Blogs

First Quarter
Blog Reflection 1:**Longer School Days** Obama recently said that he wants to have a longer school year. Children in the United States go to school about a month less than children in other advanced countries. The President believes a longer school year is what is right for the country but what a bout a longer school day instead? There are many schools in the country that have longer schools day than average and have high achieving students. KIPP schools for one example are very successful and have school days that are very long. But personally I don't think a longer school day is very plausible. Teachers usually work more hours than just the schools day. The average school teacher works about 50 hours a week. This makes me think that most teachers would be opposed to working even more hours.I also think that children get tired and would not be able to focus during those extra hours. If the goal is to make american children be in school more, in my opinion, a longer school year is more plausible. The article also talks about having a longer school day would insure that students would be guaranteed more healthy meals that they may not have the opportunity for at home. An additional point made in the article is that a longer school day would keep kids feeling safe longer if they live in bad neighborhoods. Both of those are good points. To have longer school days though I think that something else would have to be let go. Today american students are given much more homework than they used to and perhaps if there was less then teachers would have less work to grade and both students and teachers would get enough time to relax from a longer school day.

Blog Reflection 2:**The School-Lunch Problem** First Lady Michelle Obama is trying to get Democrats to pass a bill on nutrition in school lunches. The problem with this bill is that it isn't the one that democrats originally wanted. The senate's version of the bill does not give as much money to children and allows some of the money to go to other programs. I think that more of the money should go to children. It is really unfortunate at school, of all places, children can not get a healthy meal. I have heard of schools where children are given pizza for breakfast. That's insane! At many schools kids eat both breakfast and lunch; two out of the three main meals of the day. Especially for children who are not as fortunate as others and may not be gettinga third meal at home it is important that they get those two healthy meals at school. The article also mentioned the bill making it easier for kids to be a part of the free lunch program. That is also a good idea. Its easy to decide to only by a cookie instead of the hot lunch because of the price. I think that the senate's bill may not be wwhat the democrats had originally wanted but it is a step in the right direction. At lkeast nutrition in schools would be getting a little money. That won't solve the problem but its a good first step.

Blog Reflection 3: **Discrimination And Achievement** This article spoke of discrimination and how it is still a big issue today. The author describes how he believes that the government cannot do anything to help stop discrimination because discrimination is no longer about racism. It is now more about differences in culture. I mostly agree with his point of view. He also wrote about how the achievement gap between whites and people of color is the biggest gap between the races. In my opinion the only thing the government can do to aid against discrimination is to help the education system. If all schools could be considered "good schools" then in coming years the achievement gap would close and so would discrimination. Unfortunately most failing schools are attended by minority students. I believe that closing the achievement gap will also close the racial gap in incarcerations, unemployment, and physical health. If minorites were gauranteed a good education like everyone in the United States is supposed to recieve then all the other racial gaps would close. People who recieve a solid education are less likely to be unemployed or incarcerated.

Blog Reflection 4:**Kids Eat a Lot of Empty Calories, and Most of Them Come from Junk Food** It is a well known fact that kids today eat too much junk food. I can admitt that I am one of those kids. This article puts the blame on the media for being the reason that 40% of what children between the ages of two and eighteen eat is empty calories. Childhood obesity is a huge issue in the U.S. The blog also points out that poor people are more likely to be obese than wealthy people. This is due to junk food being cheap and easily accessable. The blog also showed a commercial for bagel bites as an example of how the media makes it seem like such a great thing to eat junk food. I know it made me want to eat bagel bites. I think that schools should take time to educate children about nutrition. Another thing thatt schools can do to help fight childhood obesity is make sure that at school, lunch is affordable and healthy. If at least in school they were given a healthy meal it would be less empty calories that they would consume in a day.

Second Quarter
Blog Reflection 1:**The Little Picture: Word Banning** This blog was a picture with a caption under it. It was a picture of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain at the Museum in Missouri. Next month NewSouth Books is going to be releasing a new edition of the book in which the "n word" will be replaced by the word slave. I do not think that is okay. It is changing an authors work and I don't think that is okay. Tons of books have foul language in them and they are not changed. Mark Twain is a very respected author and to change his words would take away from the book. Though "the n word" is not a word that people find acceptable today it was more accepted in the time the book takes place.

Blog Reflection 2:**Really, There Is No Link Between Vaccines and Autism** This was a really interesting article. BMJ, a british medical journal published its investigation on Dr.Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study. His study linked autism to vaccines and has been reatracted. BMJ now says that it was not a scientific error but a delibrate lie. The report says that he was contracted by lawyers to say this even if it was untrue so that they could sue the vaccine manufacturs. People place a lot of trust in doctors and this link has lead to many children not being vaccinated out of fear and getting ill because of it. That a doctor would delibrately lie about something so serious is terrible. Many parents believe in the linkv between vaccines and autism and children have suffured because of it. I think that it is a horrible thing for a doctor to do. Children have suffered and died because of Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

Blog Reflection 3:**The Economics of Law School** This article talked about the value of a law degree. Going to law school is very expenesive and it is not worth as much as it used to be. The article also mentioned how schools make their statistics look better. For example on the amount of students employed after graduating from law school in nine months. The students who are working minimum wage at clothing stores or are waiting tables at a restaurant are considered employed even though they are not using their degree.The article finishes on a point that if you are going to a top law school with good grades that law school is a good idea but going to a an okay law school and getting into a lot of debt is not worth it. I agree with this and think that getting into a lot of debt when your going to school is a bad idea and that people should try to stay away from that happening. Especially if the career they are planning on going into is something like law that when a degree from a so-so school is not going to get you where you want to be.

Blog Reflection 4:**The Cable Will Be Alright** This article talked about how DVR is changing the way people are viewing television and how rating for late night shows have gone up because of them. I was suprised to find out that almost half of people watching tv on a DVR still watch the commercials. Why do people watch the commercials? If I watch tv it is almost always from the DVR and I never sit through the commercials. The author of the article also talked about taking back their prediction that cable was going to end. Saying that DVR was saving cable and I think this is true. I no I now watch more television than I used to because I can record it before hand and watch shows that are going on at the same time.

Blog Reflection 5:**Teaching the Hardest Kids to Teach** In this article I learned about a new that people are teaching. At Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding high school in New Hampshire, students in small classes work collaboratively and hold discussions around tables.Now a school in Brookln, where the students come from poor families and 20% of them have an emotional, physical, or learning disability the same idea is bbeing tried by Simon Waronker. He puts a few classrooms of children in one room together for an active, group learning environment. He believes that though the students may get a bit chaotic that most schools have that problem and that maybe children are having to much pressure on them to sit and be quiet. I think it is great to have educators trying different techniques and ideas out trying to find out what works. It is also great that though Waronker first developed this idea at a boarding school he is now using it to teach the students that need the most help to excel. Also he admits that doing this is necessary to find out if an idea really works because those kids are the ones who are hardest to teach.

Blog Reflection 6: **Women in Combat** This article was about the positions which women are allowed to enter in the army. Since the 1990s women have not been barred from direct ground combat career fields and assignments. I do not think that this is fair. It keeps women from making careers out of the military and getting the type of pay that combat gets. Although the last career I would ever consider going into is the military I think that if a woman wants to make a career out of the military and go into direct ground combat that she should be able to have that opportunity. Many woman do see combat but because of the barriers they face they are not able to make the military a life-long career. I agree with Shani O. Hilton, the author of the article, that the barrier in place is discrimination. I was suprised to learn that there were parts of the military that women could not go into. I was unaware of that before I read this article.

=﻿Third Quarter=