This needs to be rebloggable …
Kiera Wilmot made an honest mistake, but the police were trying to throw away her life with a felony. After the community stood up for the girl, the charges were dropped, and she was allowed to move on with her life. Well, her greatness is really starting to shine, as she was recently granted several extraordinary opportunities through scholarship offers she has received.
Dr. Boyce Watkins recently wrote about another group of students who were arrested for throwing water balloons. Is it now open season on black children? We have to start asking ourselves why it’s suddenly become so easy for a black child to be sent to prison or jail. It appears that learning and education have been outlawed by the school systems, but getting arrested has become a leading trend. Rev. Jesse Jackson also regularly mentions all the schools in Chicago with “old books but brand new metal detectors.”
Dr. Christopher Emdin, a professor of education at Columbia University, says that the schools are now very similar to prisons in terms of how they are structured, and how the inhabitants are treated. Kiera overcame her situation, but there are thousands of kids across the country who aren’t so lucky. Maybe it’s time to attack the system that is attacking us.
Check this out from Gawker:
Kiera Wilmot, the 16-year-old honor student expelled from her high school after she allegedly ignited a chemical explosion on school property, received a full scholarship to the U.S. Space Academy, courtesy of a NASA veteran who, as a teenager, was accused of starting a forest fire during a science experiment.
The lessons here are simple: Black kids have potential, and we can’t allow this system to destroy them. Also, hard work always pays off, especially when it comes to education. Dr. Boyce Watkins and Minister Louis Farrakhan recently held a forum called “Wealth, Education, Family and Community: A New Paradigm for Black America.” In the forum, Dr. Watkins and Min. Farrakhan both agree that African Americans are going to have to think differently when it comes to deciding what it means for your kids to be educated.
“Only a fool allows those who hate him to educate his children,” says Dr. Watkins. ”People also have to learn that there is a difference between going to school and truly being educated.”
Dr. Watkins shares video from his forum with Min. Farrakhan in a popular online class that he is offering. Watkins says that new paradigms of thought must be embraced by African Americans if they are going to confront the ills of the American educational system.
“If we don’t stand up to this nonsense, then no one will,” says Dr. Watkins, who was placed in special education as a child. “We are in a war for the souls and future of our children. ”
What Books Did You Read in School?
(Like, in say AP English or your freshman in college lit class.)
I am asking because we are thinking about the future of Crash Course and stuff. Okay thanks.
OH GOD THERE WERE A LOT (Honors/AP student + love of lit courses = oops), LET’S SEE HOW MANY I REMEMBER (note: I took honors throughout high school and don’t feel like noting that every time :Bb)
Much of high school was a lot of classical or general literary texts from The Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Inferno in AP English to Brave New World in 10th grade though there were a few contemporary texts sprinkled in there.
I remember To Kill a Mockingbird, Huck Finn, Barrio Boy, Romeo and Juliet, and Lord of the Flies in 9th grade, though reading for the summer before was The Joy Luck Club and Picture of Dorian Gray.
11th grade gave us The Great Gatsby (I loathed it reading it that time), All the King’s Men, and others that refuse to come to mind right now, oops.
In addition to Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Inferno, AP English also gave us Pride and Prejudice and Macbeth while the summer reading for that year was The Kite Runner and Snow Falling on Cedars. I know I also read All Quiet on the Western Front and one of Hemingway’s novels, but I can’t for the life of me remember which years those were much less which Hemingway novel. uvu
College is a little more exciting and thus easier to remember. I took four lit courses over the years; 20th century American Lit, Modern Japanese Lit, Holocaust Lit, and YA Lit.
The ones I remember more vividly from the 20th century lit course were Passing, The Great Gatsby (and this time I started actually liking it, lol), and The Woman Warrior.
Modern Japanese Lit was one of my fave courses both in my major (Japanese) and throughout college. That course’s highlights were The Broken Commandment, Rashomon, Kokoro, and my personal favorite, The Housekeeper and the Professor (MATH AND ROMANCE, I CAN DIE SO HAPPY WITH THIS NOVEL *A*).
Holocaust Lit was heavy (as to be expected with the subject matter), but one I’d take again if given the chance. Highlights from that class were I Have Lived a Thousand Years, Maus, The Sunflower, Count the Stars (third time reading that one), The Book Thief, The Reader, and Sarah’s Key.
YA Lit was the last of the lit courses I took, just this past semester, and loved every second of it. This, I’m fairly sure I can name all the titles, ehehe. We read Monster, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Speak, 13 Reasons Why, Divergent, Sold, Out of the Dust, Between Shades of Grey, The Book Thief (yup, another reread for me x3), and Feed. I also read The Barcode Tattoo (was not impressed tbh) and Matched as independent response paper books. :Bb Also, our prof was sad she couldn’t fit in a book from you this semester, though she had one in the fall semester’s class. xD
…good god, this turned out one hell of a lot longer than I’d planned it to. 8|
It annoys me how if you’re not good at Art or Music it’s okay because you’re just “not talented” in that area but if you’re not good at Science, Maths or English you’re “dumb”.
It annoys me how if you’re good at Art or Music you’re “super talented” and “special” and “creative” but if you’re good at Science or Maths you’re a nerd.
It annoys me how Science and Maths are considered the ultimate arbitrators of truth and reality and how Art and Music are considered expendable when educational budgets are cut and how the Humanities aren’t considered rigorous enough and how literary analysis and cultural studies are considered intuitive and emotional i.e not as ‘valid’ as ‘real’ knowledge like Science and Math, and how nobody acknowledges the discipline and cultivated knowledge it takes to be an artist or a musician (also IDK which school in the 1950s you graduated from but as a girl who loved to carry around the complete works of Shakespeare I assure you I was called a nerd plenty of times). The only difference is that science and math nerds get to be professors in colleges that wield all the power in universities while those of us who teach about writing and art make some of the lowest academic salaries and are constantly fighting to maintain our disciplines against institutional aggression.
Also, neither the Sciences or the Humanities are welcoming to women of color.
OOPS TRUTHBOMBS.
I know where all the funding goes on this campus — and it goes to the Engineers and the Business school.
"You mean the generation that paid three times as much for college to enter a job market with triple the unemployment isn’t interested in purchasing the assets of the generation who just blew an enormous housing bubble and kept it from popping through quantitative easing and out-and-out federal support? Curious."
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When comments are better than the article, Atlantic edition (“The Cheapest Generation: Why Millennials arent’ buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy”)
Every time someone says we’re a lazy and entitled generation I’m going to show them this
They should be happy most of us haven’t moved to the moon yet
That actually sounds like a good idea at this point
(via setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain)
“Just get another job”
Yeah okay I’ll go get one from the job tree, along with everyone else who graduated with my qualifications while more are coming all the time
(via nannairb)
Even those of us with jobs, we have to be ready to move at any time because job security isn’t what it used to be and if we want to have any hope of moving up or getting a decent pay raise, you pretty much have to switch jobs. I’m not going to become a slave to a mortgage and I don’t have the time or energy to deal with buying or selling a house.
(via icetigris)
"We shouldn’t be profiting from our students who are drowning in debt while we’re giving great deals to big banks, – the same banks, that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke this economy."
Do you ever think about the fact that the US has created and legitimized a system of institutionalized inequality by funding schools through property taxes? That basically a child’s education is only as good as the value of the property in their neighborhood. Funny how education is so often viewed as an equalizing factor when there is nothing equal about it.
17 May '13 | 12:18am + 16,340 notes + reblog
laughing through tears.
Omfg that shirt though
livin da chai lyfe
"The SAT is a scam. It has been around for 50 years. It has never measured anything. And it continues to measure nothing. And the whole game is that everybody who does well on it, is so delighted by their good fortune that they don’t want to attack it. And they are the people in charge. Because of course, the way you get to be in charge is by having high test scores. So it’s this terrific kind of rolling scam that every so often, somebody sort of looks and says—well, you know, does it measure intelligence? No. Does it predict college grades? No. Does it tell you how much you learned in high school? No. Does it predict life happiness or life success in any measure? No. It’s measuring nothing."
Hits from NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL COLLEGE: 3
- “I Wrote a 4 Page Paper This Morning” by Jaded Honors Student
- “Stop Making Out with the Sophomores” by brly emplyd
- “Laundry Quarters” by YogaPantz & the Hooded Sweatshirt
- “Popcorn for Lunch” by 2Broke4U
- “jPad Apples” by The Diederich Darlings
- “I Can Sleep When I Am Dead” by DJ y.o.c.o
*(You Only College Once remix)
bonus track! “The Never Ending Winter” by Cream City Chillin’
do people honestly think that honors students dont cheat
i dare anyone who thinks that to spend a day with a group of honors student friends and see how many times they copy each other within ten minutes
See here’s the thing. In the real world, sharing your work with your peers is called ‘collaboration’ and isn’t considered cheating because you’re all in a collaborative effort to all get the very best answer you can all get. Because none of us is as smart as all of us.
The fact that talking to other people who are working on the same problem constitutes cheating is one of the most fucked up things about the school system.
The fact that honors students have figured out that hiding your answers from one another is an indication that they’re clever.
my english teacher was just like “just don’t let me SEE you do ~academic sharing~” but c’mon every teacher knew we did it in High School. I learned to copy work in my first gifted class in 2nd grade and it was a system of collaboration. honors students understood that in any non-honors classroom we were going to be forced to do 90% of group work projects for everyone else. I literally once did an entire 200 point assignment by myself and had my partner tell the teacher “I hope she did it.”
But other honors kids had my back. I’ll do this half, you do that half, then swap. Or I forgot today, I’ll get you next time you forget. We once convinced a substitute our English exam on a book was group collaboration and one of the valedictorians loudly asked what we all thought the answer to essay question #2 was.
Try and tell me having a debate in class about the meaning of something in a piece of literature to answer a question on a test isn’t learning though.
of course honors students cheat! you learn a hell of a lot by academic sharing.
sorry if i’m off the mark here but i’m tired of both people who act really immature about not liking school and people who see those people and act really pretentious and awful because they think they have some sort of godly wisdom in saying “suck it up you spineless baby” when really things shouldn’t have to be this way they really shouldn’t
(also in case anyone mentions it: i’m a low-average high school student who generally gets by on really high test scores and has been thinking about ways the school system could improve mostly by watching their friends and observing their problems)
Never underestimate the power of bullshitting things in college
it’s a trap
Incidentally, I got an email today about this petition to keep student loan rates from doubling in July. You should sign it.
