Protesting for a Righteous Cause

This week I thought I'd say a few things about the budget cuts, school, and protesting. So yesterday (March 4th) there was a fairly large protest against the cutting of funds that were going to schools in California. People came from all over and voiced all of their opinions on things that were going on. I, unfortunately, was unable to attend this protest (for multiple reasons, not just because I was scared of getting in trouble) but from what I heard it was an amazing gathering. Honestly I hate the budget cuts (who doesn't?) but I especially hate them because of the certain things that are being cut, things that don't make sense. For instance, if they have to cut, why cut things that children love? Things like sports and extra-curricular classes and such, they're the things we love the most! Without things like those then we're mindless zombies at school, walking in and out and filling our brains with un-meaningful information. Why don't they cut things that are unnecessary as well as things that children DON'T ENJOY.

An example of those things? Well STAR testing and the Exit Exams waste hundreds of millions of dollars and those tests don't really DO anything; admittedly the STAR test does a little more than the Exit exam. But seriously, I heard from my math teacher that you only need to get a 51% to pass the exit exam; that's an F! I also heard that the knowledge level for math isn't above Algebra 1, a subject that most students learn in 6th and 7th grade. From what I can tell, and this is just my assumption, the Exit Exam serves no purpose other than cutting down the amount of kids that graduate. Weather the ultimate goal is less over-crowding at the colleges or more money for the schools, I still believe my earlier statement. It doesn't do a very good job though does it? STAR tests are a different and more complicated subject. They are harder, but worth less somehow; the results you get on a STAR test effect the school and how much money the school should get. I suppose the worse the grade average is, the less money they get. (Although another thought comes up; what if the school doesn't have enough money to afford effective teaching equipment? Are they doomed? Will they eternally have the same low budget while their kids get the same low grades as a result?) Abolishing the STAR test overall does sound like an amazing idea, but I think that it should be just that. If students all just stop taking the tests, then what happens to our funds? I know that STAR tests suck, I hate them! I just don't think we should punish our little school by just not taking it. Sure one or two or even 40 kids not taking it won't change much; but if a whole school refused to take it, I imagine the consequences wouldn't be favorable.

Maybe I need to talk about it more though, a lot of the questions I wanted to ask mr. Sutherland I didn't get do because everyone had better questions. I care about our schools though, I care about the classes that are being cut and I care about the teachers that are being fired. My mother almost lost her job because of the budget cuts and what's her backup job? Becoming a P.E. teacher. I don't want to move back to Chicago, I really don't. I'm afraid that i'll have to if one of my parents loses their job though. Well this is over 500 words, so I guess i'll stop here.

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Cheating

    So I thought I should talk about a topic that Sutherland had brought up on his blog. You can read the article that Mr. Sutherland wrote here. My response? Well I have to agree 100%, cheating is almost everywhere in Alameda High; for every assignment handed out, someone is cheating on it and copying the work of someone else. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it though, I have to be honest and say that I've cheated more than a few times on assignments. In my head, I cheat because I know the material, I just don't feel like (or don't have enough time) to do the work. Why fill in some blanks in math that have to do with something simple like addition when I can spend my time doing something more worth my while like practicing for a different class or drawing? I'm not copying because I can't do the work, that wouldn't be very smart, I'm copying because I have more important things to do. 
    A lot of teachers bash cheating as a way for kids to get through school without learning anything. Well... technically by cheating we ARE reading the material, so it's not like we're not learning a single thing by it. Either way though, teachers assume that we have way more time than we actually do. I've spent entire nights finishing all my homework and studying for tests; it's not their fault, though, how should they know how much homework other classes are giving? It's not our fault either, how should WE know that all of our teachers are going to assign us something huge on the same day? You see I've found out something recently, when teachers assign a lot of things, we panic. We see the list of homework in our agenda and we thing I can't possibly finish all of this in one night!' so we just... don't do it. We finish the assignments that we can and then get some much needed rest. Then comes the next day, when everything is due, and this is where we really start to panic; I can't copy it during class. What if a teacher catches me? What if they tell the teacher that assigned it? I have to focus on the class that I'm in at that time... the first solution that wanders into our minds is to cheat. Why not? It's easy and fast and once we're done we'll have nothing to worry about. It's not like the teacher is going to compare all the answers, they don't have enough time for that. 
    There are some instances in which someone might have a good excuse too, like if they forgot the assignment at home. They know how to do it but don't want to have to do it all over again (unless they actually REMEMBER all of the answers that they wrote) so they get a neighbors worksheet and copy away. Maybe they forgot the assignment altogether? Then we cheat because the time and panic pressure kicks in. When I cheat, I usually cheat because I forgot that we had the assignment and don't have time to do it all because I'm doing something in class and I have the class before lunch. I'm going to contradict my earlier statement and say that once or twice I have copied something because I didn't get it, but it helped to copy! When I was copying I had the chance to ask my friends how they got certain answers and how they worded things rather than look it up from a text book. I suppose I could call them but I find things are a lot more difficult over the phone because they can tell me how to do it but they can't really show me how to do it. 
    So all in all I think that cheating is unavoidable but sometimes it could be a better solution than not doing the assignment at all right? Like I said earlier, while copying technically we're reading the material; if we just didn't do the assignment at all then we wouldn't even get that. 
    P.S. I hate when teachers tell you to ask your parents. Yeah my parents don't know High School math anymore, they don't speak french, they don't study history, I don't need help in english or art, and I HIGHLY DOUBT they can help me in judo (not that I can really cheat in that class) don't we only remember like 10% of the things we learn in school or something?
    P.S.S. I found a few related articles worth reading about homework given to students, give them a read!
Physorg.com here
USATODAY.com here

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Revolutions

So the progression of our time finally got to me this week, all thanks to my french teacher. She isn't really... OLD persay, but she is older than most of the teachers at this school; even so, it was surprising to realize how far we've come. It all started with us typing up our biographies about famous artists (I have Edouard Manet) and my friend asked for the teacher to look over her rough draft (typed.) She came over and read it, giving a few suggestions here and there and then she noticed something and asked the class "class, how many spaces do we put after punctuation?" Naturally, we all said 'one', I mean that's how we were raised. She then proceeded to inform us that we were wrong and that it was TWO spaces after punctuation.
Well... that's not right is it? No one does that anymore, I haven't been told to put two spaces after punctuation since elementary school, and then we didn't even know how to type. We all immediately complained, no one did that anymore and NONE of us wanted to go through what we had written and add a single space after every period and comma. Seriously though, it's the new age, why should we be following 10 year old rules that our teachers know? If the modern world puts a single space after punctuation then we should too.
This made me think a lot about how things have changed though, in fact I watched a video about it. The video (found here) tells a whole bunch of statistics about how the world has changed; some of the statistics include how rapidly the internet's popularity is rising. The internet isn't the only thing though, schools and technology in general have gone through huge revolutions. My history teacher briefly said something about the life expectancy skyrocketing since the 1800s and such. I personally think that this drastic change is a good thing. I mean this revolution was bound to happen at some point so why not sooner rather than later?

Another topic that we went over in my history class was the argument about globalization. I guess my argument about the technological revolution ties in with this one; I believe that the world is going to communicate with each other commonly eventually, so we might as well embrace it. The one thing that people seem to be getting pissed off about is the fact that other countries are taking our jobs away from us for cheaper prices. Well I think that if someone from another country can do the same amount of work for less pay, then he/she deserves that job. I also think that if we don't have some competition then there won't be anything to strive for! If I was the smartest person in the whole world and NO ONE knew more than me then I would be so content that I wouldn't want to learn any more. I mean why would I? There's nothing else to learn! However, the second someone knows more than me, then I have a new goal and can progress.

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Pressure

Pressure is something that always worms its way into people. Weather it's at work or at school or even at home, it's an ever present threat that can always turn the strongest of people into the weakest of people.

One case, my finest example, is in my Judo class. Now as a brief description, Judo is a sport that you can take at school rather than boring P.E. . It is a combination of the two martial art techniques of Jujitsu and Tai-Kwon-doh. I took judo because I thought it would be much more useful to me than regular PE, and so far it has been. Judo teaches me a lot about self-defense and respect as well as some handy throws and pressure points. The only thing that I resent about Judo, however, is the pressure. Judo is a fairly small class (although it expanded with the addition of pacers in PE) so when you're doing something, almost everyone is watching you.

Now, in Judo, we start out every day with a warm-up and then rolls which tend to be people's least favorite part. During rolls we do various frontrolls and backrolls one by one in three lines. The pressure of getting them right is ALWAYS there and it makes everyone nervous unless they're confident in their abilities. The same goes during a one-on-one match (in which EVERYONE'S attention is on you). The pressure is what kills me the most.

The same goes for almost anything although I think the worst one would be grades. Every kid who goes to school is pressured by grades no matter what. By their teachers or their parents or even their friends. When you have good grades you're good to go, when they start to slip is when people start to worry. I've found that most of the time it's because of parents who only expect the best from their children, mine included. If I get bad grades, I get things taken away from me; things like that are pretty much common knowledge now.

Bad grades=punishment.

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Procrastination

Okay, now I know a lot of people have dawdled on this topic at least once in some form. I mean, it's not rare or anything; in fact, I'd consider you an absolute liar if you told me that you've never done it. For me however, it's almost like a curse. I'm actually doing it right this second, I chose to write a new blog post which is due on Friday rather than do some of the history homework that's due tomorrow. I also have two book reports that need doing (I haven't even finished either book) and everything is just piling up. Speaking in all honesty though, I would rather do anything than sit down and work; I would rather sit in a closet filled to the brim with disgusting bugs and stare at the wall than study for an hour. I just always seem to find a decent excuse and, if it's possible for me to procrastinate at all then I will.

What does that mean? Well it means that I will actually put off an assignment until the last second as long as I'm sure that I can finish it and get an average grade (which is a B in my case). Whenever I'm watching something on the computer these thoughts usually go through my head:

'Huh, I'll just watch some Nostalgia critic and then I'll finish the notes...'

*watches video*

'Haha alright notes! Oh wait hey France is on, I wonder if he's doing as much not-work as I am...'

*chats with various people*

'OKAY. WORK.... but I can't just leave them, I'll double task!'

*does some work at a painfully slow rate while stopping every 10 seconds to reply*

'God this is boring.. You know I have two classes before history, I'll do this during art.'

*gives up and does something more exciting*

That's pretty much how my head works, it's almost as though my head is programmed NOT to do what I want it to. Most of the time I literally have to force myself to work by shutting my computer, turning off my music, closing my ds, turning off my phone and sitting in the living room where nothing in my own room will tempt me; even then I get distracted sometimes! I don't even think it's work in general, just school work. I would much prefer cleaning my room rather that writing some cornell notes on Christianity.

That's why I like when teachers give enjoyable assignments though! I don't want to be assigned some crap to do when it's about a subject that I don't even care about. Take history for example (can you tell that I really dislike history?), if we were working on something even remotely more interesting than religions and how they came about then my work average would be much higher. In the first quarter of that class I did awesome! I got an A+ even (which is a first for me :D ) and it was because I actually liked the assignments (plus a load of extra credit). Now, however, it's much more than dulled down and everything seems like it's dragged on for an eternity.

So please, any teacher that might be reading this, hand out some more awesome assignments rather than the normal 'by the book' things. :/

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