A hero lies in you!

Journal 3-3


A hero lies in you!


I. At the end of last week there was some lingering curiosity about the Wesley Autrey subway rescue story. After researching the story, here's what I found:
-Media dubbed Autry as the "Subway Samaritan" and "Subway Superman" and "The Hero of Harlem"
-Autrey was a New York construction worker and a Navy veteran
-The man he saved was named Cameron Hollopeter
-Hollopeter was a 20 year old film student
-Autrey is on the 2007 Time 100 most influential people in the world list by Time Magazine, and had text written about him by Donald Trump
-Autrey held Hollopeter's jaw open with a pen
-All but two of the subway cars passed over the men
-Autrey is a member of the LIUNA union, Local 79
-Hollopeter's father Larry said "Mr. Autrey's instinctive and unselfish act saved our son's life. There are no words to properly express our gratitude and feelings for his actions... May God’s blessings be with Mr. Autrey and his family."
-Autry recieved $5000 in cash and $5000 in scholarships after the act, from the president of the school that Holopeter attended; he also recieved $10,000 from Donald Trump
-Autrey recieved the Bronze Medallion from the New York City Mayor for exceptional citizenship
-Autrey and his family were guests of President George W. Bush at the State of the Union Address
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Autry




II. This week in class we focused mostly on the Heroic Imagination Project. Philip Zimbardo breaks it down into the following categories: Fundamental Attribution Error, which is the tendency for people to explain a person's behavior because of his or her personal character; Conforming to Group Norms, which is a change in behavior in the direction of peer pressure-whether conscious or unconscious; and The Bystander Effect, which refers to the phenomenon in which the greater number of people witnessing an emergency, the less likely it becomes that any of them will help a person in distress. Zimbardo believes that people are "heroes-in-waiting", meaning that they are waiting for the right situation to come along to be heroic. He encourages us to be ordinary people performing extraordinary moral deeds. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, so be on the side of wise angels to size up situations before acting foolishly, yet figuring out how you can act reasonably and effectively". Toward the end of the week, we were asked to research the parts of the world that are in the most distress and find out what the biggest global issues currently are. Then, we were to brinastorm ideas about what we can do to fix them. We paired up with the freshman class to start planning out those ideas and putting them into action.

Endorsements. (n.d.). Extensions Curriculum. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from http://www.extensionsllc.com/Endorsements.php

I thought this was a very inspirational and motivational week. I'm a little nervous about this whole Heroic Imagination Project though. It's exciting to think of ways to change the world, but when we're asked to actually put them into action, that's a big step up. From what I found, the biggest issues are in child mortality, planned families, HIV and AIDS, distributing wealth, and CO2 emissions. Personally, I think the issue i'd most like to address is child mortality rates. I want my group to plan a project based around lowering the child mortality rates and increasing health. To lower mortality rates, I think the first step would be lowering family size. This means educating people about protected sex and the benefits of controlled family size. We could establish some kind of clinic that helps to educate people. We could provide birth control and other sources of sex protection. We could show people how lowering family size will raise the lifespan of each child, in most cases. I'm excited to to start the planning for this project this week.

Land Called Paradise: Changing the World. (n.d.). Land Called Paradise. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from http://landcalledparadise.blogspot.com/2010/09/changing-world.html

One thing i'm wondering is how exactly this whole thing is going to happen. I know the purpose of the project is to prove to us that anybody can be a hero, and anybody can change the world. However, we don't have funds, nor do we have all the time in the world for fund raising or carrying out this kind of project. I like the idea of turning it into a Capstone Project, but other than that i'm apprehensive about the process of carrying it out. I guess i'll just have to wait and see how this will all work. By all means i'd love to take part in changing the world, and this project has certainly inspired that. However, it's going to take a lot of work to get it all together and put it into action.

Barbara Marx Hubbard's Blog. (n.d.). Barbara Marx Hubbard | Foundation for Conscious Evolution. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/site/blog/?paged=2

III. For next week's journal, i'm assuming that we will have chosen a project by then, and I will start researching information for our particular project choice. What kind of support can we get? Which place in the world is most deserving of our attention with this project? Are there existing organizations that deal with our issue of choice?