Decision Making with the Four Way Test
By Emma Orth
Emma lives in South San Jose with her mother Giulia, father Don and brother, Luca. She loves spending time in downtown
Gilroy and enjoys attending GECA because “it fosters a sense of community and values driven individuals.” When asked
about her favorite teacher, she noted that she loves all the teachers at GECA, but that the principal — and her former
English teacher Ms. Sonia Flores have really been supportive and provided guidance throughout her time at the school.
Emma wants to become an equine veterinarian. She enjoys spending time with friends and engaged in horseback
riding, especially endurance rides — a sport in which riders and their horses ride 25, 50, 75, and 100 miles courses.
There are various vet check points along the way so that the horses can eat and rehydrate and be checked to make sure
they are fit to continue.
Her favorite places to visit are Italy, Florida, and Hawaii. She would like to visit Greece some day.
D
ecision Making begins on a personal level and, once this
decision making on a personal level has been mastered,
can be applied to a larger scale. The Four Way Test is
a way of making sure that the decision being made is
truthful, fair, builds goodwill, and is “beneficial to all concerned”. In
the past, present, and future, there has been, are, and will be decisions
that have been made either selfishly or without thinking, but The
Four Way Test can help minimize the number of bad decisions that
are made.
In our personal lives, we are faced with decisions on an everyday
basis, some trivial and some holding more importance, but no matter
how small each decision may seem it will have an influence on our
life or on the person we are to become. With this insight, The Four
Way Test would be an extremely effective strategy to implement when
making a decision, as we are often consumed with the short term
results and do not stop to consider how the decision will affect us or
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others in the long term. For example, if you have a friend who needs
help on their homework and you do their homework for them, it
fails all four parts of The Four Way Test. Firstly, it is deceitful because
you are turning in your work as someone else’ s. Secondly, it is unfair
because your friend is not having to do their work, seeing as you are
doing it for them and everyone else is doing their own work, while
your friend is not having to work at all Also, it will not build a better
friendship because your friend will come to depend on you to do their
work for them, which is unhealthy. Finally, it does not benefit them or
you because they will not know how to do the material that is on the
homework and you will be helping your friend cheat and that would
be risking both your and your friend’s academic integrity. In addition,
if you do your friend’s homework they are likely to become unwilling
to do their homework in the future because they now know that if
they need help you will just do it for them. In the long term it could
make your friend think less of themselves because they will feel that
they cannot solve a problem on their own and they are also likely to
become less ambitious because they will let others do their work.
Even if in the short term it would seem as though you are help-
ing your friend, in the long term it is clear that you would actually be
harming them. Now, keeping The Four Way Test in mind, take the
same situation of your friend needing help on their homework, but
imagine you respond in a different way. This time, instead of doing
their homework for them, you sit down with them and help them
understand the topic that the homework is on and then help them
understand the question (without giving them the answers).Using
this method, you are still being truthful because your friend would be
turning in his/her own work, so it would fulfill the first part of The
Four Way Test. Also, it is fair because your friend is doing their own
homework. It will build goodwill in your friendship because you are
teaching your friend their own problem-solving skills, and not making
them dependent on you. Lastly, it is beneficial to both you and your
friend because you are teaching problem-solving skills and in turn
learning them better yourself and your friend is also learning problem
solving skills. Over the long term, your friend will become more self-
confident and able to solve things by using their own brain and not
depending on the brains of others.
In conclusion, The Four Way Test will help determine if a decision
that is being made is ethical and a good decision in the long term,
even if in the short term it seems the more difficult solution. Our
lives could benefit greatly from using this method to make decisions
and can help us realize the effects that our decisions have, not only
on ourselves, but also on those around us. On an even larger scale, if
people are able to become more considerate of those around them,
the members of our community will come to respect one another
and realize that we are all connected and that each decision we make
creates a ripple effect into the lives of others. Perhaps with this new
awareness, we will start to think more deeply about our decisions and
their consequences.
MAY/JUNE 2016
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