Education is COOL!

9-11

During the year 2001, September 11 was the 9-11 incident. This is the sumarry of the whole process of the crash. In the morning, 19 terrosrist with connection to al-Queda were invovled. These 19 terrosrist were in 4 groups hijacked 4 commercial passenger jet airlines. The two airliners (United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11) crashed into each tower (1 WTC and 2 WTC). While the other airliner (American Airlines Flight 77) crashed into Pentagon in Arlington Country of Virginia. The forth airliner (United Airline Flight 93) was attemped to be recontrolled by the aircrew and the passengers from the hijackers but it still crashed into a field near Shanksvilles town in the Somerset Country of Pennsylvania. Icluding the hijackers, 2973 died and another 24 were missing were alse presumed dead. This incident drew attention to the whole world.

Link here~

Map

Here goes another one…

I had read Anne’s entry on the 12^th January, 1944 many times. After I read the whole post thoroughly, I want to add on details and knowledge of my own of the last question she wrote, ‘Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?’

Before I answer her question, I want ask, does adults really understand their kids? Do they care whether we are really having any problems besides learning? These came out of me immediately and they keep bouncing off in my head. It seems to me (for those who are in their teens) that our parents seem not to care about anything else than our education and our health. It’s truly confusing that we are discarded from their thoughts of emotions. It’s like they show us love and affection just by a simple hug and kisses. They never, as for me, sat down quietly for a few minutes and just talk about how I feel. I find it lonely and gloomy. Slowly, I decided that I had to hide everything from them and go through all my obstacles ahead of me throughout my teen years.

There was one another question that bothered me, this was brought up by, if I’m not mistaken, Fredrik during class, ‘adults have been kids before, why don’t they understand what their children are doing and seems to discourages it all the time. Do they know it or do they want to hide it? It’s like they have been brainwashed and have no memory of their past. Whenever I ask my parents how their ‘teenhood’ is, they never seem to answer my question clearly. They could’ve gave us a clear explanation, but no, they just said “No, and that’s final!” This phrase is so very unpleasant and ferociously frustrating. All it takes is just one simple explanation to make everything better, but even at their age they still don’t understand how to handle this problem.

As I said it before in my last post, I too can Reach a Bursting Point, we are experiencing puberty and as our bodies are developing, our mind changes too. We may show affection towards others and this is completely normal. This is obviously very hard to tell anyone, especially our parents because to them this is all nonsense and if we’re lucky, we may get a ‘nice’ rebuke. They always said that education is the most important thing when your young, but do they really do that when they were our age. I hardly doubt that.

So there, I answered her question. We all have things going about in our life, well, our personal life. We have souls, not zombies. We have emotions like adults too, but why do they think of us as something that is unnecessary, something that doesn’t contribute to the world (said by Mr. R). We may be small, but we want to be noticed for once, not as kids, but as someone who is taken seriously.   

Today in English class, Mr. R again gave us another writing assignment based on Anne Frank’s Nov 7, 1942 diary entry. After I reread the whole entry again, I have the exact problem as her! Well, at least not that serious.

In spite of Anne being through a hard time when she as developing into a fine young woman, she’s still a little girl in her father’s eye. In her entry, she happened to be in huge trouble over a stupid book. Pim, Anne’s father was simply assuming her youth as her crime. He needn’t to know what happened before even he rebukes her. In this kind of situation, she wrote “I was neither offended nor cross, just miserable.” If it was for me, it would be the same thing. I’m also in my maturing years, during the period I have too been continuously misunderstood. I get told off almost once every single day by my loving parents. It just seems that I don’t get along with anything they agree on, I wanted to stand up for myself once but I never really had the guts to. After all, they’re still my parents and I love them much as they do. I do too understand that they’re still outside working their backs of just to put bread on the table, I know their feelings, I know their pressure, and I absolutely know what their going through, so that’s why I keep the blame for their sake.

What I really have to agree on is the last sentence she wrote, ‘don’t condemn me; remember rather that sometime I too can reach the bursting point’. No kidding! I’m sure everyone has their anger and frustration bottled up till a certain limit when everything just splutters out. Well, after non-stop of complaints and dissatisfaction, I guess that we’ll have to understand better when we grow up. Our thoughts are going through extreme change which affects our social life, it’s a behavior almost all teenagers have to disagree with and avoid grownups. In my opinion, there’s no use of telling them what to do, it’s just the way it is.

Today Mr. R gave us an assignment based on Anne Frank. Imagined that you’re going through World War 2 and you have to leave home and settle down in a secret compartment in a building with nothing but a small bag of stuff. What would you bring? 

To me memories are important, but without things such as entertainment and fun, life would be boring. Sure I will bring some of my memorial items such as photos but it’s not necessary because our family is always together. What I really want to bring are some games such as a pack of cards and a chess set.  By this time, technology won’t come in handy so I refrain myself from bringing such stuff like ipods and laptop.

Even though the world outside is going through complete madness, doesn’t mean that education is over. I would bring a few books to read. This is important to me as I am fond of reading when I’m absolutely bored. I rather study and learn about facts than sitting in front of the calendar crossing off each day that have passed. Last but not least, I want to write everything down in my private and personal journal.

My school has five ESLRs, which are self-directed learners, academic achiever, critical thinker, involved citizen and effective communicator.  I started to make connections of the ESLRs with the experience I had in English class especially discussing and reading the novel Lord of the Flies.        

            I considered myself a self-directed learner at the beginning of reading the novel. I identified my needs and applied appropriate learning strategies. When I found excerpts of the story that were meaningful and interesting, I jotted them down onto post-it notes and stuck them into the book to bookmark for future use. Besides the tiny summaries, I wrote down predictions of what could have happened if there was absence of the important objects. While I was doing my project, I discovered many uses of the notes. It was easy and efficient for me to complete the “objects and symbols” project. The day I started reading this novel, I proved competency in goal setting, time management, and organizational skills by having a timetable drawn up. It was compulsory for me to read at least 2 to 3 pages a day, soon it became a habit. I would add on notes in my folder describing the changes of the characters in the novel and the importance of its appearance since Mr. R told us this hint. The objects and characters in the book all symbolize certain behaviors of the society. For example, Piggy’s glasses symbolize intellect and the sign of ideas and improvement. This helps in a way for me to understand the connection of the novel with the real world. As I was very curious of the various consequences of the novel, I carved down many ‘what ifs?’ question into my folder. For example, conch symbolizes control and order, “what if there was no conch, would there still be any law or order?” I have gone beyond what seems to be a normal book reading routine to a whole new level. I treated this as an experiment; I used resources from the library and the net. I researched this book and applied more learning strategies towards this story. 

            After we completed the novel, it was time to start on the projects. While I was doing my project, although I tried my best to assess, evaluate and adjust my work repeatedly to maintain high standards, the grades were not really satisfying. I did my work more than once to find out what’s missing and how to change it if things were out of order. It was my first project and I spent countless hours and put much effort into it. I not only used information of the novel, I also surfed the net to obtain more resources, reader’s notes and comments of the novel. This changed my whole view about the book, the comments and notes were additional knowledge to guess the possible modified version of Lord of the Flies. Illustrations make up an essential part of the grade, which was why I looked up for the pictures of the objects which had the properties described in the novel. Unexpectedly, the grade of the project was very disappointing to me. Finally, I accepted the fact that I was hard-headed and was unwilling to accept advice given; but at least I’ve gotten the picture of what a good project should be. This showed that I was not much of an academic achiever. Next time, I will put in more effort and try to achieve better grades.

I have shown the ability and skills of a critical thinker. Besides that, we have had regular meetings about the story line and the appearance of each important symbol. During discussions, I listed down everything that came in handy, I ranked each items by its value and the times it appeared. The new knowledge was then combined with the old information and data to conclude a final idea of the meanings. This indicates the ability of building meaning and understanding using prior knowledge and new information. As I am a student who does research, I have shown the ability to identify, evaluate and use resources effectively for the purpose of problem solving.

            Whenever good complicated questions where shot out during our regular class discussions, the whole group would think of suggestions and solutions. This activity was important because it helped us identified the significance of the book. I found out that we had shown care and concern of the boys’ environment and situations they were facing in the Lord of the Flies, which of course, demonstrated that we have the characteristics of an involved citizen. During negotiations, I listened respectfully to others when they spoke, and demonstrated awareness and respect for the right of others. For example, while someone talks, I’ll look at him/her and write down notes or nod my head whenever what is said makes sense. I noticed that some of my classmates should be more concerned of the environment. What I really wished would happen was that others would try to listen to my suggestions and don’t interrupt my speech.

           The last ESLR, was being an effective communicator. This was a challenge for me as I said I wasn’t able to be heard. There was a boy in the book, named Simon; he was also not much of an effective communicator. He had the intuition and right view to lead, what was missing was that he just wasn’t able to express it. This is the thing I want to improve on. In addition to discussions, Mr. R gave us a class activity before we started the book. We walked in the class. It was dark. We heard noises of birds screeching, the sounds of waves washing to the shore, “Swoosh!” There by the corner, was a ‘ghost’. Mr. R, stood with a pen held in his hand. The activity was for us to have a first impression of what the book is like; instructions were showed on the board. The activity was fun, although we had not enough time to finish, the experience was entertaining. If only we had enough time working and not goofing around, we would be able to complete the task on time. This showed that we were lack of effective collaboration skill. After we completed the book, he gave us the similar activity to do again. This was more serious because we had to separate ourselves into groups regarding our personality test result to have a better outcome on our jobs. This personality test, known as Meyer’s Brigg’s test, is testing yourself whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, uses sense or intuition; prefer thinking or feeling and judging or perception. Too bad almost all of my group members were extroverts. We weren’t able to cooperate really well. There were several arguments, but at last my group got together and we collaborated with each other in appropriate learning situations to achieve a group goal.

Ideas

For this journal assignment, I used the ESLRs to make connections with everything I’ve experienced from the start of the school year, throughout the class, and activities I’ve done as a team and individually.

Organization  

I arranged my journal in six paragraphs, each containing one ESLR except the first paragraph which is the introduction.

Voice

For voice, I made changes to some of my sentences to make it sound more interesting to the readers.

Eg.

(i)                  Whenever good and complicated questions where shot out during our regular class discussions, the whole group would think of suggestions and solutions.

(ii)                There by the corner, was a ‘ghost’, known as Mr. R, stood a pen held in his hand.

Word Choice

Initially when I was writing my journal, I had never realize how many repetitions of certain words I made. Eventually I made some changes to it.

Eg.       Discovered- proven, found out

            Demonstrated- shown  

            Discussions- meetings

            Besides- in addition     

            Ideas- views

            Importance- value

            Important- essential

            Comments- explanation

            Notes- remarks

            Bad- worse

Sentence Fluency      

I wrote down a few sentences which weren’t very fluent at all. That is to say that I made corrections to which I have down wrong.

Eg. 

Before

I have not only uses information of the book, I surfed the net to obtain more resources, reader’s notes and comments of the book. This changed my whole view about the book, the comments and notes were additional knowledge to guess the possible modified version of Lord of the Flies.

After

I treated this as an ‘experiment’; I used resources from the library and the net. I researched this book and applied more learning strategies towards this story.

Conventions              

I looked up and fixed all the errors I could find in my journal. I read the whole journal more than once to search for grammar mistakes and spellchecked it. I tried my best to make sure my ideas were clearly presented to the audience.

You all may think courage is being physically strong, tough and fierce. Well, let me tell you something, it’s wrong. Courage to me means being brave and standing tall. Those who are small in size and weak doesn’t make them a coward, it’s their courageous and their on-going attitude that made them strong and fearless. Courage may be taking risks but it’s also the ability to confront the world in a different way and have everything in the palms of your hands. Courage is the way of a leading and successful life, but in order to have it is not as easy as buying it off the shelves. It takes years and years of confident built up in you to be used to the shame and gain total control of your life. Don’t ever let fear manipulate your future, owned it and get rid of it in order to have a bright successful future.

Hi, my name is Gene. I have open this blog to all of you who are interested in my writing, you are all welcome read my interesting masterpieces. Have fun!!!