Vulnerability

He could never tell them what had happened last night. In fact, he had no idea who to go to for help; he had never asked for help before. At age 24 he was brought back to a feeling of loss of control he hadn’t felt since before he had dropped out of high school. The full yet barren-feeling hallways echoing the drone of underpaid teachers hadn’t offered him much choice or control over his life or future. At least in the streets there were alternatives and opportunities for acceptance, advancement, financial gain, and power. The appeal of the money and property plus respect and security, outweighed the appeal of books and pencils, coffee and sleepless nights. An academic diminuendo made way to a void of solitude that couldn’t be alleviated by home or school. There was only one other path. But he never expected any of these paths to lead him here. Here, relinquished of his manhood and pride, he lays in bed, directionless. The world doesn’t feel as it did yesterday. His skin doesn’t feel as comfortable as it did. The traffic outside is the only reminder that life outside of his thoughts has carried on. The first step of the day reveals that last night took its toll on him physically as well. All 850 muscles of the body resonated an ache that no workout had ever induced. However, the last thing on his mind were his aching muscles. The memories present themselves one at a time as if commercials flashing by on a TV screen. Each memory comes equipped with its own set of sensory triggers. Trembling, palpitating, perspiration, the feeling of a 40 lb. weight on his chest, the knot no sailor could undo in his stomach, and the adrenaline all return as if they’ve been deprived of a night of action. Somewhere in the tsunami of feelings he tries to remember what could have caused all of this. He recalls leaving the scene, but nothing out of the ordinary for him until it struck. The rush of panic and anxiety took hold of him as the adrenaline surged through his bloodstream. Within five minutes he had gone from life as usual to a feeling of an inevitable, swift death. Perhaps the most overwhelming feeling now, as he ponders the events of the night before, is shame. His manhood is being tried and he feels as if he’s losing. He believes men are strong, fearless, and independent but he’s cowardly, weak, in need of help, and most of all, irreparable.

Compassion

     Compassion is one of my main values in life. It's part of why I want to go into the field of healthcare. Compassion is important to me because I'll feel and use it every day in my future career. It requires a lot of empathy and concern to be an ultrasonographer because in a lot of situations they work with patients in moderate to intolerable amounts of pain and they may need extra care and effort to perform the procedure. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook "interpersonal skills" is among the top three important qualities for a Diagnostic Medical Sonographer. If someone comes in complaining about a tender, throbbing spot on their body and need an ultrasound on it, the patient will be very uncomfortable and might need to be talked through it. Other patients might be under extreme mental stress and their cooperation might not always be easy so compassion would be necessary to gain their cooperation. For the person in stress or pain, they benefit from having someone there for them to help them through a rough time. For the person performing the ultrasound it’s beneficial because they can get the satisfaction of doing their job well and the ultrasound will go more smoothly.
     Compassion is helpful to be able to feel in any job in which you work with the public. When working with the public, people come to businesses in need of a service. This service could be auto work to dental work but chances are that person is in distress over the reason they need the service. If the person at the business can sense this and feel and display compassion for the customer the entire transaction or service can be carried out much more smoothly and can ensure the customer a place to go in the future and the businessman a future customer. Compassion benefits both sides.
     Without compassion people would be like robots without relationships. Relationships are built upon mutual agreements and social spoken and unspoken promises. A couple getting married promises devotion. Families promise support. Both promise love. Without compassion there can’t be love or devotion or mutual support and relationships would crumble.


Works Cited:
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, 
on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/diagnostic-medical-sonographers.htm (visited October 22, 2013).

Supplies Matter

Schools by now should be able to accommodate different styles of learning after all the extensive research we have done on the matter and tests we have created on so many different ways people learn. To teach the future of our country we need the know-how tools to do so. We can’t even administer a test to find out how the children learn without papers and pencils if not a computer. You can’t teach children if you can’t find out how to do so. If all men are created equal we need to give them equal opportunities by providing different learning styles with the tools they need. These tools are more than a chalkboard and chalk. For instance, musical learners may need musical instruments, speakers for musical activities, and so on. Logical learners, who think in terms of mathematics and numbers, need calculators and measuring instruments, and so on. Every human being as different needs. We don’t just get thrown on the assembly line that is our educational system and all march off, uniform, into whatever occupation needs to be done. Reading words or lessons out of text books works for some but for others it goes in one ear and out the other and they don’t comprehend it until class time, where teachers are expected to help them actually encode the information. Conditioning occurs by different means from person to person. It’s time we respect and apply that to education in order to reform what is accomplished in valuable class time.
     In the past we have always used the bare minimum of supplies in schools. Schools can’t function without at least tables, chairs, and a roof let alone materials you run out of such as pencils and paper. Every public school, private school, charter school, magnet school and home school needs more than just a facility and a staff to foster learning. For example, in a science class at any accredited school you need labs to show how a concept can be applied to the world outside a textbook. Without experiments we can’t prove the theories that we teach. A child can’t be expected to understand the properties of displacement if they can’t experience it themselves because not every child is an auditory learner. Visual learners might need to see water being poured to and from various sizes of glasses. Some kinesthetic learners may need to pour the water themselves. For the schools in Savage Inequalities this wasn’t an option because their schools couldn’t afford beakers or petri dishes. The children in the book used cut-up soda bottles the teacher had fashioned into make-shift science equipment to attempt an experiment that couldn’t be successfully carried out due to lack of legitimate science equipment. What sets those children in the book apart from their peers at more wealthy schools is material worth. Money and supplies are what truly makes the difference, not their ability to learn or some perceived level of promise to the world. It’s a shame that it’s money and material worth separating capable, willing yet underprivileged children from a good education.
     In addition, supplies matter because some students need tangible tools for comprehending concepts that words and teachers alone cannot explain. Books, laboratory materials, pencils and paper, art supplies, and sports equipment are all necessary for English, Science, Math, Art, and Physical education because humans need “props” as part of the academic Discourse to demonstrate that what they’re doing is applicable to the world and empirical. There is an insatiable need for these kinds of supplies at schools because all of these supplies get used up and worn out. Some schools are barely getting enough funding to keep up with bathroom tissue let alone the luxuries of safety and security and lastly, classroom supplies. This constant need for materials in schools isn’t met and in turn students are suffering.
     Society has an obligation to prolong itself in the future by creating productive, hard-working citizens. Some children don’t believe they have it in themselves to do so and they turn to the streets for some type of direction and acceptance. In the book Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, the streets are often safer than the schoolground. The children in Chicago are being flooded out of their schools by sewage that the city can’t afford to maintain while children just across the street are attending lavish, plentifully staffed magnet schools with selective admission. The children on both sides of this spectrum are born just as capable as one another but through rough circumstances and partisan legislation children in public schools get the short end of the stick. The children in these schools are meant to be kept from this “victim-thinking” the adults speak of that makes them pity themselves and “undermine their capability” (Kozol 57). The adults are afraid that their children will have to come to terms with reality but there’s no blinding them from the world around them; they all know what their options are. Reality to them is the transition over a period of years from “faith and optimism” to “the game’s already over” mentalities. That’s what comes of close to 60% of students in Chicago that drop out. Their unbounded dreams turn to consolations such as drugs and gangs which then set solid limits on their career opportunities and dreams. They’re in turn bound fast to the streets, whether it be by drug addiction or gang affiliation or a criminal record. Victim mentality gives way to street discourse and it’s not likely to change if they’re so submersed in it throughout their lives.     What sets the academic progress of these schools apart from private schools is lack of funding, and more specifically, lack of materials. The children must have resources or they’ll reach a point where they can’t advance any further. Children need not only supplies but confidence to reach their potential. Famous scientists wouldn’t have been able to make the progress we have as the human race without not only executing experiments that require supplies, but using an attitude driven by motivation and ambition. In an instance in another city children were using soda bottles that had been cut into makeshift petri dishes to do an experiment. They were instructed to observe the water’s reaction to a drop on its surface and explain the repercussions but due to lack of proper supplies the experiment cannot be executed and the children missed out on another opportunity. It’s truly embarrassing to America that we would allow the future of the country lie in plastic bottles and sewage. Not one parent in America should want their kids to have no choice but to attend a school without seats on their toilets. The more wealthy families indulge in the funding provided by their property taxes while the poor suffer, many without any property to their name. At some schools the children are expected to bring their own toilet paper. The principal can’t be proud to announce that to parents. A principal with no pride for the school gives off an ambiance that others can detect that he doesn’t care for the school. This attitude rubs off on students and the dropout rates climb.
     Children are the future of technology, innovation, design, invention, and the world. We need to give them the tools they need to make the best of it. These tools are both psychological and material. Without instilling confidence in students we’re depriving them of more than school supplies. Students who realize that they have to strive much harder than students born into better circumstances sometimes don’t believe they have what it takes to maneuver through the educational system and prevail because of many reasons. They may truly not have what it takes if we don’t provide them of both the determination and school supplies they need. We deprive students of the most basic needs and they have no choice in the matter. It’s difficult to make the best of the situation because that requires much more effort than it does to give up on school. America is supposed to be “the place of opportunity” says Chilly, a young Cambodian girl (Kozol 156). She was disappointed to find that her teacher was instructing her to pick easy, low-paying jobs. This sends the message to the student that she’s limited as to her career choices and future careers and that she’s not worthy or capable of a job requiring extensive training and education.
     Supplies can make or break a school. With so many different electives and classes to supply the first thought to some is to cut classes. We must choose which supplies and knowledge our kids can live without. Children are forced to surrender their favorite classes to make way for ones that call for more time and attention. Children have so many different interests that some suffer while others thrive. Some children such as Francisco in the movie “Waiting for Superman” have specialized interests that can’t be facilitated in by a traditional school. Francisco wants to be a “recorder”, which to him means a cinematographer. In the best circumstances he could attend a private school that can afford a film program. In decent circumstances he could attend public a school with a small learning community that specializes in cinematography and film. These SLCs (Small Learning Communities) invest their money in whatever their particular division of education mandates. Instead of spending money on medical supplies, as a healthcare-targeted SLC would, they can spend that same funding on an enriched, film-based curriculum. It seems the solution would be to send your child to a magnet school that focuses on their intended major but in some neighborhoods magnet schools are not an option. There isn’t sufficient funds to pay enough teachers to split children into small learning communities. It’s difficult to attract great teachers in these communities because they can’t offer very high salaries and the result is overly crowded schools with high student to teacher ratios that can’t afford to give each child the supplies they need and the attention they deserve.     Supplies are absolutely necessary for an education because even if a student has a bad teacher, they can still learn the material with enough determination. Amidst the world of problems within public education, resilient student make the best of it and pull through successfully. Students aren’t the problem with education. It’s apparent that the problem is in lack of money and supplies. Some people’s definition of a bad teacher is one that solely reads from the textbook and assigns workbook activities. It seems almost everyone has had a teacher of this nature. For me it was an 11th grade Spanish class in which the teacher would sit in the corner of the room on the phone as fights were erupting throughout the class. It was my health teacher my 2nd year in college that lectured for hours, prohibiting the “distracting interruption” of students’ questions. Neither of these teachers cared enough to interact with students but students from both classes managed to get an “A”. We can’t eradicate bad teachers, especially with the existing teachers’ union contract, so we must conquer what we can and that is lack of supplies.
     Supplies are tools that can indicate the overall quality of the school. Schools that are well-funded tend to achieve more because they can afford not only more educated, experienced and capable teachers but the necessary tools for them to use. Walking into a classroom out of the book Savage Inequalities, you can guess by your surroundings how well the school performs as a whole. More privileged private schools have colorful classrooms with extravagant decorations and supplies and small class sizes. Juxtapose one of the poorly-funded public schools in the area and the classrooms resemble prison cells. What sets these schools apart is supplies. To reform education we need to provide each child with equal supplies and opportunities. Do we really believe that other children deserve more than others because of circumstances they have no control over? If schools don’t have adequate materials to teach children the most fundamental lessons they need to learn they will be left without the drive for advancement. If they realize they’re limited, which will happen eventually, they will lose the drive to pursue anything further. If the future is left in the hands of unmotivated citizens we’re not headed very far. The solution isn’t always clear because you can’t so easily change what the rich have fought so persistently to preserve. What is clear is that lack of supplies and funds is what sets private and 1st tier schools apart. Funding should be distributed by number of pupils per school and teacher, not by whose residence is worth more. The poor can’t afford to be taxed any more for their schools because they have other worries like toxic waste and crumbling houses with rotting pipes. The rich should be taxed proportionately and the money apportioned equally or we will perpetuate the vicious cycle that is the educational system today.

2 Art Schools: Different but Alike
     The two schools I'm comparing and contrasting are Chicago High School for the Arts and East Bay Arts High School. I want to first go into their similarities. Both are public magnet schools that specialize in the arts. Their ratings on various websites indicate that they're almost equal if you had to send your child to one or the other. The first instance of this is in their test scores. It's difficult to compare the two in API terms because Illinois has different standardized tests and parameters for measuring academic success. In science, reading, and math Chicago scored in the 50-55% range on the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Examination), which in perspective is much lower than the state average. Perhaps an eighth judging from pie charts and graphs. They're strong point appears to be reading. East Bay Arts High has a CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) instead of a PSAE that only assesses students in Math and English (both reading and writing). They did a little better, scoring in the 75-80 percentile, excelling in English Language Arts as well.


     The first thing I noticed in the schools that was different was: the percentage of certain races that attend those schools. In the Illinois school 50% of the students are black followed by 28% Hispanic and 14% white. East Bay arts is predominantly Hispanic with 44% in the lead proceeded by 23% white and 22% black. East Bay arts seems more diverse because besides what I've already cited only 6% of students qualify as "other races". East Bay arts has a disproportionate amount of black students in their school. The state average is 7% and EBA accommodates 22%. However, Chicago High School of the Arts has a disproportionate amount of white students: state average is 51%, CHSA has only 14%. This explains itself when you look at statistics in California and Illinois. San Francisco is around only 6% blacks and Chicago is around 33% blacks. 

    In the big scope of education I'd rather send my child to a Third Tier, public, diverse art school than a prestigious almost-all-white, high-achieving private school. I believe college is the time to really hone your knowledge and in high school you're kinda still figuring out who you are and what you want to do. You can make your goals and achievements more tangible through higher education but in grade school you need time to learn social skills and form networks and discover who you are as a person and where you're going. In both schools they are likely equally capable and talented at art and academics.