Simpleton Kindness
When people go to extremes in the name of selfless kindness, or in the case of Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber, when people who are motivated by attraction, desperation and kindness, go to extremes, more often then not something good happens in the end. Hollywood has a long standing tradition of lauding the bumbling hero who, though misguided, saves the day with little more than a kind heart and a strong will. Two examples of goodness conquering all are Tommy Boy and Dumb and Dumber. Both movies are highly comical, and play to the worst case scenario in the name of laughs, but underneath the comical exterior, the moral of both stories says, when people attempt to serve others or causes greater than themselves, goodness usually triumphs.
After seven years in college, Tommy Callahan, who isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, finally graduates with a BA. He moves back to Ohio, where his dad owns an Auto Parts company. Despite his ineptitude, because his father owns the company, Tommy gets shot straight to the top of his father’s company. Not long after returning home, Tommy finds out his father is getting remarried. The excitement of having a new family is cut short when Tommy’s father dies of a stroke on his wedding day. Though the death of his Dad is troubling, there is little time to mourn. The family Auto Parts company relied heavily on the salesmanship of Tommy’s father, and without his drive and guidance, the company is in danger of getting bought out by a bigger corporation. With no experience to back him, and an academic past that does more to damage his credibility that establish it, Tommy volunteers to fill his father shoes, “ I know I’m probably not the answer you guys are looking for but I feel like I oughta do something.” (Tommy Boy). The board has little confidence in Tommy, but they don’t have a better alternative, so Tommy sets out with the best of intentions, to save his fathers legacy, and the livelihood of his home town. Eventually Tommy succeeds in saving the business, exposing corruption in the process.
Unlike Tommy Boy, in Dumb and Dumber, the motives of the main characters are highly mixed. The plot centers around Lloyd and his friend, and trusty side kick named Harry.
Victor Terhune has made it possible to be for his family when needed, but at the same time work to get well-earned money that he deserves. His two sons, Benton and Granten, brightened his life and opened up his eyes to a life he wouldn’t have ever thought he could have. Through harsh situations, with Victor’s family, he has found resolutions to make everything more peaceful. His job at Weastec in Dublin, Ohio, being the Technical Representative for the sales department is a very hard job. His job takes precision, patience, and talent. Victor manages to make his like look easy, as if anyone could fill his shoes in a heartbeat, but honestly no one could replace
Ty Johnson has learned business from his father he knows how to survive in the real world, to take care of problems on the spot. He has everything in control and knows the way to run things. He is intelligent, patient, and skillful, everything he needs when he inherited his father's business. Ty recently got kicked out of the conventional high school, and is attending an alternative school where if he cuts class without a doctor's note, he may be expelled. School becomes better for him as he meets a girl named Alyse, they begin studying together, and Ty actually does well in his classes. After being friends with Alyse, Ty asks her out on a date. They end up going to a very high-end restaurant that Ty insists on going to, just because the food was worth it.
In spite of the evil that one hears of every day and William Golding’s opinion, there are just as many examples of man’s innate goodness: if one looks closely at any given newspaper, they will see articles displaying man’s selflessness, creativity and humanism. Therefore, it is clear that, within people, there is innate goodness which causes them to do extraordinary things.
and is entered by a fire escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these large buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation” (3). “Human desperation” represents the problems that people face daily. These obstacles are like a “fire”, they keep getting larger. As the fire gets larger, Tom’s eagerness to leave gets stronger. The fire is a symbol of reality. Reality is full of difficulties which Tom chooses not to accept. He believes leaving will allow him to get rid of obstacles. One of his struggles is his mom’s criticisms. She always tells him what to do and gets in fights with Tom because she cannot forget about the past issues. He also feels trapped by his job. Tom works in a warehouse just for his family but does not want to live like this forever. He wants to do what his father did and be released from his restraints, but he is unable to. Each ...
According to Gretchen M. Wilhelm and Michael W. Firmin, in their article Historical and Contemporary Developments, the Department of Education found that over 1,700,000 students are homeschooled. That’s 3.4 percent of all school age children (304). Homeschooling is defined as an education that contains less than twenty five hours of public school teaching each week and is based out of a household. The earliest forms of education were originally taught from home, then later developed into public schools (Wilhelm and Firmin). Homeschooling not only affects the students taught, but also fellow Americans in the race to advance a nation. Homeschooling needs to be understood in order to revise education into a better and
In 1975, Pat Bennett made a life changing decision. His entrepreneurial spirit drove him to leave a stable career and convert his part-time engine reconditioning business into a full-time endeavor. He moved from a shack next to his trailer home to a small hut that he rented for one month. After renting the hut he moved to a stall in a service station. With neither a business name nor a business license, Pat had little control over parts and profit. When the opportunity came to rent a larger space from a garage owner Pat took it. Here his business continued to grow and there was a need for him to hire a helper. Although he was in the business of engine reconditioning, he hired a premed student. Finally in 1977, Pat's business got a name. He incorporated it as Bennett's Machine Shop, Inc. During that same time he moved the business to a rented building that only he occupied.
discusses his life as a kid, and how he was accidentally placed in a vocational program in his
Breaking free from the shackles that limit a young person’s freedom of choice often involves the guidance and wisdom provided by adults and peers. Wednesday Wars takes place during a turbulent time in the United States, the time of the Vietnam War. This book, authored by Gary Schmidt, is about the character Holling Hoodhood, a seventh struggling to find his true identity. The biggest obstacle for Holling’s development is his domineering father, Mr. Hoodhood. Through his interactions with his sister, Holling’s overcomes the obstacles that limit his independence and maturation. At the start of the story, Holling is convinced that his teacher, Mrs. Baker, ‘hates his guts’ because of his religious beliefs. He identifies himself as an outsider within his peer group at school since he does
Mexico’s revolution of 1910 and Russia’s revolution of 1917 started with similar goals in becoming free from a nonrepresentative society for the people. Mexico’s revolution wanted to get rid of the dictator Porfirio Diaz so they had large peasant armies which were headed by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata at the start of 1910. In comparison, Russia wanted to get out of the tsar’s limiting political reform reign where even the privileged didn't get to enjoy representation in the government.
With that said, in the article, “Don’t Let the School Choose You: Pros and Cons” one guy said, “These students frequently outperform their public school counterparts on the SATs and state standardized tests by about 20 percentage points. These students continue excelling into college and beyond with an average college GPA of 3.46 as compared to 3.16 held by their counterparts (Carter, 2015).” So in this situations homeschooling is better than traditional school but you have to think there are a lot less homeschoolers in college verses kids in public school, so this is may be the reason why they have better numbers. What would the numbers look like if we compared only the top 10% of students from homeschooling and the top 10% of students from public schools? One would think that the numbers would look a lot different. People try to make the numbers look good to prove a point, but I think it would be different if you compared the numbers this way. Most kids go to College and forget why they’re
Homeschooling is probably one of the least known and least understood issues in education. Many people tend to think that most homeschoolers are religious conservatives or extremists. However, the truth is that people from all walks of life are joining the homeschooling bandwagon (Ray, 2004). The main misconception is that homeschooled children don’t get the same academic and social education as traditionally schooled children. Contrary to popular perception, homeschooled children have the same, if not better academic opportunities, social opportunities and college admissions prospects than traditionally schooled students have.
Larabell (2015) points out there is groups that are skeptical of the results of the standardized test because they are administered by the parents of the children being homeschooled (p. 12). For me you can argue any test result statistic except how many children move onto college and what kind of grade point average they have. “Study from the University of St. Thomas noted that students who had been homeschooled had higher first-year GPAs, higher cumulative GPAs, and higher graduation rates than students who had attended public schools” (Larabell, 2015 P. 13). To ague the with end result of college grades for homeschoolers is pretty hard to do. I was surprised that some parents use an unstructured method to achieve such a positive result. As Steimle (2014) points out on his TEDx YouTube video “Oxford University welcomes applicants from those who have been or welcomes applications from those who have been homeschooled”. How children perform at college cannot be argued. Steimle (2014) points out a homeschooling is an educational asset that Harvard considers favorably when making its admissions decisions. A college like Harvard believes in the ability of a homeschooled student excel in college is very powerful
A “good” person is generally defined as a person who acts in compassion, integrity, and honesty. Yet, when living in a society that is composed of difference in social class, the meaning of “good” can often be misunderstood. David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Good People,” is a play detailing the struggles of Margie, a woman who resides in South Boston’s working class neighborhood. Lindsay-Abaire use of setting, dialogue, characterization, plot and structureconveys the theme of luck versus free will, a theme which I have endlessly encountered in my personal life. As I reflect upon my own personal experiences of battling such a mind-bending dilemma, I am able to understand Lindsay-Abaire’s overall message – the cycle of misfortunate events can only end if human charity endures – in a different lens.
Willy Loman’s tragic flow leads him to purse the idea that reputation in society has more relevancies in life than knowledge and education to survive in the business. His grand error of wanting recognition drove him crazy and insane and lead to his tragic death. Willy’s hubris makes him feel extremely proud of what he has, when in reality he has no satisfaction with anything in his life. Willy Loman’s sons did not reach his expectations, as a father but he still continued to brag about Biff and Happy in front of Bernard. Willy Loman caused the reader to empathize with him because before his tragic death he did everything he could for his family. Empathy, Hubris , and Willy Loman’s tragic flow all lead him to his death that distend for him the beginning.
Homeschooling, however, wonderfully prepares children for the future and teaches them to enjoy learning. In a survey conducted by Dr. Gary Knowles, a University of Michigan Assistant Professor of Education, he interviewed more than 50 adults who had been homeschooled as children. “He found that nearly two-thirds of the adults he surveyed who had been homeschooled owned businesses. Socially, 2/3 of the adults surveyed were married, and none were unemployed or on welfare. Also, more than 75% felt homeschooling had helped them learn to interact with others as an adult.” If you want to prepare your child well for life, then you should consider homeschooling or if you can 't do that then at least consider enrolling them in private or charter