Different high school=different preparedness for college

A perfect grade at you respective school may not be an A at another school?? This is all news to me. In the article by Katy Murphy, she talks about how high school students, although academically at bar for high school standards, "about 20% of the freshman who enter Cal State East Bay with a 4.0 GPA need at least some remediation in Math, English or both...". Mike Kirst goes on to talk about students in their first few years of college:

In America, high school course content and homework demand and pacing is detached from college. If you’re not in AP classes, it’s really quite dangerous… It’s more common than uncommon” that students feel they are prepared from their college future in high school, but realize that they were wrong.

Worell also goes to comment about how freshman and sophomore students are seeing college:

Worell has spent years working with low-income, minority students and studying
the psychology behind their college experiences. He said they often arrive on
campus and discover they have a year or two of remedial course work ahead of
them. It’s common for them to feel they don’t belong, he said, and to drop out.

How I'm interpreting this article is that now its not only what colleges we go to that will help our future, but now we have to start worrying about what high schools students are going to? because they weren't as prepared because they went to a lower rated school, "where the standards are lower"? That doesn't seem right. I thought there was a law or something that made it so that all should get equal education no matter where from or what race you are.

Schools and learning essential life skills

This blog ties into my latest blog "School Gardens: Good or Bad" and how schools are not just there to teach reading writing and arithmetic. Some of the life skills that should be taught in schools that have to do with gardening is being able to grow some of your own food, how to cook (you don't have to be a chef but atleast try!), and how to save the worlds natural resources like water by using a cistern.

Jay Mathews, a writer for the Washington Post published an article of February 18 where he talks about the "eight essential life skills... [and] their importance and how to teach them".

The first skills that is or should be taught in schools is organization. Not only can this be used in schools but it can also be used throughout ones entire life. In school students use the skills of organization to do their math, and history notes. You may not think of it, but even writing a thorough essay is being organized, because you are not procrastinating. Another example of school organization is finishing an assignment because then you are organizing your priorities and getting your homework done, and then having fun after.

The second skill is the skill of music. No this does not meant that all students should learn how to play in instrument. Kenneth J. Bernstein, a much-admired social studies teacher and is also a piano player says that although students don not have to learn to play an instrument or learn how to sing they

each may need to learn how to listen, because different kinds of music may require different kinds of listening. In a sense, being exposed to several kinds of music is like learning a second language: It begins to empower one to learn further on one's own, because one has gone beyond the limitations of what one grows up with.

Learning to listen, to music and other things, also teaches students to have patience

The third essential life skill is the skill of teamwork. One way that teamwork is taught in schools is with sports. The teammates have to work together to reach their goal of having fun or a goal of winning the game. Frazier O'Leary says that "'Sometimes it is hard for high school students to understand the value of working together until they grow up and realize that teamwork is essential to success'". Teamwork can also help outside of ones school life. For example there are many times in which teamwork can help with your job: joint presentations, meetings, and job proposals with partners are just a few samples of how teamwork is helped in the workplace.

The fourth skill is exercise. This is important because the correct amount of exercise and nutrition keeps ones weight in check, and can help one reach their weight goal. Some of the positive effects that exercise has on the human body is reducing the possibility of getting a disease, or disrupting ones mental state. Regular Physical activity reduces body fat in turn reducing the potential of Non insulin-Dependent Diabetes, Diabetes types I and II, and the growing problem of Obesity, not only in the United States, but the world. Exercising " can improve you mood and the way you feel about yourself. Researchers also have found that exercise is likely to reduce depression and anxiety and help you to better manage stress.

The fifth Skill is friendship, [and that] "learning to be a friend is what some call social intelligence or emotional intelligence. It includes 'not giving in to peer pressure, becoming self-aware and using that self-awareness to self-adjust as necessary'". This is important for ones life because one always needs friends. Whether it is a person to talk to, or to hang out with. Friendships can make a persons life more meaningful, and can create strong bonds between people that can last a lifetime, and possibly into next lives, if you believe in reincarnation.

The sixth skill is Argument

Bernstein has a favorite trick for teaching this correctly: "I remember once asking students to prepare a debate, three for the affirmative and three for the negative. When they came into class and I checked that they were prepared, I made them argue the other side, not the one they had prepared. With the exception of the class president, who as a politician did not trust me and thus had prepared both sides, they flopped. And in that failure they learned an important lesson: One is far more effective in debate and discourse when one has thought through both sides of an argument."

The seventh skill has to do with being able to think critically. This does not mean negatively criticizing everything. Thinking Critically means being able to analyze what you hear, and to question what you hear/learn. This can help one to decipher between the truth and the false.

The eighth and final skill that should or is being taught in schools is the ability to present things whether it is a song, a project, charts, and many other things. Being able to present these in an organized fashion will make it easier to be understood, and can possibly give you and edge over others in the same work environment.

School Gardens: Good or Bad

An Elementary School in Brooklyn has decided to create a school garden. The first known school garden was "built 15 years ago at a middle school in Berkley California, [and] cost about $75,000".

How much is the Brooklyn school garden going to cost? $1.6 million and "architect's dream"!! Although $1.6 million is alot of money, the money being used to create the new garden will be equaled out by the gardens pros. Some of the gardens pro's is that they will not have to pay for electricity because the building will be powered by solar panels. Another pro that the garden will give the school is that the amount of money that the schoool uses for food will decrease. This is because they garden will be creating food that can be used for the lunches. The compost that will be put into the garden area will also decrease the use of fertilizers, in turn decreasing teh amount of energy that is being used in the world to create the artificial fertilizers. The cistern will also decrease the amount of water that the garden uses because it collects rainwater to be used then, or at a later time when water is less available (a drought).

The Architects have many goals that will use up this $1.6 million. They plan on creating the building that will be powered by the sun, a kitchen with a communal table for the children to share what they have made, and a chicken coop. They also hope to make an area for a compost system, and outdoor pizza kitchen, and a "cistern to collect rainwater." One of the most exciting things that the architects will be creating is a "movable greenhouse [that] will be rolled out each fall."

The Brooklyn Elementary School, with the new garden, hopes to become the "center for study of the environment and agriculture". The school also hopes that the garden will give new learning and teaching experiences to the students and teachers.

Ms Flanagan, a critic, published in The Atlantic and essay titled "Cultivating Failure", where she went on to state that "I have yet to find a single stufy that suggests classroom gardens help students meet the state standards for English and Math". In my opinion, the English and Math standards that were mentioned by Ms. Flanagan, are just to make sure that students are learning the lifeskills of writting, reading, and math. Yes these skills are very important, and should be taught in schools, but they are not the only skills that should be, and are being taught in schools around the world. If not, we would ony be in school for a few hours a day, instead of the 6 or 7 hours that we spend throughout the school week. Some other necessary skills that are taught at schools, is the arts, languages, history, because it can repeat itself, and physical education, which even that is diminshing in schools. But wait, these classes dont "help students meet the state standards for English and Math." Does that mean that they shouldn't be taught in schools?!?! NO!! they should be taught because they are skills that we can use once we are out of school. That's the same with the school garden!

The garden gives students breaks from class so they can concentrate bettwe when they return to class. The garden also will give the students a different, and interesting atmosphere, for students to learn in.Personally at my highschool, we have a garden in which the environmental science class and teh teachers take care of. Each Environmental Science class has their own area to plant different foods. We've learned how to properly weed, plant seeds, prune trees, and many other gardening skills. We also have learned about composting and how to make your own compost. I think this is necessary for students at a younger age, to learn about composting for two reasons. Composting helps save the planet by reducing the amound of compostable waste that is overpopulating land fills, and it lowers the amount of energy used to create chemicals/artificial fertilizers which are bad for the environment and are not as good as natural fertilizers. Its importants for students to learn this becasue then they realize that they don't have to be geniuses to help save the world, all they have to do are simple things like, make your own garden where you can grow some or all of your food. Another possibility to save the earth is to compost which not only saves money, but lowers the amount of environmental damaged done to the earth. And its like the article said, it's not a choice of gardening or education, gardening is education. The students learn how to cook, grow foods, and many other skills that are necessary to one's life.

Been to Target lately?

If you've been into a Target store since January 3, 2010, then you may have noticed a new section of the store with the section title of "Great Save". This new section of the Target stores is available in its 1,740 stores. This section gives "shoppers [the] warehouse club saving without the warehouse [annual] membership fees". These savings include products such as a "six-pack of bath towels for $19.99, children's T-shirts for $3, and 35-packs of Market Pantry bottled water for $3.95. Its stores typically carry 24-packs of the Market Pantry water for $3.99".

I personally think this is a great idea that the Target company has come up with for their stores. They are getting in the program about people wanting to save money, buy in bulk, and stock up on necessities.

Mind Break 2/1-2/9

I didnt really liek the first song (part 1), but being a CSI: MIAMI fan, I ofcourse liked the part 2 song called "Won't Get Fooled Again". Both songs are performed by the group The Who. I also liked how the stage lit up in different patterns at certain parts of the song

part 1


part 2


Hope you enjoyed it!!!

Anit-Whaling Ship vs. Japanese Boat

(To make sure everybody understands, this article was from January 2010, so yes its "old news" but i still thought it was important)

"The anti-whaling ship Bob Barker, and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in the icy waters off Antarctica on Saturday" (but wait, wasn't Bob Barker the host of the game show "the Prrice Is Right"? Yes! He donated millions of dollars to buy the Bob Barker ship for the Sea Shepherds). Although no injuries were reported4d, the activist group Sea Shepherd said "a small hole was torn in the hull of its ship...[but] the vessel was not in danger of sinking. For the past few years, the Japanese whaling ships and the Sea Shepherds have been accusing each other of "acting in increasingly dangerous ways." What I think is that we are not being dangerous enough yet, because the Japanese whalers have not stopped killing the whales for their profit. It's like they aren't thinking to the future, and what the consequences of their actions might be not only to themselves, but the whole world, and the sea life. If whales become extinct we can only imagine what might happen to the sea life. It might go all out of whack because of the non stop growing of the krill population which unbalances the rest of the food chain/web what whales, and krill are in.
There are three main tactics that Sea Shepherd activists. The first is trying to "block the whalrers from firing harpoons" at the whales in the water. If the Sea Shepherds donot succeed at these first two tactics, they deal with the possibility of seeing a whale get harpooned and dragged onto the dekc of the Japanese whaling ship. The third tactic that the Sea Shepherd activists do , is "hurling packets of stinking rancid butter" onto the dock of the ships and "the whalers have responded [most of the time] by firing water cannons and sonar devices meant to disorient the activists." Shooting the water guns also make it harder for the smaller boats, that throw the packets, to get close enough to the sides of the boats to throw them onboard the whaling ships.

The homeless

The Homeless, and facts (All of these following facts and statements are from the previous link, and studies taken in and before 2009).

In the United States "Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington State, and Washington D.C. have the highest rates of homelessness". In 2007, The United States had at least 671,859 homeless people, with the state of California containing 159,732 of the homeless. Of the 159,732 homeless people in California, 29,400 of them were Veterans that were kicked out of their homes.

The recession will force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years, according to estimates by The National Alliance to End Homelessness. In a 2008 report, the U.S. Conference of Mayors cited a major increase in the number of homeless in 19 out of the 25 cities surveyed. On average, cities reported a 12 percent increase of homelessness since 2007.

In 2009, "One out of 50-or about 1.5 million- American Children [were] homeless

The three main causes of people being homeless is...
The lack of affordable housing
poverty
and Unemployment

Each of these causes can be a lack of education. One can lose their job due to somebody else having a better education, budget cuts, and many other problems.

Do these raising numbers in homeless people, and people becoming homeless have to do with their education, or lack thereof, in their life?? I believe that in most cases, that include children, it does. With children that grew up homeless, most did not have an education because their parents were not able to pay for it. What I mean by this is that since their parents were homeless, they couldn’t pay for clothes, books supplies, food, for their children to go to school every day, they also may not have the luxury of clean clothes every day. Their lack of education creates a domino effect in their life because with no a small or nonexistent amount of education ,they are unlikely to get high paying job, or even a low paying job, they also, because of little to no education, will not have the social skills to interact in the world. The lack of education, no job, and low social skills, can lead them to a life of always being homeless. For adults, education was not always their problem, which led them to their financial downfall. Their downfall could be a result of bad choices like gambling, or non-wise investments. Their financial collapse can also be due to loss of job, as stated earlier, or being demoted, going down the ladder instead of up.

One thing that I think will lower the amount of people who are homeless, not only in the United States, but in the world, is educating the homeless. Giving them their education gives them the chance to get a job, a house, and a continuous paycheck, inturn getting them out of the "homeless catagory".

Writting on a desk and arrested?!?!

Now we all know from school that we aren't supposed to write on desks, but getting arrested from doodling on your desk?!?! This particular school says that they were just following protocol! How can a schools protocol be if one writes on their desk, they get arrested! It's a little extreme!!

Students go to school to learn, Mathematics, History, English, Languages, and ART. But wait, isn't art encouraging people to draw, and can't that sometimes lead to people doing graffiti?!?! Does this mean that we need to get rid of Art classes and schools!! HECK NO!! Yes for drawing on her desk, she should have been punished, but not be arrested! How about some old school, clean all the desks in the room, or having to write down (on a piece of paper of course) to the teacher, why you felt compelled to draw on the desk, or just plain old detention!?!?