Akash Sky's Analayze an Issue and Arguement Essays

[AkashSky]

Analyze an issue:

The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree

with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take.

In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in

which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and

explain how these examples shape your position.

 

In psychology, teaching by praising positive actions and ignoring negative actions is called positive reinforcement.  In contrast, teaching by ignoring positive actions and punishing negative actions is called negative reinforcement.  Essentially, positive reinforcement encourages you to behave a certain way, while negative reinforcement encourages you to not behave a certain way.  Although both positive and negative reinforcement can be used to shape behavior, positive reinforcement is a much more useful tool in class room teaching because positive reinforcement results in a significantly nicer experience for the student and because negative reinforcement can result in undesired side effects such as trauma.

     Positive reinforcement, teaching by praising positive actions results in a positive learning experience for the student because the student is never punished; the student is only rewarded.  Learning is generally a vague process because every student learns differently.  This can be seen in the classroom where some students understand the new material quickly while others take a long time to digest and understand the new subject matter.  In the classroom setting, positive reinforcement is superior because it leads to a lessened amount of frustration among the students who take longer to perform the desired behavior.  For example, if a task is basic multiplication, and the reward is candy, the students who are unable to quickly perform the behavior are not punished in any way.  As a result, there is no negative stress among the slower students which aids them in accomplishing the multiplication task.  As a matter of fact, there is positive stress in the form of jealousy of the other students who have their reward, which will motivate the slower students to try harder in the task and receive the reward.

     Negative reinforcement can result in trauma if the punishment is severe enough.  An extreme example of trauma is shown in children with extremely strict, borderline abusive parents.  These parents force their children to play a musical instrument, say a piano, and physically hurt their children whenever they make a mistake playing the instrument.  This can result in the child associating playing the instrument with pain, which makes it uncomfortable to play the instrument.  Although negative reinforcement can work to teach new behavior, it ultimately ended up discouraging the behavior it taught by associating trauma with the behavior that it intended to teach.

     However, negative reinforcement is more successful than positive reinforcement if the goal is to stop a behavior.  In the military, disobedience can lead to death because of the dangerous weapons of war that they handle.  As a result, the military uses negative reinforcement in order to stop the behavior of disobedience.  The military heavily punishes new recruits who are disobedient until they become obedient.  Despite the quick effectiveness of negative reinforcement, it fails to teach people to perform a certain behavior; it only teaches people to stop performing behaviors that they already perform.  Because of this narrow focus, negative reinforcement is not as useful as positive reinforcement in teaching new behavior.

     Ultimately, negative reinforcement is ill-suited to teaching new behavior due to the possible side effect of trauma.  Positive reinforcement is a much stronger teaching tool as it incentives the performance of new behavior.  Positive reinforcement attacks the issue directly, while negative reinforcement does so indirectly.  Viewing a glass as half full instead of half empty is the necessary mindset needed for didactic intentions.

 

 

Analyze an Argument: The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.

“Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and

concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village

rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children

living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more

time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This

research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid

and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The

interview-centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will

establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other

island cultures.”

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the

argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

 

    

     The argument lacks strength in that it assumes that there is a correlation between who you talk about and who you are raised by, does not explicitly specify that the island group interviewed is the same exact island that Dr. Field visited, and assumes that the culture of the islands is exactly the same that it is now as it was 20 years ago.

 

     The assumption of a correlation existing between “who you talk about” and who raised you is invalid because there are a myriad of reasons as to why the children may talk about their biological parents more.  For example, the children may live with their biological parents, and thus may spend more time with their biological parents than other members of the village.  This doesn’t explicitly imply that Dr. Fields observation is false, but rather that the biological parents could play a slightly larger role in raising their children than other members of the village.  In order for this section of the argument to hold more ground, the children should have been asked how they allocate their time during the day.  Should the children answer that they spend most of their time with their biological parents, Dr. Karp’s argument would have been sounder.

     Dr. Karp’s research was conducted in a group of islands that include Tertia.  This implies that Dr. Karp also researched on islands that were not part of Tertia.  Applying evidence gained from interviews that were not from the children of Tertia are not useful material in drawing conclusions about the people of Tertia.  This is because the interviews from the islands that are not Tertia do not imply anything about the cultural practices of Tertia.  In order to strengthen this part of the argument, Dr. Karp would need to use only the interviews he obtained from the Tertian islands while disregarding the other interviews while drawing conclusions about the Tertian people.

     Last but not least, it should be noted that Dr. Karp’s research on Tertia was conducted 20 years ago.  Everywhere in the world, cultural aspects of society change with time.  In the United States, fashion has changed considerably since 1995 to present day.  Cultural ideas about what is acceptable and what is not has changed from 1995 to 2015.  For example, in 1995, gay marriage was considered taboo in many states while in 2015, the Supreme Court made a ruling to allow gay marriage in all of the United States.  It is very likely that the culture of the Tertian Islands has changed somewhat compared to modern day.  Child rearing in Tertia 20 years ago could have been village centered, while today it may be biological parent centered.  The only way to prove that Dr. Fields was wrong 20 years ago would be analyze Dr. Fields data and look for any logical fallacies.

     Overall, the 3 main flaws in Dr. Karp’s argument is that Karp assumes there exist a valid connection between frequency of mention in communication and the identity of the parent, geological location does not matter as long as the general area is correct, and that nothing has changed with time.  All three of these cannot be assumed and because Dr. Karp assumes so, his argument is greatly weakened.

 

Any criticisms/ comments would be greatly appreciated.  An actual score with the guidelines  here https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/scoring_guide (Issue)

and here https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/argument/scoring_guide (Argument)  

followed would be INFINITELY appreciated. 

[AkashSky]

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