Action skills

Key ideas
1. Heroic action is putting knowledge to work

Key ideas
Return once again to your hero profiles. Take a very close look at their heroic acts. What did these actors have to know to do what they did? Where did they learn how to do these things? What kind of training, if any, did they receive? How did they prepare themselves? Would greater knowledge and skill have enabled them to be more effective?

The latter question is particularly important in heroic action that leads to the death of the actor. In some cases, a person takes a risk and loses. For example, a young man willingly volunteers to donate one of his kidneys to his brother who has none. Although the risks of the operation were very low, there were risks, and the man making the donation dies from complications. Was his act foolish or reckless? No, I would not say it was either. He made the choice knowing there were risks. He was not misinformed. This is quite different from Corey Anderson who went out in a snowstorm to find his dog. Corey had considerable courage and a huge amount of love for his dog. I believe any objective person would agree that he should never have gone out in the blizzard. He was too overcome with worry (emotional highjacking) and did not understand the real risks of his choice. There were other alternatives he should have considered and selected.

http://www.ksu.edu/wwparent/programs/hero/hero-action-1.htm--Revised June 15, 2005
Copyright © 1996-2005 Charles A. Smith. All rights reserved.