6th Post - Consistently Low-Achieving Schools in the Bay Area

            On the list of persistently low achieving schools, the schools mentioned are in the poorer or more distraught parts of the bay like Oakland and Hayward.  Basically, most of Alameda County and Contra Costa County was mentioned.  In these worse areas with less money, the schools get less funding.  The schools then end up with little resources, average to below average teachers, and the students who go to the bad schools are unable to go to the better school so that the better schools are protected from bad influences.  It seems very similar to the schools in Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol.  The book was published in 1991 and we are currently in the year 2013.  Schools like these will stay this way if we don’t try to change it.

5th Post - Improperly funded schools.

                Improperly funding teachers makes it so that motivated good teachers want to only teach at better school because they want to get paid more.  Then those worse teachers who are desperate for work get hired by worse schools.  Those worse schools have less funds so the teachers who are hire there are only hired as permanent substitutes and are “paid only $10,000 yearly, as a way of saving money.” (Kozol 90).  But because they have less funds and need to pay the teachers, they still are unable to fund the rest of the school to try and give the kids a better education.  So it’s basically a domino effect where the school doesn't get funded properly and everything else goes downhill where it affects the kids the most, and also the community.

Fourth post - 3 Reasons

            There are many reasons why my point of view is very important but these stick out the most to me. My first reason is that we students are the future and if we don’t have passion or the capability to think critically, there would be no big advancements or change in the future. The future would look very much the same, which isn’t the best and the future could in theory repeat the past and many mistakes that have been already made will also be repeated.  The future needs change, I know that there are a lot of people in the world that don’t like change, but change is what the world really needs if you’re paying attention to what is happening around the world at this very moment.

            My second reason needs to be that here in the United States, we elect our leaders, and if we are not able to think critically we will make the wrong choices and elect horrible leaders into office.  And if we cannot think critically about those that we elect into office, those that want to be elected into office can abuse that weakness to their liking.  If we don’t want corrupt people elected in office, we need be passionate about taking time to think critically about them.

            The third reason is that a world without critical thinkers or passionate people would be a dull world.  Where would we be without passionate critical thinkers?  There would not be people like Elon Musk, who designed a 800 mile per hour hyperloop, or Nikola Tesla, who designed alternating current (also known as AC, the power our wall outlets use).  The world would have no innovation and we would be, in theory, still be living in the stone age.

Third Post - TED Talk with Sir Ken Robinson

What in education is out of date like a wristwatch?

The linearity of education is out of date like a wristwatch.  One does not have to follow the linear pathway education has become  but there are still many who believe this is what you have to do; this is what my parents believe needs to be done.  Education needs reform, but not entirely, it should reform in a way that adapts to your specific situation; like how Sir Ken Robinson says on TED Talks, education should reform in an agricultural manner, you take advantage of the situation and manipulate it to do what you need it to do.

Second Post - Reeling in Rsearch

Frankie Huang

September 2^nd, 2013

English 1A

Ms. Williams

Reeling in Research

            On the Rule of Three assignment we worked on in class last Tuesday, I wrote about how thinking critically and creatively is essential for a student to learn and expand their open mindedness.  After watching the Passion Project, it just emphasizes that critical and creative thinking is necessary for ones development.  In the Passion Project, they state that critical thinking is a universal tool along with passion, endurance, and love.  Teaching these universal tools along with the class material will create life lessons and students will realize that these tools can help them in the real world.  It is like teaching the students to survive.  In the Passion Project, Karina states that many teachers’ think that content is enough.  The content alone is not enough because they do not understand it and do not see the value in it.  When you have students memorize facts a lone, they will surely forget things that are taught through this method.  Having the content relate to something or have them think about why it is important makes the content more memorable than not.  The quality of education does matter and effect the students long term.  There are teachers that do not see that though and also don’t understand or encourage their students.  Those teachers only see their work as a paycheck and not as the students’ future.