Newark board meeting compared to home

WOW! first off I have to say that the person who decided to put the meetings in the middle of a dark ally on ceder street was crazy. Not that i felt threatened or anything but it was the same street that a few friends and I decided to avoid on the way home from a pub. Now that Im done with that I can discuss what I noticed about the two meetings. In Newark the big issue in fact the only issue was when the board would regain control. They also talked of how they could gain points that where lost during their evaluation. Really much of the meeting was around that. While at home the biggest issue was the new "high ropes"thing that was just done being built in the back of the field. The idea was to have student go through this tangled mess for gym class. (DUMB) I dont want to hurt anyones feelings but how the hell are we aloud to claim 40 feet in the air with nothing more then another student handling the rope and yet dodge ball is not okay. After the people where done destroying the idea of "high ropes" we moved on to more academic issues A.K.A little john received and award and the board where discussing the proper people to speak at his little do-dad. The meeting ended with some more talking but truthfully at this point I was in near tears of crazy and found myself flipping through the booklet they gave me the described nothing. Between the two I would much rather go to a Newark board meeting again for reason of sanity. The issues at those meetings are much more interesting gripping then the ones covered at the quite town.

Community service part 2

This time i actually had to do something. First off I had not planned to do what I did. I did this one as favor to a friend. It was tuesday night and my friend from the apartment building came to me asking if i could fill in for a few people who decided to skip out on the free lunch service his hospital provides. Though I was offered money i decided to do it for free and count it as my service. From this i learned that people are a lot more great full for food when its not there all the time. For example if you served a typical student the food we served their would be stuck remarks and complaints flying around like and angry bee hive. But these people seemed so happy that they where being treated well and receiving food at the same time. Also the people who worked there are not the ones i expected. going in i thought that i would find the usually priest and old lady with nothing better to do. Instead i found the guy who decided to do something better in his free time a doctor who does stuff like this every week and a lady who has three children of her own and is a stay at home mom (A full time job if you ask me 24 hr work days). All of these people had other things to do later that day and where still willing to give in time to help others in need. That was something truly shocking to me. Now i cant say i enjoyed all 8 hours of standing there loading trays and washing them but i will say that i feel much better now then i did before and hopefully karma wont forget me.

Community service part 1

hey kids
Well my first 5 hours was not very tough. I actually held the down markers for a football game that was held on thanksgiving day. It defiantly took me back. The at points it seemed the crowd was more into it then the players. It was that whole rivalry thing and everyone loves that. What i found interesting was the side arguments on the sideline. They where not about the game and how to win instead it seem many of the players where simply trying to help themselves get noticed on what could be the biggest game of the year. I also witnessed a taste of racism. This came from a player who was on the team whose star WR and SS are the same player and I feel if he had heard what this player said he would not be to happy to share a field with him. As a whole the game was a exciting and well played match. If the few who felt the need to act up found the will power to be quite then it would have been the perfect game.

NCLB

Im not completely sure what we had to read so this may change in the next 24. From what i read it seems that NCLB is working. The article claims that the minorities are gaining as far as grades go. I find this to be a good thing. My question is are the teachers simply teaching to boost the grades or are they actually teaching useful lessons. I ask this because I have a professor who also has a job that requires him to go around to forth grade classes and evaluate how they are teaching. He tells us of finding teachers who simply teach their students to be good test takers rather then teaching them the material. That scares me personally. If this is going on we are teaching our future architects that if A and D are far of then you have a 50/50 chance on the other two so you can guess. To truly understand what these result show we must see how the teachers are giving out the material.

Reaction to arts high

Hey all I have not blogged in a while but I am back and ready to go. After visiting the Arts school I was thinking one thing. Every school should find a way to do what they are doing. I mean for all of you who participated in extra curricular activities understand what Im saying. There are those kids who take a few days off after the big game, play, or any event that they where involved in. I feel that if the schools found a way to mix what these kids love to do in to the classes then the students would enjoy school more. This was proven by the students who took us on the tours. I also liked the idea of the block scheduling. This is helpful for students when they are getting ready for those hour and fifteen minute classes they will see in college.

Haiku

All blogging is fun

You should blog one time a week

To get better grade

Well, this connects to class perfectly. We all know that in order to receive a high "blog" grade we need to write blog. So, because of this I decided to make my blogs fun for me though they may not be enjoyable for you the reader. However I will enjoy blogging thus making it fun for me so I will continue to do it and from that gain a better grade then the one I would get if this was not fun for me.

What are schools like?

“Schools are the sites of choice because they

have, to some extent, the two most important resources for

this work: diversity and problems.”

Fist I would like to open by stating that Parkers view on what makes an idiot an idiot, makes perfect sense. In many cases when one comments to someone as an idiot his meanings are used. Now that we have that out of the way we can talk of the question. What are our schools like? I feel that in his quote at the end of his writing answers the question. When explaining why he feels schools are a good area for students to learn how to engage in class discussions we states “Schools are the sites of choice because they

have, to some extent, the two most important resources for this work: diversity and problems.” The answer to what are our schools is in stated clearly. Our schools are diverse in their own ways and everyone contains problems. By this I an trying to state that though many of our public schools contain a majority of one race. They all have different income levels and many other things that make them diverse. Also as anyone who has ever gone to high school knows there are issues that the students are able to handle themselves if given an opportunity to speak on it. We see an example of this in the peace when students are asked about the “you can’t say you can’t play” rule. The students though young where able to engage in discourse about a topic and argue with good well thought arguments. Now Parker viewed this as a way to build or mold citizens. He felt that if students engage in this early then they will be able to understand democracy better. This leaves me with my question. Will the students gain from this the idea of the whole rules over the individual? Or are the students simply arguing for certain rules in order to achieve personal gains.