Brainstorming Activity, Essay Example

For this paper, I chose the subject of poverty and wealth to explore.

When I was younger, I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip with my church. We went to Guatemala and stayed in and around the capital, Guatemala City.  I have never seen that kind of poverty before – we were working in a pretty slummy section of the city and a lot of people were living in shelters they had put together with concrete bricks and leftover roofing material. But we also went to some of the nicer parts of the city, where there were large houses and gardens and swimming pools and it looked a lot like Florida.  It really got me thinking about the difference in life between wealth and poverty.

The essay “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglas has a lot to do with the subject of wealth and poverty, too.  In the first few paragraphs, Douglass talks about the gap that he know exists between him and his mistress and even writes “In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder she did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the role of a mere chattel” (Douglass 166).  The gap between the poor slave and the wealthy slave-owner is really obvious in this.

Here are some debatable questions I thought of in regards to the subject of wealth and poverty:

1. What causes the gap between the rich and poor?
2. Why is it so hard for people to get out of poverty?
3. What can we do to help people in poverty live a better life?

One reservation I have about the issue of wealth and poverty is this: if we have always had poor people, all throughout human history, is there anything that can be done to really fix this problem?  If a problem has always existed, no matter what that problem is, that might indicate that there really is no solution to it.

In summary, the trip to Guatemala really changed that way I look at a lot of things.  It especially changed the way I look at the issue of wealth and poverty. I always used to joke and call myself a “poor student” but ever since I got back from that mission trip, I have not done that, not since I have seen what real poverty looks like.  I don’t think most Americans realize just how bad things are for people in really underdeveloped countries – at least, you can read about it, but it is not the same thing as seeing it for yourself.

As much as I think about this subject, I have to admit that I feel really discouraged sometimes when I think about how this problem has not changed much over the centuries.  We had poor people back in Biblical times.  We had poor people when most jobs were related to farming and we also had poor people when we developed industry, too.  This leads me to wonder if we are ever going to make any difference even with all the effort some people put into solving this problem.

To answer one of the questions I asked in section 2, I think that one of the reasons that people find it so hard to get out of poverty is that because they sometimes do not have anyone to show them that there is a way out or a different way of doing things. I mean, if you lived with nothing but poor people in your neighborhood and your mom and dad were poor and your family and you had never known anything but being poor, how would you know what you had to do to get out of it?  Not having any role model for a better life would make it really hard to break that cycle.

To answer another question I asked in section 2, I think that there are ways that could help poor people be able to lead a better life.  I think it is really important for kids growing up to have a role model to show them that there are a lot of opportunities out there if they are willing to work for them. That is why I think programs like Big Brothers/Big Sisters are so great.  I also think that giving poorer kids scholarships and financial aide to help them go to a university or even a community college to get an education and hopefully a good job would also be a good idea.

Works Cited

Frederick, D. “Learning to Read and Write”. The Brief McGraw-Hill Reader.  McGraw Hill Publishing: New York, NY. 2011. Print.