Female Privileges

As a woman, I face many obstacles, but I also have many privileges.

1. I can express my emotions whether they are happy, sad, etc. are not be judged as weak because of it.

2. If I don’t like my appearance, I have endless options to do something about it, such as make-up, clothes, tanning, etc.

3. I f I see small children, I can comment on how cute they are and talk to them without their parents worrying about me being a child molester.

4. When I am walking around at night, other women do not tense up around me, worrying that I might attack or assault them.

5. I am not expected to pay on dates.

6. If I choose to be a stay­-at-home parent, no one will judge me as a financial free-rider in my relationship with my husband.

7. In relationships, I can be passive and expect my male companion to be aggressive in the relationship. I would not be expected to ask a guy on the first date, ask him to move in, or ask him to marry me.

8. If my marriage fails, I am more likely to get custody of my children.

9. I can be physical with other males, like my boyfriend, and be considered playful and not worry about being accused of domestic violence in most cases.

10. If I become pregnant, I have the final chose on whether to carry the baby to full term.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Pakistani

“As I am sitting in the computer lab, I notice a girl walk in and sit at a computer a couple of spots down from me. Is that my neighbor? It has to be. I see her pass me on the stairs every day as we rush to and from class. No one else has that red hair with such green eyes. She hasn’t said hi to me yet, and we have been neighbors for three weeks. She looks nice. Why won’t she talk to me? Is she scared of me? I wonder if she just hates Pakistanis. She probably doesn’t even know I am Pakistani; she probably just thinks I am Indian. I hate being stereotyped--especially incorrectly.

Still, I have never said hi to her either. Maybe she is just shy. I should say hi first, but what if she ignores me? Worse, what if she gives me a dirty look and turns away? Then I will have to pass her every day knowing she hates me. She probably will request to change apartments. I am just being dramatic now; that would never happen. She probably doesn’t even notice me. Why should I even bother to say hi.

But, what if she says hi back? We could become friends. It is always nice to be friends with your neighbors. What if I need to borrow a cup of sugar? Well, maybe not something as cliché as sugar, but there could be other things. Why am worrying so much? The worst she could do is not that bad. It would be better to try than wonder what could have happened.

I am going to do it. I am going to say hi--

She said hi back! I knew it. She even started a conversation about my classes. Then, we joked about me cooking for her. I even told her I would make curry chicken so she could try it. I don’t know what I was so worried about. She probably was more scared to talk to me than I was to talk to her.

I need to stop worrying about what other people are going to do and just do what I feel like is right. I gained a friend today and learned to trust my instincts not the fear of racism instilled in me by society.”

Blog 4

My biggest motivation is fear: fear of failure, fear of letting someone down, fear of letting myself down.

College sets the stage for the rest of your life. When I was choosing a school, I knew it was very important to make the best choice possible. The biggest limitation on my decision was the cost. I decided relatively quickly that I wanted to go to Coe. I knew with my high school grades and ACT score, I would be admitted into the school. The part that I was worried about was which scholarship I would receive. I knew I didn’t want to have school loans until I was forty. The applications for various scholarships all required writing essays.

During high school, I took an online composition class. I had to write three essays a week. Motivating myself to write these essays was almost impossible. I didn’t have a teacher telling me what to do, which I wasn’t used to. Most of the time, I ended up writing them last minute. When I realized how many essays I would have to write for scholarship applications, I thought to myself, “I am never going to get all these done!”

To motivate myself, I focused on how much money these essays could give me. I started thinking about how many dollars each word was potentially worth. I also thought about how quickly the interest on loans compound and how much more money a student ends up spending if he/she puts off the cost. After considering these things, I was very motivated to finish the essays.

My motivation was a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The way I want my life to be in ten years was a huge pushing force in my situation. That is tied to the biggest extrinsic motivator: money. I do think it is true that money cannot buy you happiness, but it is impossible to be happy without it. Money funds our survival needs: food, shelter, health care, etc. If you are struggling with any of these crucial issues, it is hard to fully enjoy other things.

This situation is just a surface issue, the real issue is what I expect my life to be. As independent as I try to be, I am greatly influenced by what my family and community expect my life to be. I know that my community expects me to graduate school and get a good job because I graduated valedictorian from my class. At the same time, my mother got married and started a family at a very young age, and neither of my parents went to college. I feel like some people in my community think that I will follow the path of my parents. I know my family wants me to be happy no matter what I do, but they would like me to be financially stable. In order to do that, I need a good job.

Most of my extrinsic motivation comes from the fact I do not want to let my family down. At some level, I want to spite those in my community who think that I won’t finish college. I want to come back to my ten years reunion and be proud of what my life has become. I also want to be financially stable.

My goals for my life are a stronger motivational factor that what anyone else expects me to be. These goals are consciously and subconsciously influenced by external forces. I know what I want my life to be, but society has shaped my personality and values. Still, it is my choice to do the things I do to reach my goals. Even though it is expected of me to do certain things, I have to be the one to physically accomplish the task.

It is a mix of motivational factors the pushes someone towards a goal. At the end of the day, it does not matter how high other peoples expectations are. If a person doesn’t have any internal drive, he/she will accomplish nothing because he/she is the one who has to take action.

The Calc Corner Martyr: Katie Hallberg

The person who captured my attention while reading Another Planet was Katie Hallberg. She is the director of the school’s talented and gifted program and also a math teacher. Her accomplishments include launching the “Synergy” program: a special program for the talented and gifted students of the school to gather together and push themselves beyond the normal high school curriculum. She also built the Calc Corner. The Calc Corner is:
A place set aside for the study hall her Advanced Placement Calculus were required to take so they could keep up with the work she heaped on them daily. But as much as a place that her Math students could struggle together through the volumes of solids of revolution, Calc Corner was a safe space for the school’s brains, a tiny piece of turf where they could cluster together over lunch, make popcorn in the microwave over and debate religion over politics without feeling abnormal.

I chose Hallberg mostly because I wish I had had a teacher like this in high school. I graduated valedictorian of my small school with a 4.0 GPA. That looks great on paper, but it doesn’t show my high school experience. My high school did not offer AP courses. I was so bored with class that I fell asleep in school at least twice a day. When teachers graded “on the curve,” my classmates would moan and complain when I got a high score. It didn’t matter to them that the reason I had gotten a good score was that I took the half hour at home to read the chapter unlike them. Their complaints started to slowly wear me down. I stopped trying my best.

When I went to take my ACTs, I had not done any preparing. I scored a 29, which was good enough to get into the school I wanted to with a good scholarship. Still, I wonder if I had a teacher like Hallberg to push me to my academic limits, if I could have done better. Just being exposed to some more difficult concepts is all it would have taken me to understand many of the questions on the test. Just a couple points on the ACT could make the difference between a good scholarship and a full ride.

Katie breaks the rules of the game by asking for more of her students. In Prior Lake, the rule is to nurture students; pushing them beyond their abilities is cruel. The argument Katie throws out is that students will never truly know their limits until the teachers push them to and past them. Clearly her philosophy is not shared by the other teachers. The teachers of Prior Lake deem her a snob for her actions. They don’t like how she would rather spend time with her students than gossiping in the teacher’s lounge.

The social theory of Privilege and Penalty is illustrated by Hallberg’s struggle. Students with higher intellect are labeled “outcasts” by their peers. The students push the smart students to the bottom of the hierarchy where their needs are forgotten. Teachers are even guiltier of this than children. They structure their curriculum around the needs of the average students: totally ignoring the needs of the talented. They then dole out punishment when the talented act out because of boredom. Katie Hallberg would instead nurture the gifts that push these students to the bottom. We need more teachers like her in our schools today.

High School and the Evils of NHS

Think back to your own school experience: high school, junior high, even elementary school. What are some of the groups you remember? Did your school have "jocks"? "Preps"? Goth kids? Gamers? Care to place yourself in one of those groups? Can you remember any of the rules?
My high school graduating class was 63. I knew everyone’s name and had met most of their parents. In my hometown there was one elementary, one junior high, and one high school. In fact, all the school was linked together by hallways. Moving up schools didn’t mean meeting new people and having more options for friends. Of course, there were the students who transferred in from other schools, but those were rare.
Elementary classes were small; the average class was about twenty children. Up until about fifth or sixth grade, your friends were the children of the same sex who were in your class. In fifth grade, sports started to be an option for us. This started separating children into people who played sports and those who did not.
This trend continued into high school and intensified. Our school offered four sports a year, and it was very common for people to play all four. It made sense that athletes hung out with athletes because they spent most nights together either at practice or at a game.
Other groups existed too. Farmers hung out with other farmers. I guess they were fit what the articles classified as “hicks,” but to me that word has a negative connotation, and farming is such a common practice that it was not looked down upon.
Then there were people whose parents let them stay out late and hang out with older people. I don’t know exactly what to classify this group as. They did not have much guidance and experienced many things before most other people. An appropriate name might be the “wannabes.” I would not say they wanted to be like the athletes or anyone else, but they wanted to act older than what they were. They experience sex, drinking, and other things with older people.
As we entered high school, groups started to differ. In junior high, people played sports because it was the popular thing to do. Now people who weren’t as talented athletically began to quit. They had already solidified their social position and became what most people call “preps.” They were still friends with the athletes though. Other people became more interested in music, speech, and drama and started forming their own group. I call them the “arties.” The farmers remained the same. The wannabes were now the ones showing the younger kids sex and drinking. Some people swayed more to one group, but for the most part, everyone stayed in the same position they had in junior high.
This grouping did not bother me for the most part. I must say that I was definitely an athlete. I was also in band and ending up graduating Valedictorian. I was the girl who got most of the breaks because I made the game winning shot at the basketball game, then was the only person who aced the physics test. Still, I could see the game at work. One circumstance where it was most obvious was National Honor Society.
The National Honor Society says its goal is to recognize students who excel in areas of “Scholarship, Leadership, Service, and Character.” In order to join, students must be nominated and approved by multiple teachers. The point of this is to go beyond just grades. The effect is the more privileged students are accepted into the society in place of more qualified students. It is a glorified parent popularity contest. Students whose parents are on the school board or a member of the booster club always get in. Other students with better GPAs and who were much kinder to other students were rejected. The student’s parents have more of an influence on the selection process that the morality of the student.
I know one student in particular who graduated ninth in our class, participated in band, dance, and student council, and was never inducted into the society. Why? There is no legitimate reason for her not to be inducted, but then her parents were not friends with any of the teachers, so I guess there was no pushing force to get her in.
Although NHS does not make or break a college application, it does help. It is unjust to deny a qualified student that honor because of the politics of parents.
If this opinion seems like the ranting of a scorned student, furious to be denied acceptance, it is false. I was inducted into the society as a sophomore. I was very honored at first, but as I moved through high school and was more involved in the society, I lost respect for it. I saw too many qualified people be hurt by being denied acceptance. I saw even more unqualified people inducted and act arrogant towards others. My advice is to let students vote on members, because students know the character of other students much more than any teacher ever could.

Republic of....

"It may be an easy thing to make a Republic," wrote Horace Mann in 1848 (1957, p. 92); "but it is a very laborious thing to make Republicans; and woe to the republic that rests upon no better foundations than ignorance, selfishness, and passion.”

Is this true?

When it comes to the first question, the answer is very simple. The most important fact is the time is the scarcest resource we have. Looking for ways to make mundane tasks faster only frees up more time to do other things. Whether each individual person decides to use that time productively by reading to their children or wastes it by sitting on the couch watching hours of television varies. The opportunity is there for the choice.

That choice determines whether Americans as a whole are selfish. Grouping together people as diverse as the population of the United States is foolish. Each individual has different values and priorities. There are some very selfish Americans who would throw a man off a cliff for money. Some CEOs of companies like Enron have smuggled millions of dollars for themselves and left their companies and stockholders in shambles. Is that enough evidence to condemn all American people? If that was true, then all Iraqis should be judged by the evils of their former president Saddam Hussein.

That being said, many Americans are ignorant about the culture of the world. It is common for people in the United States to judge foreigners on stereotypes. It is a positive trait to be proud of one’s country, but when that attitude changes to “We are the best; I don’t care about the rest!” that turns negative. Global cultures need to be more represented in American schools. As the world shrinks by business globalization, being ignorant of the rest of the world is no longer an option for the American youth.