Till Text do us Part

In advisery on Wednesday, we watched the following video on texting and driving:

What gets me in this video is that it was a simple "yeah" that caused a family to be one less; a routine "lol" that distracted someone so much that they took the life of an innocent person. I blame the fast-paced world of technology. It's a time when you can get directions sent to you on your phone or easily communicate with someone miles and miles away from you. Sometimes, this can be beneficial. Oftentimes, this leads to disaster. But what compels us to put our lives in danger just so that we can open a text? Maybe it's the fact that American life has become so fast-paced. We are constantly being pushed to finish first.

With all this new technology, we can multitask in so many other ways with our phones that will allow us to be faster. Some people engage in conversation while texting. Students navigate through crowded halls while texting. People, especially teenagers, believe that since it is so easy to multitask with texting in these ways, it can't be much harder in a car. That's where they have it wrong. When engaging in conversation, you don't need your hands- they are free to text. When walking through the halls at school, you don't need your hands- they are free to text. When driving a car on any road, it is essential that you use your hands- they are not free to text.

A recent article in National Geographic called 'Teenage Brains' brings up an interesting fact: 

"Teens take more risks not because they don't understand the dangers but because they weigh risk versus reward differently: In situations where risk can get them something they want, they value the reward more heavily than adults do." 

Texting while driving is becoming a real issue- people are losing their lives. But is this taking a risk that will get these teens something they want? Or is it a careless example of multitasking?     

People and their Masks

This week in class, we had a very interesting conversation about the masks people wear. The discussion got me curious: what drives us to "put on" a certain mask?

My theory is that our masks have to do with the way we want to progress in society. The way we act is driven by how we want our peers to view us, how we want our family to view us, and how we want our educators to see us. In addition, our masks act as a way to shield others from catching a glimpse of our vulnerability.



In my research for this blog post, I found a poem called 'We Wear the Mask' written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American poet who wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The stanza that spoke to me the most goes as follows:

    Why should the world be over-wise, 

    In counting all our tears and sighs? 

    Nay, let them only see us, while 

            We wear the mask.

This selection could not be more true of what people are always subconsciously thinking. It puts people in the lower hand if others are able to see how they are truly feeling. If society is able to "count all our tears and sighs," then society knows more about us then we want it to. 

In a sense, this is Social Darwinism. We want to appear better and stronger than everyone else. This is especially true in American societies. When we identified the stories we tell ourselves as Americans, one of the first things a student said was that we feel that we are better than the rest of the world. If America appeared vulnerable to the rest of the world, we would not be the "exceptional template" for other countries that we are today. 

In the end, our choice of mask will always have to do with our community. No matter where someone fits, or doesn't fit, in society, they will have a mask on. It's too risky to take it off.  

"One Nation Under God"

In 1954, the phrase "one nation under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, much to the dismay of Francis Bellamy who wrote the original patriotic lines. Thus marked the beginning of a great controversy. I would like to write about this line by linking together Jon McNaughton's painting and the idea of the American Dream. 

The painting:

"One Nation Under God"

McNaughton identifies the people behind Jesus as great American people who have dedicated their lives one way or another to our country. The people in the bottom left of the painting are "looking toward the lord" and the people in the bottom right "are all turning away" (McNaughton's website). Among the people depicted as following God, there is a child with a disability, a preacher, a schoolteacher, a farmer. Among the people who are facing away there is a lawyer, a liberal news reporter, a man who has made a living in Hollywood, Satan. 

The message of this painting is clear to me. Those who are following Jesus are living the ideal American Dream and the ones who are painted as not following Jesus don't have a white picket fence. But isn't this painting a bit outdated? As America has evolved, so has it's proverbial dream. The doctor on the left worked hard for his job. He went to college and made his way to the top, as did the Supreme Court Judge on the right. The judge probably had to start in a District Court before he even began to think about the Supreme Court. Then think about the occupations that have been tagged as something a Satan-follower would do. The news reporter is most likely very passionate about her job. This painting is saying that she had a choice: either do what she loves and follow Satan, or do something she hates and follow Jesus. That's not fair- she loses no matter what she picks! 

The understanding now is that if an American has worked exceptionally hard, they have achieved the American Dream. Where is God in that definition? America is no longer solely a Christian nation. Judaism is present, Islam is growing, there are Atheists, Bahai, etc. To be an American means to be free (the soldiers) and to be just (Supreme Court building), to name a few stories from today's class discussion. America has labeled itself as a "nation under God." That doesn't acknowledge the other religions that America claims are free to worship as they please, which doesn't seem just. 

I guess what I'm really trying to figure out is when did being "one nation under God" stop being such an essential part of living the American Dream? Or is it still a part of the American Dream, just in a unique way to each person?

The Airbrushing of 9/11

In the past 10 years, I have not once delved into the inferno that is 9/11. I was never interested in the talk that surrounded it, I never posed any questions, and I never watched anything on the matter. This year, all that changed. For some reason, I could not tear myself away from the images of the Twin Towers or the words of the ones who suffered. I also never thought I would feel so passionately about an event that happened 10 years ago that I would write a blog post about it. But when I watched a documentary called The Falling Man, I felt somehow obligated to write down my thoughts.

Now, I am not going to post the actual picture. Newspapers already tried that and got a strong backlash. But I really urge you to look it up. Here's a link: The Falling Man. What do you notice? Does he look graceful? Do you think he jumped? Or was he thrown from the tower by the impact of the blow?

Believe it or not, this picture was from a sequence of 12 pictures that were all taken by a photographer named Richard Drew. In addition to taking these 12 pictures of this man, he took hundreds of others depicting the terrible choice that some had to make and that some were forced into making. But Drew's pictures weren't the only forms of media that caught the falling people. Several news reporters got pictures and even videos of these people. But why haven't we ever seen them?

Politicians and a few concerned citizens have deemed these depictions as horrifying. After these reports, the pictures and clips started disappearing. They could not be found unless they were thoroughly looked for. And even when they were found, it was clear that some had been airbrushed so as not to include the people falling. A sculpture named The Tumbling Woman was removed from plain sight. In my opinion, this is unfair. The fact that people were falling from the buildings is part of 9/11. It shows the raw, hard truth that some people decided to take their death into their own hands. Instead of burning alive or not being able to breathe, they opted for the 10 second fall. Airbrushing the pictures and making some disappear and not acknowledging that this happened is a great fallacy that doesn't make 9/11 any better.

For more specifically on The Falling Man, click here.

To Standardize or not to Standardize?

There is only one constant in school, and that is standardized testing. Everybody, in America at least, is familiar with the small bubbles and booklets that have recurred every single year since about third grade. I used to think of them as harmless- they didn't take much time, we didn't get homework on those nights, and the results didn't mean much to me.

But then I got to high school. Suddenly, standardized testing became a deciding factor of my future. There is the PLAN, the EXPLORE, the SAT, the PSAT, the ISEE, the SSAT, etc. Suddenly, what used to be a  minor annoyance in my schedule was now a major obstacle in the path to college. Not only college, but the rest of my life! Being a junior, the test next on my agenda is the ACT. I have heard of people taking it 5, 8, 11 times before they achieved their best score. All that tells me is that there is so much to be anxious about. Will that be me? How many times will I take it before I reach a score that I am comfortable with? How many times will I take it before I reach a score that is socially acceptable?

All of these questions made me wonder what the standardized testing really does for us. After doing a bit of research, (here, and here...and here) I've gathered some pros and cons.

Pros: Information can be easily screened; areas of strength and weakness are easily observed; it's an  easy way to compare us to others, say, when reading application; it can track our progress over time.

Cons: There is an issue about whether we are tested to measure our intelligence, our test-taking
ability, or our home life; they are causing students to be tested more vigorously and frequently then ever before; standardized testing actually costs a great deal of cash; the tests can be biased; some people can afford better test preparation.

In my opinion, the cons greatly outweigh the pros. To me the tests seem entirely political and only a benefit for the people that have to grade them. Learning should be measured by how students act in the classroom, not how they attempt to comprehend a random literary excerpt. And if the creators choose to call standardized testing by that name, shouldn't they recognize that there can never be one, all-powerful standard that applies to every student?