Critical Response #4

The first and utmost step that parents take when the mother is pregnant is coming up with the baby's name. Many parents pick the names of someone that is important to them. Others try to pick an original name so they child can be unique. In the book Freakonomics, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner talk about this very same idea but in a context of whether the name will have an affect on the child's success in life. They also discuss the common names from the different races. 

The authors believe that names have no significance on whether they will have a bright future or not. They argue the case that a child's name is given to him depending on the parents economical status. One anecdote that was given in Freakonomics was the story of Winner and Loser. In the anecdote, the parents gave one of their children the name of Winner thinking that it will effect his future status. They had another child, and gave him the name Loser for no apparent reason. It turned out that Winner became a criminal and Loser became a successful police officer. Moreover, this shows that naming a child a certain name has no correlation on whether the child will have a strong economical background.

Levitt and Dubner also discussed the most popular "black" names and the most popular "white" names. They also discussed names of people that have high or low incomes, high-end and low-end, and the name of parents that have the highest or lowest education. In conclusion, authors Levitt and Dubner believe there is no correlation between an intelligent name and for the child to actually be intelligent. 

My name is not mentioned in the study and the statistics given by the book. I have a traditional Arabic name, which is very common in the Middle East. Names in the Middle East revolve around religion. The most common name in the world "Mohammad" is actually the Prophet Mohammad the messenger of God. Our names usually have a significant meaning to them. For instance my name, Seifeddin, means sword of religion. In other words, having this name doesn't affect the way I will be in the future but that my parents are very religious.

Discipline and Punish by: Annette Fuentes

Many students get punished for their acts that they commit. Students in young ages were punished by horsing around and just being a young person. For example, Bryson a young black student gets caught acting like he has a real gun but its actually his hand, gets punished by the principal. The pricipal decideds to suspend him. Many of these students tend to become dropouts because many schools have a zero tolerance rule, which means that the first time you commit something bad no matter how bad it is you get the same punishment as others. These kids being dropouts become criminals. A large number of incidents are occuring because many school are decreasing their tolerance for students who commit acts that seem like a threat to others. In conclusion, Annette Fuentes shows that schools with zero tolarence are causing students to be criminals and dropouts.