Blog 12: Uprooted in Storm, Students Endure Trek to Class.

Jenny Anderson wrote this article yesterday. Since the hurricane hit New York city, students have been walking past piles of debris, overturned cars and boats, and vans full of supplies for the city dwellers on there way to school everyday. A lot of students are living in bad situations where there is not electricity and rotting buildings from all of the rain and flooding. “Life for the students of Rockaway Park — among the 33 schools that remain severely damaged as a result of Hurricane Sandy— has been upended. Many have been scattered across New York City, with relatives or in shelters. “We’re concerned,” said Jennifer Izzo, the guidance counselor. “We still can’t find some of them.” The city’s Education Department has reassigned 15,000 displaced students to other schools; the students and teachers of Rockaway Park are being sent to the Maspeth High School campus in Queens. Parents were upset, since their new school, like their old neighborhood, is not easily reached by public transportation. So the city agreed to send coach buses to Rockaway Park to take the students to and from their temporary school. Supplies were short, despite the fact that some workers had defied orders not to enter Rockaway Park High School, sneaking in to smuggle out science and math textbooks, which were there when the students arrived at Maspeth.” (Anderson, “Uprooted”). A lot of the students now have nothing and Rockaway school used to require uniforms, since the storm, they postponed that rule and now its hard for students to find something appropriate for school. It’s going to be a long time for things in New York city.

            This article has to deal with education because students in New York city are having a hard time succeeding in school from missing books, having a hard time with the transportation of even getting there, and the fact that they don’t even have electricity to get on with their daily lives. What I don’t understand is why aren’t we getting more involved in helping them? It isn’t like they are across the seven seas or whatever; they are in the same country, just a few hours away. Those students need our help!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/education/displaced-by-storm-students-face-long-trek-to-temporary-school-in-queens.html?_r=0

Blog # 11 Note-Taking’s Past, Deciphered Today

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Jennifer Schuessler wrote this article. Most college students in lecture halls take notes on laptops or in binders, but the students at Harvard are taking notes on an 18^th centaury old notebook. “The far-flung things that go on in scholars’ heads when they think about notes became clear at the daylong gathering. Presentations touched on talking points scribbled on Sarah Palin’s hand during a speech, fliers stapled to telephone poles and Twitter posts about the conference itself that were read from the stage all day. The conference was more than a celebration of quirky marginalia and academic navel-gazing. The study of notes — whether pasted into commonplace books, inscribed on index cards or scribbled in textbooks — is part of a broader scholarly investigation into the history of reading, a field that has gained ground as the rise of digital technology has made the encounter between book and reader seem more fragile and ghostly than ever.” (Schuessler “Notes”). A lot of professors now days admit to sending out students out of class when they are taking notes when they are supposed to be listening to the lecture. Also there is a lot of debate about using modern technology while taking notes, because there has been studies done, that students learn better if they actually write it down, instead of typing it in. A lot of students argue that they don’t take notes do to the fact that they can’t even read their own handwriting.

            This article had to do with education because it’s about how long scholars have been taking notes to help them with their studies. My question is how did Harvard manage to get their hands on an 18^th centaury notebook? I believe that students should take notes in the best ay for them. I personally don’t use a laptop when I take notes because I find it easier for me to remember if I write it down. I found this article to be really fascinating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/07/books/note-taking-seminars-at-radcliffe-institute-for-advanced-study.html?pagewanted=all

Blog #10 U.A.E. Moves Toward Paperless Classrooms

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Sara Hamdan wrote this article on October 28. In Dubai, a student talks about how he’s now using his ipad now for classes, instead of just games. He also uses it for his art class, instead of using paper. “Last year, the United Arab Emirates decided to turn a product that was already popular with students into an academic tool. So when school began in September, 14,000 tablets were handed out to all first-year students in the country’s three major higher-education institutions: United Arab Emirates University, Zayed University and the Higher Colleges of Technology.” (Hamdan, “Paperless”). The school system thought that since that it was such a popular product among students that why not use them for school. The main goal of using it is to have more students succeed in all their classes, while keeping a green environment. “Education experts hope that the tablets will help raise low test scores; bridge the gap between classroom learning and practical workplace skills; and promote more diverse fields of study in a region where students are often pushed into subjects like business.” (Handam, “Paperless”). Not only is it benefitting the older students, but also younger students are using them too for their studies. “At $750 an iPad, it is a less-expensive alternative to laptops that cost an average of $1,200. Local U.A.E. students attending public universities generally do not pay for tuition or textbooks, though they are required to buy their own laptops. The introduction of iPads will reduce that cost by nearly half, though in the U.A.E., which has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, few schools reported problems with families that could not afford the technology. Teachers were “panicky” before they realized how easy it would be to use the device educators were now working directly with Apple to develop their own apps and create their own reading material as e-books on iBook’s Author. By reducing paper use and waste, the iPads also promote environmentally friendly values. “ (Hamdan, “Paperless”).

            This article has to do with education because it talks about how students are using ipads to help them succeed better in their classrooms, and to have more students attend schools. It’s a great idea because its so much cheaper than having to go out and buy all of these textbooks, paper, binders, and writing utensils. For I pads you can just download the textbook for the fraction of the cost, and save paper. All schools need to do this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/world/middleeast/29iht-educlede29.html

Blog #9 Principal reports high schoolers' 'Fantasy Slut League'

Michael Martinez wrote this article on October 23. “In Los Angeles a high school boys in a California town overlooking San Francisco Bay started a "Fantasy Slut League" targeting girls.” (Martinez, “Slut”). Almost all of the female students are drafted into it so that they can be part of the “football” league. What happens is that when girls get inducted; the male students “earn points for documented engagement in sexual activities with female students. Participation often involved pressure/manipulation by older students that includes alcohol to impair judgment/control and social demands to be popular.” (Martinez, “Slut”). What the high school is now trying to do is raise awareness for the parents and community. “We wanted to communicate to families to encourage a dialogue and to inform parents of what we as a school community are doing to proactively address activities that are detrimental to the culture we want for our students.” (Martinez, “Slut”). What the school is also trying to teach to those male students who created this league is that “to make good choices and to treat each other with respect and dignity.” (Martinez, “Slut”).

            This article ties into education because it happened at a high school in the United States, even though its not global news. What I don’t understand is that what I remember correctly is that in high school, in order to create a new club, you had to get school administers approval for it to be allowed, and I’m wondering how the Slut League managed to slip past those guidelines? This is really ridiculous that this happened and extremely degrading towards females. The conclusion of this is that students need to be more involved with their studies and be better managed. That’s all what I have to say about it.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/us/california-fantasy-slut-league-school/index.html?npt=NP1

Blog 7: El Paso Schools Confront Scandal of Students Who ‘Disappeared’ at Test Time

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Manny Fernandez wrote this article on October 13, 2012. In El Paso is sounds like normal school scandals: School admistators who want to me state and federal standards, secretly raise students’ test scores on crucial tests. This cheating scandal has “shaken the 64,000-student school district in this border city, administrators manipulated more than numbers. They are accused of keeping low-performing students out of classrooms altogether by improperly holding some back, accelerating others and preventing many from showing up for the tests or enrolling in school at all.” (Fernandez, “Scandal”). The federal courthouse landed Lorenzo Garcia in jail for this scandal. “Federal prosecutors charged Mr. Garcia, 57, with devising an elaborate program to inflate test scores to improve the performance of struggling schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and to allow him to collect annual bonuses for meeting district goals. The scheme, elements of which were carried out for most of Mr. Garcia’s nearly six-year tenure, centered on a state-mandated test taken by sophomores. Known as the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, it measures performance in reading, mathematics and other subjects. The scheme’s objective was to keep low-performing students out of the classroom so they would not take the test and drag scores down, according to prosecutors, former principals and school advocates. Students identified as low-performing were transferred to charter schools, discouraged from enrolling in school or were visited at home by truant officers and told not to go to school on the test day. For some, credits were deleted from transcripts or grades were changed from passing to failing or from failing to passing so they could be reclassified as freshmen or juniors. Others intentionally held back were allowed to catch up before graduation with “turbo-masters,” in which students earned a semester’s worth of credit for a few hours of computer work. A former high school principal said in an interview and in court that one student earned two semester credits in three hours on the last day of school. Still other students who transferred to the district from Mexico were automatically put in the ninth grade, even if they had earned credits for the 10th grade, to keep them from taking the test.” (Fernandez, “Scandal”). He basically did this so that he could get bonus’s from the government when they saw how “well” the students performed on the state tests. A lot of students that got bumped out of high school from not performing well are jobless, refusing to further their education, and have a very negative outlook on life. Lorenzo basically got in a lot of trouble from it and is now in jail because of it.

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This article made me feel sick. How can a school administrator do this to students, but then again it happens all the time, even in the United States. For example, in my high school, there was an Algebra 2 exam that I did not do so well on but she bumped my grade on that test by at least 20 points so that I would receive a D on it so that she could get her bonus on it. I don’t know whether a bonus is a good or bad thing for teachers, but it caused me to pass her class. A lot of students like me aren’t good test takers. That should be a required class in high school because that would be way more beneficial for students like me, rather than Algebra 2.

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/education/el-paso-rattled-by-scandal-of-disappeared-students.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Blog 6:With Cuts, Free Education Is No Longer a Cuban Birthright

A person named Reuters writes this article. Basically what this article is about is that Cuba is cutting back its free education system and moving students into more useful careers to reduce costs and fill needs in the workplace. According to government statistics, “Enrollment in the communist-run country’s many types of schools fell to 2.2 million students last year from 3 million in 2008, a drop of 27 percent, according to the National Statistics Office.” (Reuters, “Cuts”). It has been going on since the Cuban revolution in 1959, which stressed the importance of education. “Among the hardest hits were universities, where the number of students dropped almost 50 percent to 156,000 in 2011, from 300,000 in 2008, as admission standards were raised and liberal arts careers slashed. Adult education also fell drastically. Only 145,000 students were enrolled last year in university extension classes, a fraction of the 578,000 who signed up in 2008. Enrollment in adult education courses, designed to improve work skills, dropped to 129,000 from 373,000 in 2008 as the longstanding practice of paying state workers and farmers their full salaries to study during the day came to an end.” (Reuters, “Cuts”). These days in Cuba means that more skilled workers and farmers boost Cuba’s food production, but means fewer professionals jobs. “At the high school level, emphasis is being put on sciences, pedagogy, agriculture and skilled trades. The number of places for students in pre-university schools declined by some 50,000, or more than 20 percent since 2008, the report stated. More students were channeled into the skilled trades, where slots jumped to 74,000 from 26,000 in 2008.” (Reuters, “Cuts”).

            This article made me realize that maybe the United States should have a education system like this because it would create jobs that our economy needs. For example, if we needed more bankers, but had way too many nurses, they could place those students in banking jobs. This is also a good idea because then jobs wouldn’t be so competitive to get. If you knew where you where you were going to get placed, then you would be guaranteed a job. 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/world/americas/with-cuts-free-education-is-no-longer-a-cuban-birthright.html

blog #5 A Young Immigrant Struggles for a College Education

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This article is written by Mimi Schiffman. A lot of high school students think about senior prom, graduation, soaking up the summer sun with old childhood buddies before heading off to college. “For one teenager from Queens, that joy was clouded by growing anxiety as he attempted to save enough money to pay for his first semester of college. I followed Frisly Soberanis, and illegal immigrant from Guatemala, through his final weeks of high school and the run up to what he hoped would be his first semester at Brooklyn College.” (Schiffman, “Immigrant”). He is worried that he won’t find a summer job because he said, “You don’t know if you’re going to get a job next week or if you’re going to get paid for the job you just finished because maybe they’re just going to be like ‘I’m not going pay you.’” (Shiffman, “Immigrant”). “More than four million illegal immigrants under the age of 25 are thought to be living in the United States according to 2009 census figures, yet statistics indicate that only around 65,000 graduate from high school each year. The reason for the huge disparity between population and attrition rates comes down to opportunity. There are many obstacles for those who aspire to higher education, and in the schools that do accept illegal immigrants, students do not have access to federal financial aid. Without the opportunity to hold down steady, legal jobs, young illegal immigrants often do not make it to college at all.” (Shiffman, “Immigrant”).  Classes at Brooklyn College on August 27, but he is not sure how the future is going to look for him. Frisly was brought into the US when he was 7 and because he overstayed his tourist visa, he can’t become a citizen without first going back to Guatemala for 10 years, then reapplying for the US visa again. “At that point there is no guarantee that the United States would welcome him back.”(Schiffman, “Immigrant”).

            This article makes me straight up mad honestly. What people don’t realize is that at one point, we were all immigrants. My ancestors came from the Netherlands, so I am part Dutch. I mean, immigrants want to come the US just for a better life. Why can’t we just let them? Instead we force all of these ridiculous rules and regulations on them in order for them to be legal residents, but to deny a high school student’s education from him? That is just plain wrong. Where he comes from the education rates are pretty bad. http://www.nationmaster.com/country/gt-guatemala/edu-education. After look at those shocking statistics its no wonder he wants to continue his education in the US. What the US government should do is issue him a 4-year visa, and after that visa is done with, he goes back to Guatemala.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/an-undocumented-youths-struggle-for-higher-education/

blog 4 :Syria Orders Schools to Open, but Classes Give Way to War

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This article is written by Kareem Fahim. “On the outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, the teachers just stayed home. The schools had been transformed into shelters for residents displaced by fighting, and in any case, one teacher said, there were more “more pressing concerns” than school.” (Fahim, “Syria”).  In Syria over 2,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed in the war, and hundreds of them are being used as shelters. A lot of the rebel fighters have taken over the other schools that aren’t being used. “In an attempt to project calm in the midst of relentless violence, Syria’s Education Ministry ordered schools to open this week.” (Fahim, “Syria”). That plan did not exactly work out. The fighting had gotten worse, daily life has not been able to function correctly since the war has started, life has become more dangerous, and education is the farthest thing from people’s minds. They just want to remain safe. “More than five million Syrian students had returned so far. But certainly tens of thousands, if not more, stayed away. Teachers and parents said that educators and students were too scared to return, or unable to, since the schools themselves were occupied, destroyed or inaccessible.” (Fahim, “Syria”).

            This article deals with education because since the war in Syria has started, a lot of these students and teachers have not been able to return back to school. This is a huge problem because everybody needs an education, and if those students do not continue on with their education that they will not be able to get a high paying job in the future. My question is that why can’t the other school systems around the Syrian area take in these students that have no school to attend? Besides it affecting just the students, it is also affecting the teachers. They aren’t being paid to teach anymore since schools are being burned down and being taken over. The other schools systems should take in those teachers too. 

lhttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/middleeast/syria-orders-schools-to-open-but-classes-give-way-to-war.html?pagewanted=all

Blog 3 Making Mandarin Mandatory — in U.S. Kindergartens

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This article is written by Mark McDonald. “Bibb County sits smack-dab in the center of Georgia, and 150 years ago it was at the very center of the Confederacy. Its foundries supplied weapons and ammunition to the rebel army, and no county supplied a larger percentage of its men to the cause.” (McDonald, “Mandarin”). Basically, Georgia is typical southern Republican state that does not want a lot of change because Southerners like things the way they are. “Times are still tough in Bibb County. Some 20 percent of the residents live below the poverty line, and its public schools are among the lowest performing in the state. About half the kids don’t graduate from high school. But the county has just embarked on a bold plan to have all its children fully bilingual — in English and Mandarin — by the time they graduate from high school. In recent weeks, children from pre-kindergarten through third grade began mandatory Mandarin classes, part of a curriculum that in three years will include middle school and high school students.” (McDonald, “Mandarin”). Why students are now taking Mandarin Chinese is because by the time 2050 rolls around, jobs will be requiring it because “They will live in a world where China and India will have 50 percent of the world GDP. They will live in a world where, if they cannot function successfully in the Asian culture, they will pay a heavy price.” (McDonald, “Mandarin”).

           

            I know this article is local, instead of global, but I chose this because I do believe that China will one day be the GDP of the entire world. I think it’s a great idea to start hiring teachers from China and teach children, teens, and young adults on how to speak Mandarin Chinese. It would be very useful if you wanted to major in international business, and besides just that, when you are getting manicures and pedicures done at the local salon, you can understand what the Asian women are saying. This article relates to education because schools are now going to start offering it next to Spanish, French, Latin, and German. It would be a lot more useful than French and German personally, but that is just my opinion. I think that this is a great idea, but I do not know if parents are really going to go for it, but it is always a good idea to at least try.

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/making-mandarin-mandatory-in-u-s-kindergartens/

The Bookworms of China

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore who is a Beijing journalist writes this article. In China, sense they are a communist country, censors every book that gets published there. However in recent years, everything about that has changed. “Driving sales is a literate population that emphasizes education and self-improvement. Censorship has become less draconian since Mao’s time and publishing has become more commercial. As a result, readers of Chinese books today have more choice of genre, voice and subject matter than they have had at any time in the last 60 years.” (Montefiore, “Bookworms”).  In the past censorship has been so bad that many schools and libraries had to be shut down due the Cultural Revolution due to the fact that books were being banned and the places that still had the banned books were being forced to shut down. “Writers under Mao could be executed, imprisoned or ostracized for political incorrectness.  But such suffering became part of China’s creative legacy in the 70’s, thanks to “scar literature,” a popular genre that describes the horrors of the era.”  (Montefiore, “Bookworms”).  Now China is becoming a lot more liberated and more books in all sorts of genres are being published. “There are challenges, of course. As in the West, online retailers are squeezing independent bookstores and digitization is hurting sales of printed books; more distinctively local is the problem of piracy. And while international publishing houses are eager to enter this market, local writers and publishers complain that because of red tape the number of books published in China is still well below par for a country this size. There is also censorship and political pressure. No guidebook of forbidden topics, no glossary of forbidden words, exists.” (Montefiore, “Bookworms”).

           

      This article relates to education because sense very few books can be published, it greatly effects children, teens, and college students who are enrolled in schools or universities. Without books the literacy rates drop down very dramatically and I am pretty sure that students do not learn enough without those censored books to broaden their minds and keep them aware about what is going on in the world. Personally, I believe that censoring books is a huge waste of time for the Chinese government. I mean I think the fact that sweatshops, how women are aborting their daughters due to the fact that in Chinese culture, families value their sons more, and the fact that there is extreme poverty going on in Beijing is a little but more important than what is being written in books.
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/the-promise-of-chinas-publishing-industry/

As Singapore Globalizes Its Schools, Locals Worry

     This article is by Liz Gooch and was published on August 27, 2012.  Liz Gooch owns a blog called “The Thinking Fish Tank” which is a Singapore based blog. On it she basically complained about how the school systems give scholarships to students who are from international schools, but not to students who are from Singapore. She is not the only one who is complaining online that international students, some of whom receive scholarships, are squeezing Singaporeans out of public universities. (Gooch, “Singapore”).  Here is an interesting fact that Gooch found out; She said that Universities from around the world have made attracting international students a fundamental goal with 18 percent of foreigners making the undergraduate student population. (Gooch). She is starting to become concerned that globalization may cause the country to have more higher education standards that may cause Singapore citizens to lose a lot of money, despite the high number of university students attending colleges.  The Singapore government is creating ways to have the universities to expand so that a lot of students can go to Singapore University. “About 27 percent of Singaporean students who finish high school enter public universities, a figure expected to increase to 30 percent by 2015. Education commentators say it is a rate similar to that in most advanced economies.” (Gooch, “Singapore”). One of her instructors stated that the growth of the education sector in the community is due largely to the fact that they have a very good economy. Gooch believes and found statistics that the government has capped the number of international students at 20 percent of the undergraduate intake for the past decade. In 2011, they made up 18 percent, with most coming from China, India and other Southeast Asian countries, according to the Ministry of Education. (Gooch, “Singapore”). The ministry said in a statement that it would maintain current levels “to facilitate better integration between Singaporeans and international students.”(Gooch, “Singapore”).

      How I feel about this article is that yes, it sucks that Singapore’s University has to cut some local students, but college is so much more competitive in the last five years than it has in such a long time. I mean we are the future. We have to make this country run as smooth as possible and bringing in international students adds more ideas, more opportunities for the economy if we added citizens from other countries to the “mix”. That way more ideas could be established, and it would lead to a more efficient running economy. Plus, when those international students return to their homelands after they graduate, their economy could run  a lot smoother from all the things they learned. I mean yeah, it sucks that students are not getting accepted, but maybe that could teach students that college is extremely competitive, and they will learn that maybe they should take their high school classes a lot more serious. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/asia/27iht-educside27.html?_r=1