EXP201.Davi.Fall05

Our brains can only handle so much

Over the past fourteen to fifteen years me and my classmates have been going to school and have learned tons of new things, which our teachers in one point or another thought were important.  We all then met up in college and were presumed by our professors to know everyting which they view a "normal" college student should.  Well, that is wrong.  We all come from different backgrounds, have had different teachers, and have different learning styles.  It is completely impossible for everyone to know the same things.  Schools across the country accept students based on their grades, exam scores, letters of recomendation, etc.  Overall, thier main point is to assemble a class which they feel will be able to handle the pressures of their collge.  Well, this shouldn't be the case.  Due to where we come from, teacher's we've had, and our different learning styles, it is impossible for us to know exactly the same things.  However, schools feel that we should.

That is why I agree with the the ideas raised by writer Mina Shaughnessy which claims that all colleges across the country should  be open to all who want to attend.  This would help in achieving the goal of everyone knowing the same things, because if everyone could attend any shcool, schools would be forced to be equal because they would not be competing against each other.  This would ensure that everyone got the same quality of education and would give everyone a more of an equal chance of getting jobs.  I'm not saying that things would be perfect, but I think that things would be alot better if it were to happen this way. Let me know what you think?

Chapter 7

I wanted to post a blog on my interpretation of chapter 7 from “Lives On The Boundary.” Rose makes multiple claims in this chapter about the education system in America; how kids cram information into their heads for a test and then forget everything they learned after they are finished with the class. Rose is right on point with this claim because I know I am guilty of this. Think about it, I mean if you went back to freshman year of High school and had to take a test you aced over again would you remember the information?...Doubtful. I never want to remember anything I think I wont need later. For example, geometry. I’m doing a business major when am I ever going to need geometry? I did fine in the class in high school, but if you asked me to do a simple problem now I highly doubt I would be able to. Another claim Rose made was about the information retained after high school. Everyone has different backgrounds. For example, when I came into CAP this summer and Prof. Specca asked us to write essays in MLA or APA format. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never heard of the APA writing format before. He taught us how to write in APA format and showed us the differences between the two types of writing. At first I made a lot of mistakes beucae I was used to MLA and wanted to write that way. It was frustrating at first. Just because I didn’t know what APA format was doesn’t mean I don’t know how to write. I think everyone coming to any college or university from different backgrounds and different high schools, there is a huge variation of what people leaned and how they were taught.

Sup People

Whats up everybody, it's me Javier with my weekly posting, and I hope everybody enjoyed their breaks. Last week's service learning session was an interesting one. It was really short. Our activity for the day involved hollahoops and tennis balls. The objective of the activity was to get all the tennis balls inside all the holla hoops, the solution was to put all the holla hoops together on top of each other and the tennis balls in the center. Unfotunately though, we did not get to do this activity. A lot of the students had already done the activity before and knew the solution. We had no back up and therefore we left early. I thought that it was interesting that we had no back up.

Today's class discussion on Lives on Boundary was even more interesting. The one part that I liked was when we addressed the question that dealt with Rose's views on education and learning processes. I completely agreed with his views. He argued that education today is not consistent. That it is instead scattered all around and as a result people aren't learning anymore. Rose mentioned that because people are taking different courses year after year, that don't allow them to use knowledge learned from previous years, people are forgetting things more and more. When I read this section it reminded me of my AP calculus teacher. He would always talk about this during the course of the year. He would always talk about how students aren't learning anymore. He was the first teacher I ever had that explicitly addressed this with us. He taught us like no other teacher I ever had. He would encourage us to be conceptual learners. He would always want us to understand  mathmetical concepts as opposed to just knowing how to do things. At first I didn't understand him, but now I feel like understand the importance the idea.

peace

From Road Warrior to Writer's Block

I remember a time where no matter what I wrote down on paper ahd my peers in aw. A time where some of my best writing my inpromptu speeches given to my english and history class. I spoke well, and with confidence and conviction. When writing papers, I was my own authority, and usually I felt rather brilliant on a subject. it used to be that I could sit down to write a paper, and the the next thing I knew, I had a draft of what I thought to be solid gold. My vocabulary alone carried me across the literary landmines i always got caught up on (i.e. grammar, punctuation). I was the Road Warrior of my English class; funny, fierce, well spoken, and as always quite audible. And then, something changed.

I WENT TO COLLEGE...

All of the sudden, my opinion goes from the Heights of the Saint Helen, to peaks of a of pile of snow from a mid-December snowfall, pushed into a pile along with trillions upon trillions of other snowflakes (opinions) by a rusty plow. All of the sudden, Quote this, quote that, cite this, cite that-don't plagarize this, don't plagarize that. I know research is important, but i used to only use it for the sake of strengthening my own works.

I don't know about the rest of you, but writing essays has all of the sudden got very challenging, and I can't help but second guess myself the whole time I write it. For some reason, it takes me many hours to pump out a draft that is borderline acceptable as a first draft. Am I a critic, or just concerned about grades. There was a time where I felt comfortable writing from the soul, just writing; no worries, just writing for the sake of doing so. Much like this blog.

Prof davi and I spoke of how this blog is the venue for our classes best writing. Where raw emotion, imagination, and creative impulse are the driving factors for every passage we create.

Chris

Why?

This week has been fairly uneventful for myself just a lot of school work. But I have a couple of random why cant' I, why can they’s and why can I's and why can't they’s. Feel free to add more on also!!

For starters why do I get in trouble and maybe even arrested for taking a shopping cart from a parking lot, yet homeless people do it all the time with no consequences. Could it be that by getting me in trouble I may have to pay fines which helps the local, state or national gov? And maybe it’s more trouble than not arresting homeless people for such a petty crime because the gov of any level with not benefit from it?

Why do radio stations in Boston edit out “legalize it” (referring to marijuana) yet Denver Colorado just made it legal to own an ounce of marijuana or less as a safe substitute for drinking (http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/02/denvermarijuana.ap/). Aren’t we all the same Country? How can one city make it legal for their citizens to use the drug and another city band the words about making it legal from the radio? I see that as very strange considering we all live in the same country.

Well it’s 3:13 and I am tired, if anyone would like to respond and start a discussion that would be great, there’s no right or wrong of course so just voice your opinion or as a completely different why question for people to respond too!

Chris LoDolce

Please Fill Out The 2+2=5 Program!

Everyone who has not yet filled out this survey please do it will take tops 3 minutes.

Remember its all confidential no one will know who said what.

http://atc.bentley.edu/resources/perseus5/surveys/classsurvey.htm

Brainwashed Students

Last Friday afternoon the multicultural department here at BentleyCollegehosted a cultural open house, where they invited prospective and interested minority students onto campus.  The students were welcomed with a small luncheon where they were greeted by administrators and ALANA students who answered their questions.  They were then led on a tour of the school and then invited to attend Friday’s cultural food festival. 

My fellow classmate Edison and I voluntarily participated in the meet and greet luncheon with prospective students, where we eased the fears of the interested students by answering questions and giving them an idea of how it is like to be a student on this campus.  We meet with one family in particular which really caught my attention, it consisted of two cousins who were brought to the university by their aunt.  The reason they have stayed in my mind is because the aunt seemed to be more curious about the college admissions process and life at Bentley then the prospective students were.  She asked a million questions and even took down our contact information to question us at various points of the year.  However, she and the other families we aided asked a lot of questions on the school, life on campus, activities, housing, and parties but failed to mention one thing which I was sure was on their mind, and that was the racial climate on this campus.  That is not an easy question to ask, but I thought that it would come up since ALANA students their age would be answering their questions.  Race, gender, sexuality, and religion may not be an important factor which high school seniors look for in a school, but definitely should, since they will be spending four years on that campus.  One should always make sure that college is the best time in your life, where you feel so comfortable in that you don’t want to leave.  College bound high school students should invest more time in researching the areas of a school which are not publicly advertised.  They should ask questions, visit the campus to get a feel for it, and possibly get in contact with someone from the university who can give them an honest answer.  This is a very important issue which students need to take into consideration.  I have seen many students in high school which work hard into getting into a school just because of its reputation and end up leaving within a semester because they failed to realize other areas of importance.  I hope kids realize this in highs school because it will end up saving them thousands of dollars, research time, and credits in the future.

Friday Not a Complete Bust

This Friday afternoon the children of Chesterbrook got a free pass and were granted a “play day” of sorts, where this time they were the ones who chose the activity they participated in.  Our group leader Eddy, had very important personal issues which he had to attend to, but still brought us to Chesterbrook.  Although we didn’t participate in a planned activity with the children, we took the time out to get to know them better.  We sat with the children and basically had one on one conversations with them as they participated in their activity of choice.  This was great.  I got to know several students which I had previously had very vague knowledge on.  They gave me insight on life as a kid, school, other students, and various other topics which they had on their mind.  I feel that I formed a relationship with three of the girls at Chesterbrook.  I know them a lot better and they know me better as well.  This is great.  Although we didn’t have an activity planned for the children, we still gave and received valuable information from one another.  This newly formed bond that we have developed with the children will aid us in future activities allowing us to communicate more freely with the children, while producing better quality activities and discussions.

Registration Time

Whats with registration times? It's definitely not fair for all students but I also can't think of any better way. What I mean by this is, if you come to the school with credits from AP or college level courses in high school you will receive a better registration time then other students in your class code. This remains the same throughout the time one spends at Bentley. If you ask me that's not fair for people who work just as hard or harder than as those "AP" students yet get stuck with the "leftover" classes. If someone is that "advanced" then they should be in honers which has their own registration times. I am sure the way Bentley has it  constructed right now is probably well thought-out but it seems like to me that the "extra credit kids" have so many more choices than everyone else just because they of what they did in high school. If anything it should be based in GPA in each class code so it fairly distributes the registration time based on the efforts of previous semesters

COLD BUT WE ARE WORKING

            My weekend always starts out being great after going to Chesterbrook. Friday goes and 3:30 with the arrival of another sessions and I cannot wait to see what other great things are going to happen with these talented individuals. They are all different but they have something in common, they all think outside of the box. At first it took a much work and determination to get the respect of the students. They have very deep strong characters.  They are almost always on the alert. They are like predators waiting to strike at any moment. Like a running back waiting to see an opening to rush the ball for that first down.

            They are always defending themselves and each other. They yell, scream, fight and do all that is possible to each other, but they also protect each other.  Most of them are cousins, brothers, sisters, neighbors.  They all have love for each other that is what a community has to have to function.

            So this past Friday when I went for the weekly visit to Chesterbrook. The students were playing a video game.  It was good that they were doing something together other than fight and hitting each other. So they were not fighting physically, they wee fighting virtually in the game. Forming tag teams or coalitions and finding ways to kill each other.  The game although it was a fighting game they were not acting up as much. Some body would know when the battle ended because that was when they started arguing on why hey lost and making up excuses and saying “you cheated that is why you won, CHEATER.”  That is how it always is people do not just win.  Others always think they cheated or make up excuses for their lack of experience.

            This week we did not have any activities planned because of the lack of communication. I thought that it was cancelled because the students did not have school but it was not. So this week was like a bonding activity, get to know the students.  I got to know a couple of girls that at first seemed disrespectful, and like, they did not care about anything. After a while of asking questions the barrier of ignorance was broken and we started throwing things and just playing random games. I knew there was a problem with this little girl because she was very rude to the other kids. I just kept on asking her why she was that why? She was intimidating.  She acted like a bully.  I asked her “why was she being a bully?” She responded “I don’t know, that is how I act” That was not true she was very sweet after you get to know her.

            One boy when he say me we has like “yo what’s up” He came and gave me a hand shake. That is the boy I always hang around with when I go on Fridays because he is a crazy character. He loves music but some times he does not know what he is listening to. He was on the computer and it was like karaoke singing reggeaton in the computer room. He put on some Daddy Yankee and it was a duet singing all the songs we knew and seeing the videos. 

            The time was interesting because it was cold outside and the kids wanted me to go outside with them and play some type of game that I did not even know the rules for.  So I said yes but it was not dark enough so we did not play the game.  Instead we threw a football around.    The students were so excited that we I was going to play the game because they love this game. I do not even know the name of the game the only thing I know about it is, it is like ultimate tag; with jail, taggers, and people that just go around and do something.

            It is so unfortunate that this is only once a week I would love to have a car and just visit them two or three times a week just to get my mind off of school and the work, people and all the other stuff that is around Bentley. When I go to Chesterbrook my mind is set like a child I just want to play with spinning chairs, want to draw.  I want to be like them in the hour that I am over there I am not a college student from Bentley.  Well to them I am.  I think it is not like that I love going there because every time I learn something different. They are my stress relievers; I block everything else out of my mind and my cell phone, and just work.  

            This has been the best experience I have had in college and I want o continue doing this. This is awareness because these kids have many things going for them but to this point just a few people know this. I want to help them to be in the spot where they have to be, so they have a productive future and they can over achieve their own expectation and the expectation other people have for them.

PEACE

And remember everything is done face to face, not behind peoples backs!

EDISON