My 4th Quarter Meta-Post

Well, the end of junior year is almost here. With the end of this school year comes a final meta-post to wrap my blogging for American Studies up.

Especially this quarter, my blogs began to develop significantly outside of the classroom. What I mean by that is that my blogs have moved from simply stating my opinion on in-class discussions of the week in class to finding new and uniquely American issues (not just topics) that I can tie into our classroom discussions. I believe that this is successful because it really makes sure that my blog is an "American" blog, with our class as a reference source. Additionally, I feel that my blogs were not as neutral as they used to be. I would frequently voice my opinion and use each blog post as an attempt to persuade my reader to join my side. While this has positives, it also has negatives because my posts could be seen as "one-sided" without giving the opposing side any voice. While My blogs might not be as neutral as they should, they do show a level of sincerity and emotion that an unbiased blog might not have.

Additionally, I have improved greatly over the course of the year in empathy for the reader. Especially in the first quarter, I would not use links or pictures to help show the reader the entire issue. However, my efforts greatly improved; just like in my essays and papers this year, I have effectively been able to give the reader as much context as possible with Berger introductions, pictures, and links.

As I move into senior year, there is no doubt that my blogging will continue. This has been a valuable experience for me and my entire class. I look forward to reading next year's students' intriguing posts for American Studies.

Here is my 4th quarter post: http://rennikss.blogspot.com/2011/05/american-obsession-of-testing.html

The American Obsession of Testing

This week, I read an article in the New York Times that states that New York public schools will start having standardized tests for teachers in an attempt to improve education. This is a byproduct of President Obama's new initiative, "Race to the Top", to create a competitive edge into the learning process. The city will spend over $25 million dollars to formulate these new tests for teachers. Personally, I believe that this is not addressing the fundamental problems of an American obsession.

At the core of American education is standardized testing. On the surface, what's not to like? Standardized tests give students, schools and the government scores on where they are compared to the rest of the country.  However, attempting to find bad teachers does not fix the problem of a broken education system in America. As a society, we keep looking for an inexpensive and scientific way to evaluate teacher quality because we don’t trust principals - and certainly not the children - to tell us who is doing a good job. We look for a measure that is seen as fair and objective. Standardized tests seem to provide that. Additionally, it is very interesting to compare the United States to other countries on a global scale. The United States is test-crazy; our nation's youth are being forced to fill in bubbles since 3rd grade. Standardized tests have pushed teachers replace creative, imaginative lessons with timid and defensive ones. This is not how learning should be taken place. Nations such as Finland and Korea traditionally score best on worldwide assessments, while the United States is near-average. These countries have dropped testing in favor of unique teaching styles that better improve the learning for students.

I believe that we can improve education by simply trusting the principal and the teachers. This is what Finland and Korea do. The principal specifically can interface with teachers on a much more personal level, such as sitting in on classes and talking to students about the teacher's performance. If we give principals this power, we would not have to worry about spending millions of dollars for teachers to simply take tests. With this trust, hopefully it will carry over to the teachers as well. If this happens, we could put faith back into our education systems without driving our students into Scantrons (while saving a lot of money as well. This way, we can put improving our education back into the American equation.

The American Dream

This week, we talked about how The Great Gatsby resembles "the American Dream" in the way that Gatsby was able to ascend to the upper class from a poor background. Many reference sources describe the "American Dream" as "a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. One question that would surface about this belief is whether someone born into a great amount of wealth could still achieve the "American Dream".

Personally, I believe that anyone can achieve this "American Dream", with variations of success. I think that when the American Dream was conceptualized, it was intended for poor immigrants who would come to the United States in search of a prosperous life. It's this rags-to-riches myth that has surrounded the American Dream for decades. However, in the technical definition, this dream is simply the hope of improving the life you currently have. With any degree of wealth, whether great or small, the American Dream still rings true.

Lists

Earlier this week, we talked about how in The Great Gatsby, young Gatsby creates a list that says his goals and schedule in order to achieve them. After talking about this, our class talked about the purposes of using lists to accomplish something. After polling the class, less than half of the class said that they use lists frequently.

I am one of the people who uses lists. I use these lists for a number of reasons. One reason is that it gives a path for me to follow in achieving my goals. For example, a list gives a set order to do things, something that I find helpful. Another reason that I use lists to track my progress is that "crossing off" an item on my list gives a great sense of success and achievement. The process of eliminating goals from your list makes you feel better about yourself. Lastly, writing lists makes sure that your goals become concrete and set, not loose ideas that are floating around in your head. This is vital because it makes sure that you work to try to achieve your goals.

A separate entity is a bucket list. I consider this to be completely different because it is a loose organization of things that you want to get done; it does not have a process involved. Let me ask you: Do you use lists and why do you use them?

New Trier's Big Mistake

Earlier this week, distinguished and proud New Trier alumnus Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. Congressman and former Secretary of Defense for three (3!) different presidents, visited New Trier to talk to students about his political experiences. As one of New Trier's most acclaimed yet controversial graduates, Mr. Rumsfeld's visit could have been an opportunity to hear one of America's greatest leaders speak. Despite this, New Trier completely screwed up on handling this.

Instead of making Rumsfeld's talk known to the New Trier community so that everyone could benefit, the school instead kept the talk as a secret from everyone. What message is the school sending here? This action is downright appalling and completely disrespectful to Mr. Rumsfeld. The fact is that the school was scared of Mr. Rumsfeld's visit because he is such a controversial figure. While I understand that this is true, and that many people have many different opinions, it should not have changed the fact that New Trier was terrified of an opportunity to promote a better learning enviroment for all New Trier students. the school attempted to protect it from its students, which goes against our American values. Does New Trier really think that we are not capable of taking advantage of this once in a lifetime chance? I am a New Trier student and I deserve to know about this event; I absolutely would have attended if I had known about it. 

Secondly, the New Trier administration screwed up by forcing certain classes to go while not allowing other classes to be in attendance. The school selected certain classes to be the ones that had to go while other classes (in many cases, which would have liked to attend) were not allowed to go. This gets rid of the freedom of choice that should be given to each class at the teacher's discretion; if the teacher wanted his students to see Mr. Rumsfeld, they should be given this opportunity. By not allowing choice for each class, classes that did not want to go went and all others that did could not see Mr. Rumsfeld speak.

This incident has made me ashamed of the school that I attend. New Trier, a public high school that is looked as a leader across the country, has completely ditched the motto they hold so dear: "To Commit Minds to Inquiry, Hearts to Compassion, and Lives to the Service of Humanity". Mr. Rumsfeld's visit to New Trier was an opportunity to better the school as a whole, but the school made an inexplicable mistake. New Trier's character has shown through this issue through their actions in handling this event.

Government Stigmas

Yesterday was American Studies Day, an annual event created to benefit the American Studies classes in our school. One of the speakers, Molly Metzker, talked about public housing, specifically in the north Chicago area. She stated that many public housing buildings, some dating back to the New Deal-era, are being torn down for a few reasons, some of which include to "replace" them and to fix them, but mostly to redevelop them to private companies for a profit. However, these redeveloped homes have failed to sell successfully.

I began to relate public housing usage to what I already knew about other government-funded programs, including Social Security and Medicare. I knew that many Americans, especially middle-class seniors, have not decided to take advantage of the programs because of the "stigma" that surrounds them. Not taking help from the government has long signaled financial independence, something that many Americans continue to strive for. Additionally, government aid usually is considered for the working class, so many middle-class Americans refuse to accept these programs, even if they could help make ends meet. I believe that the same goes for public housing, even if they are redeveloped by private companies. Middle-class families, and in some cases lower-class families, are reluctant to look into these new units because of the stigma that surrounds them. This is one of the reasons that public housing has failed. Many Americans still would rather rent a private home for more money than a publicly-housed one for less. Why do you think public housing has failed, even in this global recession?

Social Stations

Earlier this week in class, Mr. Bolos showed us a montage of video clips. These include the stops on the westbound Metra around Chicago suburbs. The video lasted about 20 minutes and painted a nice picture of the communities that were involved.

This video and the activities that surrounded made a great impression on me in a number of ways. Most importantly, it showed the direct correlation of number of Metra stops in a particular town to affluence. Therefore, the number of stops a town has, the higher the average income is. Initially, I thought that this trend would be reversed, since I believed that lower-income workers used the Metra train more than wealthier ones because the latter could afford to own automobiles. Despite this, it is the exact opposite; this was extremely eye-opening to me. Another point that the video made is in the aesthetics and landscaping of the communities that the train stopped at. A good indicator of wealth in a community is if it is well-manicured, green spaces, nice infrastructure (fountains, roads), and new construction. All of these are factors in seeing the relative wealth in a community.