does not like to read novels. I never really buy into author's styles and their imaginations. However, after reading a few paragraphs I knew right away this book would have my attention throughout. The first main topic that this book explains deals with the Chicago Pubic System. The book explains a case study that is done in order to see if teachers cheat in order for their studnets to pass a standerized test. The set up of this cheating test seemed like it would be very successful since they would group the kids on how smart they are and then study the patterns of answers from each kid in each classroom. Making the students take the test again unannounced was a great idea and I think was the best way to catch these teachers. It did not surprise me that so many teachers cheated on these tests. Whenever there is an incentive to do well, people will do anything they can to reach this incentive. Teachers are thought of as very ethical people. The reality is that they are just like every other working person out there, they may like their job but the main reason they have a job is to make money to support their families. And mostly everyone in this world will do everything they can for their families, which includes cheating. In addition, I felt the sumo wrestling example was another interesting example of cheating. Even though when reading this it does seem evident that the sumo wrestlers do cheat, I feel that this idea could be opposed. When someone is 7-7 and is going against a person who has more wins than it is obvious that the 7-7 person has more of an incentive to win. He knows that if he does not win this match that he will not make the money he wants. However, the other person really has no motivation to wrestle in this match. So the 7-7 wrestler has more motivation and this could give him the extra edge he needs in order to win. The reason the wrestler with more wins usually beats the 7-7 wrestler is because he truly is better, but wouldn't those odds be much different when one is playing for so much and the other really has no motivation??