Teacher Kills Student During Class

     In 2002, a young boy named Cedric was killed by his special education teacher. Cedric had refused to do his work so his teacher with held his lunch and proceeded to restrain Cedric and sit on him. Cedric was then suffocated in front of him classmates. Although the teacher was eventually charged with murder, there are no federal laws that prevent teachers from putting their students into physical restraints. Individual states may have laws against it, but in states like Texas there are not. Along with Cedric, there have been other reports of abuse in schools. This article highlights Cedric and such cases.

    In Illinois corporal punishment in illegal, but physical restraint is permitted. But, physical restraint is only permitted in schools that specifically allow it and teachers must notify parents after it has been used. I know at New Trier, and high schools in general, aren't going to be restraining students any time soon and none of the students in Illinois are at risk for corporal punishments.

     When I went school in Paducah, Kentucky, it was legal for my elementary school to enforce corporal punishment. Although I was never paddled and I can't remember hearing about anyone who was actually paddled. But I can remember being at friends houses and seeing "the paddle" sitting on the living room table and hearing my friends younger siblings being paddled in the next room. Now, looking back, it seems extremely hostile and disgusting to paddle a child. But, at the time, when I was in second grade,  it was not surprising or strange to me at all to see this happening, that's just how it was.

     Now, in the article I linked above, it blames the federal government for not making a national law against corporal punishment and physical restraint in schools. That the teachers are not to blame. I have to disagree with their opinion. Although I do agree that a federal law should be in place to prevent cases like Cedric to occur, I also think the teachers should be held responsible. My older sister is a former teacher and she taught in a school district where corporal punishment was perfectly legal and teachers in her school used "the paddle" all the time. She had the choice to use it or not and she chose not to. It is completely up to the teacher as the whether or not they abuse their students.

¿Habla Español?

     Everyday after school I take the PACE bus home, I have been taking the PACE bus home since freshman year and have always noticed that there are just as many advertisements in Spanish and in English. I always love to try and figure out what the advertisements are for and what they say. I also started to wonder when Spanish became such a predominant language in America. According to the CIA World Factbook, 82% of the population speaks English as their first language, while 10% of the population speaks Spanish as their first language. Not only was I seeing Spanish on the PACE bus, when I traveled to Texas in the airport Spanish was everywhere. It was everywhere from the bathroom asking people to wash their hands, or "llava los manos", to the safety manual on the plane.
      I also thought about the fact that we live in near a large city so of course there is going to be a more diverse population where we live. I have tried to find a specific date of when an influx of Spanish in advertising occurred but have been unsuccessful in finding one. So, I was wondering if it was only me who has begun to notice more Spanish or has it always been this way? Are there any places that you have seen Spanish that has surprised you?

How Old is Old Enough?

        Over Thanksgiving, my older sister's married friends joined us and brought along their 14 months old son Josiah. I know whenever someone a baby they all respond with, "That is the cutest baby I have ever seen!!". Well I can assure you, he was. Like all babies he was passed from stranger to stranger while we all gave the little man hugs and kisses. Watching him run around the backyard and house I noticed how relaxed his parents were, not rushing to his side and fawning over him every time he stumbled and fell. Josiah would just stand back up and continue running in the same direction like nothing happened. I have seen other children start to cry and whimper every time they fall over because they have learned that when they do this they get their parents attention and they parents come running over to ix their broken child. While i was playing with Joey in the hammock in my sister's back yard, I was swinging him and  as I swung the hammock one way Joey decided to roll in the opposite direction. This action ended up with Josiah rolling off the hammock and onto the ground. My first reaction after making sure Joey was ok was to look over at his mother, I thought she would be running over to check on Josiah, but instead she was hunched over laughing, When I looked back to Joey, he was standing up underneath the hammock, tangled up in the rope and looking very cute, and slightly dazed. After untangling himself, he let out a fantastically cute giggle and tried to get back on the hammock. 
        Later on in the day, Josiah's dad was talking about an article about a newspaper columnist who allowed her 9 year-old son to navigate his way home on the New York subway. Here is that article. Which brings me to the question, How old is old enough? Is nine too young to ride the subway? How old should you be to ride your bike to school? To walk to school? To make your own lunch? To get a cell phone? How much independence should parents give to their children?

Wind Boy

This week my older sister e-mailed me a link to an article about a Malawian boy who built a windmill to power his village. He constructed this from scratch and has been improving its design since its erection. William Kamkwamba received the basic knowledge of how a windmill functions, but he discovered how to construct the windmill with a bicycle, plastic pipes, and an old shock absorber by himself.
In class we discussed the difference between received knowledge and discovered knowledge. We all agreed that the combination of both is the best way to learn. William clearly had the same notion needed only an old library book to create for himself a windmill. Now this is clearly an extreme case, but how many of use could say that with only a book, no help from teachers if we didn't understand something and no other resources, could build a functioning windmill that an entire village relies on. William Kamkwamba is clearly a very talented individual who used recieved his knowledge from a book and then created something extraordinary.

Are ACT tutors really necessary?

     This year as juniors we are faced with several standardized tests, ACT, PSAT, SAT, SAT2, the list goes on. These tests are important to our future and I know the majority of my friends feel that they will make or break your college admissions process. Many have already taken the ACT and many have private tutors they attend weekly. Each hoping to improve their score by one point, because that one point might be the different between acceptance and rejection.

     In my family I have three sisters and one brother, none of them ever had an ACT tutor and only one of them took a class during their lunch period with about twelve other students. So, when I entered my junior year my mom and I had no intention of ever getting a tutor and had briefly talked about taking that same lunch time class. But, as I began to hear about all my friends tutors and that many had already taken the ACT I began to wonder if I was blowing the tests off or if I was unprepared. One of my senior friends took the ACT on five different occasions and I already knee deep in my junior year don't even know when the ACT test dates available. Then I wondered if a tutor really made any difference.
    I do not know the answer to this question and I'm not sure where I can find the answer. When I was looking for reasons why tutors were unnecessary, I found tons of site listing all the reasons I should get a tutor. Although, all these sites were from tutoring agencies so they of course would provide "pro-
tutoring" information.
   A part of me thinks that taking the ACT on five different occasions will not change your score, that the only thing you can do to prepare for this test is to become familiar with the format. After this, I do think that taking it five times rather than four times will not make a difference in your score. But, then again I have little to no information on the subject, but I do hope to learn more with the help of my college counselor, parents, teachers, and even you!

    

Grades - Do they represent us?

In class the other day we discussed how we were going to be graded this year. The "traditional" grading system will not be used and our grades will be more of a "conversation" than and "announcement". Even on papers we won't be receiving a straightforward letter grade, between Mr. O'Connor's (+)'s and /'s, and Mr. Bolos' B+/A-, grades are opened up to a newer grading system. At first when I heard this I became very worried. I have always needed a letter grades and percentage to know how I am doing in the class. I rely heavily on those grade print out sheets to see exactly where I can improve.With no printout sheets and a very different grading style, I was worried. But, I can now look at it from a different way. I believe under this system grades will be earned rather than assigned by our teachers. I also like that each person will be graded individually rather than compared to the rest of the class.
            Last year I was enrolled in Modern World History, this class became my greatest challenge of my sophomore year. I had never had a history class with so much analysis, I had breezed through my freshman history class and assumed all history classes were like that. Although Modern World History was my greatest challenge, it was also my favorite class. Now I could tell you that I came out of that class with straight A's, but that is not the case. My greatest accomplishment in that class was getting a B my second semester. My first semester was disastrous, barely getting a B-, but I can tell you I learned SO much from that class and I improved as a writer and a researcher. The grading in that class was based on comparing students to each other, in that respect then yes I deserved  the grades I received. But I would give myself an A+ for effort!

Race

In class we have been discussing the subject of Race. We have yet to agree on a specific definition of what race actually is. So, I decided to look up a few different definitions of race.

The Merrian-Webster definition is:
- a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock 
- a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics

The Dictionary.com definition is:

1.	a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.

2.	a population so related.

3.

Anthropology. a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use. b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups. c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.

4.	a group of tribes or peoples forming an ethnic stock: the Slavic race.

5.	any people united by common history, language, cultural traits, etc.: the Dutch race.

6.	the human race or family; humankind: Nuclear weapons pose a threat to the race.

I found all of these definitions very interesting because Merrian-Webster which is a more traditional dictionary gave a definition very close to the one I came up with when Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Bolos asked us to write one. My initial definition was: categories/classifications people are put into based on ethnicity/heritage, habits and physical characteristics. When I read the dictionary.com definition which is a collection of different well known dictionaries gave me a wider variety of definitions. One commonality between all of the definitions that I found was they all talk about race from an outside view. That is to say, it never mentions self-identification. After our discussion in class I changed wanted to change my definition to include an aspect of self-identification. I believe that the race you identify with the most should be the race you are classified with, not the race others put you in. What is your definition of race?

How Do We Learn?

        In class our teachers have introduced to us a different lecture format, the Lessig Method. This method is a style of lecture that includes images and short phrases that are projected onto a screen that accompany the lecture. Personally, I felt that I benefitted from this format having previously had experienced lectures with PowerPoints filled with texts. During the lecture i would be so focussed on copying down every word from the PowerPoint I would forget to actually analyze the information I was given. During our lecture of "The Peculiar Institution" I was more engaged and actively participating. This difference between lecture styles made me think of the different ways people learn and process information. 

Howard Gardner's Seven Intelligences are the basis of this very question. 
        Gardner proposed that humans have seven different intelligences in which we grow. These seven intelligences are linguistic, spatial, logic/math, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. He suggests that as children we develop in each of these intelligences at different rates. As we develop we favor certain intelligences and may become particularly strong in a specific intelligence. A key point in Gardner's theory is that comparing children to each other is almost impossible because just because a child is strong than another in math doesn't mean they are "smarter". Thus, during the developmental stages of children, how can schools and teachers cater to the different forms of learning. That is to say, children who are strong in the body-kinesthetic intelligence learn best when they are moving around while students who are stronger in the musical intelligence learn best when given songs and rhythms to memorize. 
         How are schools able to cater to each child's individual needs? Should they individualize education? These questions come to my mind. I worry about such individualized education because after schooling, the real world will not be as specialized and people may suffer without individual attention. Also, if schools recognize a child as a musically intelligent learner and cater specialize their education to only their strengths, then will their weaknesses ever develop?

Power of the People

We have all seen outrageous YouTube videos, some of the popular ones such as "Ouch Charlie" and "David Goes to the Dentist". They are entertaining, funny, and the next day we find ourselves quoting them. The number of views these videos are incredible, millions of people around the world see the same video and we are connected to each other. Imagine what we could do with the support of the viewers of "Ouch Charlie" alone, which happens to be over 121 millions people. Thats only 10 millions less than the voter turnout for the 2008 election (census.gov).
Well a group of guys called "Dude Perfect" thought of the power of the people. They started out as six college roommates and one day decided to film themselves making outrageous basketball shots and putting them up on YouTube. Amazing basketball shots such as the video included have been drawing in viewers.

 What started out as a funny pass time turned into a charitable hobby. They have a series of seven different videos and for every 100,000 views they sponsor one impoverished child through and organization called Compassion International. This group of average guys have only begun to use the power of the people to give back. Whether they are successful in their endeavors or if the videos are fake ti doesn't matter. Imagine if individually or even combined their videos reach 121 million views. That is 1210 children who are now sponsored, all by people watching a video for  a few minutes.

Apparently Appearance Matters

          Caster Semenya is a world class runner. She recently won the 800-meter at World Championships by a landslide. Her physical appearance led to speculation about whether or not she is in fact a female. Her family insists that she is a female and all tests that have been taken so far have proven her to be female. But should the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) have to right to question a person's gender?
          Caster has clearly led a life as a female, she was raised this way, her birth certificate supports this, she competes as a female, so why should there be doubt. Every athletes has some sort of genetic advantage over the ones they are competing against. A volleyball player may be an inch taller, a swimmer may have longer fingertips, Lance Armstrong has above average aerobic capacity, so why should Caster's muscular build be any different. The world has seen extraordinary athletes before so why should one be criticized for looking more masculine than other females.

          Caster's family insists that the controversy doesn't bother them or Caster. Her grandmother is quoted as saying that it "doesn't bother me that much because I know she's a woman." (Sports Illustrated) Caster's cousin has said, "That's how God made her...We brought her up in a way that when people start making fun of her, she shouldn't get upset." (Sports Illustrated) 


          Recently Caster underwent a make over for a South African magazine to help prove that she is in fact a woman.  In the article she says that she is proud of who she is and really does enjoy wearing dresses. (BBC) If Caster were to walk out onto the track looking like she does on the front of the magazine I doubt there would have been any controversy over whether she was actually a female, so why is her gender questioned when she displays her talent as an extraordinary athlete?

Life Sucks and Everyone Loves It

Everyday after school before I start my homework I like to visit a series of recreational websites. My first stop is always facebook.com and I check my e-mail, Then depending on the day I will visit websites such as failblog.org and fmylife.com. But my question is why do americans, including myself, enjoy reading about others mistakes and misfortunes?

All of the posts on these websites are meant to be funny and it almost becomes a competition for who has the worst life, a game I think we are all familiar with. When younger it was always a competition with my friends for who had the least amount of sleep the night before, or who was the hungriest. A conversation such as:

Person#1: "Oh man I am soo tired, I had so much homework last night and only got like five hours of     sleep last night!"
Person"2: "Yeah that sucks, I had a lot of homework too but I only got like three hours of sleep."
Person#3: "Well I only got 2 1/2, I can barely stay awake."

But in reality why would anyone want to be tired or hungry? The same applies to this website, why would anyone want to post their misfortunes on websites in a hope to have to worst and most outrageous day? I guess my question has more to do with why people post these things, than why do people read them.