The Freshman Seminar had an outline of work that we were required to complete before the end of the semester. In the course for this semester we required to come to class and listen to lectures and fill out forms about we read every Wednesday each week. We were also expected to get into groups of five students and create a group name and blog site. Every week we were expected to post a blog about the lecture we heard earlier in class. Our groups were required to complete a research project as well and we had to interview two teachers. One of the teachers that we chose to interview was Dr. Livingston.
Dr. Livingston is the head of the sociology department and we felt that he was a good professor to interview because we found his class to be quite interesting. Our research topic was “How does gang violence affect inner city schools in Washington, DC?” Dr. Livingston responded that gangs force a lot of pressure on kids in more urban or poverty stricken neighborhoods. He said that kids today either observe what they see the success that other gang member make and they attempt to imitate that or sometimes they can be threatened to join gangs. Sometimes kids just feel like there is no other option out there for them, so they unfortunately get involved with different gangs in the neighborhood. As a result, kids lose track of school or they sometimes simply drop out to live the gang lifestyle. He could not give us too many specific details about the DC area specifically, but he did offer some ideas of how the issue could be solved. He feels that kids need to be encouraged more to get involve with different activities. Kids should also receive more motivation from role models like the mayor and many others. I feel like Dr. Livingston had an excellent take on gang violence and how it affects schools. He brought up some excellent points and I completely agree with his suggestion to resolve the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment