Suicide Prevention vs. 'The Office'

In David Bauder's article, "Suicide Prevention Group Protest 'The Office' " he explains why the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention had a major problem with a recent episode of the popular TV show, 'The Office'. In a current Halloween episode of 'The Office', a show that follows a paper company, the office holds a haunted house for little kids. When the kids are being taken around, the always awkward boss Michael Scott comes out pretending to be hung from a rope and saying, "Kids, just remember, suicide is not the answer. It is the easy way out." This upset many suicide prevention foundations, like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention who's executive director, Robert Gebbia said, "...it's impossible to imagine a death due to breast cancer, for example, being used as a joke....entertainers need to be aware of the impact of their work." I think he is right. I'm a big fan of 'The Office' but, what they did was not acceptable. Suicide is an issue many kids and adults are dealing with, whether they have known of a family member or a friend committing suicide or they themselves are considering committing suicide. Any of these people dealing with these problems could have been watching this episode which could have set them off to commit suicide or bring up the awful past they could have had. Suicide is not something to be taken lightly. It's a serious issue that is very hard to deal with and for some people, a simple show such as 'The Office' could be a positive light in a usually dark situation for them and for the show to joke about some thing like that is rude and insensitive. I'm not saying that TV shows can't put controversial issues into an episode for comic relief into a tense situation, but showing it to that level can really do damage to a viewers feelings. Several other shows have done similar things to this. In many crime shows, the characters talk about rape or the programs shows murder scenes. Other programs show bullying or smoking or drinking. These shows can be viewed by young kids or teenagers which gives them ideas that this is okay to do.

From this article, I have several questions. How can we prevent entertainment programs from saying the wrong things about serious issues? What limits should there be? How far is too far? How does this affect viewers? How does it affect people who look up to these entertainers?
I think that the writers of these shows should really look at what they have written from another person's perspective and think about how each controversial joke could affect a sensitive person. I don't think there should be many limits as far as what the shows can and can't say, but they should be more sensitive and take a second look at their work from a different view point. I think that going to far would be taking a serious issue and making it a complete joke, because all people can access this, and they never know who it could offend. I think this affects many of the viewers who have actually dealt with these issues and it could take them back to the state of mind they were in at that time or remind of those feelings or issues. I think it definitely affects the people, mostly kids, who look up to these entertainers. If the episode shows something like a rape case in a crime show or a murder scene, bullying, or even a suicide joke makes them think that it is okay to do or to joke about because their role models did.

Students Being Told Not Taught

In Tony Wagner's article, Rigor Redefined he researches how well U.S. schools are preparing students for careers and citizenship and from his data, he has decided that schools fail at this. In the beginning of his article, he did research on what top companies look for in new employees and what he found surprised me. The business leaders he interviewed came up with a list of seven things all newly graduated students looking for jobs need to do. Number one on the list was critical thinking and problem solving. Once I read what this meant I realized that this is something I am learning right now in English which is preparing me for a successful future. The second thing on the list was collaboration and leadership. A question I have from this is, do students with a better education have less of a chance at a job than someone with just strong leadership? Is that all you need to qualify for a job? The third thing on the list was agility and adaptation or in simpler terms, flexibility to learn and try something new in a career position. Will these people create the need to change and have flexibility in society? The fourth was initiative and entrepreurialism. The fifth, effective oral and written communication. In this section, the business leaders talked about the fact that most college educated students don't have this basic skill so are we being taught lessons that will never matter? And are we not being taught basic skills? The sixth on the list was accessing and analyzing information. Finally, the seventh on the list was curiosity and imagination. This section talks about how us students need to be taught and to learn how to ask great questions that matter. So far we are not really taught these lessons in school but so is our education outdated? Will it keep us from possible jobs? And if education is changed so students acquire these skills, what happens to my workforce generation if we are less prepared than the generation after me?
In the next part of the article, Tony Wagner visited several AP classes at different high schools to see how the students are taught and how they are learning. He first visited an AP Chemistry class where students were performing a lab and when they did something wrong, they turned to their teacher, notes, and the chalkboard to figure out how to do it right. These students are believed to be great thinkers and yet they can not rely on them selves for answers, just what they have been told from textbooks and lectures. The next class he visited was an AP Government class where the teacher was reviewing questions for a sample free-response test. This teacher asked the students to answer a question that required their personal opinions and when no one answered, he asked what a certain term meant, and then a few students knew the answer. These students only know the answers to what they have been told. After this, the teacher asks a question that requires an opinion and surprisingly, a student answers but his response can not be heard over the fan of the projector. Once the teacher gets an answer, he moves on to something else clearly not caring if all the students comprehend the question and possible answers. Next, Wagner visited an AP English class where the students were going over character traits from a book. All the students know the answers to the questions she asks because they had been told what it was, written it down, and then recited it from their notes when asked. Once they didn't know an answer to a question, the teacher sighed and then began to write the answer up on the board. Finally, Wagner visited an Algerbra 2 class where the students were given a problem they had never seen before and were told that they needed to work in groups of four and create two possible solutions for the problem, and one student from each group would be called up to write the groups answer on the board. That right there is the way a classroom should be. This teacher let the students think for themselves, rely on group members for any questions they had, and all students would be held accountable for their learning because a student at random would be called on to give the answer.
From this article I have realized that our education isn't always preparing us for future jobs. We are sometimes taught things that don't even matter and the important skills don't have enough time spent on them. We are not always given the opportunity to learn, we are just told what the answers are and not asked if we have learned it. I think the main idea of this article was to show the reader that our educations are not perfect and not always giving us valuable skills but the teachers who take time to make sure each student understands the lesson or skill are the best ones.

Health Care Reform: Letting the Doctors Have an Opinion

Health insurance. Reform. Universal plan. These seem to be the main topics in the news these days and an article by Cloe on the Democratic Party website is no different. Her article titled, "Doctors Join President Obama in Push for Health Insurance Reform" brings to my attention doctor's and nurse's opinions on the topic. Of course people in the medical field are very important when it comes to health issues, but their opinions are rarely ever publicized. Representatives from many different organizations such as, the American Medical Association, the National Medical Association, the Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, Doctors for America, the American College of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology and of course President Barack Obama came together for a meeting at the Rose Garden to discuss health insurance reform. President Obama stated that, "I think what's most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health care system best -- the doctors and nurses of America." And most medical professionals are. They want the best coverage for all Americans and for all citizens to be healthy. They see for themselves how everyday Americans struggle to pay hospital fees or are denied health insurance because of their conditions or financial state. They know what it's like to watch someone who is so ill and out of money that they can't even pay to be healthy or to at least feel good anymore. This to me is wrong! I may be a little bias given that I'm a proud supporter of Barack Obama and the Democratic party but still, this is America, shouldn't we all be given the same rights and treated fairly? Is it a patients fault that they have been diagnosed with a disease? No, not at all! Is it a patients fault that they are denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition? No! So why are people so against a plan that can cover everyone fairly regardless of their personal state?
I personally know what it is like to watch my parents be basically out of money because they didn't have good health insurance for us. Both my brother and sister suffer from medical issues and have been in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals. My parents have gotten and lost jobs more than once meaning that medical bills shoot through the roof because we didn't have health insurance or good coverage. We are definitely not the worst off for health care, not even close. With the economy the way it is now, Americans are losing jobs right and left. They lose their health coverage and any money they could have gotten to pay for medical needs. People are getting sicker and sicker, some even dying! If we want change in America I believe that we should listen to President Obama and the doctors and nurses of America! We should be willing to change and do what is best for everyone not just ourselves.

Bullying Taken Too Far

Through life, most of us are victims of bullying in one way or another but never in the ways Emma Graves Fitzsimmons describes in her article " 4 Teenagers Charged in Youth's Beating Death" in the New York Times. A 16 year old boy, Derrion Albert, was an honor student and football player with a bright future that wound up getting himself in the middle of a fight between two rival groups one day after school. On his way home, he happened to walk in the path of an intense fight where he ended up getting beaten to death by being hit with wooden planks and kicked repeatedly. All of this was captured from a distance on a video camera which led to the police identifying and arresting the guilty teens, Shilvonus Shannon , 19, Eugene Riley, 18, Eugene Bailey, 17, and Eric Carson, 16. He was not a member of either of the groups but just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The police have said that this fight he got involved in followed a shooting outside the school earlier that day. Derrion was the third student to get killed from the beginning of the school year at Christian Fenger Academy High School in the South Side of Chicago. In this area, over 34 public school students were killed last year from various violent crimes and at least 290 students were injured from shootings, which are said to be the most common crime. Because of this, school officials are starting an anti-violence and prevention program this fall which provides counseling and assistance for schools that are more likely to get involved in violence and eliminate the fear of going to school for other students. After reading this article, I had many questions like, if violence has been so bad in the years before, then why haven't the schools done more to help? How will these anti-violence programs help? Will they help at all? What more can be done to prevent these crimes? I think that they didn't do to much to help in years before because it might be too dangerous and out of control for them and needs to be taken into more extreme forms such as police help. Also, I think that if the people in these gangs talked to someone and got out their anger in a healthy way, then these crimes and deaths will go down. I think that in the future, if they had the funds, police could be around to do searches for weapons and to be there to break up fights, but I'm not sure if that would stop fights outside of school because the schools can't really do anything to stop what they do outside of school. This article also got me questioning my own safety here at Arapahoe. Is our school actually safe? How can we know if it is? Are there kids that go here dealing with problems to make them so angry to commit crimes? I think that Arapahoe is very safe because of the suburban area that we are in, but students can still have access to weapons and can be angry enough to do something that drastic. After reading this article and thinking about the safety of Arapahoe and all schools, I've come to the conclusion that we don't know what other people are going through in their lives and what they would be willing to do to relieve those emotions. However, we can do our best to help them out with what's happening to them and try to be understanding and take the proper safety precautions.

H1N1, A Virus Effecting Our Learning

After searching through Karl Fisch's blog, The Fischbowl, I found a post that raised many questions and made me think about my education and America's education. "H1N1, Skype, and A Possible Tipping Point" is a blog post about Anne Smith's class and how the H1N1 virus has changed their classroom environment in a technological way. In this classroom, many of the kids have been affected by the H1N1 virus leaving them out for days or even weeks. Since so many of the kids in her class are gone, they have decided that instead of falling behind in work they will actually be in the classroom and learn with the rest of the class. No, they won't actually be in class spreading this virus, but they will be able to see and hear everything using Skype which allows people to communicate through a camera. This is helpful because the students can learn along with everyone else, they won't get behind on work once they get back, and the other healthy students don't have to re-learn the same things over and over again once the sick kids get better. As a high school student, I think this is a great idea because if you're sick for several days you have to catch up on what you've missed and keep up with what the class is learning at the moment which can add more stress than necessary. Also, being stuck at home not doing anything is not fun at all. As much as everyone says that they hate school, it does give us something to do during the day and provides us with something to keep our brains functioning on an intellectual level. I also have noticed when the students that have gotten better come back to class, all of us have to re-learn things. This can be frustrating because we have already learned it and need something new. I also have several questions from reading this blog post. Will this change our learning? Will more classes use Skype as a tool for absent students? Will this help us launch into an even more technological learning environment then we are already in? If not all schools can use Skype, will they miss out on careers and future learning? If another serious illness or virus comes along, will more technological efforts be made to help students? I have thought about these questions and about my thoughts on them. I think this will change our learning if more schools do this because it will help improve grades. I know that when I am sick for more than a week I get behind on my work and it shows in my grades, but with Skype, all students can still be in class even when they can't physically. I think that the schools that can afford computers and cameras will use Skype as a tool to help improve their student's learning. It is unfair to the schools that can't afford this technology because they don't even have the opportunity or access to this, meaning that they will have to suffer for getting behind in school for something that was beyond their control. Also, this may affect their futures too. Even though it could just be a short amount of time, it can affect their learning and grades for life because they are missing out on important skills and learning that can help when it comes time for college and a career. Those who did not miss out on these lessons might beat out the kids who never learned it all because they were sick and didn't have access to computers or Skype. This also could help us launch into a more technological learning environment because it is introducing new and helpful technology for students. Who knows what could be used in the classrooms next? Also, if another illness or virus comes into our school systems that is more serious then H1N1, the students would have access to Skype so they won't get behind. This could also lead to more technological advances in schools because if students are gone for a certain amount of time, they need to catch up somehow. All I know is that the H1N1 virus and any other illnesses that come along can and will affect our learning.

Women Are Taking U.S. Jobs By Storm

As I looked through the blog posts under David Warlick's blog, 2 cents Worth, I came across a post that really got my attention. The blog titled, "This Would Be Really Weird" shows statistics that women represent 49.83% of the workforce in the U.S., and it has been said that by October, women could represent 50% of the workforce! Through the last year, men have lost 4.75 million jobs whereas the women have lost 1.66 million jobs. Most adult citizens of the nation have been fighting for a job and it looks like the women are getting jobs just as much as the men have. In his post, David Warlick tells us his opinion about why women are representing almost half of the workforce, because they try hard. I must say, I couldn't agree more. Going through school, most girls try to excel, get good grades, do all their work, and try to get into colleges. Boys do the same thing but some don't have the same drive and enthusiasm. Warlick even said himself that some boys don't even try to get into college or when they do, they have a lot of trouble or end up not finishing. Now these are just stereotypes and not all males and females act like this.

It does make me happy to see that men and women will soon be equal in the workforce. For decades women have been told that they should stay at home and do the "womenly" duties for their families, well not anymore. I think all of the U.S. is realizing that women can do anything that men can do and can be just as good if not better at it. As I thought about this, I came up with several questions too. Since women are becoming equal to men in the workforce, will other countries look at this and support their women to do the same? Will women soon take over the workforce, creating less jobs for men? Will men try harder when it comes to their education? If they don't, will colleges have more women then men? Will this change or education at all? Will it inspire other women to receive the education they deserve? The answers to these questions may not come for awhile or not at all, but this blog post has opened my mind to all the possibilities that women have and how it could change my own future.

Possible Missing Yale Student's Body Found

After reading all the headlines of the possible articles I could choose to write about, I decided to discuss an article from The New York Times titled, "Police Find Body Believed to be Missing Yale Student." Although this is a gruesome article, I have watched and heard this story unfold from the news and I was of course hoping for a happier end to the story but after reading this article, I think the opposite happened. On Tuesday, September 8th, a Yale student named Annie Le was reported missing several hours after she was seen walking into her lab class on a surveilance camera. It was said that she was supposed to wed on Sunday, September 13th, but many say this wasn't another case of a runaway bride. Also, the police found bloody clothes above ceiling tiles in the lab building but they did not match the clothing she was seen in that day, which does not sound like a good sign. After six days of searching, and on the exact day of her wedding, a body was found behind a basement wall of the lab building at Yale. Police are not don't know if this is the body of Annie Le, but they are fairly certain it is. This case is said to be a similar to one in December of 1998, where yet another female Yale student was found stabbed to death in a nearby neighborhood. The murderer was never found and the case is still unsolved today. Once I finished reading this article, I had many questions including, was the body found in the wall actually Annie Le, or someone else? Is there any connection to the date of her wedding day and when she went missing? How did no one see her leave the lab building? What happened between the time of entering the lab and when she was reported missing? Were the bloody clothes found in the ceiling tiles in any way linked to her disapperence and possible murder? Is the case from 1998 and this case at all tied together? Is it possibly the same person who killed the young women in 1998? Are our school's safe even with all the security advancements?

On September 16th, another article on the subject of Annie Le's death was released and answered many of my questions, however, some of the answers were ones I did not want to hear. The article titled, "Arrest in Yale Killing is Imminent, Police Say" shared the unfortunate news that the body found behind the basement walls of the lab building was Annie Le. The article also stated that a possible murder suspect was found, Raymond Clark III. It was said that Clark worked in the same lab building as a technician where he cleaned up after the animals there and any other messes made. This is the same place where Le did her animal research but other than that, Le and Clark never had any other interaction. The police have taken more than 200 DNA samples from the lab trying to discover any clues leading to the discovery of Le's killer. Clark is the main suspect because Le had been strangled to death and Clark had scratches and bruises all over his hands, arms, and chest. He was taken in for questioning and then released later on because he was being very cooperative. Even after reading this article too, I still have many questions. Is Raymond Clark the killer? Will the DNA samples reveal another suspect? Why would Clark kill her if he didn't know her? If he is the killer, why was he so cooperative at the questioning? Wouldn't he have something to hide? How long had he been planning this if he was the killer? Does the case from 1998 have any connection to this one? Although I'm left with many questions, I'm more aware of what is going on in this case and am now very concerned on what could have happened. This news story may be sad, but I hope that this case gets solved soon so that Annie Le's murderer is brought to justice.