Reflection

Looking back on the year in AiS class, I feel like it was nothing that I ever expected to get out of a class. I took so much out of this class in the past nine months than I think I have in any other class. It really makes me think of how much I have been shaped as a person. I now know more about different themes and symbolism and analyzing than I could have learned from any class. To be perfectly honest, when I came to AiS in August, I was a little skeptical of how much I was going to learn this year, or even what I was going to learn. Especially after the "Death of Mr. Bolos" exercise, I knew that I was in for one heck of a ride.
One thing I am taking away from this class is how I look at the world. I don't think there has been any one thing that I have not looked deeper into since the start of the school year. From looking through the lens of TV tokenism, or showing if something is more idealistic or realistic, I have grown both with knowledge and as a writer. Honestly, I have sat around with my friends from class on a weekend and just talked about how much we have taken away. It is amazing how one class can really effect the way you think for a lifetime. Truly amazing.
Although I would have been just as happy in a normal English class or learning about US History as some teacher would say is "the right way" to teach US History, I think that more schools should take advantage of this way of learning because the way we communicate in class is way above a high schooler's way of thinking. The thoughts and opinions that I have heard throughout this class are phenomenal and really made me think so much more critically. Thanks to Bolos and the OC for making this a great year!

The Power of Words

So this is going to be somewhat random, but I was thinking about everything we have done this year and wondering what the power of words are. So, to start, what is a word? I don't want to get all psychological and whatever, but do people really understand the gravity of their words when they speak them? In light of getting our Junior Themes back, I have been contemplating this a lot. I think the problem with papers like those are that people say want to say in their paper a lot more than they say what they have to say, meaning that they get so caught up in the topic of choice that they want to say everything that they have learned very blatantly instead of sticking what they should say to make a great paragraph. For people who are confused, because my words are confusing even myself: Do you say what you want to say or do you say what you have to say? For me, I say what I want to say a whole lot more than I say what I need to say. This is sometimes good, because it makes me be an honest and opinionated person, but it is also has its faults, like hurting someone or not answering the question you were originally asked. This doesn't really make sense, but its just something I have been thinking about lately.

Immigration

Immigration has been on my mind a lot lately because it has become the topic of discussion in my Spanish class. After watching the movie "El Norte" ("The North") in class, I have seen how illegal immigrants are treated both in their own countries and the United States. I think that it is a very complicated situation, but there should be some ways that we can help immigrants be legalized.
I decided to blog about this topic when I saw an article on the NY Times front page about how "270 Illegal Immigrants were sent to prison" yesterday. I think that it really sucks that there is nothing that these people can do to come into the United States legally. Also, one of the main reasons why immigrants come into the US is so that they can life a better or easier life, but they come over here and are put into factories to do all of the dirty work. What is the fairness in that? The unit changed my form of thinking for immigration because of this.
A question that I had to respond to for my class after finishing the unit is "Do you have any advice for the candidates for the presidency about the Immigration laws?" All I could say to that is, that I don't have any concrete thoughts, but I think that the immigrants who come into this country looking for a better life should feel more safe in the US. I think that it is not fair for immigrants to feel that they are in danger both in their countries and in ours. On the other hand, I believe that the laws in the US are as fair as they could be, for now, because the citizens of the US need to feel like they are not in danger also.
Thats all I have to say about that.

"Stumbling on Happiness"

So I just finished reading the pages in "Stumbling on Happiness" and the thing I was most surprised about was the graph. The graph (on page 243) shows that parents are most happy before they have children, and after their children leave home. The scales flicker in between those two points, but the are highest at those two. One thing that did not surprised me was that every one of the study's graphs went up from children who are 5 to children who are 10. I think that is understandable because the children are becoming less dependent on the parents and are learning to be at school and by themselves more. Surprisingly, every graph went way down for teenagers 12-16, and that is because of the difficulty that most teens have with their parents.
I found the excerpt really interesting because of the way it shows how people lie in the "belief game" example. Although people want to be honest, the article says, they have to lie and say that their happiness is in their children so they aren't to be blamed for "hating" (using that word lightly) their own children. Overall, I thought the article was interesting.

Junior Theme #3

After about another week of research, I have found my topic to be even more interesting than I though it would be. I have chosen to interview a special education teacher at a Transition School (18-22 year olds), but I have not been able to contact her as of yet.
I finshed my book last night. The only usuable part for my paper was the first half, or when the narrator was in primary and secondary school, but it was still interesting to read about the full like of an undiagnosed woman with autism. She went through her whole life, or at least until she was 26, before knowing what exactly she had, with people for the first 26 years of her life just calling her "disturbed" or "slow." It is really interesting to see the world through the lens of someone with autism, especially because I spend 2 periods of every school day with students who have the disease. Now, I can actually understand where they are coming from, and exactly why they do not feel emotions or even have that much communication with "our world" versus "their own world."
For my paper, I have only written an introduction, but I am very satisfied with it. I plan to write about a paragraph each night, and the next section of our paper is due Monday.

Illinois and Developmental Disabilities

During advisory today, I was at an ELS (Enriching Lives through Service) meeting. For those who do not know, ELS is a club at our school that allows regular-ed students to interact with special-ed student in a classroom environment. I participate in ELS during all of my free periods, which is about 8 periods each week. At the meeting, the sponsor brought up an article that was sent to him. I just read the article and was very surprised by what it said. It was about how out of the 50 states in the US, Illinois is 51st (when District of Columbia included) out of all of the states to have general funding for people with Developmental Disabilities. Think about it: the 10th most wealthiest state in the nation funds people with disabilities the least? That does not make any sense at all to me. The article said that in order for Illinois to reach average spending would take about $250 million. I think that something needs to be done so that students with disabilities all over Illinois can be taught at the exact level that they need to be taught at. I plan to use this article as evidence in my Junior Theme.

Junior Theme #2

So I have not blogged in a while, but this is just to tell you where I am going with Junior Theme. It took me a while, but I finally got a question. It started out as Why are there so many laws about the rights of and the responsibilities to people with special needs? I discovered that this is not exactly what I was looking for, so it changed to Why should society pay for autism therapy? Finally, my real question that I am most likely going to stick with is Why is there such an increase in the demand for special education?

Since there is such a wide range of disabilities, I plan to focus mainly on autism. I have looked on CQ Researcher, and I found a report that I will use. I have looked at a couple different books on autism, such as The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin, and I have finally landed on Without Reason by Charles Hart. This book is about a man who copes with having both an older brother and a son diagnosed with autism. It is a little long, but I feel that it will be a very interesting book to read. One other thing that I am looking forward to doing is finding a movie that I can watch relating to this subject. So far I think I will watch Rain Man or Forrest Gump.