Assignment 6 - Joshua Pe

1) What is a skill that you do not have that you would like to develop? What has prevented you from cultivating this skill earlier? Why do you want to develop it?

2) Your best friend is terminally ill and is in constant pain. They have an unknown time to live. It could be 1 month or 10 years, and no medicine can stop their suffering. They ask you to end their life, because they are unable to themselves. You have to face any legal penalties for murder if you go through with it. Do you do it? Why would why not? What is your opinion on assisted suicide?

3) http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article103712872.html

Bryan Station and Dunbar are adopting a “standards-based grading system.” Other schools have implemented this, and the new high school will be trying this system as well. As a student of Henry Clay, a school that has not adopted standards-based grading, how do you feel? What are negatives and positives in your opinion? Would you like to see this system tested out at Henry Clay?

Response to prompt 2:

Yes, I would end my friend’s life. I would flip the switch, I would tie the noose, I would smother him, I would snap his neck, I would pull the trigger. He’s my best friend, and I would kill him if absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t care if I were locked up in jail for the rest of my life or sentenced the death penalty. I think of when Chief Bromden smothered McMurphy to death in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. At the end of the book, McMurphy is not himself anymore. He’s lost his vigor, and all that is left is a husk with a heartbeat but no heart. McMurphy essentially died when the hospital lobotomized him, and he was suffering an empty existence for weeks until the Chief took his life. If my best friend feels like his life is over due to the terminal illness, I would take his life. If he were living a life without any fulfillment, I would relieve him of it. I know that he would do the same for me.