Thursday, November 10, 2011

Choices

Currently I try to live a life that is respectable. I go to school to make my future better. I made a choice to play volleyball and go to college. I think that many young students have difficulty making decisions in their lives that are going to better their future. I decided to play a sport in college because it helps me work harder in the classroom.
I plan on using my gifts in my future career. Over the years I have decided to be a determined hard worker. Sports have taught me those virtues. I have decided to become a nurse in the future and I think those attributes will help out a lot in my job area. I am dedicated to everything that I do in life and I think that will help me tremendously in my job.

The Emperor's Club

1.       Yes, this seems correct. We all grow old and most of us mature. We can also grow and become well educated. Drunks can become sober through treatment. Unfortunately, stupid people will stay that way because they are the people that refuse to be changed.
2.       Mr. Hundert is so shaken and altered by this experience because Sedgewick is rut to him and this is the first time that a student has disrespected Mr. Hundert. He is taken back by Sedgewick because Sedgewick has smart responses and tends to play tricks on Mr. Hundert. For the first time Mr. Hundert does not know how to discipline one of his students without stepping out of his boundaries.
3.       Sedgewick Bell is a big influence on his fellow classmates. He introduces them to porn, something none of those boys would even think of looking at. He also makes them break the rules by going to visit girls. They begin to follow Sedgewick’s lead and start to disrespect Mr. Hundert.
4.        Mr. Hundert grades each boys essay and after reading them he decided what grade each boy’s writing deserved. When he is doing grading them he notices that Blyth has earned the third spot in the Julius Caesar Contest. Sedgewick just missed the cut off to be in thecontest by getting the fourth best grade.   The problem Mr. Hundert faces is whether or not he should increase Sedgewick's grade to allow him to move to the third spot.  Mr. Hundert then decides to bump Sedgewick’s grade up to put him in the Julius Caesar Contest. By doing this it removed Blyth from the contest.  Blyth's main goal for the school year was to make it to the Julius Caesar Contest so he had the opportunity to live up to his father’s legacy.
5.       Mr. Hundert faced a different dilemma during the contest when he realized Sedgewick was cheating.  He told the Dean but he told Mr. Hundert to ignore the cheating. Mr. Hundert ends up not exposing Sedgewick but gives him a question that was not on his cue cards so Sedgewick ended up losing the contest.  When Mr. Hundert confronts Sedgewick after the contest he started acting like he did not care and continued to smile.
6.       He chooses to host the contest because he felt honored that his students wanted him to be the host. I believe that Mr. Hundert's conscience obviously got to him since he knew he had pretty much cheated as well by changing Blyth's grade to keep him from the contest.  By hosting the contest again, Sedgewick had the opportunity to win the contest which would prove to Mr. Hundert that the grade change some how transformed Sedgewick to be a better person which would help with his own conscience.  Mr. Hundert's hopes are squashed when he realizes that Sedgewick was once again cheating and he tells Sedgewick that he failed him as a teacher.  The students give Mr. Hundert a plaque, and this makes him realize how much they appreciate him.  He realized that even though he failed with one student, he succeeded with countless others.
7.         There was a huge tension at the end of the film between Mr. Hundert and Sedgewick.  Mr. Hundert felt everyone needs to live a life filled with virtue and principles but Sedgewick exclaimed that he would lie and cheat to accomplish his goals.  He would do whatever it took to be successful.  After saying this Sedgewick's son walked out of the bathroom stall and stared at his father as he walked out the door.  His son realized what type of man his father was and was very disappointed. 
8.       Mr. Hundert returns to teaching because he realizes that, that is where he belongs. He may not have changed Sedgewick for the better but he was a major influence in the other lives of almost all of his students. When he returns to teaching he is pleasantly surprised by one of his former students’ sons. He asks him to recite a plaque on the back wall and he does it without fault, meaning his father had taught him some of Mr. Hundert’s teachings.
9.       He taught his students the names of Kings and then made them recite them. This is just thing that he did. So he would tell his students the information then expect them to memorize it then test them over it just like the Banking Concept of Education.
10.   Mr. Hundert showed his students how to live with integrity and morals by many different men in history.    The men he taught about were individuals who, even after their death, are still being studied and thought of with great respect.  Other men he taught were men who may have done well during there lifetime, but history has forgotten about, because they only cared about themselves and did not contribute to the well being of others.  By showing these two different types of men they were able to choose if they wanted to live a life that would benefit and help others or a life that would only benefit themselves.  At the end of the movie it appears all the students chose the wise men of this world while Sedgewick chose to live like the barbarian which only helped himself.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Learning to read

It is amazing to me that Douglass learned how to read and write basically on his own, he had no regular teacher, but his mistress taught him some basic thing; for the most part he learned a lot of it on his own. This is a very inspiring story. He was a brave man to learn how to read and write because back then white people did not want the black people to learn how read or write. I also think it is very courageous of his mistress to teach him some of the basic things. It is crazy how we so often take knowing how to read and write for granted. We usually dislike doing those two things but to Douglass it was like a present when he was able to read and write and that is a beautiful thing. He was sneaky about it too because he was not allowed to read the newspaper, he would become friends with all the little white kids just so he could get his hands on some books and learn a little more. He would usually read at night just so know would find out. Readers can really sense his devotion to wanting to learn more. He was so excited when he got his hands on a new book. He was so into the books that he would read that he felt what the characters felt. It is amazing to me how much we take the small things for granted in life.

BCE

1.       Narration sickness is when the teacher talks about reality as if it is irrelevant. Freire also explains that it is about teachers that “fill” their students with information of his/hers own narration, which is information detached from reality.
2.       Narration sickness mimics No Child Left Behind because the teacher teaches and the students learn. Students learn through memorization but most of the time do not grasp the root of the concept. They are filled with information about the test but that information is detached from reality.
3.       My junior year of high school I took Advanced Biology. My teachers name was Mrs. Olsen and absolutely adored her. She was so fun and crazy but when it came to teaches us new things she got the job done. I learned a lot in the class and took a lot of that information with me even after the class was over. Most of the time students forget a lot of information that they learn in some class. Mrs. Olsen did use a few of the banking concepts listed in the book.

She taught her students and they learned. A lot of biology was memorization. When we dissected a cat we had to memorize all the bones, muscles, and organ systems. It took a lot of time but the most efficient way to grasp the concept of the dissection was through her teaching us and us absorbing what she said and memorizing it. I do not think that this was a disadvantage at all because anatomy is something that has to be memorized and what better way to learn it than by having our teacher teach it and us learn about it.
4.       A teacher that stands out in my mind is my Advanced Biology teacher, Mrs. Olsen. I talked about her in the previous paragraphs. She did use the banking concepts while we were in our anatomy section, but she did not use them in every section. She found a perfect balance in when to use the banking concepts and when not to. When it came to anatomy the banking concepts came into play and helped the students learn something that most of us will never forget through the memorization process. When it came to running tests on chickens and trying to find out when drug they had been injected with we learned through trial and error. This was effective because we learn to think on our own instead of learning what the teacher teaches.

Mrs. Olsen was so enthusiastic in class and really loved her job. It made the class so much more enjoyable. It seemed as if she knew everything about everything and when her students would ask her a question she always seemed to have the answer and if she did not she would go and find if for them. She always had the best interest of her students in mind and wanted them to learn not only through her but through each other as well. She took us on a few field trips, one to the cadaver lab at SDSU. She stands out in my mind because she knew when she should be giving us information and when she would wait to see if we could figure things out on our own.
5.       The Visigoths would embrace the concept of liberated education because they are taught to be savages and they learn their ways through their ancestors. I think that my Anatomy class practices the banking concept because we have to memorize different thing and the instructor tells us what we need to know and he explains it to us and then we just go over what he tells us. I think my Chemistry class would benefit more from the teacher teaching us the material rather than us having to go and try to find the information because I feel like a lot of the information that we need to know or that we are expected to know does not always get found. Then when it comes to the quizzes we sometimes feel lost. The exams also are hard to navigate because we may not have found all the information needed.

Friday, October 14, 2011

LFBJ

1. Passive Resistance is a "challenge" by a stronger power by nonviolent methods.  Examples of a stronger power include a country's government, an occupying power or a disliked manager in a business. The most obvious and recognizable were Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in the US. One could argue that Nelson Mandela's resolve in prison was also an example in South Africa.

Alabama, 1965 - In front of the state capitol building in Montgomery, marchers sing "We Have Overcome" and listen to Martin Luther King, Jr. tell them that "SEGREGATION is on its deathbed." This photo is obviously about segregation. Blacks sing joyously about ending segregation. It’s a strong image.

Alabama, 1960 - Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses demonstrators on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery. In one speech, he said "...let us move on in these POWERFUL days of challenge to make America what it ought to be." This is a very powerful image and depicts MLKJ as a very strong image in the 1960’s.

3. There is definitely discrimination in our communities today. Discrimination is everywhere; the workplace, the streets, and maybe even within families. In the work place for instance it is difficult for some male nurses because some people would just rather have female nurses. Some people get a higher wage depending on their gender. Gender discrimination is just one type of discrimination that goes on in our communities today.   I wish I could say that everyone gets along and does not look down on certain people, but that is not the case.  Some men may look down on women like it used to be, but they need to understand things are a lot different now.  However, I do not think discrimination will ever go away.

4. My topic for paper #2 is racial discrimination.  I am going to support this topic by researching different cases, and what they are charged for.  Three ways I can use ethos and pathos in my paper can be to discuss different laws on preventing discrimination, referencing different cases, and discuss events in which happened in the past to support my topic.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Sculpture Walk

“Hey Marylou Blindside”
By:  Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby
When I first approached this sculpture I made me think of the movie “Rudy”. The old fashioned helmets looked a lot like the ones they wore in the movie. I get a playful energy from the sculpture. I like that the boys look happy and that they look like they are having fun. The sculpture is made out of steal and that ads an antique look to it which is perfect considering the artist was obviously going for an older look by the look of the boys clothes and the old football helmets that they used to use. The sculpture has a strong frontal presentation. It is very obvious to tell what it is trying to portray. I do not like the back portion of the sculpture though. If one was just to look at the back side they would have no idea what the sculpture was of. All the focus points are towards the front including the football, and both of their faces are turned to the front. The angle from the side of the sculpture is nice, one can tell what the sculpture is about but there is no doubt the best way to look at the sculpture is from the front.  I also do not like that it is difficult to tell from the sculpture what the artist is trying to portray. It could be a broad range of subjects but to me the artist is trying to portray an American tradition. Football has been around for many years and Americans love the sport. The sculpture is an attempt to show people how fun the sport really was back then and how much people really enjoyed playing it. The sculpture also interacts with the viewer well. It seems very realistic. From the creases in their pants to their smile lines they have very distinct looks.

“Raptuous Arcs”
By: Gregory Mendez
This sculpture caught my eye right away. I like that it’s a woman first off but that she looks free and almost liberated. She does not have a care in the world. I get a sense of her feeling happy from looking at the sculpture. Even though her face is not made out her body language says a lot. The material the artist used was steel rods which were perfect because even though it did not show a lot of detail it did not need to. It makes a big enough statement on its own without needing all the extra detail and I think that the extra detail would actually take away from the sculpture. I really did not have any dislikes about this piece. I really appreciated the image that the sculpture was trying to portray and he did a very nice job of it. He is trying to show that women are strong beings and that they are free spirited individuals that can take on anything. The sculpture has a strong frontal view but also the viewer can at least tell what the sculpture is of from the back and side views as well.

“Bringing on the Heat”
By: Gregory Johnson
This sculpture caught my eye because I do not know very much about soccer so I figured it would be challenging to try and figure out what the artist was trying to portray through the sculpture. I like how the artist used a different type of material for the soccer ball. That way the soccer ball become the focus point I did not really like that the ball was reflective though because at times due to the sun it was kind of hard to tell what sport the ball was from. The artist used a bronze material which I really did like because it shows a lot of detail which I think is needed for this sculpture to really grasp what the artist is trying to get across to the viewer. I do not like the face expression on the face of the boy without the ball. He is obviously trying to get the ball so his face should look more intense and into the game. I also dislike the hand placement of both the boys left hands. They look awkward and almost nonrealistic. The artist is trying to show the competitiveness is sports and the enjoyment young kids get from playing sports. Sports also teach young people a lot of lessons about life. The viewer can tell all of this from the frontal and side views but by looking at it from the back its impossible to analyze what the sculpture is all about.