Cost of Tuition Crushes the American Dream

For the past couple of days we have discussed some indicators of social class, such as, the crime rate, population density, and income rate of different types of town. One indicator that we have continually noted is the level of education people within a town achieve because, to many, a higher education is seen as a sign of success within American society. Typically, those with a higher level of education receive a higher paying job, thus, being able to fall under the so called "upper-class".

However, achieving this higher education has become EXTRMELY expensive, around $40,000 in tuition for four years, and this cost continues to increase each year (Coast of Higher Education). As such, the middle class families continue to struggle to try and send their kids off to college. While, the wealthiest are automatically guaranteed a spot in attaining a well respected level of education, thus continuing to be placed in the upper class.

Therefore, the rich continue to stay in the upper class, while the people of the working class continue to struggle in trying to send their kids to college, while trying to maintain a standard form of living. As this repetitive cycle continues, the "American dream", the ability to move up the social ladder within American society, has become far from a reality. The gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow, and mobility up the social ladder becomes almost impossible. With this in mind, why do Americans continue to believe in the "American dream"?

Be Like Daisy

This Friday I saw The Great Gatsby in the theaters. Personally, I was not a huge fan of the movie, probably because we just finished reading the book, and books tend to be better than the movie. However, something I found quite unsettling about the film was the way they portrayed the character Daisy. Within the book I thought it was clear that Daisy was in love with Gatsby, not for who he was, but rather his money. As such, putting Daisy in a bad light for being so materialistic. Yet, in the movie, I believe, Daisy was seen as an innocent character that does nothing wrong, and so everyone should always side with her.

For example, within the movie, the scene where Daisy expresses her love for Gatsby to Tom truly highlights this innocence of Daisy. During this climatic scene, Gatsby loses his temper for a moment, and so Daisy becomes frightened and crawls back to Tom. By doing so, the audience feels bad for Daisy, also making it seem like did nothing wrong. This differing perception of the character of Daisy in the movie makes it seem that Americans idealize her and want to be like her. Do you believe Americans praise the idea of the character of Daisy, the materialistic, upper-class personae?

Quite the Advantage

After discussing in class about the main factors that show a strong correlation with test scores, I came across this article that discussed a “so-called perfect” school called Avenue, located in New York. Within Avenue, as early as nursery school, kids are immersed into either the language of Mandarin or Spanish. By kindergarten, all kids are given an I-Pad, and eventually these students will get the opportunity to study for a semester in either Sao, Beijing, or any other of the twenty campuses the school has set up around the world.

As I was reading about this extraordinary curriculum, I was thinking of how this advanced education, costing one $43,000 in tuition, will obviously show a positive correlation with test scores. These students are automatically being given such a high advantage in the world. However, what about the rest of the children in America that cannot afford this elite education? Does the rest of the country have no other option but to just fall behind?

All of this concentration of effort and money, 70 billion dollars, is being put into this one school yet, it is only directed for such a negligible number of people. And according to the authors of “The Manufactured Crisis”, “the great majority of schooling standards have not improved over the past twenty-five years”. As such, why does our country choose to create this one perfect school for such a select number of people, instead of trying to spread the effort in trying to improve the overall schooling systems?                                  

Tip-toeing Around Evoltion

Recently, "educators unveiled new guidelines...that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the Unites States" according to this article in the New York Times. Apparently these new guidelines take a firm stand on teaching evolution to students. My first thought was "yes, progress!..more students will be taught the threory of evolution". However, as I expected, the idea of teaching such contreverical subjects, like evolution and climate change, has already drawn hostile commentary. Additionally, while many states are expected to adopt the new guidelines within the next year or two, it will still take several years before schools translate them into thier curriculum. As such, schools will continue to postpone the teaching of evolution.

The thing that struck me the most, however, was how Judith Luber-Narod, a high school science teacher at Abby Kelly Foster Charter Public School, was hesitant about teaching a controversial subject so she thought, "how can you teach the environment without talking about it?". I found this very strange because I was skeptical to how a teacher was supposed to teach a topic, without ever actually talking about it directly...

Mrs. Luber-Narod came up with an experiment to try and stimulate global warming. She explained nothing about global warming itself, and only told her students to watch the experiment and come up with your own conclusion, as such not actually talking about the subject. While these students were exposed to the topic and forced to come up with their own opinion, do you think that is enough to substantially educate these students?

We All Need a Savior

Religion is a very powerful influence on people's lives. It helps dictate your beliefs, thoughts, and morals. It also helps create traditions, friendships, and even enemies within a community. As such, when I found religion is a key factor to why many Americans choose not to believe in evolution, I was not at all surprised, according to this article only about 39% of Americans believe in evolution. I was more curious to why religion and evolution are not compatible? Well the obvious fact is that the theory of evolution clearly contradicts the book of Genesis. In the catholic religion, it is said that God created humans and the earth was built a little over 10,000 years. While evolution argues humans descended from primates and the world is billions of years old.

While there is a clear contradiction between the two, an article in the New York Times brought up another interesting aspect to why religion and science often butt heads. Within this article, Paul Brown, a Republican from Georgia's 10th congressional district, shared that "Evolution is lies to try and keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding they need a savior". The work savior intrigues me a savior is seen as someone who can rescue you, such as God. And once you believe in evolution, some would argue, you will no longer have a savior.

However, the Pope John Paul II wrote that, "there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith". If the Pope, a highly religious figure, sees no issue with the theory of evolution, than why do you think others continue to not accept it? Is it solely because they think they will lose their savior? Or is it more because they are ignorant to what evolution is? Either way, what are other reasons to why so many Americans choose not to accept the theory of evolution?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media

Last Sunday, a disturbing article found in the  

 New York Times was posted announcing that two male high school students were found guilty of raping a sixteen-year old girl. Almost all of the incriminating evidence came from YouTube videos and Facebook pictures taken by the perpetrators of the victim naked and passed out from too much alcohol. The evidence also included the boys’ text messages exclaiming that having sex with her was “like [having sex with] a dead body.” The word “dead” certainly destroys any argument that this was consensual sex.    

YouTube and Facebook sealed the boys’ fates in 2013.  In 1983, without the benefit of social media, the trial would have been the boys’ word against the girl’s and would have contained some flavor of the boys claiming the girl was looking for it.  Today, social media essentially prevented any use of the age-old defense that “the victim is to blame.”

While social media helped get justice, on the one hand, it also glamorized these boys and their victim, on the other. Once the incident went viral on YouTube and Facebook, a heinous crime became (at least temporarily) an alluring event with the parties to the act becoming reverse celebrities. Why does social media have the ability to glamorize awful events that if seen in person would cause us to look away?  

4 Pics 1 Word

 Many people have either seen, heard, or currently play the game 4 Pics 1 word. Just as the name connotes, this game portrays four images that represent a single word. While playing this game, I began to notice that each picture that contained a person was white; there were no colored people within this game. 

What are we suggesting when African-Americans are not included in these images?

A word functions as a principal carrier of meaning. As such, does this game imply African-Americans do not hold enough "substance" to represent that word?

Continuing on, in class we discussed how popular T.V. shows choose to have a majority white cast in order to please the overwhelming white audience. For this reason, is this game choosing to do the same, exclude people of color as to please the white users? Would this game still be as popular id African-Americans were in the pictures?