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.