Final Draft: Paper 3

A rowdy, disrespectful and disruptive class is perhaps one of the greatest fears a teacher can encounter. It may also be one of the most difficult challenges, one that will make or break a teacher’s career. However, I feel prepared to tame this unruly class. After rigorous studies, I believe I have the tools it takes and the idea of what kind of teacher I would be. Many teachers just fall into place, like a piece in the puzzle that is the education system. That is the first mistake. To command a class I would define myself. The second mistake is pushing too hard from the get go. The idea is to mend, not fracture further. In the end, I know I would need to connect with my class to succeed. You need that connection to show them the purpose in learning. I would be the teacher that stands out, adapts to his class and connects with them on a level deeper than just education.

In the education system it is common for teachers to just fill the role of teacher and nothing more, when it comes to such a challenging class that is just not the case. I would have to become the teacher. The one that students want, the one that gets results and most importantly the one that is her/himself. Once I defined myself my students would be more inclined to identify me with a person rather than a teacher, not that teachers aren’t people, but to a class so unstable they aren’t. As Mr. Lowrey did in Chalk, the 2006 dramatic comedy, he played to his class and enlisted them in helping him win the school’s ‘Spelling Hornet’, a spelling bee based on student’s slang words. I would need to have a similar experience with my class, something to help them see me for me and identify with me. However, they cannot see me as equal to them. My position in the classroom needs to be defined as the dominant. If students were to act out defiantly, I would need to make an example of them to the class, preferably in a mockingly way as Mr. Escalante did. He merely returned fire, in a sense. Not to say that I don't appreciate humor because I do but the kids need to understand that those kids of distractions are unacceptable. It is my hopes to work humor into my lessons and get a positive reaction out of them. I would wish to get to know my students more thoroughly and have a vested interest in their lives as a whole. Helping people in all aspects of life is important to me and if I can do more than just teach my students then I would be more than pleased. Just as Mr. Keeting did in Dead Poet's Society, he even went to the extent to attend one of his students plays. His students responded incredibly to the way he made his classroom a more friendly environment and maybe even less of a classroom. We are going to have some fun in my classroom, good ol' educational fun. The best part is they won't even know they are learning.

Many teachers just have a set lesson plan from the get go. Which is how it is supposed to be, but it can’t be set in stone. Not all classes are the same. I would like to custom tailor my plan to this class if we plan to succeed. If I were to just force the material down their throats then all they would do is reject it. The key is to ease into the class with students of this variety. Similar to the ideas set forth in the article, Gift of Grit by Jerry Large. He speaks on Paul Tough's plan of parenting in which you only baby your children for so long then you have to let them develop on their own. I feel a class of this type would benefit from such a plan. Instead of just diving in, I would gradually lead into my lessons and warm them up to the idea. Once I got them up and walking then they could start running on their own.  As Tough says, “If you want success, build character and the rest will follow.” I feel this would effectively change my class. Effectively passing the class to ensure the class' success in assignments would boost their confidence and result in more effective classroom experiences. The goal would try to steer away from the normal feel of a classroom because to those students that creates some discomfort. By showing them I can pace the class to their needs, they won't feel so pressured as they would in a normal class. It won't be like a class where I just read my lesson straight off a piece of paper. This will not be a classroom that supports the banking method of schooling. I refuse. Paolo Freire's take on banking style puts it like this, “Narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.” My class will not just be a narration, it will play to the interests of all my students and captivate them.

Students who behave in such unacceptable manners obviously have something missing from their lives. At least, some some negative event that has brought them down to this level. I need to show some sort of compassion towards them or connect with them in some way. Comparable to part of the article, Children, Arts, and Du Bois by Keith Gilyard. He recants of how he met a young poet nearing her  eigth birthday and that just so happened to be the same birthday of W. E. B. Du Bois. Not only did he tell her of Du Bois but he gave her all the information she needed to research him further. A true connection. I want to be able to be knowledgeable like that towards my students interests. To show them that I am more than just an educator to them, I am a person that cares. Hopefully this will cause the outbursts to occur less often and create a level of respect between the class and I. If I notice my students are particularly artistic then I should create assignments that require creativity. Small thing like this to show the students that I am aware of what they are interested and can relate it to our material.

This truly is the only way to reach these kids. They won't respond to your run of the mill teacher. Their lives have trained them to reject such advisers. I will be more than a teacher. As I said, I will be the teacher. I must stand out from the rest as if my name were bolded on the roster of teachers. My class will play to the needs of the students at first bolstering their confidence and increasing their maximum payload. The idea is withdraw results from them without them knowing. My classroom will be fun and friendly. A place where learning and growing prosper within all of us. I will be the teacher that stands for what he believes in, runs a progressive classroom and gets to know each and every one of his students.

Works Cited

Chalk. Dir. Mike Akle. Perf. Troy Schremmer, Janelle Schremmer. SomeDaySoon Productions, 2006.

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. Touchstone Pictures, 1989. DVD.

Freire, Paolo “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” University of California: Herder and Herder, 1970. Print.

Gilyard, Keith. "Children, Art, and Du Bois." President's Commentary Sept. 2012: 19-20. Text.

Large, Jerry “Gift of Grit, Curiosity Help Kids Succeed” Seattle Times. Seattle Times Company, 2012. Text. 26 September 2012

Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramón Menéndez. Prof. Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Mark Phelan. Warner Brothers, 1988.

Mexican American Studies

To see such an outcome for something so promising is truly sad. Whether or not what the class reinforced is hard to say, but the progress that it stood for is what everyone feared. Society worldwide is suffering from racism and prejudice. The idea that Latinos could become well educated as a united ethnicity would scare the hell out of your average white politician. It’s sad to see that after all these years, race still matters to people. Race is merely a label and boy do Americans love labels. Racism and sexism has indeed shrunk immensely, but when it comes to positions of power it holds true. In the end, that is all it boils down to. Minorities cannot be successful or to your typical white American, that is scary as all hell. You don’t see Asian school bus drivers, all yard workers are Hispanic and black people are in every KFC commercial. God Bless America… right? It can range from large to small in the ways that America devalues what it means to be “American” unless you’re a white one and that is most likely what happened to the MAS program at TUSD. The managed to produce unheard of numbers from Latino students and suddenly it is like some cult dedicated to hate the white man. Goodness knows if the Latinos want to come together as an ethnicity and become well-educated then that means it is to overthrow America. Just goes to show you that freedom still is not free.

Against School

I could not agree more with John Gatto. His ideas on boredom that his grandfather taught him, that it is our own fault and no one else’s. We all have the ability to instruct ourselves. This relates back a few blogs about how we all need a purpose. Without a purpose, you surely will become bored. Gatto also spoke on the necessity of schooling. Not education, but schooling and as John put it, schooling’s “deadly routine.” That we are forced to sit down and most likely relearn content numerous times over for roughly twelve years of our life, which falls back onto the banking concept that we previously discussed. Teachers need to adapt to each of their classes, meaning teachers cannot be just anyone. They can’t just spew information as we sit, mouths ajar, collecting all the dribble. Schooling has risen to a point where education is on the back burner. Schools are just meant to put out socially acceptable students not well-educated ones. Gatto sums it up in this list, “1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best.” They way schools are setup now are almost custom tailored to suppress great minds. Anyone with an abstract frame of thought is deemed wrong instantly and shuttled away to be reformatted with the appropriate school software.

A Real Education

Mark Greenberg is trying to mend the social awkwardness that so many children from this generation suffer from. Not everyone is a social butterfly and nor should they have to be. At the same time they cannot fear even the most basic social interaction. Something that K-12 schooling does not seem to touch on a whole lot. I suppose what schools need is some form of a psychology or at least public speaking class. Boyce argues that students need to be able to be, “…able to calm yourself and regulate your emotions in a variety of situations; understand your own emotions, accurately perceive others’ emotions, and empathize; listen attentively to what someone is saying, negotiate, and confidently persuade; think through problems effectively while considering others’ perspectives.” A hefty load to be dumped on anyone’s plate and could easily be peaked in some form of a psychology class. Just to allow insight into the human mind. Students would begin to understand why people do things and read them more effectively, effectively, raising the level of manners in students, in theory. They would realize that they are not alone in their social anxiety. The idea of mindfulness is to promote, “A kind of non-elaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is,” defined by Bishop, Lau and colleagues. Essentially, pay attention to the person you are speaking to, accept what they are saying and do not argue it? ...maybe. Not so sure that I can agree with that. I support a more in depth understanding of conversation for our students, but if I am interpreting this correctly, we don’t need more passives in this world.

Tough Love

I agree with the ideas that Large has put forth. It is understandable that parents wish to baby their children forever, but the world surely will not. The idea is to nurture your children from the start just as any parent would then know when to step back and let the child develop on their own. As the article states, “…if you want success, build character and the rest will follow.” This would work in K-12 schooling as I believe a lot of teachers try to incorporate a similar idea, at least in my experience. No one is there to hold your hand, unless you need it. I have had multiple classes throughout my K-12 career that consisted of self-taught classes. The teacher was their teacher another class, but if I needed the assistance I was free to ask for help. You have that comfort zone of knowing the teacher is there, but at the same time you are, in a sense, totally self reliant to effectively absorb the text. Students should not expect their teachers to be there step by step through every problem. Rather, they should build up our ability to be self-taught in early levels of schooling and slowly let us develop the ability to learn on our own. Which… unfortunately, not a whole lot of high school students could do. We all have the ability to learn, some less than others, but I have noticed it is all about why you’re learning that makes the difference. The article mentions Tough started his book with an article about rats, that rats who were nurtured young stress to do better in life. That is what I’m talking about. You need to understand the purpose of learning. Not just the idea of, I’m at school so I have to. Disregard those thoughts, you need to learn, whether it is for your parents, your teachers, your dog or you. It doesn’t matter what the purpose is, but the idea needs to be imprinted young that there is one. With a purpose comes grit, which is a reoccurring word and title of Tough’s article. Merriam-Webster defines grit as, “firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.” Purpose brings forth that grit and courage. Children who are babied until they become adults can never understand the purpose of even the most mundane tasks. If our schools follow suit and wrap their students in blankies and spoon feed their lessons every day then how will they grasp the purpose of learning.

Paper 2

            Two of my most cherished high school teachers, Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson, are both very incredible men that I was so thankful to have in my life, but were two very different people. Though they were both positive role models in my life, they did it in their own unique ways. Obviously these differences are due to their opposing demeanor and style of teaching. Being a teacher is greatly affected by who you are and the life you have led, but at the end of the day you have a purpose. You are there to prepare students for the rest of their lives because not all children have a person to play that role. A quote by Charles Platt captures that perfectly, "Compassionate teachers fill a void left by working parents who aren't able to devote enough attention to their children. Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills."       Truly, the most ideal role a teacher can play for his student is that of a coach, whether it be life coach or a school coach, Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson embody that role.
            Demeanor plays a huge role in first impressions with a teacher and its consistency is equally important. A teacher that day in and day out comes to work and is the same person is going to hit home with students more. If they continuously come to work every day offering the same attitude to you then you are going to offer the same to them. Mr. Burchill did just that. He came to work every morning and he smiled, gleamed, and showed he wanted to be there. I can vividly remember his  big, goofy grin. In turn, his students wanted to do the same for him. I showed up everyday with a good attitude and ready to learn because he did the same. Mr. Burchill could be a silly man, but when it was crunch time, the classroom was no nonsense. Education was held in the highest regard in Burchill's class. Mr. Wilson may not have shown the same enthusiasm, but he showed his appreciation that you were there. As he went through roll, he would always thank all of us for showing up. He would always refer to himself as the “Almighty One” or “His Majesty”, something to that effect. A lot like John Keating's quote in Dead Poets Society, “O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It's from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating, or if you're slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.”  It was in good fun and showed to us that he enjoyed being there. He would take a rooted interest your future and he would talk to you about it after class. It wasn't just a few times it was weekly and he always remembered what you had said. It wasn't like he was just on auto-pilot for your conversations. He was a genuine man that genuinely cared about each and every one of his students. We all cared about him in return, especially about what he was teaching. Mr. Wilson, as a history teacher, valued our education on the past, but at the same time wanted to fortify our futures. Their attitude positively affected everyone in their classroom. Which resulted in their students acting similar to that of the teachers which benefited the classroom environment and effectiveness of lessons.

            Effectiveness and styling of teaching is a large idea of what defines a teacher. Burchill is a complex man and his style of teaching reflected that. He kept you on your path. All the students that did not want to learn, he would make them want to learn. No disrespect or defiance was taken sitting down. Burchill had a way of injecting the will to learn into your veins. When he spoke to you in a way that made you rise to the occasion. Just as Mr. Escalante said, “Students will rise to the level of expectation.” Burchill did just that. He sped up courses and squeezed everything into a day that he could. If you needed help after class you bet you would be seeing him there as late as possible every day. Burchill had a knack for drawing out every ounce of potential out of his students.  At the same time, Burchill respected how each of his students learned. Wilson was carving out your future with you and helping you connect the dots. He valued his curriculum and he valued the well being of his students. As Freire stated in The Banking Concept of Education, “... it turns them into “containers”, into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher.” [1] We were not seen in this fashion by Mr. Wilson. He valued our individuality and played to that with his teachings. Always using important tidbits that were interesting to us to lead into his lessons. Wilson would crack jokes about what he was reading during his teachings. The man had an great overall style of teaching that perfectly captured who he was. Teaching to him was meant to be fun and the way he did it reflected that. To him, time spent in the classroom was meant to be full of positive memories. They may have varying teaching styles but they were both effective in their own special way, whether it be in benefiting education or life.

            Though Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson have a different approach to teaching, the underlying effects from both of them are positive. They both care about the future of their students whether it be academics or personal life. In their classrooms the students were pushed to the boundaries in school and self discovery. Mr. Burchill had a more fierce and aggressive approach to teaching, whereas Wilson had a gentle and caring stance. These styles made them great teachers in their respective ways and any student would be honored to have sat in their presence. Great minds like theirs are what help mold us, the future generation. They fulfill the criteria set in an article by Carol Tomlinson, “The good teacher communicates a deep regard for students' lives, a regard infused with unblinking attention, respect, even awe. An engaged teacher begins with the belief that each student is unique, each the one and only who will ever trod the earth, each worthy of a certain reverence. Regard extends, importantly, to an insistence that students have access to the tools with which to negotiate and transform the world.” The role of coach is perfectly portrayed by these magnificent teachers.

           

Paolo Freire

Standardized testing goes against everything Freire protests in the chapter. Students would be filled with the same knowledge as one another and then be asked to dispense this knowledge on their test. Paolo Freire captures this idea by stating, “Narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.” That we are just meant to filled, like some hard drive. Then if we fail to produce the content that was narrated to us, we are considered defective rather than unique. Freire seems to be getting at that everyone is an individual and we cannot learn as a whole. Everyone is their own person and therefore will develop their own set of ideas and thoughts. Meaning, they will not need to learn the same material as the person next to them. Education should occur on a more personal level and not this mass manufacturing sense that is. We are not just corporate robots requiring assembly at a young age. We deserve to create our own ideologies. Not force fed the spew of what others so blindly conceive as correct. To think that we should be evaluated on the same level as others around us is preposterous. We are showing our future generations that conformity is the path to success. That if you fall into the lines and learn just like the others, pass all the tests and that is how you make strides in life.

Paper 2 - Help

I'm not quite solid on this yet so maybe you guys can help me. The idea I am going for is... Somewhere along the lines of a teacher should be a like best friend, but in a difference sense. From my experience, my favorite teachers were people I could sit down after class and talk to, about anything. These were the classes I learned the most from as well. Making that connection with teachers like Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson were the reasons I went to school. They made the effort to make connections with us students and it made me want to listen, learn and do the best I could. If you can make class enjoyable on that kind of level like they did for me then you are doing it right as a teacher.

The problem I am having though is that, A teacher should be a best friend, is kind of a wacky thesis idea. It's not even that they are like a best friend, more like a counselor, but not even that. You know, not just someone that is a wealth of knowledge, but someone that you can talk to and they talk to you. Not even just on the issue in my life, but about what we did on the weekends and how things were. Without sacrificing that student teacher bond. I mean in my mind to describe that kind of person is to someone would to call them a teacher. So I need some input on how to sum it up for a thesis then fully lay it out in the paper.  

Mr E vs Mr K

Mr. Escalante is a guy that is all about tough love. He really feels for his students and wants them to go far, but that doesn’t mean he is going to baby them. He makes them put their big kid gloves on and hold on for the ride, no one is allowed off. He believes in his kids and they prove him right. Twice! He may be unconventional, but hell, a lot of the best people are. Take Mr. Keating for instance, also considered very unorthodox in his place of teaching, though he was without a doubt the most beloved teacher at Welton. Unfortunately, for Mr. Keating, at least with the information given, had a short lived time and left no standing effect at Welton. Though, Mr. E went on to have all his students pass the exam and the school continued on to produce a rising number for the years to come. Not to say that Mr. K wasn’t just as great as Mr. E, but it is all in the audience you teach to. At Welton, many students were blinded by fear and Mr. Keating really tried to break them of that and he succeeded in several of his students. Mr. Escalante only had to imprint self confidence in his students and that is damn hard to do. Fear just happened to be stronger.

Welton vs Garfield

Obviously, Welton Academy and Garfield High School are going to have similarities and differences. They both contain teachers and students. Both have students who want to be there and do not want to. One school has the bottom of the barrel as staff as the other has the top of the charts. Which is why, one is private and one is public. Both schools are utterly awful in their own way. Garfield is just a dump with outdated everything and staff that couldn’t really be bothered to even try a little and really make a difference. The students are there just to ride it out and hope for the best. If I recall correctly, if it weren’t for it weren’t for Mr. E the school was going to be shut down due to cut funding. That’s how bad of a job they were doing. Welton is home to the best of the best assholes for administrators. I understand that it was a different time and a private school, but every time I watch that movie it infuriates me. Imagine paying to put up with that kind of treatment. Being paddled for instance, I would have never, “Assumed the position.” I would of punched him in the face and walked home.

Stand and Deliver Part Two

Stand and Deliver has a movie about one teacher’s tenacity to equality. Just because his students were minorities on the down and out so early in life, did not mean that they were not as smart as a white student in private school. He believed in them and their ability to learn even when they did not. He knew that if he slowly increased the bar that they would and could rise to the challenge. His cause did not stop at the children; he even cut into his personal life by volunteering at night school for people learning English as a second language. A truly astonishing true story, though it did not come without consequence, due to stress Escalante’s health declined and he was soon hospitalized. Not that a mere heart attack could stop him. By this point, he was tightly bound to his students and they had grown attached to him as well. They knew that without him there was no hope of them achieving their goal, which was to pass the AP Calculus test. Unsurprisingly, Escalante returns from the hospital early instead of resting. Hard to say if this was an act of selflessness or if he had another agenda. Regardless, in the end they all passed the AP exam, however, not without some resistance. The school board, or whatever, believed they had cheated due to similar wrong answers on each test. Which, looking back on it, could have been a completely false accusation and the true reason was due to the fact of their ethnicity. Given the time period, I feel that is the most likely and so did Escalante. He always had looked out for them and he wasn’t about to stop then. He renews their belief in themselves and convinces them to retake the test. This time they have to be sure not to give them a reason to believe they cheated. Escalante was truly a unifier. He could pull them together even when they were at the last thread and ready to snap.

It was without a doubt an inspirational film and if only all the students out there could have a teacher so devoted to their class. Sadly, that is not a reality we can ever live in. We can only hope that students will continuously rise to the level of expectation, just as the students of Mr. E did. 

Stand and Deliver

The thing that hit home with this film was a quote. Escalante states, “Students will rise to the level of expectation.” The other teachers did not buy into this idea of his. Not only because the teachers themselves had given up, but at the time Mr. E was still new to the school. He knew what he was capable of, what every human was capable of. We all do rise to the level of expectation. No one wants to fail not when they have someone who believes in them and pushes them. That is exactly what happens throughout this film so far. Escalante continuously raises the bar for his students. He uses all sorts of techniques to get the students to show their true potential. Though, most of his ways were unorthodox and by today's standards very unprofessional, he has thus far seen great progression. At times, he has pushed the kids incredibly close to their breaking point, they still remain unwavering in their pursuit of knowledge.
Just the fact that all this truly happened. It is hard to put in words. Sort of, pride, in the human spirit. How it is stronger than just about everything else. It is impressive. This film is great so far.

Brainstorm

There is a vast variety of teachers and almost all of them make a great teacher. Humor is important to me and I can understand that it cannot always be worked into the classroom environment, but it makes all the difference. If you can show the students that you are not just some robot spewing out information, that you can take the time to show yourself in your work, then I believe it forms that connection that students need. At least, that is my case. My senior year I took pre-calculus and my teacher was a total goofball, but it worked for him. You can see him having fun or at least having a go at it and it just engages you that much more in the class. Also, compassion is a great value for teachers to have. My junior year history teacher was genuinely interested in my life and that meant a lot to me. I would always hang around and take to him as much as I could. He was always listening to what I had to say, so I returned the favor. I most certainly learned the most about history in that class due to his kind nature. Plus, he was brilliant. I don’t know. Something there was something about him, shame he retired that year.

My Kind of Teacher

There is a vast variety of teachers and almost all of them make a great teacher. Humor is important to me and I can understand that it cannot always be worked into the classroom environment, but it makes all the difference. If you can show the students that you are not just some robot spewing out information, that you can take the time to show yourself in your work, then I believe it forms that connection that students need. At least, that is my case. My senior year I took pre-calculus and my teacher was a total goofball, but it worked for him. You can see him having fun or at least having a go at it and it just engages you that much more in the class. Also, compassion is a great value for teachers to have. My junior year history teacher was genuinely interested in my life and that meant a lot to me. I would always hang around and take to him as much as I could. He was always listening to what I had to say, so I returned the favor. I most certainly learned the most about history in that class due to his kind nature. Plus, he was brilliant. I don’t know. Something there was something about him, shame he retired that year.

Final Draft

Designing Our Lives
By Derek Halsen

My interest for design started my freshman year of high school. I signed up for a web design class. Beforehand, I believed I could not draw to save my life, but the ideas were clear. I just could not execute them on paper. That web class showed me that with a computer I did not have to draw. I could translate what was in my head onto a screen with minimal effort. I just needed the knowledge of the tools in the programs, which were a breeze to pick up. The only problem was there were so many programs and so many tools. Dreamweaver was the majority of what I knew at the time, with the exception of a little Illustrator. I wanted to become an expert. I was addicted. It was my drug, my passion. I had found something that I could do at school that soon overtook my personal time. The class had two stages web and flash. Your website had to meet certain standards before you could pass over to the flash side of class. The site needed ease of use and to be aesthetically appealing. Ease of use is the idea that your website is clearly laid out and you can use the site full circle. Meaning, you can travel way down many links in the website and still have access to all the website has to offer. Essentially, a navigation bar at the top of the page is the easiest way to achieve this goal. Aesthetics were a breeze for me. It is all about colors and clarity with websites. Colors bring the user in; the clarity keeps them happy and focused. I still had a ton to learn after the web portion and still do to this day as a matter of fact, but the class had ended and I had to move on. 

The flash portion of the class was phenomenal.  You had the opportunity to make your own animation. Granted at that age my topics for animation were not that great, but I had an enormous amount of fun. I was always so stoked to go to that class. You can’t say that for a lot of high school students. Flash really was a big gateway into my design. You had to create character profiles, backdrops, props, etc. Only a fraction of the class was actual moving pictures. Most of it consisted of us creating the bits that went into it. That is what I enjoyed the most. My animations were a tad awful. It was hard to grasp the concept of accurately portraying a person moving. Most of them just slid everywhere they went, but they looked fabulous doing it.
Thus, the foundation for my interest in design was laid. I was hooked and there was not any stopping me for some time. I browsed hundreds of design sites and read so many articles, but I did not have the programs at my disposal unless I was in class, which frustrated me to no end. My interests lay dormant throughout sophomore year. Entirely because I was unable to take any design classes. If I had chosen to, I would have fallen short on other required credits. Plus, I had to acquire the proper programs, at least one or two of them. There are far too many of them for me to have at such a young age.

In my junior year of high school I was able to receive Photoshop and Illustrator for my personal use. It was a dream come true to say the least. Even better, my credits allowed a Graphic Animation class, which turned out to be more graphic than animation. That scored big points with me. The initial assignment was to design our own business card, which at the time consisted of blood splatter and skulls. I was so hardcore back then… not. Regardless, it looked snazzy and I was pleased, as was my teacher surprisingly. That was my reason for going to school junior year. No other class caught my attention like that one did. Graphic Animation offered a lot of variety. One week of the class we did a small portion of Photoshop where we had to demonstrate different techniques that could be used to modify pictures. I was really fond of one photo I took of my friend with his hood up over his eyes with him standing in a corner. I chose to fade him out. I took all the color out of him and added a light mist all around him. Needless to say, in the finished product he looked like a ghost; just a phantom lurking in the corner. The most brilliant part about it that you can make pictures look professional with such minimal effort. It is so ridiculous.

After Photoshop, I believe we did a piece on logos, a contest rather, one with a prize. It was game on for me. I knew I was the best in the class, mainly because no one took it seriously like I did. The logo came out magnificent. It was fitting, colorful and most importantly simplistic. There is no reason to over complicate a logo. Long story short, the company already had a previous logo similar to mine. I was pissed, so was the teacher. It would have been nice of them to include some material on their prior logos if that was to be a problem. All was not lost though, the teacher instilled a lot of confidence in my work after that project and I suppose that is when I truly knew I wanted to be a graphic designer. I had put a lot of hours into this logo that lost to someone that did it in one class period. Though, I was okay with that because I was proud of it. My creation made me happy, regardless of what someone else could say. Plus, I wanted to do it all over again. Not just as a project, as a career.

Graphic design had brought a whole new form of creative thinking to my life. It really is hard to explain. When you are making any kind of graphic, the image as a whole has to be complete. You cannot leave any part out or it takes away from the entire piece. I learned that you can apply that to everything in life. You have to give everything you got even for the smallest things in life or you will not be able to enjoy life as a whole. It changed the way I thought about my life, my music, my work and myself. I suppose in the end, that’s when one of the moments I realized what I really wanted to do with my life and that it was time to mature. That I was the designer of my own life.

My draft so far...

My interest for design started my freshman year of high school. I signed up for a web design class. Beforehand, I believed I could not draw to save my life, but the ideas were clear. I just could not execute them on paper. That web class showed me that with a computer I did not have to draw. I could translate what was in my head onto that screen with minimal effort. I just needed the knowledge of the tools in the programs, which were a breeze to pick up. The only problem was, there were so many programs and so many tools. Dreamweaver was the majority of what I knew at the time, with the exception of a little Illustrator. I wanted to become an expert.  I needed to become a master of this. I was addicted. It was my drug, my passion. I had found something that I could do at school that soon overtook my personal time. The class had two stages web and flash. Your website had to meet certain standards before you could pass over to the flash side of class. The site needed ease of use and to be aesthetically appealing. Ease of use is the idea that your website is clearly laid out and you can use the site full circle. Meaning you can travel way down many links in the website and still have access to all the website has to offer. Essentially, a navigation bar at the top of the page is the easiest way to achieve this goal. Aesthetics were a breeze for me. It is all about colors and clarity with websites. Colors bring the user and the clarity keeps them happy and focused. I still had a ton to learn after the web portion and still do to this day as a matter of fact, but I had to move on.
The flash portion of the class was phenomenal.  You had the opportunity to make your own animation. Granted at that age my topics for animation were not that great, but I had an enormous amount of fun. I was always so stoked to go to that class and you can’t say that for a lot of high school students. Flash really was a big gateway into my design. You had to create character profiles, backdrops, props, etc. Only a fraction of the class was actual moving pictures. Most of it consisted of us creating the bits that went into it. That is what I enjoyed the most. My animations were a tad awful. It was hard to grasp the concept of accurately portraying a person moving. Most of them just slid everywhere they went, but they looked fabulous doing it.
Thus the foundation for my interest in design was laid. I was hooked and there was not any stopping me for some time. I browsed hundreds of design sites and read so many articles, but I did not have the programs at my disposal unless I was in class, which frustrated me to no end. My interests lay dormant throughout sophomore year. Entirely because I was unable to take any design classes. If I had chosen to, I would have fallen short on other required credits. Plus, I had to acquire the proper programs, at least one or two of them. There are far too any of them for me to have at such a young age.
In my junior year of high school I was able to receive Photoshop and Illustrator for my personal use. It was a dream come true to say the least. Even better, my credits allowed a Graphic Animation class, which turned out to be more graphic than animation. That scored big points with me. I designed with own business card. At the time consisted of blood splatter and skulls. I was so hardcore back then. Regardless, it looked snazzy and I was pleased, as was my teacher surprisingly.

Malcolm All the Way

The narrative that I enjoy the most was Malcolm’s. His style really immerses you into his story. Gives you a little more of a feel for what it was like and what his emotions were. Malcolm showed true dedication to his cause and his will to learn is incredibly admirable. I would love to be able to find that kind of strength in my endeavors. In an excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm refers to how he would dodge guards in order to read, “At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep.”
He dedicated all his time to reading and lost sleep over it, missed sleep over it. Malcolm claimed, four hours of sleep was enough for him. That is barely any, to repeatedly do that on a nightly basis just sounds crazy unhealthy to me. I know I couldn’t do it. I tried back in Junior High and it just did not work after a while you start to feel sick just being awake. Malcolm’s story spoke a lot to me. There is so much you can take away from it. The man is such an inspiration in many fields. No doubt in my mind that it was my favorite.

MvFvR

Malcolm's, Franklin's and Rose's essays all have to do with education. Though, I believe that is where the similarities end. Malcolm and Rose both had a harsher education than that of Franklin. Rose had to suffer through an atrocious education. Malcolm had no choice but to educate himself in prison. Franklin got the education variety pack. In the end they all achieved an acceptable level of education and that says a lot about them. They all had trials they had to pass through, some obviously worse than others. Malcolm had the will power to teach himself everything you could possibly learn while incarcerated. That says a lot about his person and character. Not a lot of people could say they would have the passion and heart to do that. Rose had to drag himself through the sewer system of public education. He experienced the worst it had to offer and he still came out acceptable. Franklin bounced around a lot and absorbed so many different types of knowledge. A lot of his life was full of change and with all that misdirection it must have been incredibly hard to know what you really want to pursue in life. Yet he still turned out to be a revolutionary man that had a tremendous impact on the world.

It is hard to flat out compare these three head to head. They share similar stories of troubled education, but the stories themselves are drastically different.

I Just Wanna Be Average

1. Mike's experience in Voc. Ed. was sub-standard to say the least. Rose got lost in the system. He had to experience some of the worst it had to offer. His teachers were the bottom of the barrel. Rose was a victim of laziness plain and simple. No one bothered to double check anything and he just flew under the radar. He suffered for years because of someone's mistake. I can't say that I've had a poor experience in public school. I mean, not on the teacher's behalf. I was always friendly and respectful to my teachers and I received the same back. Then again, my instructors were decent people to begin with, not like what Rose had to deal with.
2. They were placed in a track that was for the below average. Once you figure out that you've been dumped into that kind of place, you shut down. You realize that no one wants to give you the time of day anymore. They have given up on trying to really teach you so why should you try to really learn. Your time and effort is turned towards other more frowned upon activities, but they believed there was nothing else for them. Rose had developed many little tricks and lucked out a bit. When he moved onto higher math he lacked the proper abilities to perform what was deemed 'easy' math for his level.
3. High school just has way too much and goes way too fast. We weren't just learning out of books, we were learning about ourselves. A lot of the time you just want to give up and use something to forget all about it. To be frank, you feel like no one gives a damn. So what do you turn to? Well, that's always different for everyone. For Ken, it was easier to just fall into the slot that had been picked for him, just as so many do. The easiest way out is almost never the best but so many take it regardless.
4. College so far has been smooth sailing. Then again, I haven't been overloading myself with classes and work. You don't necessarily have those kind of choices in high school. You really just need to know how to manage time and yourself. Controlling yourself is a huge step. You can't fall to procrastination and other things. It may not seem like it but getting things out of the way beforehand is so much more rewarding. I don't have much room to talk but I'm trying. In the end that's all you can do.
5. Rose's and mine stories are as different as day and night. He fell through the cracks of the public education system. His experience was less than pleasant and that's putting it mildly. It's a tragic story that sadly many succumb to. I went to Kingston High School and just up the road was Spectrum, an alternative school. Designated for kids who were below standard and even a lot of kids at KHS wanted to go there. They knew is was an easy ride and sadly that is all they cared about. I loved all the schools I went to and I only remember really disliking one teacher. I had a really pleasant education and still am. A lot of it is in the eye of the beholder. I wanted it to go nice and with the right cards, made that happen. It's part luck and part desire just as a lot of life is. Looking back on school I recall no moments of true disdain for it.

Design

There are many, many types of design. That is one of the factors that got me interested in design. There is so much to learn on the subject, the techniques, styles, and just everything about it really. The type of design that captivates me is graphic design. Graphic design is the process of arranging words, graphics, colors, etc. into a form that conveys emotion and influences an audience into thinking a certain way about a topic. You know, like advertising and stuff. Web design is a lot like graphic design in the sense of arranging colors and graphics. However, there is another dimension to websites, in which you need flow to it. I believe they call it, ease of use, it is what makes all the great websites what the are. There is brand/packaging design. Obviously, logo and packaging colors make a brand. The whole idea of judging a book by its cover. Product design is about the look, feel, functionality of a product. Ergonomics and stuff like that. Interior design is the style and arrangement of your furniture, decorations and whatnot in your home. It has to be important with all those magazines dedicated to it. Fashion design, from what I understand, is constantly changing and the latest fashion is a mess to keep up with. Plain and simple, it is the process of creating new styles of clothing and pushing the envelope on fashion.

Design is a strong part of the world we live in and I am certain that it always will be.

Pre-writing: My Process

There are a lot of things that come to mind when someone says pre-writing. I have used webs, boxes, brainstorming, etc. the list goes on. In early years, I distinctly remember all the webbing we would do. It was my bread and butter for writing in my youth. I always did my best to make mine neat and perfect. It had to have well rounded shapes and be symmetrical. Only then could it properly organize my thoughts. We also used this box method where you would start with one box, it would be our main idea. Then the number of boxes would multiply in descending order and the details within those boxes would become more and more distinct. That was a method that I was taught later on after the web lost its effectiveness. The drop down boxes gave me many years of help in organizing my thoughts, but just as the web they eventually lost their touch with me. At this point in my life I rarely ever organize my thoughts beforehand. I use free writing a lot. Just flip on a deep song and let my thoughts flow onto paper then I can organize them later. It works really well for me. I think about all sorts of things throughout the day. The smallest of things can set off my thoughts and that is why free writing works wonders for me. It was hard to get into at first because it is hard to just right everything you are thinking, but once you get it down, it is a very useful technique.

Head to Head

Obviously, there is a sizable time gap between Benjamin Franklin and Malcolm X, so their styles of writing, word choice, fluency, etc. are noticeably different. Word choice was most likely the largest difference I noticed. Of course, this is because of the period in which they lived. Not to mention, their upbringings were entirely different. Malcolm X dropped out by eighth grade, I believe, then began to hustle on the streets before he was thrown in jail and then began a true education. Benjamin Franklin received all sorts of various educations throughout his life, shifting between all sorts of different trades. Malcolm goes into greater detail in his narrative which paints a clearer picture for the reader. Franklin’s writing is more so informative. The information is put across to the reader but it does not illustrate to the same effect. They are both astounding writers, just to different degrees.
I know it is off topic, but I have to say learning that Ben Franklin, one of our founding fathers, started out turned in the direction of religion is horrifying. Who would have created all the inventions, thought out all the theories if not for he? Regardless, Mr. X and Franklin were both brilliant individuals clearly in their own unique ways and impacted the current world we live in, in ways we could only hope of doing. 

Malcolm X

Malcom X’s story is really quite incredible. It is mind boggling to try and understand that a man would sit there and copy down all those words, words that he knew to speak but had no idea how they looked in written form. Then adapt that knowledge into an obsession, an obsession to learn and better his people. I mean it was true dedication to go to the lengths to learn that he did, losing sleep and dodging guards just to read and learn. It is downright impressive. Malcolm said he would never have a free minute, he would always be reading. It makes me think about all the time I waste, loafing about all day, but old habits die hard I suppose.
This just all falls back on dedication to furthering your own knowledge. That trumps it all, you could be a total bonehead, but if you put in the time and hours it will come. If you want it bad enough it will come. Which is how I got through school, it was not all interesting, but I wanted to learn. I knew it would be important and that is what fueled my education. These stories really get your mind churning. It really makes me want to go out and soak up some knowledge, which is exactly what we need to be thinking about for this narrative. It is getting me in the perfect mindset for this paper.

Feross' Story

Feross is passionate about web design and his story was inspirational, there is no doubt about that. I can definitely relate to him. I started digitally designing things as a hobby when I was a freshman in high school. It is so easy to find things to learn from online when it comes to computers. He’s totally right too, you just practice, practice, practice. Reading his story really got me thinking and there are a lot of similar things about our stories. It really makes me want to go out there and learn even more about design. There are so many designers out there and there are tons of websites with all sorts of techniques for designing. Obviously, not everyone is going to be as successful as Feross and create all these spectacular websites, but you start to think about what you like to do. If you have the will, which Feross mostly certainly did, then you can learn anything you want to. Then you just have to have the will, that is what it all comes down to and Feross shows us that. Shoot, at 14 years old, I probably would not have spent $20 on some book about websites because I did not want it that bad. It really gets the juices flowing for something to write about. His story gives a lot of good examples to look at and really got me thinking about what my specific event is going to be. To not just tell the story but include bits on what helped and what did not.

Education in America

Nothing in the world is perfect and America's education is just another one of those things. You cannot expect it to be perfect. Not with so many schools, with even more teachers and even more students. On top of overcrowded schools, styles of teaching and the contents of the lessons are constantly changing and adapting. With each generation, they are being taught things sooner than the year before and possibly faster. Teachers, in my opinion, are not evaluated often enough which allows a lot to fly under the radar. In a lot of areas of the U.S., education is a broken system and our country just does not have the money or resources to mend it. I believe our system of education works. People just expect too much of it.

            In my high school experience we had 30 plus students per classroom with just one teacher. As you can imagine that makes it so the teacher can only get time with a fraction of the class and that is just the ones that ask for help. I never really needed help so I offered it to others as much as possible, but I have to believe that there were students that did not ask. That suffered because they flew under the radar. That is not necessarily the teachers fault or the schools fault. I am just saying that it is a large fault in the idea of public schools. Classrooms become too large and students do not get the help necessary and just barely scrape by.

            My younger sister just left elementary school and the kind of material she was learning was way beyond what I had learned back then and it is even more so when I talked to my mother about what she learned.  It is pretty crazy what kids now a day are learning, but it looks like they have the ability to do it. Which means it is working, teachers are adapting their lessons and accelerating the rate at which our students learn and that is great. If we can pump more knowledge into our future generations then that boosts the rate at which everything else will advance in the future.

            Teachers need to get their emotions in check and be better equipped to deal with particular types of students. A lot of teachers let their emotions steer their classes and students really rely on teachers to be neutral and simulative. It is hard to see from both sides of the coin. Obviously, teacher’s lives have an effect on their ability to teach, but they need to be equipped with techniques to leave all that out of the classroom and be the moderators and role-models they are supposed to be.

            As you can see there are positives and negatives to education in America and those are just a quick few examples. Education works for the most part or else we would be seeing a massive restoration of it. I just completed my public education and it worked for me. Sure, it does not for everyone but what can you do, not everyone is cut out for it. Education here has points where it shines and places where it is flawed. You cannot just look at one side; you have to see the balance of it all. The country does its best with what it has to work with and the administrations keep it going and it all works. If the student has the will to learn then in the end it all works. It worked for me because I wanted it to. If you do not want something then you cannot expect it to happen.