Greg Mortenson: Hero or Liar?
Education. Books. Money. Schools. All of these words share something in common. They are what one man claimed to give to the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the future under his Central Asia Institute program. In his book, “Three Cups of Tea,” Greg Mortenson was portrayed as being a hero for building many schools for children and for also promoting education for women. The controversial issue over Greg Mortenson lying and keeping personal funds from the CAI is true due to the many pieces of evidence found and numerous stories from witnesses. To start off, from the reader’s point of view, the book published in 2006 known as “Three Cups of Tea” is an inspirational story, however it is based off of lies.
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He even received one hundred thousand dollars from the president, Barack Obama (“Questions Over Greg Mortenson’s Stories”). It was not until a few years later when thousands of readers changed their minds about this so called, “hero.” One of the first acts that sparked suspicion was when Mortenson said he was taken care of by people in a small village called Korphe. A man named Jon Krakauer stated that someone who traveled with Mortenson told him that he never heard of this village until a year later. In fact, in one of the first articles Mortenson wrote, Korphe was not even mentioned (“Questions Over Greg Mortenson’s Stories”). Obviously, he lied about ever getting help from the people in Korphe. Also, in his book he claimed that he was kidnapped and held captive for eight days. However, the people he claim were his …show more content…
This institute did not receive all of the money it was supposed to get. “Mortenson was supposed to provide a contribution to CAI equal to the amount of royalty payments he received from the book purchases, but failed to do so, investigators concluded” (“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). The charity program spent over three million dollars to buy copies of Mortenson’s books. In return, they didn’t receive anything back financially. Advancing on to a similar topic, Mortenson also used the money to purchase personal things. “These include expenses for such things as LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxurious accommodations, and even vacations"(“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). He used the money from the CAI for these purchases and spent about one million dollars. This money was supposed to go the materials needed for building schools. Although he did pay back some of the debt, he may not have if he was not forced to (“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). The response Mortenson gave was another
In Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction novel Into the Wild, the well off, upper-middle-class, Chris McCandless disappears, donating all of his savings to charity and hitchhiking to Alaska to live off the land, but 119 days later he is found having starved to death at the age of 24. Chris McCandless was and is a very heavily discussed topic due to the mysteries of how he died. His “Great American Odyssey” was short, but lack of divulging his plan to anyone else left it in a shroud of guesswork and minimal evidence. But despite that there is just enough evidence to show that Chris McCandless was for the most part, at fault for his own death. There is a strong claim, on the other hand, that McCandless’ death was attributed to a series of unfortunate events that were out of his control.
Many Americans believe that children are the future and deserve a high quality education. According to Michael Moore’s “Idiot Nation", they are oblivious to the lack of education that actually takes place in schools. Moore begins to build his credibility by using personal anecdotes and humor, citing statistics and facts, and using emotional appeals.
The schools that Greg build were not used and it is named as Ghost school, these ghost schools were known as one of CAI issues, but Greg did not bothered to fix it beside making excuse that people did not let their children attending schools. According Krakauer’s Part 3, page 47 in his book, a man named Tanya Rosen, who was an international lawyer, traveled to Pakistan and found ghost schools and learned that those schools were not provided with any funding for teaching and supplies. Although Greg is successfully promoting his book, people still put donating money to CAI, yet they did not know that their money were spent a lot but little was accomplished according to Krakauer’s article “Is It Time to Forgive Greg Mortenson?”. Based on the article,
Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, Private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39-81.
Charity handouts did not necessarily help feed a poor family, but aimed to “... produce most beneficial results to [the] community” (Shi 60). This meant that the wealthy didn’t directly give citizens money, but built free public utilities. Among these free services were libraries and and centers for scientific research. Without a doubt, these buildings do not help put food on the table. They do, however, create a sense of hope for educational and social improvement for the working class.
...ens and nothing more or they may choose to oppose the game itself" (Page 11) It’s Shorris’s belief that with this accumulation of knowledge and exposure to new ways of thinking, that these students are prepared to enter the public world, communicate with the privileged world, and question the controlling world. His key claim is that education is a powerful weapon. It can be used as a form of attack (i.e. to uses their newly learnt knowledge to catch up to today’s political society) or defense (to protect themselves from the forces that make them poor), but beyond that it is a tool of hope. Instilling self-esteem, hope, and comprehending (all of which Shorris witnessed his students gain in just a few short months from October to May) through a liberal education, would be more of an advantage for the poor as a whole, then any other kind of learning one could provide.
...s sketch is shown to every alumni possible in efforts to fundraise in most cases 20 millions dollars plus needed to complete a new athletic center. Alumni are willing to give possibly millions of dollars because it can be considered a “charitable donation” and can help relieve their taxes. Colleges are essentially non-profit business and when they are donated to it is considered a “charitable donation”.
Laurence, L (1967). Politics in Education. New York, NY: The Center for Applied Research in
In an impecunious third world country, a penny can procure a pencil. The penny is 1% of a U.S. dollar. This parallels the 1% Gross Domestic Profit goal set by the United Nations. This goal enlists the help of developed countries to give 1% of their gross domestic profit to an underdeveloped third world country. By giving 1% of a dollar to an impoverished country, one can buy a student a pencil; therefore allowing them to become literate. For a single dollar, one can promote literacy for an entire village. If an adolescent or young adult becomes literate, he or she can help the whole family by reading newspapers and keeping up with current events (Mortenson and Relin 283). In Pakistani bazaars, food comes wrapped in newspaper. If a family has even one literate member, that person can read about the daily news when the food is unwrapped (Morten...
McCandless set out for this adventure because of his anger, therefore he did not actually sit and rationalize his plan. He did not have food, water, hunting supplies, clothing to keep him warm. His death was an accident of not being prepared for nature’s harshness. Krakauer also explains that McCandless’s death was an unplanned accident. Krakauer compared his young adulthood story to McCandless stating what his suspicions were of his death, his theory is based off of the letters McCandless left behind. Their adventure stories are very similar, they both were caught in a life or death situation, the tragedy is that McCandless’s did not have as happy of an ending as Jon Krakauer. Krakauer explains that it was a matter of chance that McCandless did not survive. He also explains that they were similarly affected by their relationships with their fathers. Their stories are also very similar with their father, they were both
Almost 24 years ago, Chris McCandless died in unfortunate circumstances. When the news was released that a young man in his early twenties was found dead in the wilderness many people speculated that it was just another hopeless hitchhiker. However this story took a three hundred sixty turn when author Jon Krakauer wrote a lengthy article on McCandless 's death. When the book was later published, the public response was incredible. Even though this happened about 24 years ago Chris McCandless 's death is still argued and discussed today. The events and circumstances leading up to Chris McCandless’s death are what seem to frustrate many readers. As stated in many articles, books, and blogs Chris McCandless died in April 1992 all by himself in
Strauss, Valerie. "Where U.S. Stands in Education Internationall." Washington Post. N.p., 25 June 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
He read a lot, and used a lot of big words,” (Krakauer 18). McCandless must have been very intelligent if he went to college, and also got a near perfect grade point average. To show McCandless being a “saintly” kind of person, Penn used a scene from his film, with that scene being McCandless donating some money to an organization called OXFAM. When McCandless graduated from Emory, he had almost twenty-five thousand dollars left over from his tuition. Since he never really cared that much about money, McCandless donated the rest of his tuition to OXFAM, an organization that gives food to those less fortunate....
By comparison, the government of General Pervez Musharraf has chosen an educationist as its education minister and the science and technology portfolio has been handed over to a scientist, Professor Dr Atta-ur-Rahman. Professor Rahman, in a speech delivered at Islamabad last Friday, told his audience that good governance is not possible without there being a merit-based challenging education system." If Pakistan wishes to forge ahead, he rightly said, education must be the main priority. Worthy of remark is the startling fact that the total GDP of all the Islamic countries put together is half that of Germany and a quarter of that of Japan in spite of the fact that the Islamic countries control 74 per cent of the world oil business. This low GDP rating is the result of a low level of education, the only area in which countries such as Germany and Japan have the advantage.
"Free school." New World Encyclopedia, . 15 Nov 2013, 18:15 UTC. 10 Jan 2014, 16:00