Education

I just get so frustrated when people don't read. Reading is essential to understanding the world that is around us. We must read in order to expolre many of the places that we would normally never go. Reading is fundamental to life. As of right now I am reading President Obama's book The Audcacity of Hope. I must say that it is a great book so far and would recommend it to anyone trying to get into politcs. My whole problem with reading stems from my students at summer camp who can cite Kanye West but have no idea who Andrew Jackson was. It straight pisses me off to know that the school system is failing these students. These students think that the founding fathers P. Diddy and Lil Wayne insted of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. This is not the students fault though. This is the fault of our school system that we have in place. The curriculum in the schools doesn't do justice to our founding father. Every child should know Abraham Lincoln didn't care about freeing the slaves. He only cared about the north being in better economic standing then the south. The students need to know that Andrew Jackson was a gun slinging indian scalping illiterate whose claim to fame before being president and taking doing the federal bank was killing thousands of indians two weeks after the war was over. They need to know and understand what Nixon did was wrong and no matter who you are nobody is above the law including the president.Each student needs to know the bill of rights and understand them in order to fight the government if they impose on those rights. This is what schools need to teach and they need to start in elementary school rather than as an elective in high school. Becuase by then so much of our youth are losted by that point. It is very imperative that we change the way we run our schools. We need to get far away from notion of just harping on math, reading and science. We all know why this is happening. It happenening becuae america is full of show me people. We have to have the best and the only way we can be the best is by focusing soley on what matters to the world. we are taking the indvidual out schooing and are saying that all learn the same which is wrong. Because the governement wants to brag to other countries that we have the smartest mathematicians its your children that are paying the price. Its stupid if you ask me. What we need to do is make well rounded people who help the greater good of the nation. We need to stray from the banking concept of teaching. We need to start using the liberation method so that people can interpret the world the way they see and not the way the teacher os telling them to see it. The best understanding is when you can put it in your own terms. When one does that theyown that material. I want our children to own the material across all facets of life. i want our children to be scholars and want to succeed and with the current No Child Left Behind Act still in tact Every Child Will Be Left Behind.

America Land of Opportunity or Land of inequality

The dictionary’s definition of inequality is as followed the condition of being unequal; lack of equality; disparity. When people think of inequality they immediately go to race and ethnicity but there is more to inequality then just race and ethnicity. In America we are surrounded by inequality. In 2007 46 million Americans did not have health insurance. Can someone tell me why 18 percent of the riches country’s people don’t have health insurance? In some places we can’t even walk down the street without seeing a homeless person. Why does the riches country in the world have on any given night anywhere from 700,000 to two million homeless people? We have schools that don’t have the resources needed for students to achieve a proper education. These problems are because of the growing inequalities that are rampant throughout our society. Why do we have inequality? Where does inequality come from? If you go all the way back to start of our country, inequality was present. Racial inequality was rampant through the slave trade and inequality was the foundation of our society??? In Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the constitution, it was written that slaves would be freed. This obviously didn’t happen because the other leaders were opposed to letting their labor go because of the economic strains it would put them in. Those leaders didn’t think about the slaves. They thought about themselves. We in America are selfish and we only do things in the best interest of ourselves. These leaders had the chance to nip racial inequality in the butt early but because of the innate selfishness that we are born with they couldn’t do what was right. They couldn’t do it because it wasn’t in their best interest and in this case the only interest that matters is the one who is power. We were destined for inequality before any of us were even born. Inequality is almost in our blood because we are American. We are socialized growing up that inequality is the norm here in America. Whether that be because we are looking at the disparity of resources allocated to schools or looking at how many people can afford quality healthcare inequality has been socialized to be the norm in our society. In this country we often hear people say life isn’t fair. When someone says that common phrase to me I reply with a simple why. Why can’t life be fair? Life can’t be fair because we are rationalizing with the realization that we have been socialized to think inequality is acceptable. Inequality is not acceptable and it never will be acceptable in my book. Inequality is a direct effect of greediness and selfishness and until we can no longer put ourselves first inequality will be prevalent in our society.

Greediness
Greediness is almost synonymous with the word American. The dictionary’s definition of the word greediness is as followed: excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves. In America you can walk into a bank and see about four huge 42 inch flat screen TVs plastered around the bank. Why are they there? Why do they need those TVs in a Bank? Who is watching it? I know when I go into the bank I go there to deposit money or take money out and leave. I don’t go to a bank to watch TV. It’s ludicrous for them to spend that type of money on just a TV when we have people with no healthcare and schools with outdated books. This is inequality at its best folks. These major corporations throw million dollar parties for CEO’s with shareholder’s money. That is inequality at its best. I’m arguing for the little guy who put his hard earned money in some stock and loses it because the CEO gambled with their life savings. In America we have our priorities set wrong. We tend to be “show me” people. “Show me” meaning show me how big your house is, show me how much your car is, and show me how big your TV is compared to mines. We don’t need these huge houses, fancy cars, and big TVs. What we need is to stop our greedy gluttonous ways in order to invoke change. We need healthcare reform, we need education reform, and we need inequality to go away. When there is greediness there is inequality. Where there is inequality there is disparity. Where there is disparity then no one should be able to sleep at night. Greediness is the reason we are in this economic meltdown in the first place and until we all band together for change we will continue in a downward spiral to economic misery. We can change our greedy ways but it will take time and a lot effort on the part of everybody. We can’t sit here and expect the government to do everything for us. We need to tell the government what we the people want. The government gets it power because its people give it power. It is now time that we the people start to use our power for the greater good of the society. Greed is all around us from dirty politics to the outsourcing of many of our jobs. We need to take back politics and our jobs. We need to impose sanctions on businesses that outsource jobs. Outsourcing of jobs is despicable in all sense of the word. It is a direct slap to the face to the American people and to the people they are outsourcing the jobs to. We need to feed our families before we outsource and feed other peoples families. We have people here in America who are in need of jobs. We need to go away from the notion that money makes the world go round. Money does not make the world go round we allow money to change us into greedy selfish malevolent people. I understand that we live in America where one should be able to make as much money as they can without government interference but we need to go away from that notion and take a little cut in order to help all of society. We all can be financially empowered but the only way that can happen is if greediness is not present. Inequality can be fixed but in order for it to be fixed we will need to sacrifice some of the liberties we enjoy here in America.

Supply Side Demand Side education

After hearing about president Obama's education plan it has left me shocked and appalled that this is the man that i voted for. As an aspiring teacher I am really agitated that the 4 billion dollars that Obama has proposed for education is only for the schools that achieve well. now i am fan of Barack but to hear that he thinks that 4 billion dollars needs to go only to the schools that do well doesn't seem logical to me at all. i thought that he was opposed to any type No Child Left behind act principals. Any logical person knows that you don't pump a tire that already has air with more air. You give air to the tire that needs it the most. In this case the schools that are failing. Now if i were president i put 4 billion dollars to a program called "supply side demand side education". In economics democrats normally go with demand side economics. They think that giving tax breaks and rebates to the middle class will stimulate the economy or at least pay back some of the debt they have accrued. On the other hand republicans would give tax cuts to the businesses to supply more items and lower costs. Now the way this goes to my plan is as followed. I believe that the parents are biggest factor in any child's schooling. Based on the education of the parent is whether school will be valued or devalued by the child. I propose that we stop pouring money into getting this high tech equipment but rather put it into educating the parents. Parents need to understand how important the environment is for a student. I guarantee if the parent didn't value school then 9 times out of 10 the child will be in an environment where they don't value school. It a cycle that goes over and over and it makes me sick because these kids don't have a fighting chance. Parents need to understand that student can't take of care of their little brother and sisters because they have homework to do. I believe that if we educated our parents with workshops as to how to help their children be the best they can be, we would have a muchmore productive system. In my plan i want to give tax breaks to businesses that allow their workers to take off in order to go to parent teacher meetings and workshops. Education is a important means of social mobility in this country and i think we all need to aid in the process of making sure everyone has the education needed to make that change. That change starts with our parents and ends with a brighter future for not only our students but America as a whole also.

health Care reform

I having been watching the latest health care reforms and I have to say I am not pleased in the manner that the so called Democratic process is working. From the screaming and shouting in the town hall meetings to the blatant outrage of the bill it seems as if we are talking about going to war with Mexico instead of our first fighting chance at real health care reform. I am sure that our founding fathers are loving how this whole debate has panned out. As a liberal democrat I am for the health care bill and would like to see it passed. I think that we have an obligation as humans to make sure that all people have quality health care. I understand that the reason that most people are against the reform is because they don't want the government telling them what to do. I just as the next person also do not want the government to tell me what to do but in case of real health care reform i think it is necessary that we at least listen to what they have to say. At the current rate health care cannot go on in the way it is going because it will break an already broken bank system. We as a country elected Obama and knew what his agenda was so if you knew his agenda and what he wanted to do with health care then why did we put him into office in the first place. I can guess that many of you have not read the entire 700 plus page bill and are listening to your biased party leaders to tell you the facts. That is wrong because if you listen to your party leaders they aren't going to tell you the whole truth about the health care bill. Everyone knows that the only way to insure 46 million Americans is to raise someones taxes. In Obama plans that is only for the people that can afford this in the troubling times that are upon us. That is the people who make 250,000 dollars or more. If the taxes were raised, is that so bad. i heard people say the reason that they don't want reform is because even if they don't get sick they have to pay for someone else. If you have a problem with paying for someone else then you have a problem with our education system which goes off of property taxes. That money is taxed whether you have a kid that goes to public school or not. We need to band together as a nation put our greedy selfish ways away and put ourselves in the 46 million Americans shoes who don't have health insurance.