reflection # 3

A paradigm is your way of thinking and the way you approach a situation due to previous experience. Paradigms play a huge role on society and how we perceive all the different components of our everyday life. I also feel that paradigms play a huge role in the conglomerate we call marketing. Several companies spend millions of dollars on marketing strategies to keep their company in the right light of the public. If companies can maintain a positive outlook , people will use them because their mental paradigms tell them that it is a good company to work with. For example, I want to bring up the company McDonalds… they still happen to be at the top of the fast food chain ,yet they did experience a downfall a couple of years back. The public always perceived McDonalds as a convenient company for purchasing food when your in a hurry, and several people ate McDonalds religiously but then the movie Super Size was released and millions of paradigms changed. Many people stopped purchasing McDonald products when they realized how unhealthy their food is. People were now aware of how unhealthy their food is, and whenever they see a McDonalds they rather not eat their knowing the affects it will have on them. Their paradigms shifted, they no longer believe McDonalds is a great good
Paradigm shifts are always occurring and it is this that keeps our society moving in a promising direction. Without paradigm shifts, civilization wouldn’t progress, we would keep going back to the same things, regardless if they’re good or bad. Paradigm shifts, allow people to develop cognitively and it portrays whether or not we’ve learned from our mistakes. I strongly feel that it is vital for teachers to have paradigm change, because it allows their students to broaden their horizons. With a teacher that constantly changes his paradigm, students will began to think for themselves and they will be more active in class. Students will start to think for themselves, and that I believe is the prime definition of learning.
Reading these articles made me realize that I actually did have a recent paradigm shift of my own. I use to be extremely wasteful, and recycling didn’t even exist in my vocabulary but then I took a biology class and I wanted to change. In my biology class I learned how important it is for us to maintain this earth for our future generations. I use to believe that recycling was unnecessary and a complete waste of time, but after that course I began to recycle and I became an avid member of the whole “go green” movement. My mental paradigm completely shifted!
Furthermore, I would like to conclude by stating how much I agree with Kuhn’s idealistic views on paradigms. I believe that it is very important for us to continue shifting paradigms; it would reflect off of us by showing people how open minded we can really be.