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 So far we are not really taught these lessons in school but so is our education outdated?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.