I find that I’m often carrying on conversations outside of the classroom with my friends that relate to this course’s content. Every time we read an article or a chapter from Medical Apartheid that is absolutely appalling to me, I’ll bring it up to my friends in conversation. Nearly all of the things we discuss or read in this class is too important to not spread to those who don’t have the opportunity to learn it themselves. After reading the article regarding helium and its depleting supply for the world of medicine from The Guardian, I brought it up to friend because we were going to get balloons for a friend’s birthday surprise. Her response was what I was expecting it to be: “We’re just one group of people, we won’t make a difference.” And that struck something inside me; especially after our conversation in class yesterday related to Geneseo’s mission statement.
Geneseo Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education, otherwise known as GLOBE, strive towards many goals that involve becoming aware of global issues and working with our peers to spread awareness and create creative solutions to mend them. At the beginning of the course, I was starting to feel like spreading awareness would be enough to aid in educating those who are ignorant about the topics that we discuss in class. However, after talking to my friend about the helium dilemma and hearing her response, I realized something very important. Where’s my credibility? Sure, I can site a book and my notes from class; but people are skeptics. I never take anything for its face value. If we were asked to just simply read the literature and not partake in deep class conversations, I probably would not have felt as strongly about any of the issues that we read about. The issue at hand isn’t just spreading awareness, anyone can do that. Anyone can have a conversation with someone about something. The sad truth is that they may forget it within the next twenty-four hours. We, as a class, need to work to convince people that what we are telling them is fact. We need to make an impact and help people to start molding their thought process into something new. So far, I have not yet learned how to accomplish this goal, but I hope to one day soon.
Link to Helium Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/18/helium-party-balloons-squandered
Link to GLOBE: https://www.geneseo.edu/provost/globe-geneseo-learning-outcomes-baccalaureate-education