Responding to "Our Loss of Wisdom" by Barry Schwartz
Answer one of the following questions in paragraph form:
1. How do you feel towards the lecture and why do you feel this way?
2. Does the lecture confront or confirm your personal beliefs? Explain.
3. Write about something important you learned from the lecture.
4. What stayed in your mind after the lecture was over? Why do you think that happened?
5. What made the lecture effective (or ineffective) in your opinion?
Write between 100 and 150 words. Provide a word count, please.
If you would like to read some published narrative essays from last year's class, visit these links.
Powerful Blood Ties Rosemary recounts the tale of her brother's death on Christmas eve.
Home, Sweet Home Rita's terrifying experience of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 leads her to a new appreciation of home.
Remembering the Folly Maryann remembers a fateful meeting with a good friend and regrets her actions that day.
The Railroad Man: A New Journey Marc writes of the death of the "backbone of his life," his father.
Disguised Donors In the aftermath of monsoon floods, Jatinder discovers that not all is what it seems on first glance.
16 comments:
Barry Schwartz’s talk “Our Loss of Wisdom” was inspiring for me on many levels. Schwartz gives us the run-down on what practical wisdom is, how modern society is losing it and thereby causing the slow decay of our moral fabric. His use of examples like; the Janitors, Jazz musicians and the Lemonade story gave me great insights into better understanding this cultural dilemma. How we all want to do the right thing in certain situations but have to behave within a pre-determined structure of rules and obligations that leaves us conflicted and demoralized. One of his more poignant statements for me was the comparison of brilliance to wisdom, he states, “brilliance is not required to be wise but without wisdom brilliance is not enough.” Finally, Swartz offers us wise solutions for improving these issues that plaque our society by urging us to celebrate our moral heroes, not only the famous, but ordinary everyday people that embody the truest virtues of honesty, kindness, courage and hope.
-165 words
Barry Schwartz reminds me of the awesome responsibility of being a teacher. It is a bit scary, however, that a teacher is considered to be “always teaching” and, even more, that someone is “always watching.” Although Canadian law is clear on this and agrees with Schwartz that we are “moral exemplars,” it is both a burden and a blessing. How can I ever be good enough? I don’t follow a script (in fact, his kindergarten example appalls me) and by not doing so, each term is a work in progress, a response to the unique needs of each of my classes. To my relief, most terms, my students do feel what they’ve learned is important. I am therefore certain that Schwartz’s challenge to me personally is correct: “What is my responsibility?”—131 words
Barry Schwartz lecture “Our Loss of Wisdom” taught me a lot about morals. His lecture describes what it means to be a wise person and have strong morals. I personally enjoyed watching his lecture because it was inspiring and it’s something I strongly believe. Schwartz describes what it takes to be wise and have moral skills; he mentions that “A wise person is made, not born.” It takes experience and practice to become a wise person, making mistakes and learning from them, having human interactions and caring for one another. The job description for a janitor doesn’t mention anything about having people skills, interaction with people, and good decision making but, it’s one of the most important ones. Sometimes making the right decision means breaking the rules; you have to make sure that the rule you are breaking is right and worth it. Anybody could do a job of a janitor, but to have the moral skills to make right decisions takes a person with wisdom.
--170 Words
-Question 3:
Since I’ve watched this lecture twice, one from last term and one from this term, I learned so many from the lecture from Berry Schwartz. Well first off, I didn’t know what the practical wisdom was because I thought the practical wisdom came from our hearts and cannot be taught by people. But after I heard Schwartz’s lecture, I realized that the practical wisdom can be taught by people, but mostly from our hearts. And I also learned how to be a wise person-- of course, I knew how wise person is, but I didn’t know how wise person behaves. A wise person has, according to Schwartz, several characteristics. To name a few, a wise person knows the combination of moral will and moral skills. And, they know how to improvise the skills and knowledge.
-139 words.
Barry Schwartz lecture on “Our Loss of Wisdom” was both inspiring, and comforting for me
to know that the importance of “virtue” is not totally lost among modern society's dependence on “Rules and incentives.” Schwartz recognizes that “practical wisdom” is at a loss in today’s job place due to imposed rules which take away the usability of moral skill, and the placement of incentives which consume our want to do the right thing; But Schwartz has an answer. Work needs to be re-moralized by putting ethics courses in place, and “celebrating moral exemplars,” such as Aron Feuerstein, to inspire others to hold value in practical wisdom. Barack Obama said it best, “we must ask not just is it profitable? But is it right?”; if we can learn to live by that and find the practical wisdom which is with in all of us, not only virtue, but hope can be restored in man kind.
---160 words
Barry Schwartz’s talk “Our loss of Wisdom” explained that any one can become a wise person. Janitor, Lemonade, Scripted lock-step curricula are some examples of a wise person which he mentions in his lecture. I learnt many good points from his lecture. There is no requirement to become a wise person. I love the way when Schwartz says, “A wise person is made, not born,” that’s true anyone could become a wise person with their morals, ethics, and years of experience. I think as a human being we need rules but with some exceptions. A wise knows when and how to break rules for a good cause. I believe learning from our own mistakes is a wonderful way to gain wisdom.
----124 words
“Our Loss of Wisdom” by Barry Schwartz teaches us that “Practical wisdom” is from our experiences. Nowadays, we have to face “ambiguous” and “ill-defined” problems, so people choose to follow the rules and the incentive because nobody wants to do the wrong things. However, Schwartz argues that although you do the right thing following the certain rules, they restrict to expand your wisdom because we lose an opportunity which “learn[s] from [our] failures.” Base on the rules and incentive, we should learn how to use the “practical wisdom”. It can improve our judgment to determine when we should break down the rules and using the moral will and moral skill in our jobs. I think that if we follow Schwartz’s suggestion, we will become a wise person, for he says, “A wise person is made, not born.”
136 words
While I was listening Barry Schwartz’s lecture about “Our Loss of Wisdom” it reminded me of my TESOL instructor. He told us to write down everything we going to say, when we teach a lesson, in our lesson plan. Also Barry Schwartz mentioned that “scripts like these are insurance policies against disaster. And they prevent disaster,” and I agree with him because in our first year of teaching we might get nervous and forget everything that we want to teach, but if we have a script then its easy to follow, even though after long time of teaching experience we would not need any script and might be not useful.
(110 words)
I learned a lot from Barry Schwartz’s lecture about “Our Loss of Wisdom”. It got my attention when he said, “Wise person is made, not born,” because it’s true. Some individuals think people actually are born with wisdom, but no, it all depends on their experience. The more experience people have the more wise they are. However, “not just any experience,” it is experience from making mistakes, learning, correcting and trying not to repeat them again. Also I was surprised when he was taking about the lemonade story, how the judge decided to make the dad leave and check in a motel, if the kid goes home. It was something new for me.
(113 words)
( I know I had to write only one paragraph, its just I didn't know which one to publish, so thats why I posted both. :))
In his lecture, “Our Loss of Wisdom,” Barry Schwartz speaks clearly about the moral will “to do right “and moral skills like the janitor who performed his job differently from the job description to interact with other people: “A wise person knows when and how to make ‘the exception to every rules.’” I absolutely agree with his opinion. When I started the job in here, I knew what I have to perform professionally, however, it wasn`t easy to settle down due to lack of moral skills. In Canada as a new country to me, I have learned people have a slightly different concept in certain ways. Sometimes I was blamed that I was wrong unintentionally even though I was doing right base on my cultural background. I have developed gradually “practical wisdom” from the mistakes at work. I strongly believe it was made from the experience.
146 words
In his talk, “Our Loss of Wisdom”, Barry Schwartz eloquently spoke of his unique and intriguing viewpoint of individual, social and professional virtue and morality, which absolutely interests and inspires me in the aspect of moral cultivation of the younger generation. As parents, we hope our kids to be wise persons with a strict and traditional sense of virtue and morality. We should act as their spiritual advisors and mentors, sowing the seeds of virtues -- care, courage, honesty, hope, justice, kindness, love, respect and sincerity-- in their mind. Meanwhile, we’re obliged to encourage them to attempt to achieve something fresh and exciting, although they will occasionally fail. Additionally, we need endeavor to adopt a patient and tolerant but not rigid or unreasonable attitude towards them whenever they encounter faults or failures. “A wise person,” nevertheless, “is made, not born. ” As the old saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success.” The lessons learned from their failures are the basis for their future triumphs.
---165 words
Barry Schwartz’s lecture “our loss of wisedom” impressed me deeply with the idea of rules and incentives and various wonderful examples, especially the example of lemonade and curricula. I was shocked by what he said and pondered over it a lot, since what I was taught is that rules and incentives are “the right thing”, and should be followed by everyone and we have a such saying in Chinese like “ no rules, no shapes”, which means nothing can be accomplished without norms or rules. I think maybe the key to this conflict is that though rules are essential in our everyday life, the most important thing is how to follow the rules and to what degree we should obey them. If every indicidual takes the rules as a guideline and deal with a problem according to its specific circumstance, things will be done both wisely and correctly.
--148 words
An important thing I learned from the lecture was to integrate the moral skills in every action you execute with a right aim. Based on Schwarts lecture I came up to the realization that doing a job based on a description, we should think about “practical wisdom”. A quotation that struck me from Obama as presented by Schwarts that, “we must ask, not just is it profitable, but it is right?”. Did I do my job correctly based on my intention with ethics? In my experience, when I was a senior nurse from my previous job. I was very tough on my junior nurses. I’m strict and very particular on right judgment in doing independent moves towards the patients to avoid negligence. As a result they became very nervous and are prone to mistakes. It was mentioned that “any work you do that involves interaction with other people is moral work”. I think harmonious interaction with moral skills creates a good working relationship.
-163 words
From the lecture “Our Loss of Wisdom” I take a few observations. Human interactions are not part of the written rules, but they build our character and shape us to wise people. Regulations and procedures are good to prevent disasters, but they rob us from opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them. Practical wisdom is made, not born. Having moral heroes is encouraged; our aim is to become a moral hero for others. I feel motivated by statement: “You do not need to be brilliant to be wise.” My task is to implement what I learn by being kind, caring and do what is right during my busy workdays because it counts more than the job itself. The urgency in Barry Schwartz’s voice has its reason.
127 words
Before watching this lecture, I relied on rules completely because they made my life easier and more straightforward. Now I know they also prevent me from getting experience from a recent failure. In addition, People who are not wise enough to make appropriate exceptions to rules usually turn them against us. Incentives sometimes have negative effects us well; overuse them may cancel out each one’s attraction and influence our own judgment. Barry Schwartz reminds me of the fact that wisdom is used to serving people. Thus it has to be related to moral in order to get along with each other better. The most impressive lesson is that short-run profit seems tempting, but the long-term goal is way more important. I have already made so many mistakes because of making decisions too impulsively. (133 words)
Barry Schwartz lecture “Our Loss of Wisdom” is inspiring and amazing in the way wisdom dealing with rules and learning moral. Over years and years, we have been told that rules are important and follow the rules. But is having them enough to make wise people or to do the job? Schwartz tries to convey a message to our society because of its lack of practical wisdom. In Schwartz’s example about the janitors, who consider “Care and empathy are an essential part of the job,” and ignores the rules sometimes to take care more about interaction with people over rules. Indicate their knowledge of knowing the “Moral will,” and the “Moral skills,” and having practical wisdom, which is a combination of both make them wise not the rules. I think creating new rules over and over and being strict is one reason for our losing wisdom and will destroy our society eventually. However, Schwartz emphasises learning morals by “Teaching more ethics courses,” to rebuild our society with practical wisdom and find the solution for many problems in our society. I absolutely agree with Schwartz about teaching more ethics courses to be wise people and flexible not following the rules to be strict.
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