Antonio R. Lopez
Professor Weigal
Econ 205
February 9, 2015 “The Value of Curiosity Exploring the Hidden Side of Everything” The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, and Stephen J. Dubner did not consist of one exact story through the book, rather it was comprised of multiple essays and topics. Some of the topics in the book were “How teachers and sumo wrestlers are similar”, “What makes a perfect parent?’, and “How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of Real-Estate Agents?” Each story was full of insightful information that let the reader understand what the author was trying to narrate. In the first chapter titled: “What do school teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common?” I really enjoyed when the author talked about different incentives in which people need to get things done. On page 22, it says there is a $500 dollar fine for soliciting a prostitute, which I truly believe is a good enough incentive to not have the desire to hire a prostitute. Hiring a prostitute wouldn’t only affect yourself and your well-being, but your family’s opinion of yourself, your friend’s opinion, and last but not least God. This is a major sin and is inhumane at least in America. I would never even think to hire a human being for my desires. That is extremely preposterous and wrong. Humans are not items and women are not toys. In other countries you may not be looked down upon due to the fact it is very common. Some countries I believe do not even blink an eye at prostitutes. This could be an example of a culture shock. In American culture, we do things very different that any other’s. America can be known for doing things very different especially when it comes to schooling. On page 25 and 26 the author talked about cheating. American’s have a lot of stories of cheating from CEO’s, to athletes, to students in high school. Since the 2002 “No Child Left Behind” that President George Bush signed saying that there are mandatory tests for each state for students I believe cheating has been on the rise. Schools with low scores got less funding and the schools with the higher scores got higher fundings. This is not morally okay and I cannot believe our President signed this. I have been a part of a school with very low funding and I have been a part of a school with a large amount of funding due to test scores. I went to an inner-city school as well as a school out in the country. The school in the city had over two thousand students while the school in the country had close 450 students and you could tell the difference in the funding. The small country school had better classrooms, newer textbooks, better library, and better equipment for school as well as sports. The school in the city which I thought would get more money since they had an extremely large number of students had horrible classrooms, the lockers looked horrible, as well has a horrible gym and was not ready for students to give students the ability to grow in the academic field. I felt as if all I had to do was show up to school when I went to the school in the city to graduate. The country was a lot tougher on the tests that I was going to have to take to get into a better college. It is hard when a school is under funded to get the students to actually care about learning. I believe this is when cheating in school happened a lot more. I think that the teachers believed that if they gave students answers to the test the school would get more money which means the teachers may get paid more. Schools in other countries
