Standardized? More like STRANDerdized am I right?

On my journey through the multigenre papers, I found one of particular interest. The paper is about standardized testing and standardized schooling. The paper states that standardized schooling doesn't lead to originality or genius. I found this particular paper interesting because I agree with it. Each student is different and learns at different paces. Standardized schooling may leave some kids stranded academically.

Millennium Goals

Poverty across the globe is a major problem. As Americans, we are considered rich if you have some sort of shelter and can afford food. In cases of extreme poverty, like in Africa, people may not have food, shelter, or even clean drinking water. This is a problem that should be addressed and tried to fix.

Even though extreme poverty in the U.S, isn't a problem, poverty still looms for millions of people. To combat this, the government could run food banks and kitchens that feed homeless people. Where I live on the north side of town, I see homeless people everyday that are hungry. With all the food Americans waste, we could feed the homeless. Fun fact for you, the U.S. has more empty (for sale or for rent houses) than it does homeless people. That's a little absurd when you think about it.

For solving extreme poverty across the globe, the UN has set up a program in Bosnia and Herzegovina that teaches people farming and trade skills. Cambodia's average income rose almost a full dollar which helped provide safer foods for the region. The UN also supports a program in India where "landless laborers" are guaranteed 100 days of paid work. with the continued support of the UN and people across the globe, we can easily eradicate extreme poverty and poverty in general by the end of the millennium.

 

Here is a list of my 3 favorite ideas that I saw from the Do Good Fund:



Dreamer's Orchestra
An idea by Wade Trimmer that brings together all of the less fortunate street performers and gives them a stage on which they will be able to preform. The goal of this organization is to "bring hope and healing to their lives". Trimmer came up with the idea after a young girl approached him who said that she was homeless. he has been looking for was to get people off the streets ever since then. You can read the full story by clicking on the link here.


Half 4 the Hungry
Wonderful idea came up by the mind of Leigh Carman. Its a pretty simple idea; people order food, get half the portion size, and the restaurant donates a minimum of $4 to a charity that feeds hungry children domestically. Carman suggests to only give half a portion to save the restaurant money and to also save people from unneeded calories. She notes that 40% of food is wasted each meal and as of 2010, 35% of adults are overweight. Check it out here.



A 2nd Cup
A simple coffee shop that raises awareness about human trafficking. Hard to swallow right (Oooo bad pun, I'm sorry)? The owners of the coffee shop will use a 3 step process to help fight trafficking what includes educating people about human trafficking, partnering with "a variety" anti-human trafficking organizations, and rehabilitating for survivors of human trafficking. If you want more information about it click here.





I find these 3 ideas so interesting because I know the power of music. When I go downtown, there is always a street musician trying to make a couple bucks doing what they love. I respect that. I also live on the less fortunate side of town and I see a lot of (actual) homeless people that struggle to get a half a meal let alone a full one. Human trafficking is slavery plain and simple. This is the United States of freakin' America. A wise man with a beard and a large top hat put an end to slavery in the U.S. in the 1800s and it pains me to know that it still goes on not only in the U.S. but also all over the world.

Grammar Article 1

Sitting in the library and then I seen a car drive by.

 

 I just made two grammar mistakes in one sentence, did you notice? Now keep in mind, I don't have the best grammar so if there is a mistake made in the rest of this post just smile and go along with it. The author, Ben Yagoda, has written an article in THE WEEK “7 grammar rules you really should pay attention to” and recently wrote another article for THE WEEK about bogus grammar “rules” that you don’t need to follow. I think it’s safe to say that he knows what he is talking about but in my opinion, this article isn’t that necessary.

The grammar rules/examples that Yagoda gives sound like the sort of things that only an idiot would say.

“He seen saw it coming”

The more I write this post, the more I see that this article is more about when people write as opposed to when people talk.

 

 

 

It would be nice if I could end my post on a good note but that’s no fun. Upon closer examination of the examples, I found one that is completely wrong. Yagoda writes

“If an intruder were was here last night, he would have left footprints, so let's look at the ground outside.”

But “were” would be the correct word to use. “Were” is the PAST tense of “was” and in the example sentence, the speaker is talking about the night BEFORE. That happened in the past so he should have used the past tense (If I’m wrong please tell me that was I don’t sound like an idiot in the future).

 

 

 

GaoKao more like Hao No

My topic is the GaoKao. I chose this topic because my pen pal, Huang Min said that it is a college entrance exam and being a high school senior, entrance exams are interesting to me since I have completed the ACT. Huang wrote to me "If one fails passing the GK, it will take one more year to start senior there". She is saying that if you fail the GaoKao, you have to repeat your senior year. Apparently, senior year is basically just studying for this test.

Chinese students taking the GaoKao

GaoKao literally means "high test". This test is all students prepare for all of their senior year and determines where students will go to college. On businessweek I read that the whole country works together to make sure that the students have a safe and quiet testing center. The test has three main parts; Chinese, math, and English. This test lasts for two days and is very strenuous. I looked at some practice questions and realized that this is the SAT on steroids. it truly shows how hard Chinese students work.


Taking the ACT is one thing but this test is that multiplied by twelve. I don't even think our smartest students at Parkview could pass with a very high sore. Think about it, if this test is all students prepare for during their entire school career, studying for hours and hours everyday, this test is tough. I actually have a lot of respect for Chinese students and their work ethic after looking into the GaoKao.








Letter from Huang Min

Roberts, Dexter. BloombergBussinessweek. N.p., 6 June 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-06/china-girds-for-high-stress-gaokao-weekend>.

Implicit Bias Test

So there is this thing called the "Implicit Bias Test". It was invented by some Harvard student and this test is supposed to see if you are bias towards one thing or another. There were multiple tests that you could take including a race test, a skin color test, a religion test, and a fat/skinny test. I selected to take the skin color test.

For the skin color test, the program determined if you preferred light skin or dark skin. To do this, the test was broken up into multiple parts. The first part was a word/picture correlation where if a word like "happy" pops up on the screen, I had to click a button if it is "good" or "bad". If a picture of a light skinned person popped up, I had to click if I thought that they were light skinned or dark skinned. 

The next part of the test was easily the easiest but the most fun sucking thing about my day so far. There was a set of survey questions that I had to answer. about 17 questions all along the lines of "do you like light skin or dark skin better?". Of course the questions weren't that word for word but they all had that same type of theme to them.

The final portion of the test was filling out a basic "get to know you" type questionnaire. Just basic information like gender, area code, country, religion. I assume that all of the tests get complied and broken down to see if there is a trend between preference of skin tone to gender, area code, country, and religion.

In Response to Plagiarism

Given the option of writing a book response or responding to an article an about Plagiarism, I chose the second option. The article about plagiarism was posted by the New York Times and discussed the way students are copying and pasting works from the web and claiming them as their own.

Plagiarism is defined as "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own". Basically its copying other people's work. Copying has been the best friend of students since schooling was invented. If I were to ask a student if they would prefer to do an assignment and get full credit or just get full credit, the student would choose the adder of the options.

The post in The New York Times is concerned that it is too easy to commit plagiarism and that students are considering not considering copying from the web as serious cheating. Just look at this statistic;                  

 

 "the number who believed that copying from the Web constitutes “serious cheating” is declining — to 29 percent on average in recent surveys from 34 percent earlier in the decade." (The New York Times)     

 

I understand that plagiarism is a problem but, eventually there will be a time when the specific though you have is already published. That day may not be for many years but with that being said, I think that there needs to be a statute of limitations on plagiarism. In example, if the sentence I want to convey was published 15 years ago, I can use it without it being considered plagiarism.