America's Intelligence Lag - Part One

America seems to be lagging behind other countries in the “smarts” department lately. I don’t know if it’s the schools and teachers that are the problem or the students themselves. I personally think that the students are the problem. I had an exchange student from South Korea last year and she said that they went to school seven days a week from six in the morning to nine at night; and still had homework! After gaining that information, it wasn’t hard to conclude that they’re smarter because they spend like four times as much time in school as us while learning extremely hard topics with a focus on math and science. I found an article on Yahoo that was titled eight ways to make your child smarter. Naturally I clicked on it and decided that I would be super gracious and share these tips with all of you folks reading this blog.

The first method was to make your children active and keep them in physical activities. Studies showed that “kids’ cognitive test scores and grades are higher if they have outlets, like gym class or recess, to blow off steam. “ So, get your kid off the couch and enroll them in a sport or force them to play outside. You can also be one of “those” parents that complain to the teachers and make them give your kid daily play breaks. I am currently in high school, and I think this is a completely fantastic idea. So, do it; complain.

The next study was about breastfeeding. Apparently breastfeeding has many benefits to it and kids that were breastfed tested better than those that weren’t. They don’t know if it was actually due to the breastfeeding or if it was because of other factors but still; if not for the possible intelligence boost, breastfeed your kids because the milk is good for them. (315)

The Boston Bombing

If you haven't heard of the Boston Marathon bombing by now, you must be living under a rock. I found out about it through Facebook, and then saw it on the news, and then talked about it in school, and then with other people. So what I am trying to get at here is...you should obviously know about it. But, just in case you don’t, I decided to write you a blog with all of the pertinent information about the case.

I couldn’t find any of the articles with the initial news about the bombing but I remember there were at least three people killed, one of them a four-year old boy, and over 112 people severely injured. The police did not waste much time in identifying the bombers and so the two bombers turned out to be two brothers from Russia. One of the brothers was twenty six years old and was killed while being contained. The brother that was killed was apparently the mastermind of the operation. The seventeen year old was the other brother, named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was captured and admitted to the hospital for injuries that he received during the chase. He is now talking about all of the details of the bombing from his hospital bed. If you want to read more, I found two articles on CNN about this subject that are more specific on the brothers.

I think that the bombing seemed completely unnecessary. That may be a bad choice of words but there has been so much violence in the world lately that it all needs to stop. Not long after the bombing, we heard about the (accidental) factory explosion in Texas and not long before that there was the shooting at the elementary school. Everyone needs to take up yoga or something because violence is not the answer to all of their supposed problems. It just makes everyone more nervous than they ought to be. (327)

A Southern Gem

                They may not be that common in the North, but as soon as someone travels anywhere in the South, they are almost guaranteed to find a Waffle House. After you eat at a Waffle House, it is hard to go back to IHOP or Perkins, or any other breakfast place.  A Waffle House is basically like one of those old fashioned diners that you see in movies. There is a grill in front of the counter as well as any other cooking amenities. The waitresses are all dressed in dresses and take your order on a small pad of paper. The menu is a simple rendition of normal breakfast foods and most of the items contain, yes you guessed it, a waffle.

                Being called the Waffle House, you would expect that their best menu item would be a waffle. You would be right. In every Waffle House I have ever been, the waffles never cease to amaze me. Everything good about a waffle is incorporated into these. The waffles have a sweet, and still starchy taste as a waffle should, and the texture is fluffy and yet still condensed. Put these waffles with some butter and syrup and I can almost guarantee that you will be craving some more. The only problem is that at a Waffle House, you are served a bunch of food. A normal meal is maybe a couple of eggs, some bacon or sausages, toast, and a waffle as big as a plate. As soon as you finish your meal, and are craving some more, you just can’t force your stomach to eat any more. So you regretfully, must leave those remaining waffles behind.

                If you don’t believe any of my descriptions of this old fashioned, South mass produced restaurant, there is only one way that you can find out for yourself if is true. So, the next time you make a trip to Georgia, or Florida, or Kentucky, or Tennessee, make sure you stop at a Waffle House and see if you dislike it. (349)

Child Misuse

We have been talking a lot about Operation Peter Pan in Cuba in my Spanish class and so I decided to search a little more on child soldiers and torment at other places in the world. I found an article on CNN that elaborated on a child soldier issue presently in Columbia.

The FARC, a Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is a "leftist guerrilla group" that has been at war with the Columbian government for about 50 years. Since 2006, when the Columbian government captured and released a video of children being trained in the jungle by FARC troops, the FARC as well as other criminal organizations have not only continued enlisting children for soldiers but have also increased their recruitment. According to a study called "Like Lambs Among Wolves" Natalia Springer, the author, estimated that with in the last four years, 18,000 children have been forced to join guerrilla groups and paramilitaries in Colombia. Even though the Columbian government disputes the numbers, they still agree that this is a big issue that should be dealt with.

Here are some of the very surprising and very sad facts:

69% of the children captured have been under the age of 14! 98% of all the children captured reported that they had been abused or witnessed atrocities. "They're installing land mines, they're transporting explosives, they're kidnapping, they're involved in all of the activities that the adults are doing." The percentage of young girls that are being kidnapped has dramatically increased to 43%.

How terrible it this? These things need to be discussed because this issue needs to be addressed. I don't think that we can, as human beings, simply allow these atrocities to continue and just ignore them or do nothing about them. The people in charge need to be brought to justice. Hopefully we can send a message to those that are doing similar things that it is not okay and they will be punished for these crimes against humanity. Until then, children will be exploited as a deadly weapon and we will be losing an entire population. (352)

The Four Pillars of College Success - Part Two

UMBC, the college that he is the president at now, was founded the same year that he went to jail and formed his philosophy. Since he arrived at the University, the whole system and educating style has been an experiment. His leading question was “Is it possible to have a university where people from all backgrounds can come together and be leaders?” The programs that have been implemented have been answering that question with a yes. The problem was that black students were not succeeding, many people in general were not succeeding. The largest group was the African Americans and followed by the Hispanic population.

UMBC is now lead University in the country in producing African Americans that further their education by getting doctorates and phDs.

The first steps of his plan were to strengthen the k-12 system and then strengthen engineering and science courses. I only heard three steps so I listed those below.

1. Having High Expectations and Having and Understanding That it is Hard Work

He mentioned a student that earned a c in a science course but still wanted to go to med school. The University  told to him to retake the course. He became the first to graduate with phD and now works at Harvard

He mentioned another woman that never missed a day of school, went on to attend John Hopkins University,l and is now getting a patent on a second form of viagra

2.  Building a community among the students

The University tries to teach students to work in groups and with each other.

3. Idea that it takes researchers to produce researchers

He said that he required the faculty have to want to be involved with the students

There was a snow storm in Baltimore, the main researcher came back to work in lab after a couple of days, and students had refused to leave the lab. Each one focused on their work because they didn’t just see the project as just a school assignment

Near the end of the presentation, he siad that Universities need to think about redesigning courses (academic innovation) because students are bored in class and they need to be engaged to want to learn. It works well to not  just give theories but have the students struggle to figure them out.

He ended with a quote from Aristotle; “Excellence is not an accident.....and “Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” He emphasized the importance of students wanting and loving to learn. (415)

The Four Pillars of College Success - Part One

Because I am heading off to college next year another TED talk title caught my eye. The talk was titled Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science. Freeman Hraboski is the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and made his talk about how to achieve success, and how to help students achieve success in their studies; especially in the fields of engineering and science. His focus has been helping the minority groups, African Americans and Hispanics, at his university and his program and the programs implemented at the University have actually worked.

He began with a childhood story, when he was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama fifty years ago. He said that he was a very good and boisterous student, always wanting to learn.  When he was twelve years old, he went to a presentation given by Martin Luther King Jr. The question proposed was“How could we get more kids to love to learn?” Martin Luther King Jr. decided that if we can get the children to participate in the demonstration, we can show that children know the difference between right and wrong. This would show that they want to learn and serve as sort of a platform.

After going to this speech, Freeman desperately wanted to join and go to the demonstration, even though he knew that he would probably go to jail at 12 years old. He stated during his talk, “When people do something courageous, it doesn’t mean that they are courageous. It simply means that they believe that it is important to do it.” When Freeman was in jail, Martin Luther King Jr. came to visit and said “what you do this day will have an impact on those that are not born.” This had a large impact on him and he decided that children can be empowered and taught to be passionate.(314)

A Robotic Future

I decided to write my blog on another TED talk. This TED talk was by Keller Rinaudo that was titled Keller Rinaudo: A mini robot -- powered by your phone. The video discusses and presents a new robot that can be loaded up and hooked up to your phone.

The man built the mini robot, called Romo, because he wanted to design a robot that everyone could have. The robot would only cost one hundred and fifty dollars which is about one percent of the cost of other robots on the market today.

The robot uses the power of the processor of a smartphone; in this example he used his iphone. All you have to do is hook up your iphone or smartphone to what basically looks like a set of technological wheels, and the robot can then walk beside you, follow you around, slide you coffee from across the table, and react to you with programmable expressions.

Romo used the video camera on the device to follow the man doing the demonstration.. When the guy got too close, Romo got scared. Romo acted like a pet. If you have an ipad or other wifi-enabled device, you would be able to control Romo by that device, he could stream videos to you, take pictures that would be sent to the ipad.

To show how easy Romo was to use, Rinaudo asked for a volunteer from the audience to drive around Romo, that could actually operate him almost instantly.

The demonstrator brought up the idea that, by hooking up with Romo’s controls, a grandma could play hide and go seek with her granddaughter from halfway around the world.

A new project that they are working on is a program that you can create. You could design anything on it that you want Romo to do, and then just upload it to the robot. The demonstrator brought up the point that “The future of robots is today” and he looks forward to what they progress to in the future. (339)