HW 41 - Initial Internet Research on Schooling

Golba, Amy. "How Does Education in Urban Schools Compare To Suburban Schools?." Indiana University Of South Bend 1.1 (2006): n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010.

Basically what this article is saying is that children who attend urban schools are under privileged and we need more money because we don't have enough and because of that we are not graduating and not making enough money to support ourselves. Amy Golba had this very interesting chart that compared drugs, theft, violence, attendance and bad class behavior in urban and suburban schools. What made this chart so interesting is that in every case the urban schools were worse (had higher numbers) then the suburban schools.

This is a good source for my topic because i am looking into how successful students are in graduating high school and then their future achievements based on whether they go to a urban or suburban school. This was interesting because it brought some very negative light onto urban schools and i like to see how it compares to suburban schools now. (http://www.iusb.edu/~journal/static/volumes/1998/Paper5.html)

• Mone, Lawrence. "Little behavioural difference between urban and suburban teenagers." City Mayors Society 1.1 (2004): n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010. .

Basically what this paper said is the exact opposite of the last article. It said that Urban and suburban schools are just as bad as each other. They both promote, smoking, drinking and recreational sex. All of which can hinder future success. Or at least distract you from the task at hand.

This connects back to my topic because it shows that peer pressure plays a part in both urban and suburban schools and because of that neither one can really have the finger of blame pointed at which one may have the more successful students.

(http://www.citymayors.com/society/urban_teens.html)

• Jordan, Jennifer. "Suburban, urban school gap remains." Rhode Island news 1.1 (2008): n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010. .

This article is slightly different then the others because it has more specific examples and is talking about rings of schools in Providence Rhode Island. It is talking about how the "urban" rings are incredibly below average and if they cant bring their averages up then they are facing severe budget cuts and even school closures which can be incredibly bad and cause many children to go without an education.

This relates back to my point because once again it shows how the students grades are failing due to peer pressures. Although not directly stated in this article it is made clear by the simple fact that these students in urban areas are failing.

(http://www.projo.com/news/content/SCHOOL_CLASSIFICATIONS_08-20-08_27B8U6T_v47.3f5f96b.html)

• Noguera, Pedro. "San Francisco: Improvements are rooted in local initiative and leadership." Achieving Success Through Shared Accountability in Urban Schools 1.1 (1997): n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010. .

This is an old article and the reason i chose it was because from the very beginning of when San Francisco was starting to turn around its school systems and this article was published which made this article that much more valuable. It showed how the urban areas were beginning to turn themselves around and by doing that they were making it a better place.

This relates back to my topic because it shows that even though urban schools were bad they still had the ability to improve and the social situations and social hierarchy's still had room to change.

(http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/pnsf.html)

• Knudson, Brigitte. "A Liberal Education." Wordpress.com. 15 Jul 2008. Wordpress.com, Web. 3 Mar 2010. .

This article said that the difference between urban and suburban schools and which ones do better depends on which ones have less "underprivileged children" because they tend to not do as well on standardized testing and that is what schools are usually marked by for their success.

This article is helpful because it gives a very close minded and almost racist view into the success rates of school. She says that suburban schools are better because they have less poor kids and they don't do as well as middle class kids. She didn't bring race into it but i think that would be next. I think that this article does give a urban outlook on success/failure rates outside of their own little bubble.

(http://brigitteknudson.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/education-in-urban-vs-suburban-schools-comparing-apples-and-oranges/)

Basically what i learned from these articles is that upbringing and personal background and such play very important roles in your personal role at school and no matter what area you live in those things will still be key.

HW 42 - Significance

How does the social hierarchy in urban/suburban schools connect to the success failure rate of today's youth?

The reason that this topic interests me is because i have a good number of friends who go to school on long island and what they learn is incredibly mundane and usually straight from a textbook, but yet they all seem to do quite well in college and get scholarships whether they be academic or sports related. Most of the people who i know who went to college from the city don't seem to really amount to anything like that, they go to decent colleges and jobs that get them by from there.

I want to know if it is a trend that this is between urban and suburban schools or is it just the people i know. I want to know if this is a pattern. Since i am presented this opportunity then i should take it and maybe see what the cards hold for me for my future. I really don't want to end up in some dead end job that gets me by because i didn't do everything i could in high school. I want to do something that makes me happy. I know i need to work for that but i want to know why it seems that suburban kids have such an advantage.

HW 40 - School Interviews x 5 & Synthesis

Person #1:

When i asked myself what did school do to me? I had a lot of answers, none of them were particularly happy. I have done plenty of stupid things in school and i have had bad friends and good friends and i have had good teachers and bad teachers. All of these things put together make me who i am for the most part because i spend almost as much time at school as i do at home (saying i sleep from 11 to 7). These people that i spend 6 hours a day with have a lot of influence on me. They made me paranoid and much more sheltered about my personal information. But at the same time, some of them proved that people are good and that even when you are mad at each other they can forget about that to help you out and that leaves just as lasting as an impression as anything. It may be sentimental or whatever but i think its pretty true.

Person #2:

So first i Interviewed Kate, i asked her about how school affected her social outlook. She said that that people suck, because people can be petty and catty. School brings all types of people that you generally would never talk to together, which isn't always a good thing. Honestly, the school i go to and the people i go to school with made me a less social person. If i could change one thing about my school i would change it to have more good electives because most of the classes i take now are fake and honestly will not really ever help me once i graduate high school much less college.

Person #3:

For my second interview i talked to my childhood friend Alex. When asked about the experience of being a student she said: "Well...on the experience of being a student, i actually like school, i just think we get so much homework it ruins the experience. i think the motivation of school is to create a well-educated population, so the intentions are good, and although its difficult sometimes, i think it has good intentions and its overall motivation is, for the most part, fulfilled. i do not think school is a sorting machine, at least not my school, because we all want to be well-rounded so we all do everything so no one is "sorted" into a particular genre. However, we all have talents and activities we are usually associated with. I am lucky to be somewhere that allows for students to pursue multiple areas of interest and therefore not be sorted."

Person #4:

For my third interview i talked to my 8 year old cousin Zachary. I wanted to talk to another generation and see what they had to say about how the social situations and how school affects his social persona. When i asked him about what he thought about his school and how it helped him make friends he said that he liked school because it helped him makes friends but it also made him be with people who aren't cool, and who he wouldn't want to be with outside of school. He was convinced that he was in school to be tortured because of how "annoying" some of these people are, yet he is pretty popular. He leads his kindergarten class and makes the people around him want to be like him. Yet he is pretty annoying to me at least, but he is a cool kid, he took what he saw in his friends and made it his own and everyone loves him for it. He may be only 8 but he is very smart

Person #5:

For my last interview i talked to my brother Eli who is starting his first year in high school at Beacon. He said; "School gives me the chance to meet girls and hang out with all my friends in an organized environment. And this time has allowed me to develop very quickly and efficiently as opposed to the time i spend away from school. Sitting with 30 kids in a class 6 hours a day for 180 days a year has helped me to learn how to interact with them in a way that feels more natural and allows me to better understand and control other social situations whether they be in school or outside of it."

Part B:

From what my friends and family have said it is very true that school does in fact suck for the kind of work that it makes you do but we all agree that it is worth it for the friends. It helps make friends and they are what make school worth it. School needs to prepare us for what real life holds and that means dealing with people we don't like and making people that we do like be our friends and stay our friends. That is useful for job interviews and for just anything that really involves the workplace. But that is beside the point. What i am trying to say is that no one likes to work but they need to learn to deal with it. What everyone does like is making friends and for the most part i do too. Sure they make drama and cause problems but we all do that. It teaches us how to deal with ourselves and that is probably the most important thing when it comes to living on your own.

HW 39 - First School Assignment

Questions:

• How does school's views on everything change or corrupt our views on everything?
• What kind of impact does home schooling have on a child versus public or private school?
• Is the School system corrupt? Is there such a thing as an unbiased point of view?

Ideas:

• School isn't completely socialist, i thought that was pretty interesting
• We are here for multiple reasons, because legally we have to be and because if we weren't at school we would be at home watching TV or playing video games, but that gets boring after a while and honestly, going to school usually means seeing friends, so its nice to go and see them.
• The people we are subject to everyday are the ones who impact us the most, and we spend more time in school then with our families a lot of the time, so the people who aren't even related to us are the people who play some of the biggest roles in our day to day lives.

Experiences:

• I come in everyday and sit down and pretend to care about what is going on when in reality, the majority of what i will learn wont help me in any job i get, it will just help me get there but become completely useless when i get there
• I've been both sides of the "cool" coin, i have been picked on and i have picked on people. Both of these relate back to who i know and who i was friends with. If i didn't go to this school then most likely everything would be different. But i think that being able to see both sides of everything is pretty important
• School has stopped becoming interesting and has started becoming a chore which is teaching me what the rest of my job life will become, i hope it doesn't but i don't really know anymore how possible all my dreams may be.

One Aspect Of School

School has its ups and downs of course. I wake up the same time everyday, go through the same morning routine, walk the same route, take the same trains and report to the same advisory every morning. It becomes almost robotic the daily actions that i take to get to a place that i hate to quite an extent. But if i didn't go, my social skills would be nonexistent. I wouldn't have any friends and not really many memorable moments to my life.

As much as everyone may hate school for the amount of work it may make us do, or the stress of having to wake up early to get there on time. Or just sitting in class for hours on end having someone make us do work. But thats what life is, which sucks, but it pretty true. The good thing is that is teaches you more then useless information about calculus. It teaches how to cope and work with the hand that we are dealt in life. We have to make the best of it and make it work for us. So if that means making new friends or learning how to take an insult, so be it. It all makes stronger because as many times as it may beat us down we still have to get back up and keep on going. That is what makes stronger. All that i am saying is total and complete bullshit, but it what i was taught by my school to do. I give the answer that makes sense regardless of how cliche it may be. I should be writing the answers that you want to hear, but that is just too conformist for me, and of all the things that i have been taught, i think that going with the flow completely is just kind of a waste of time. Take that as you may, i think you get the point

HW 38 - Art Project Cool

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I thought really long and hard about how to summarize this unit into a picture because i couldn't think of a video that wouldn't be cheesy. This picture depicts a man in a brand name t-shirt, nice jeans and Nike's. Now this man doesn't have head, he is holding it on a string like a balloon and right above him is a rain cloud. These are all metaphors of course. The man is supposed to a conformist by dressing in "fresh" clothes and trying to impress, even when it is raining "insults" on him. The rain cloud above him is his peers making fun of him and picking on him. The balloon is his face and he keeps it on a string so it wont get wet and that it can stay clean because he needs to protect it. But by keeping it on a string he may keep it free of rain, but he also has to worry about loosing the string and loosing his face which is his only connection back to the real world and who he is. This picture may not be the most beautiful thing in the world, but i am not the best artist. I have good ideas but the problem for me is putting them on paper and this is the best way that i could do that. The whole point of art is to be able to get a message across, some people may see it differently then i do. They may get different messages, but what i am trying to get is to get them to stop and think for a second as to what it could mean. Looking at art creates inspiration within people and makes them want to maybe create something themselves. It could push us to think a little deeper within us and pull something dark out and make it light. It may be cliche and admitting it is cliche is cliche which leads to an infinite loop, but the fact remains that just looking at the pictures creates some new thought process. I hope whoever is viewing this can experience that too. That is all