You're a Twenty Something, You Are something

Wow. The Ted talk by Dr. Meg Jay below is powerful. Her words should be taken to heart by any twenty something, or even any college student. I turned nineteen years old five days ago. One more year until I will be one of those twenty somethings. Scary huh? It certainly is for me. It also may be scary for those of you who have followed me since I was born. I am about to begin the most defining decade of my life. Boo! That's my Halloween scare for this year.

Jay states three things that all twenty somethings should hear. The first one is that all twenty somethings should gain some identity capital. Twenty somethings should do something that gives them an identity. They should explore their opportunities, but not explore things that aren't productive. Jay is trying to get across to twenty somethings that the decade they are in is not a time waster. The decade they are in should be the decade that define who they are.

The second thing that Jay says all twenty somethings should hear is that weak ties can be the key to something better. According to Jay, 50 percent of twenty somethings are either unemployed or under employed. This can be disheartening for twenty somethings to hear. But the good in this statement is that 50 percent of twenty somethings are employed. It should be a twenty somethings goal to become a part of the employed group. They can do this by exploring their weak ties. A weak tie is a connection to an employer that is not obvious. This could be their friends dads neighbor who works as a boss at a company that employs people with their degree or skill set. If they had a strong tie to an employer, they would most likely already be hired. I believe this idea of exploring ones weak ties goes right along with the first habit to be proactive that Stephen Covey describes in his book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" . Life will rarely hand you a good life. Twenty somethings have to be proactive to get a job. 

The third and final thing that twenty somethings should hear is that they should pick their family now. I really liked the statement "The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one" that Jay made. Many twenty somethings see their friends getting married and having kids. They want to be married and have kids too so they sometimes try and make it work with the partner they are with at the time, instead of waiting and finding the partner that is right for them. Twenty somethings should instead discover who the right partner is for them and then find that person. This can be difficult for twenty somethings to do when the pressure from their peers to get married and have kids soon is very high. The old saying of being who you really are, and, patience is key, apply very well to this situation.  

Now that I have this knowledge of how to succeed as a twenty something I should be fine right? Lol, no. I am still growing and finding out who I am as a person. I hope to have a family and good paying job someday. But these things do not come easy. It takes hard work and self reflection. I could be the best motivational speaker by just repeating the words that I have heard from other people, but if I don't truly understand these words and their meaning, then a motivational speaker is all I will ever be. I will never actually be motivated. 

Joyas Voladoras - That Heart is a mystical pendulum

0 Heartbeats

Did you know that a heart beats around 2 billion times in a lifetime for every living being? We have 2 billion heart beats to use before our hearts stop beating. So why then do you choose to spend those precious beats reading this post? Go outside and see the world or go and do something memorable, for this world is short lived.

20 Heartbeats

Our hearts are just merely clocks ticking down the time until our deaths.  No, our hearts are something more. Hearts are for feelings, for love, for hate, for joy, for sorrow, for heartbreak, for something we cannot explain. That heart, it is a mystical pendulum.

45 Heartbeats

Think back to your first love, that first someone that captured your heart. Think of what you were feeling the first time you realized you were in love. Think of the joy that person brought to your life. Remember how easy life was with them at the moment? Now think of how that love may have ended. Think of the heartbreak that you were feeling. Think of how hurt and lost you felt. Remember how you thought that life could not go on? That heart, it is a mystical pendulum

85 Heartbeats

The cycle of love and heartbreak may have happened many times in your life. Maybe you were one of the lucky ones that found true love on the first go around, if so, I am envious of you. If you weren't one of the lucky ones, did you find it harder to love after each cycle? Did you find yourself building up a wall around your heart so that it would not be broken again? Have you had that wall torn down by something or someone so quickly and easily that you did not realize it? That heart, it is a mystical pendulum.

125 Heartbeats

We humans want to love, we want to be loved. We do not want to build up walls around our hearts. Yet, we build them anyways. They can take days, weeks, months, and even years to build. But, then in an instant, they can come crumbling down. According to Doyle, the demolition crew could be a memory of the sound of a fathers voice, the phrase "I have something to tell you", or a dying animal. We cannot help but feel emotional because of these things. We want try to control our emotions by building up walls around our hearts. We can try to protect our heart, but the heart will never wear a bulletproof vest. The heart can always be penetrated. That heart, it is a mystical pendulum.

200 Heartbeats

Students Should be Allowed to Graduate on Their Terms

One of my fifth grade teachers introduced me to Edward de Bono and his 6 thinking hats. The 6 thinking hats is a tool that describes individual thinking. The only hat that I remember now is the green hat which stands for creativity. It was, and still is, my favorite hat, although I find that the green hat is often left on the rack these days.

I was always thinking of new and creative things to do as a kid. I created a slingshot that could launch a golf ball 150 yards out of an exercise band and a few pieces of wood for fun. I invented a product that could organize my pens and pencils out of paper and tape for fun. I built a simple model of a house of paper and tape for fun. I was a creative child that liked to create things. I find this to be different now.

I created all of these things before high school. Before high school I was encouraged to do new creative things. School was all about learning and joy. Then high school came and told me that all I needed to do was to get a good grade and good test scores. Life was all about reaching certain objectives and earning certain letter grades. The days of learning and creating were a thing of the past. Yes, creating things was still cool and fun, but I would not receive any extra credit by being creative. It would not help me to obtain my "goal" of graduating high school and going to college.

Ken Robinson tells a story of a little girl that was a "trouble" child in class. She could not sit still and could not do her work. Turns out she was a "trouble" child because she loved to dance and move around. She learned better by dancing. She would later go on to become a very well known dancer.
The education system was telling her to sit still and do what everyone else was doing. With some help and potentially some medication she may have been able to sit still and be like everyone else, but what good would that have done? The girl would have never discovered her true passion and love in life.

The education system is trying to mold students to fit one certain mold. Every student is supposed to get good grades, take high level classes, and score highly on standardized tests. The education system does not promote learning new things, or learning things for enjoyment. It is not looked down upon to be creative, but it is not encouraged. Students should be able to take classes that intrigue them. They should be able to find their true passion in life and pursue it. I am not saying that students should not have a goal to graduate from high school, but rather they should have a goal to graduate from high school by taking classes that intrigue them and that they want to.

Without creativity this world would be nothing but a string of numbers.

We Write Together

Every college student is bound to hear the words, "compose a research paper", come from their professors mouths while in college. Writing is a requirement to graduate. The papers that we write may discuss sports, politics, space, or just about anything that a student thinks of. Our papers may vary greatly, but there is one thing that all of our papers should have in common; they were all edited and reviewed by our peers.

Personally, I go about the task of writing a paper by writing the first draft without any help. I have found that this is the only way that I can express all of my thoughts in a way that I want them to be expressed. Only after I have written down, or typed down in this day and age, every single thought about my topic, do I find it beneficial to receive outside help. This ensures that the material being edited are all my ideas. While writing, I often go back and read what I have already written to try and get a better sense of what I want to say. I find it harder to express my own thoughts if I am reading an already edited piece. 

I do believe that peer review is beneficial. Our minds think faster than our hands can type or write. This means that many times we accidentally omit words, or even sentences, without realizing it. Then, when rereading what we have written, our minds read what they wanted to say, rather than what is written on the paper. Peers can also give us feedback on how to better our writing. Some students may be better at creative writing, while some may be better at writing formal research papers. All of our peers can usually help our writing in at least some way. 

All papers should be reviewed and edited by someone, but the when and how they are edited can vary greatly from student to student. A student should figure out what works best for them and run with it.

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Laptops: Productive for Some, A Distraction for Others

Our grandparents had little to none knowledge of what a computer was. Our parents would give the university a look of confusion and curiosity if they had been required to own a laptop. It was uncommon for a college student to own and bring a laptop to college only fifteen years ago. Now, in 2015, most, if not all college students own or have access to a laptop. This has resulted in a dramatic shift in how students learn, while also resulting in a shift in how teachers teach. Teachers can now have what they are writing and doing projected onto a screen large enough for anyone to see in a large lecture hall. Most assignments in college are submitted online while also checked for plagiarism. Students can now access visual and audial lectures to better understand or to review the material. With all of the great things that have come from the relative instant implementation of the laptop in the classroom, it begs the question of why so many professors are against students using a laptop in class. The answer is simple, distractions.

A consequence of a interconnected world is that there are an infinite number of things to distract people while online. Advertisements can be found on almost every website, games can be played with the click of a button, and social media sites are often used as the default startup page. Teachers are outlawing laptops in their classroom because students will ultimately get bored at some point during class and will then get distracted by social media, games, or email. It can also be easy for the students sitting behind the student who is distracted to get distracted by what that student is doing too. This is understandable and I believe that laptops should only be used for taking notes or working on classwork during class.

Laptops will never be completely outlawed in the classroom due to the simple fact that many professors assign work to be done in class that requires a laptop to complete. Many writing classes have students bring their laptops to class with them to write papers. Computer science classes would just be science classes without computers in the classroom. The same can be said for programming classes. There are too many classes that require a laptop to do in class work for the laptop to be banned university wide.

Personally, I bring my laptop with me to all five of my classes, but I only use it frequently in three of the five. I own a 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop that also functions as a tablet. I can rotate the screen all the way back so that the keyboard cannot be seen. I also own a stylus that I use to take notes with. I have found it easier and a paper saver to use an app I downloaded called "Drawboard PDF". This app allows me to upload PDF files and write on them on my screen. I can also choose to write on a blank screen. This prevents me from having to print out numerous sheets of paper for class each day. I can also save and print out what I have written if need be. This method is much different than typing notes on a computer. This way does not give the student the tactile learning that is needed for many students to learn. Taking notes on a computer works very well for me.

Ultimately, if a student isn't serious about using a laptop for notes and doesn't have a good system to take notes with, I would say to leave the laptop in the backpack during class. The negatives far outweigh the potential positives that can come from using a laptop during class. Besides, the old fashioned way of paper and pencil has worked ever since the cavemen began making drawings of how to build a fire.

Accomplishing vs. Learning

We should go to school to learn, not to get good grades. I highly agree with the statement that grades have become more important than learning and that grades can reduce a students interest in learning.

In today's high schools, students and teachers could be replaced by robots. Students go to school to get a good grade, while teachers are there to give the student every opportunity to get that good grade. Many teachers are told what to teach each day and how to teach it. This has taken the creativity out of teaching and learning. It's no wonder that students are only focused in getting the grade when teachers have stopped being creative in the way that they teach the material. 

Throughout my high school career I was constantly told that I had to be better than 90% of my graduating class, I needed to take certain classes, and that I needed to get a certain score on a test. I rarely was told that I needed to learn as much as I could about things that I was interested about. I guess that is saved for college where I am allowed to choose a major. I believe college is way better than high school in large part due to the fact that students are allowed to learn what they are interested in rather than what they have to take to get into college. In college we learn certain things for our future job. In high school we get certain grades to get into college. In college we learn "soft skills" to impress employers. In high school we learn how to gossip. 

School Should Not Be About Grades, But Rather An Education

Grades vs. Education

The video above should be taken to heart by anyone and everyone. Receiving a high school diploma from the North Carolina education system has only strengthened my opinions on why grades have become too relevant and learning too irrelevant. 

I began kindergarten at Black Mountain Primary School at the ripe age of 5 in 2002. I was classmates with my best friend and neighbor Matt Begley. We spent every second of our time together whether that be in school or out of school. We would play football, baseball, hockey, basketball, video games, go hiking, and pretty much anything that five year old boys would do, together. During this time, we competed our butts off. Both of us always wanted to be the better player, better gamer, faster hiker, stronger hitter, and better shooter. This competitive spirit carried over to school. 

During Kindergarten, our teacher gave us a set of words to learn. After we could successfully say all of the words in the set, we would receive another, more advanced, set. Just as soon as one of us finished a set of words, the other would finish the same set the next day. This competitiveness held tight between the two of us until middle school when we no longer had the same exact classes. From grades Kindergarten to 5th grade, our school lives were all about competing and learning. Yes, we cared if we got good grades, but what we really cared about was learning and becoming more educated than the other.

 I began middle school in 2008, which was also the year I noticed my education starting to change. Teachers began teaching to a test. Students were all about getting the A, moving on, and having fun. This was an extreme opposite of what I was used to in elementary school where teachers taught to teach, to teach for fun, and most students tried to soak up as much knowledge as they could.

 This trend continued as I went through high school. Students competed to be in the top of their class. A higher GPA and test scores meant a higher chance of getting into a prestigious university. Teachers pushed to get test scores up so that they could keep their jobs. Teachers were evaluated on how high their students performed on just one test. Administrators made sure teachers were teaching what they were supposed to be so that their school would pass their annual school report card given to them from the state. Every single minority and majority group of students needed to score a high average test score. All of these goals that the students, teachers, and administrators had had one thing in common. All needed good grades and good test scores. Nowhere in the goals of the three was the goal of learning and soaking up as much knowledge as they could. 

My dad just so happens to be a middle school teacher. He is the AIG teacher, which stands for "Academically and Intellectually Gifted". He was the teacher that the really smart kids came to for extra, more difficult instruction. He loves his job because he gets to teach what he wants to, he doesn't have to teach to a test, and he doesn't have to teach what the state tells him to. He has seen the shift from learning being the main focus, to high grades and test scores being the main focus. It was not an overnight transition, but a relatively quick transition. He has gotten in trouble for teaching 6th graders the Pythagorean Theorem because the Pythagorean Theorem wasn't supposed to be taught until 8th grade. The state didn't have it in the curriculum until 8th grade. He has also seen things become very standardized. Everyone now has to "learn" the same thing no matter if you already know the material, or are still trying to "learn" the material that was supposed to be "taught" in the previous grade. It feels like teachers could be replaced by robots. Teachers have books that tell them what to do each and every day. They tell you what to say and when to say it. Even better, the book tells a teacher what to say to potential questions that a student might have. The fun has been taken out of teaching. No wonder students don't want to learn anymore. Learning isn't fun anymore, and the creative spirit has been stripped from amazing and very intellectual teachers. 

I believe this picture sums up our education system perfectly.