Month: September 2019

This article focuses on a majority of problems handed out on modern society. Primarily on things such as discrimination and equality.  I think the article itself was great and very honest meaning it was detailed to describe the struggles of those who were oppressed and discriminated. I find this part of the article upsetting when he quotes,”What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true.” I find upsetting that I could still remember when i was taught history and the false teachings regarding settlers and their methods, etc. It wasn’t up until high-school when we were actually taught the true stories. I think it is only fair to teach kids about everyone’s struggles and achievements but primarily teaching the truth.

I really wanted to highlight this part of the article as well.” No American has the right to allow the present government to say, when Negro children are being bombed and hosed and shot and beaten all over the deep South, that there is nothing we can do about it. There must have been a day in this country’s life when the bombing of four children in Sunday School would have created a public uproar and endangered the life of a Governor Wallace. It happened here and there was no public uproar.” This part is describing the bombing of a Birmingham Church back in the 60s. One of the many first books i read was called ” The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963.”  I was in 5th or 6th grade when i first read the book, its vivid detail and plot really brought me into the book. It was also when i was taught the cruel discrimination towards African-Americans throughout history. It was a hard realization like wow, this really happened back in the day and people thought it was fine. I can say it was one of the best books i have read and i still would read it again till this day.

Each student was asked to tell of an important event that has impacted their academic careers. After going over each essays from the members of my assigned group, I found a common factor for each of our essays. Each member told an experience they had that involved some sort of academic test/final. In Chris’s essay, he tells of the events that took place after he finished his SAT’s, he wrote “My friend that went to another high school in Brooklyn sent, “Highkey just cheated on my SAT…this dude did not give a single shit… gave up the concept of cheating because it affected me negatively as a student and a person, but after all I was defeated by the fact that people had cheated their way into College”.” Chris expressing his dismay at the fact that he studied for his standardized test yet someone else cheated and was given a better score than he was. In Micheal’s essay he gives his experience on what it was like to the SAT. Michale tells of how he was nervous for his junior year, mainly because of the challenges that he and his fellow Juniors had to face, “Focusing more on our classes , studying for the SAT , preparing to qualify to become the next team officers for our senior year . So how did I studied for the SAT by attending Saturday SAT classes which I did find it pretty useful as they had teachers from other schools that would help us prepare. We even had to go through many SAT mock test which everyone did find it annoying, well because it was mainly on Fridays but I guess it was kinda helpful.” He states that he had to take extra classes and take multiple practice exams as a way to make sure that he would score well on the SAT’s. In Christians Essay, he explained that he didn’t go to to a normal New York school and they weren’t required to take any Regents other than the Ela, like other schools in New York. Christian was given an essay to complete as a final for his Ela class and he wrote, “We thought it was going to be the most easy final because we did it for four years but the ela final was different from everything we learned…I had to restart my whole essay from scratch. The last three days of classes trying hard to panel my final project what went through my mind is I wasn’t going to graduate because of one class…And I passed it”.” Michale expresses his thought process that he went through during time. He explains that he wasn’t in the beginning of his Senior year but when it was around the time he had to turn in the essay he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to graduate, yet with the help of his dad and friends he was able to graduate. In each of our Essays we described an instance in which we have had trouble with a standardized test, and though it was difficult, we each found a way to persevere and pass our own respective academic difficulty.  

What I noticed in my groups’ reason on why we view education different is that we all share a similarity of bad environments and we all needed a push of motivation. In Neil’s piece, he explained how his environment was basically shitty. A shitty environment in most cases leads to a shitty outcome and I am a strong believer in that. When you live around people who are doing the wrong things and you’re growing up seeing that you ave two choices to choose the easy route or to choose something that gets you somewhere. Neil and I share being troublesome kids in school giving our parents and the teachers a hard time. Elayne’s and Rex’s pieces also talked about the environment. Rex felt discouraged to even come to school mainly because of social media. If you have folks around you and they are constantly talking about how they dread school you’re going to be so unmotivated and I am sure he was unmotivated when he couldn’t get into his dream college John Jay. Elayne talked about how shitty her school environment was and she exclaimed how the teachers didn’t really give a fuck and so she had to find her way . My peice was similar I gave up on my self after a while when I realized what I was good at, and then I became good at it until I got a rude awakening. In all we all needed the motivation to get us here now, whether it is me, my son or Neil, his teachers finally acknowledging him. We are all here for a reason.