The thesis of the author was to explain why professors should not be felxible with students’ grades.

“In a society saturated with surface values, love of knowledge for its own sake does sound eccentric. The benefits of fame and wealth are more obvious.”

I chose this quote because it is very true about most societies in which we live in today. People don’t learn because they want to know more, but because they need to get done with a course, to get a degree and eventually get a job to make money!

It is sad, but it is hard to change. Our values have changed and so the resons why we do things have changed as well. All this being said, I think some teachers are utterly  merciless! It’s alright not to let a student studying engineering, who’s failing a basic Physics class, not pass, so that he’ll repeat the class again and hopefully, learn what he needs to know, but to keep a hard-working student from getting and A, by giving them a 90, is JUST CRUEL!

” There were pre-school graduates and first-generation immigrants, blacks and whites, Muslims and Jews, Democrats and Republicans.”

Well, all I know is no true Muslim will ever fight a war against other Muslims. I don’t buy this!

Also, it’s funny how people keep talking about whetehr we should have the draft or not, but not enough people ask why are we having a war in the first place?

It’s sad that more than 3,500 U.S. soldiers have died in a war fighting with people who never owned a mass destructive weapon and never invaded their country! That’s all I have to say!

“…they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look “pretty” by white standards.”

I chose this quote because I believe when Malcom X says “pretty by white standards,” he has a good point. It is so interesting how the root to most social misconceptions is the media. What is advertized on television, on posters, in the boutiques defines beauty for all people. When men and women from different racial groups see that all the handsom, educated, talented and wealthy people are always white and tall with straight blond hair and blue eyes, they start accepting those physical qualities as a standard for beauty and hence, make the false connecton between beauty and social success and start believing that if they look like that, they too, shall be successful.

I think the author’s thesis is to explain that making oursleves suffer to look like another racial group, because they happen to be the dominant group in society, is a mistake. It is self-degradation as he says at the end.

 He supports this thesis by explaining in detail how he went through a lot of pain to straighten his hair so that it would look like a white man’s hair. (because he wasn’t satisfied with his own curly hair.)

When I read the essay by Tan, I was reminded of myself and my own mother. My mom doesn’t speak English perfectly either. She learned English as a second language in high school and she has an accent when she speaks. She speaks slowly along with some grammatical mistakes.

However, my situation was different in that we used to speak Farsi at home, so I never felt anything was wrong unless we were abroad. My mom would sometimes ask me to call people whom she knew, because she couldn’t understand them speaking English the telephone very well. What bothered me was that she is an educated woman, a teacher back home. Unfortunately, when we would leave for another country, it seemed as if she was completely illiterate. I hated the way people treated her, I don’t even like to talk about it very much. I think people should respect those who try speaking a second language, because at least they know another language in addition to their native language. Additionally, having trouble speaking a second language does not mean that the person has trouble thinking or he/she is uneducated.

I believe Tan’s thesis was to explain the variety of Englishes she used in her life and how she wrote a book in simple English which even her mom thought was easy to read.

There were two quotes which I loved from this essay:

The first one:

” The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but no morals.”

I’m sure we have all seen examples of people in our lives who had a high level of knowledge, but did not have any values to make proper use of it. Surely, we all agree that Hitler wasn’t stupid or dumb, in fact that he was quite intelligent, however, he lacked moral values. His decisions were unethical and inhumane because he did not have a consience.

The second quote is:

” Intelligence plus character - that is the true goal of education.”

This quote implies to the sigtnificance of the personality of the person as well as his knowledge. I have seen many educated people, but only those of them with good morals and values have had an impact on me.

The thesis of this essay is to explain the true purpose of education and I believe this piece from Martin Luther King explains it very well.

” History and tradition - and the teachings of Jews, Muslims, and Christians - support the overwhelming empirical evidence: The family led by a married mother and father, is the best available structure for both child-rearing and cultural health.”

I personally believe this quote summarizes it all. Marriage, is a holy institution between a  man and a woman in which a couple devote their lives to nurture their children. Homosexuals cannot be good parents for children, because they cannot play the role of a father and a mother for the child. Women cannot claim to be fathers and nor can men claim to be good mothers.

I believe the thesis of the author was to explain why he is against same-sex marriages and he does a great job by providing solid reasons in his essay.