Success

If I am happy in life, I would consider myself successful. Happiness is the most important thing, because there is no meaning in life if you are unhappy.
The things that would make me happy are, having a good job, having a good education, and having a family. A good education is important to me; knowledge is truly something you can never get enough of. Having a good education is vital to a good job.
A successful job would mean that I would make good money, excel in it, and most importantly, I have to love it. Making money is important to me because I don’t want money ruling my life, like it does with some people. I want to be the best at what I do, and I want to be proud of myself. Loving my job is the most important thing, because if I am not happy with my job, I won’t be happy in life. Being successful in my career will also be best for my family.
I will be successful with my family if I love. I need to love my family because love is the number one most important thing to me. My family is something that is of the up-most importance. If my children are successful, I will consider myself, and my family successful.
In my life I don’t want to regret a thing. I feel that if I regret, I will not be happy in life. Happiness is key to being successful.

Rosa Parks Questions

1. Describe the segregation laws that governed Montgomery public buses.
White people who got on the bus took the first rows of seats and filled the bus toward the back rows. If a white person boarded the bus and there were no seats left, a black person who was closest to the front rows would have to give their seat up for them. If the bus was full when a black person boarded they still had to stand. In many buses, black people would have to pay at the front then get off and enter the bus from a separate door in the back of the bus. If the driver was cruel, he would drive away before the black person could board the bus from the back, even though they paid the bus fare.

2. What personal qualities helped Parks withstand public scrutiny when she challenged segregation laws?
Rosa Parks was a very strong woman. She was a secretary for the Montgomery chapter in the NAACP and she was very eager for changes to be made and for segregation laws to be abolished. She dealt with many cases in Alabama related to rape crimes committed against black citizens. She was very determined to end these horrible hate crimes, and if she was mistreated, she was very stubborn about never being treated the same way again. She had to have a lot of self-control because Parks was never violent. She was a big believer in nonviolent protest. Parks was arrested for not abiding to the bus drivers commands but it did not stop her from continuing to stick up for her rights. Her persistent actions are what allowed the Montgomery Bus Boycott to happen.
3. How did the African American citizens of Montgomery respond to a call for a bus boycott?
The African American citizens did not respond with violence. They just stopped using the busses in Montgomery to stand up for themselves. It was very hard on them because they now had to walk very far every day to their jobs, but they still did not use the busses. Every week the black community gathered at the First Baptist Church to discuss the protest. This inspired many to keep the boycott going.
4. What happened to Parks after her arrest?
After only a day in jail Parks was bailed out by Edgar Nixon who was her friend and also the president of the NAACP. When she was brought to trial she was charged with disorderly conduct and was found guilty within only a half hour. Parks appealed the conviction which ultimately challenged the morality of segregation laws. Thanks to Parks, the bus boycott was able to begin and continue strong. It was because of her courage that the bus companies lost 75% of their riders and after 381 days the boycott ended successfully. New laws were now put in place to end segregation on public busses.
5. You are Rosa Parks. How would you have reacted to the situation on that December day in 1956?
I cannot imagine that I would have been able to be as strong as she was. I can imagine that I would get really angry at how all of my friends and family were being treated. Parks also remained nonviolent and I am not sure if I would be able to do so if I was being hurt or threatened. That took a lot of courage and a lot of strength and I cannot say that I or many other people would be able to do the same.

Should students of different levels of intelligence be tracked in school?

Myers, G. David. Psychology, Ninth Edition. New York, NY. 2010 Worth Publishers. Intelligence, p405-441.2
Should students of different levels of intelligence be tracked in school?
I believe that students of different levels of intelligence should be tracked in school, and should be in different levels of classes. I feel that if students were not tracked on their levels of intelligence, they would have an unfair disadvantage. Also, I find that it is important to not limit intelligence to the four main school subjects (mathematics, social studies, science, language arts) but to expand the limitations to forms of arts as well.
Students of different abilities have separate general intelligences. It is important to know the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Spearman was a strong believer that people have special abilities that help them stand out, and I think that it is vital to recognize these differences. Putting students in classes that suit their needs will keep them from being over challenged or bored as a result.
Gardner also had views of intelligence that I find very important when tracking students learning abilities. His theory was that people have multiple intelligences that come in packages, therefor, someone who likes to read will excel in language arts classes, but may not be as strong in mathematics. With regards to Gardner’s theory, it would be very vital to have many different class opportunities for students, so they can learn to the best of their abilities in every situation.
Sternberg also had the Five Characteristics of Creativity, which he believes is important in identifying intelligence in students. When tracking students in school, it would be important to know these five characteristics, because it can be used in identifying what students belong in which class. As well as Sternberg’s characteristics, you can also assign aptitude tests which will be able to tell you how beneficial a class will be to a student. As well as aptitude tests, there are also achievement tests that can tracks students improvements in class.
Personally, I would not have been so motivated in school if there were not opportunities to be in a higher level class. In elementary if you were exceptional, you were put in a class called PACT. This class was designed to challenge you, and for me it did just that. If I had not been put in PACT, I would have gotten very bored with regular classes and would have lost motivation.
In middle school there were extra opportunities for students to do a mock trial, which I took part in. This was another specially designed course made to suit the needs of exceptional student. This class gave opportunities to get out of the class room and into real courtrooms where we were able to learn first-hand how a court case operates.
Now, in high school, there are so many opportunities for students to challenge themselves. There are classes to suit everyone’s needs; from chorus, band, and show choir, for students who love music and dancing, to AP Biology and AP Chemistry, for students who love the sciences, there are many ways for intelligent students to excel in school.
I believe that if schools did not track the intelligence of students, there would be far less opportunities for students to excel in whatever they are good in. There would be the four main subjects, and that’s it; no opportunities for students to challenge themselves. Without the motivation that challenging classes give, I feel that intelligent students would be bored and students that are too challenged would give up. Students are able to challenge themselves to the best of their abilities, and have fun, because school track intelligence and I think that it is of the upmost importance in education to suit the needs of the students.

Animal Farm Review

In the novel Animal Farm, power corruption and abuse of language are used throughout the book as a theme. Power corruption is shown by the pigs. They think that they are above all of the other animals and treat them poorly. For example, when Napoleon speaks to the animals he makes it seem like what he tells them to do will benefit them, but in reality, it only benefits the pigs. At first, when Jones owned the farm, all animals were created equal and everyone got along fine. After Jones left is when the pigs started to take advantage of the other animals and manipulate them to do what they want.
Napoleon wanted power so bad, that he would do anything to get it. When Snowball was around, he was constantly fighting with him and he thought he was right in every argument. Napoleon used the corruption of power to run Snowball of the farm when he took the puppies and trained them to fight for him. Also, the abuse of power is shown by Napoleon when he makes all of the other animals work and the pigs don’t, while all of the other animals get less and less food rations. He again used the abuse of language to explain to the other animals how this was okay. Napoleon used the corruption of power to literally kill any animal that was a ‘spy’ or someone that did not agree with him.
The abuse of language was used all throughout the novel by the pigs to manipulate the animals, so the pigs would get what they wanted and they wouldn’t have to work for it. Napoleon also used the abuse of language when he told the other animals that Snowball was working for Jones as a ‘spy’. He did this to get the other animals on his side, which in turn would give him even more power. The commandments that were written on the barn wall are another form of abuse of language and manipulation in this novel. At first, they had every rule outlined and everyone agreed, but then Napoleon used the animals’ illiteracy to his advantage when he repeatedly changed the commandments to make what he was doing okay when it really was not. The animals never questioned it because they believed that all of the animals were united, but by the end of the story, the pigs had one last thing written on the barn wall, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” This really shows how corrupted the pigs became by the end of the story.
Power corruption and the abuse of language go hand-in-hand throughout Animal Farm. Whenever Napoleon wants something, he uses Squealer to tell the animals in a ‘friendly’ but manipulative way, which, in turn, gets Napoleon what he wants. The animals just go along with whatever he says because they have been brainwashed into thinking that the pigs want what is best for the animals, when in actuality, they are selfish and will do whatever it takes to make sure they remain in power.

Why the World May be Running Out of Clean Water

Water in the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu has been becoming sparse because of sea levels rising. This makes the groundwater become saline (containing or impregnated with salt) and therefor undrinkable, so people living on this island of about 11,000 people dependent on rainwater. Unfortunately, this island nation is not the first to experience rising sea levels and sever drought. Australia has been without rain for so long that it is unsure whether it is going to recover, or if the drought is a permanent dry climate that would lead to changes in the continent Australia forever. It is even affecting us here in America, the Southwest is in a record-breaking drought, where Houston is behind in its yearly average rainfall by 2 feet. “Climate-change impacts on water resources continue to appear in the form of growing influence on the severity and intensity of extreme events,” says Peter Gleick, one of the foremost water experts in the U.S. and head of the Pacific Institute, an NGO based in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on global water issues. Clean water is vital to life, and the world seems to be changing, although slowly, in a way where we might be running low on clean, salt free, water.

            Water shortage is yet another reason to try to reduce carbon emissions because a warmer world would make already dry regions inhabitable. Although rainfall is strengthening in already wet regions, it still wont be enough to sustain the earth’s 7 billion people if dry regions of the world become unbearable. Changes are having to be made, and researchers are trying to find ways to adapt to our changing world.

            If water shortages become any worse, there won’t be enough water to sustain the 7 billion people that inhabit this planet.  People would have to migrate from places that are becoming dry and desolate to areas with more rainfall, but can there possibly be enough space for everyone in these parts of the world? No is the answer, so with the growing population, and the changes the earth is undergoing, research is being made and changes to save water and be more efficient are being made. We need to “adopt 21st century strategies of new forms of sustainable water supply, rethink water demand and efficiency of use, and [embrace] smart use of pricing and economics,” says Gleick. This may mean big changes to life right now, but it is necessary for the survival of countries such as Tuvalu.

Why the World May Be Running Out of Clean Water

By Brian Walsh

TIME Magazine

 

City of Thieves

David Benioff is a fiction writer born in New York. His first book The 25^th Hour was released in 2000 and kicked off his career as a talented fiction writer; however, Benioff published City of Thieves in 2006 which took him over five years to finish.

 

I believe this book closely relates to the central question “Are people of the world more alike than different, or more different than alike?” This because in the story, two very different characters, Lev a Russian Jew and Kolya a Russian soldier, meet because of very unfavorable circumstances, and both must assist each other in order to stay alive.

 

This closely relates to the central question because this entire story is based on two opposite young men who have to defy the odds of being different to come together and survive through a very cold, Russian Leningrad during World War II. Both being arrested for very separate reasons, must join forces to obtain a dozen eggs for Colonel Grechko, who has his eye set on baking a grand cake for his daughter’s wedding. Although, if Lev and Kolya fail the seemingly impossible mission, they will both be wanted as war criminals in Russia and arrested and brutally killed immediately.

 

As I summarized in a brief commentary of the book, I think that this relates best to central question one, because WWII is basically a question of what makes every individual of the world different or alike. These two completely different young men have to work together for a common goal: life. In order to accomplish this, they must put their differences aside and realize that they are both fighting for the same thing. Which basically correlates to the rest of WWII, everyone put aside their differences and fought for the one thing we all had in common…the need to survive.

Social Institutions & Oppression

There are many different types of social institutions that can oppress or limit oppression. These can include, government institutions such as the legal system (justices and courts), education, and media, religious institutions, cultural institutions, such as marriage and family roles, colonial institutions, and one last example can include science institutions. These different forms of institutions can oppress people in many different ways. For example, the government can limit what is shown on the media, which in turn oppresses what we see. We can see this happening a lot, even within our own government. Many do not know of world affairs taking affect because our government does not want us, or them, to get involved. We can see this happening with the genocide in Rwanda, and also with the war in Sierra Leone. 

 

Government oppression is a large problem seen around the world. Just by studying what has been happening in Rwanda and Sierra Leone, we can see how their government has oppressed them, causing rebels to act out against their own people. Genocide and child soldiers are two extremes that have come about during times of war in these countries. These types of governments are perpetuated by power. They have not been able to be stopped until large actions have been taken. All through history conflicts have arose from central governments that have too much power. When rights are taken away from people, history has showed us time, and time again, that they will fight to get them back.

 

Another form of oppressive institutions that we have seen throughout this trimester is religious institutions. Many conflicts have arisen from religious differences between people. From what we can see in the video we are currently watching, Oh My God, we have learned that there are many different views on what is right and wrong.  Religious institutions remain in tact because of the amount of people that associate themselves with a religion, 87% of the world’s population. 31.5% of people worldwide belong to Christianity alone, where 87% of the time they live in a country where they are a majority. With all of these people worldwide it is easy to see how religion can be such a dominating power over people, and how it can fuel conflicts between different types of people.

Genome Book Summary

Genome is a book that describes the human genome in 23 chapters. In each chapter, it describes the chromosome and what its impact is on the human body. 

            Starting with chapter one, chromosome one, the book discusses life, and how chromosome one is responsible for it. RNA is the building block of life, Ridley describes, and all life has to have a rulebook, or as Ridley explains, a cookbook. A strand of DNA is like the cookbook, the ribosomes are like the cooks, they translate the DNA sequence into proteins, which is what gives messages to every cell in the human body. One of the many spectacular things about this “cookbook,” is that it is the same for every animal on the planet. No matter how small and simple, or large and complex, the recipe is still the same.  “All life is one,” Ridley states, “there was only one creation, one single event when life was born.”

            Chapter two, chromosome two, explains humans in relation to species. We, humans, are unexpectedly similar to our fellow mammals, but somehow we strayed from the path, just a little, that sent us into a completely different direction than our primate ancestors. Many processes, including natural selection and survival of the fittest, got us to where we are now, which from an evolutionary standpoint, is much further along the evolutionary path. We are the outcome of centuries of failure, and according to Ridley, “genes are recipes for both anatomy and behavior”.

            Chapter three, chromosome three, describes our history. Heredity is an explanation of a human’s history.  “What we inherit from our parents is a gigantic list of recipes for making proteins and for making protein-making machines,” said Ridley. What our parents once were, is what we will soon be. Mutations are also another factor in our human heritage. Mutations are random changes in the genome that may be subtle at first, but can have many effects long term.  These changes are responsible for how humans are today, and it is a sure indicator that we will be forever changing.

Future Plans

I have been an interested and involved student ever since I started school in first grade. Learning has always been a very high priority for me and I have always known exactly what I want to do since the first time I was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The answer to that question has always been Equine Veterinarian. Since then I have been enthusiastically looking forward to taking the next steps in my education, which is why I applied for my first scholarship to Kirkwood in the eighth grade. I was awarded the Kirkwood ACCESS scholarship on the last day of middle school and since that moment I have been eagerly awaiting my time at Kirkwood.

Once I began high school I discovered that learning in that kind of environment came very easily to me. I have been able to take multiple AP classes, including my favorite, AP Biology, and I was even able to be a part of the Science National Honor Society my last year at Kennedy. It is now three years later and I have achieved all my graduation requirements early and I am now looking forward to my next big steps at Kirkwood.

I wish to major in pre-veterinarian medicine while at Kirkwood and after my two years I wish to transfer to Iowa State and get into their veterinary college, all the while focusing on specializing on equine medicine. That is another reason why I think Kirkwood would be right for me. Although their equine programs will not transfer with me, I still think that it will be a phenomenal opportunity to start in my dream career field.

There is nothing more important to me than being able to achieve my goals and aspirations.

Gandhi Speech Response

Gandhi makes many points to the fact that wealth takes from morality. I think what he means by this is that when you are given so much riches, it is easy to forget the needs of other people above one’s selfish desires. This then makes oneself a poorer person in the sense of morality. Gandhi believes that real progress is seen, not by wealth, but by humanity. Treating any individual of this earth with kindness and respect is worth much more than any amount of money, and if you have money to give you are not to spend it feverishly, but to give it to someone in need so that they can maintain their precious life as well.

Gandhi has named nine men who he believes to be “the greatest teachers of the world.” These men include Jesus, Mahomed, Buddah, Nanak. Kabir, Chaitanya, Shankara, Dayanand, and Ramkrishna. Gandhi believes these men to be the best because they have given to the world, and the world is “richer” because they have lived. These men lived a poor life but gave to people gifts much richer than any sum of money.

Gandhi believed that having money and power can only lead to a decline in human spirit and the feeling of kinship between your fellow neighbors. “In South Africa, where I had the privilege of associating with thousands of our countrymen on most intimate terms, I observed almost invariably that the greater the possession of riches, the greater was their moral turpitude.” 

The “real economics” that Gandhi refers to in the last sentence of his speech speaks more to the wealth of morals than to the wealth of money. Gandhi states, “Let us first seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and the irrevocable promise is that everything will be added with us.” By choosing these words, I believe that Gandhi is attributing to the fact that you cannot achieve richness with money, but only with kind acts. If you succeed in bettering yourself as a person of this earth you will be rewarded in much better ways than anything money can buy you.