+3 & -3

Page 126: Are we really only products of our environment?

In some ways, yes, we are all products of our environment. Take, for instance, the two Wes Moores. Both men were products of their environments, a positive and a negative one.

Sometimes I like to make the comparison to math, just because it makes sense, to me. If you take the square root of a positive number (lets say 9), you get two answers: +3 and -3.  The answer you choose as correct often depends on the question you are asking. But, both answers came from the same original number. One number provided two very different answers, just like one (or two very similar) environment(s) created two different men.

Though we are products of our environment, it should not be used as an excuse as to why we make the choices we do. In life, you have to deal with the hand you're dealt. The author Wes Moore took his bad hand and turned it into a completely different way of life that even he admits he never thought was an option. The other Wes Moore looked at what he was dealt and made very little effort to change it. This goes to show that what matters in life
is not what happens to you, but how you deal with it.

Euphoni-what?

What music played a special role in the other Wes Moore's life? What role does music play in your life?

For Wes Moore, it was Hip Hop. For me, its pretty much anything but Country.

Music is a very important aspect in my life. Its how I describe myself, how I talk about my feelings, how I relate to the world around me. Music is how I escape to another world, how I get through the hard times in life. There are no words to describe how music has shaped my life. I don't really know where I would be if I didn't have the songs that put the thoughts I couldn't verbalize into words.

This is a Euphonium, its like a baby tuba
 

Music has the power to incite a response out of anyone. It can make you laugh, it can make you cry. You could get angry from a piece of music, or sad, or whatever the composer wants to make you feel. When you listen to music, you become vulnerable. You are at the composer's mercy, and he or she will make you feel whatever type of way they want to with the title of the piece as your only clue as for what is to come. It's this vulnerability that I love. A person's true colors show when you catch them listening to music.

The only thing I love more than listening to music is creating it, especially with other people. To be a part of a group that can produce something so beautiful just makes me feel amazing. In high school, I was a part of anything that created music; marching band, concert band, jazz band, chorus, SSA, Chambers, and even the Music Honors Society. I played many different instruments over the years, the euphonium, tuba, trombone and the clarinet to be exact. When I create music, it's as if nothing else matters.

This is a trombone and its probably the worst thing I've ever picked up

The Great Escape

Page 44: Basketball quickly becomes a getaway for Wes and his friends. What activities do you enjoy doing while trying to cope with difficult situations?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to read. Books were my escape from pretty much everything. I read pretty much everything; signs, menus, notebooks, journals, textbooks, novels, you name it. When I was old enough to walk to the library on my own,  I made friends with the librarians and made a home there.

When I found a genre l I loved, I stuck with it. The books I read gave me role models, they gave me perspective, they gave me hopes and dreams and wisdom beyond my years. I used books to fill in the spots in me that I thought were missing. When I was lonely or felt unloved, I had friends in the pages of my books. When I needed a strong person to look up to, I found my role models in the same spaces I found jokes to laugh at. I related to the lonely girls who went on adventures to find some magical being for answers that were always inside of them. From our adventures together, I developed a deep-seeded wanderlust that still follows me to this day.

My paradise

Wes used basketball as his way to feel accepted and at home, just as I used reading and books to get the same effect. Whenever I get a chance, I still read. Sometimes I go to my own corner in the library and sit and spend the day there and reread the books that got me through my adolescence. A good book is something I’ll always treasure, no matter where I am.

Choices

Page xi: The author explains that the other Wes Moore's life is different because he made different decisions when it came to life choices. Have you ever made a decision that you believe could have altered your life path?

Every choice, no matter how small we think it might be, impacts our life choices. The other Wes Moore’s choices landed him in jail while the author landed a degree from Oxford. When I look back on any of the major decisions I’ve made, the choice that could’ve altered my life path has to be when I didn’t tell my mom I loved her.

The summer before my 16^th birthday was great. I had a lot of friends, I was excited to start my sophomore year of high school, and I was feeling good. So one night (August 8, to be more precise), I was hanging out with my friends when my mom called me in for curfew. As the angst-ridden teenager I was, I had to defy her. I fought with her back and forth on the phone until she gave up on fighting me and told me to be home soon. I hung up without saying “I love you.”

Me, Mom & Bri 3 days after she woke up

When my sister and I finally decide to stroll on home, it’s two hours later than my mother anticipated. She was asleep, so I didn’t get yelled at, so I didn’t care. Brianna and I sit down to watch TV when I hear my mom coughing. She had bronchitis at the time, so coughing was normal. But, something didn’t seem right to me. Instead of coughing, it sounded like gasping, like a cry for help with no sound coming out.

My instincts kick in and I jump out of my seat on the couch and I charge up the stairs and into my mother’s room. I reach her in time to catch her as she collapses in my arms.

To make a long story short, my mom ended up dying in my arms that night.  I dragged her to the floor and started CPR with my dad (a certified EMT and Life Member of the Volunteer Emergency Squad in our town) until the paramedics (all family friends) came and took her away. 

My mom woke up out of her medically induced coma 4 days later and wears her pacemaker as a badge of survival.

When I say that not telling my mother that I loved her could’ve altered my life, I really mean it. For the four days that she was unresponsive, I beat myself up. The last thing I said to her was “whatever, Mom.” She went to bed angry at me that night and if she had never woken up, I would have never forgiven myself. I would be a bitter and resentful person, regretting every choice I made. It just goes to show that even the smallest choices matter.

Moral of the story, kids: always tell your family you love them. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

She took her second chance and now lives every day to the fullest (as a bodybuilder/pediatric oncologist nurse).
She could quite literally slap you into next week if she had to.

The Four C's

From a very young age, teachers are trained to look at each individual student a snowflake. Naturally, it can be understood that with each individual personality comes the unique way in which children learn and grow. There are several types of “learners”, with the main three being auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners. They each require a different teaching style to fully absorb the material that is being taught in a lesson.

Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. An auditory learner depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. They process the information aloud. This involves asking questions and answering them using your voice. The more information discussed aloud the better. Auditory learners use verbal analogies and storytelling to demonstrate and talk through a point.

Visual learning is a style in which a learner utilizes graphs, charts, maps and diagrams to help them understand a lesson. They include drawings and pictures in notes to illustrate ideas and use color to distinguish different ideas! Visual learners read the text and then convert the information into pictures, notes, diagrams, or mind maps. They also study in a quiet place away from distractions.

Kinesthetic learning or tactile learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening to a lecture or watching demonstrations. These learners take breaks and move around during breaks. They act things out, use gestures, or move around while studying, all of which helps to engage the kinesthetic learner. Kinesthetic learners use models, charts, or diagrams to show relationships.

It is important to understand the different types of learning when you look at how the gallery walk, chalk talk, and synthesis stimulate the growth of critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication within each student.

Communication is a necessary tool for stimulation and comprehension of information. The synthesis and chalk talk aspects of our lesson was an ideal strategy to connect with these auditory learners in our classroom. In order to communicate through these activities, we had to understand our peers and use our non-verbal communication skills to get our thoughts in order and on the paper. The auditory learners in the class were helped with the debriefing activity toward the end of class where the culmination of the activity occurred: we were finally allowed to speak freely of the words that had stemmed from our ideas. By not allowing us to talk, communication was inherently harder. However, our nonverbal communication skills improved because of it. We learned ways to explain things in more detail without even saying a word.

Our collaboration was increased by the simple fact that we worked together. By randomizing groups, we were placed in sections where we might not have had friends to rely on. Placing us in random groups allowed us to collaborate with new people and respect the different ideas that come from different mindsets.

Through the activities like the chalk talk, gallery walk and synthesis, our creativity was also encouraged. The kinesthetic learners in the class were stimulated with the constant movement provided by the gallery walk and standing during the synthesis, which allowed their ideas to flow comfortably. By walking around and connecting with other groups and different colors, our creativity was matched with other individual groups. These different perspectives open up the mind to the possibilities and invoke new and creative thoughts. Moreover, the blank paper also encouraged creativity. By giving loose instructions, we were allowed to think for ourselves and interpret it the way we felt fit. Visual learners used these creative and colorful graphs to further their understanding of the material

Our critical thinking was the aspect most stimulated by the chalk talk, gallery walk, and synthesis.  By having us synthesis the article, pull out ideas and then try to connect them, we were challenged as thinkers and as students to complete the task. Even more challenging was to connect the themes within the different articles. However, using the inspired creative and collaborative mindsets that we acquired through the class, it was easier than expected.

In order for all four of these c’s to be stimulated in all students, all aspects and types of learning must be encouraged in different ways. The chalk talk, gallery walk and synthesis touch base on not only stimulating all types of learners, but all aspects of learners as well. This leads to a successful, interactive classroom environment and activities that I personally would like to participate in again.

Pop Culture is...Cultured?

Pop culture is defined by many as the latest trends in a society, ranging from the pictures we see on the buildings in time square to the mannequins we walk by in a department store. It includes social media, radio stations, television broadcasts and pretty much everything around us. However,

You can see the pop culture...

can something that is subconsciously forced upon us at a young age really be good for us? The answer, surprisingly enough, is yes! There are many benefits to pop culture if we just take the time to stop and look at them.

The Empire Strikes Back is regarded as the best movie of all of the franchise!

Pop culture brings people together. Interests are cultivated through pop culture and in turn, people of similar interests are brought together because of it. Universal bonds that stretch across borders are formed as a result of similarities people find within this popular culture, be it for or against the topic at hand. Social media, an important aspect of pop culture, allows people who wouldn't normally come together meet and interact and form relationships.

Another benefit of pop culture is the influence it has on every aspect of life around it. An advocate of the benefits of pop culture, Alexandre O. Philippe, notes the significance of the Star Wars franchise on not only his life, but the world around him. The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier, enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.  Sounds, visuals, and even the iconic score of the films have become integral components in the tapestry of American society. The worth of Star Wars is not to be doubted- it’s induction into the U.S. National Film Registry signified the cultural, historical, and aesthetic appeals of the franchise. These appeals of the past still stretch into conversations years later. Phillipe notes that Star Wars references are deeply embedded within pop culture, even after so many decades.

Unfortunately, popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and "dumbed down" in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream, when in fact, the opposite is true. According to Steven Johnson's article "Watching TV Makes You Smarter", the "lowest-common-denominator standards" that the public "seems to want" are the exact opposite of what is being deemed as "pop culture" today. Johnson himself acknowledges the assumption that “mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common- denominator standards” to appease the “dumb, simple pleasures” that the public seems to want. Throughout the article, however, Johnson disproves this theory with comparisons of television shows from the past, such as Dragnet, with single threaded plot lines to that of The Sopranos with more than a dozen plot lines at once.

"Many recent hit shows -- "24," "Survivor," "The Sopranos," "Alias," "Lost," "The Simpsons," "E.R." -- take the opposite approach, layering each scene with a thick network of affiliations. You have to focus to follow the plot, and in focusing you're exercising the parts of your brain that map social networks, that fill in missing information, that connect multiple narrative threads."

                                                            -Steven Johnson

It is this same mental work out that aids the argument that a tie to pop culture isn't a negative thing to have. In fact, it might just help you.

Pop culture reflects the modern aspect of life in the world. And, just like life, pop culture is constantly changing. The positive effects of pop culture are just like its influence-far reaching. The benefits we can get from our culture now will amount to an unsurpassable wealth of information in our future.

Little Literacy

When I was younger, I went to the prominent Catholic Grammar school in my town. Being a Catholic (and therefore, private) institution, the mandatory rule that public schools had to administer 180 days of instruction didn’t apply to us. That also meant that I finished school before all of the other kids in town. To combat my lack of public school friends during those 2-3 weeks of early summer vacation, my parents signed my sister and I up for a day camp.

The actual day care I attended!

This day camp fostered my earliest experience of actually feeling literate. With a lot of downtime in between activities, I had the opportunity to really explore my interests of the time, like Play-Doh, playing “kitchen”, and reading. As an enthusiastic second grader, I was eager to prove to everyone that would listen that I could read “big words”. The counselors took my willingness to read as an opportunity to push off their work onto someone else and gave me the responsibility of reading small stories to the younger children before nap time. These lazy counselors unknowingly fostered my love of reading and pushed me to keep up the habit (probably so they didn’t have to do it).  My parents were big supporters of my love of reading and so were my grandparents. Every time I asked for a book, they happily obliged. It was my family that supported my literacy, encouraging me to write in a journal in conjunction with reading. I wrote my grandparents letters weekly, a practice they supported and I happily continued until they both passed away. Inside the school setting, my teachers heavily encouraged my love of reading and writing. I will always remember my second grade teacher, Ms. Prysblic.  She encouraged me more than any other teacher, even gifting me the Junie B. Jones series as a graduation present.

(the B stands for Beatrice, except I don't like Beatrice so it's B and that's all)

I developed a strong bond with my Reading and Writing teachers and sought out their advice and guidance through the rest of my elementary/middle/high school career.

There is no one specific moment where I felt literate. I never really understood what being literate meant until my higher education began. However, since I was young, I partook in various degrees of speaking and writing. My father, a prominent figure in my town and my role model, spoke publicly on many occasions. I attended his speeches and listened carefully as he captivated many people. He spoke eloquently and passionately and I learned as much as I could from him. I grew to love public speaking and the rush of adrenaline that came with it. I participated in many speaking and writing competitions and won a great deal of them throughout high school and concluded my senior year of high school with a graduation speech in front of over a thousand people.

Today, I feel like literacy is something we take for granted in a first world country. We look down upon those who are unable to read and write and cast them aside, labeling them incompetent or lazy without fully understanding the reasoning behind their incapacity to master these skills. To me, reading and writing are invaluable skills that allow you to express yourself in more ways than one. I continue my literacy now by reading everything I can and writing as much as possible, whenever possible. These are valuable skills that my parents inspire me to utilize to the best of my ability every day.