I have a couple ideas for my Paradigm Shift Essay, but I think the strongest candidate of all of them is how discipline has been administered in schools over time.  If you look back only 30 years ago, students were routinely reprimanded for minor infractions, and endured harsh discipline such as paddling.  More recently, though, psychologists and educational experts have reaffirmed other methods of discipline, such as encouraging model behavior through rewards and other systems.  I think that it would be interesting to examine not only the change, but the reasons for the change as well.  For example, what psychological studies were done that led to the conclusion that physical discipline can be mentally damaging for a child?  How have both educators, and parents, responded to this change as a whole?  And what do studies conclude about the effectiveness of this paradigm shift; did it enhance the performance of students or was no change observable in terms of student performance?  I also think it’ll be important not just to touch on the shift from how discipline was conducted far in the past, and transition straight into how it is carried out now, because even in the two year gap between me and my brother, I can already observe major changes that happened between our educational experience.  Because of this, I think it’s necessary to highlight the chronological progression of the paradigm, rather than just one 50 year jump from the past to the present.

Among my other ideas was the destigmatization of marijuana in recent years.  I know many people today who legally use medical marijuana in the state of Pennsylvania as a means to treat both psychological, and physiological conditions.  I think analyzing the shift in public perception, along with the remaining obstacles to the legalization of marijuana would be a good topic too.

The last major topic that I’m considering is whether healthcare professionals are still expected to adhere to the Hippocratic oath.  In the news more and more are stories of medical malpractice, and doctors not acting in their patients’ best interests either due to pride, negligence, or even prejudice.  In this paper I would be examining whether the expectations of healthcare professionals has decreased, and whether or not this has serious implications for the future.