P3.) New York Teacher Ratings Evaluation Debate

In most cases I don’t find teacher evaluation ratings to be very accurate, but every once in a while I would agree that teachers need to be evaluated to make sure their capable of helping students to learn. I understand why teachers are upset that their jobs are put on line based on how well their students perform on tests. I don’t think it’s fair for some teachers that are great at what they do, but because her students don’t study, test ratings result in her job being in jeopardy. This isn’t for all teachers. Some teachers acquire the knowledge they just are not good at teaching it. In these cases I think that it’s smart to evaluate their test ratings because if they can’t teach students shouldn’t have to suffer because of them. When more than half of your students fail an exam, the most likely reason is because they were not prepared well enough. The teachers that go above and beyond to get there students to learn the material I believe are the ones that deserve to keep their jobs. If you’re not going to work your but off then in my opinion why should you have the job when there are others out there that will work to no end?  Honor students learn easily and of course are going to score high on state tests. So, in my opinion that doesn’t make you a good teacher just because your honor students score high. I think that if you can get students that have struggled for years to pass your class and score high on state tests, than I would consider you to be an amazing teacher. In my opinion everyone is a great teacher in some way, but I still think you should have to prove yourself because it is a competitive job and their a many people out there that will kill for a teaching position.  

P2.) My Prior Goals FInally Achieved

After reading what goals I hope to achieve at the end of the school year, I can honestly say that I achieved four out of my six goals. In the article I wrote in September that one of my top priorities was to figure out all of my plans for college. Also relating to that last sentence I hoped that before I went to college I would have a set plan on what career I would be going to college to study for. That was one goal I had set and achieved before the deadline so I’m pretty proud of myself. My second goal was to get my grades up so that any college I wanted to apply to, I wouldn’t have a problem when it came to getting in. That goal was one of the hardest ones I set for myself but I most definitely achieved it.  Another goal I set and hoped to fulfill before the end of my senior year was to join my clubs and sports. Unfortunately, I only joined the swim team during the fall and there on out I was pretty lazy and decided that I rather of spent my time going home and sleeping. I also set a goal to become more active in the community, which was another thing I didn’t improve on. On my behalf I think that was a big mistake because now that it has come time to apply for scholarships I really have nothing to put down for community service. The fifth goal I set for myself was to attend more school dances and going to different events held at the school. I can admit that I achieved that goal with no problems. Another goal I set was to improve my SAT scores. I may have increased my score, but definitely not as I high as I hoped for them to be. The final goal I set was to get along with everyone and have no regrets before I was to go off to college. I believe I have been pretty nice to everyone and don’t know of any enemy’s, so I would say I fulfilled that goal. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to look back and see goals I set months ago and be able to see if I actually achieved them.

P1.) TV Time

I have to say that I watch quite a bit of television. Whenever I’m not feeling well I like to turn on the TV, it always helps me fall asleep. Another time when I enjoy watching TV is when a come home from an exhausting day of school. It’s nice to be able to plop down on the couch in your comfiest clothes and just watch whatever is on the TV and not have a care in the world. I watch when I’m just plain old bored and there isn’t a thing to do, seeing as I live in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention my parents decided to build a theater room down in our basement, doubling the amount of TV I typically watch. Then every weekend whenever the weather isn’t too nice we like to go out and rent a couple movies from Family Video and have ourselves a movie night. We just recently signed up for an account with Netflix so like every two weeks we get sent two movies of our choosing. If I went out more and lived close to my friends then I definitely believe that the amount of TV I watch would decrease. If my friends lived close to me I would be spending that time I watched TV by going out and doing fun things with my friends. I believe that once I go away to college I will barely ever watch TV. I will have clubs, sport, studying, and my friends to take up all my time. The typical shows I take joy in watching are girly shows like Pretty Little Liars, The Lying Game, Vampire Diaries, and Modern Family. There is probably a bunch more but I don’t feel like taking the time to name them all. But most of the time I just watch whatever is on TV and looks good.  

O4.) My Mother Is...

My mother is a sweetheart. Well that’s a lie sometimes I think she was possessed by the devil, but for the most part she is pretty nice. As much as my mother and I argue over stupid things at the end of the day she has my back and would do anything for me. On another note I honestly believe that my mother is more excited than I am for me to go to college. I just remember the experience I had going down to tour Fredonia. On the ride my mother felt the need to point out every store along the strip as if I didn’t see them with my own eyes. Then once we got on campus and met up with one of the professors for Psychology she stood their asking a million questions. But the best part had to be when we were walking back to the main building for drink and the professor dropped her folder and my mom shouted “Tara pick up her folder, don’t you want to be the teacher’s pet?” When we were just waiting around for campus guides my mom spotted her old friend from high school. So they started to talk, eventually finding out that her daughter was going to this school as well. Once they were done talking my mom immediately turns to me and says you should room with her daughter. My exact thoughts were can she be serious. I understand that my mom is excited, but now she is already gathering prospects for me to room with. That’s not it; as soon as I received my acceptance letter my mom already was planning how I was decorating my dorm room. I can’t complain though because this part actually excites me too. I love nothing more than picking out color schemes and basing that on what color my comforter and anything else I want in the room to look like. But other than that I think my mom should just dorm there for me because it seems like she is a million times more excited than I am.

O3.) Spring Break

Over spring break my mom, stepdad, my best friend Cindy, and I all went to Delaware for the week. My stepdad is obsessed with our RV so we had to drive down in it and stay at an RV park. While In Delaware we went down to Rehoboth beach and walked along the boardwalk. The weather wasn’t the warmest but it was a perfect temperature to walk and not freeze. It was a good time going in and out of the shops; I was even able to get a couple of cute shirts. Pretty much every night we went out to dinner at different restaurants than you would usually go to at home. When we weren’t out living it up, we enjoyed taking casual bike rides through the different neighborhoods down the road. There was one day when we went up to Ocean City, Maryland and spent the day up their walking along their boardwalk as well and going in and out of the shops. When we were ready to leave my step dad and I decided we wanted to try their fries because everyone was eating them around and they looked delicious. I can honestly say that they were the best fries I have ever tried and nothing could compete. Once we left there we just drove around for a while to see what there was around there to do. So we pretty much just looked at the neighborhoods and the restaurants they had. We were really looking forward to trying this seafood place called Phillip’s, but unfortunately it is closed until the weekends. Another high point of my vacation was going to Hershey Park on the way home in Pennsylvania. While there we took a tour in their chocolate factory building and bought a boatload of chocolate. The best part of visiting there was when we went on the ride that takes us through the whole process on how they make chocolate. All in all it was a fun trip, but I would definitely prefer going down in the summer when it’s a lot warmer so we can enjoy the beach.

O2.) What's More Expensive Than College? Not Going to College

From reading this article I learned that there is a high rate of unemployment for youths in America. Many people are emerging from conditions of wide spread poverty and lack of access to most important means of education. Apparently in the Middle East and North Africa, youth unemployment has been stuck above 20 percent for the last two decades. Then those young people in south and East Asia are overwhelmingly employed in the agriculture sector, which leaves them vulnerable to poverty. Studies shown in the article that going to school is cheaper than not going to school. College graduates earn eighty percent more than those who do not attend school. Once I graduate from high school this year I plan on attending Fredonia State University in the fall semester of 2012. Once there I plan to major in Psychology and business. Once I receive my Bachelor degree I plan on going on to receive my master’s degree. College may not be for everyone but the profession I hope to pursue will require studying at college. If I want to be able to succeed and make good money than I need to suck it up and learn things about psychology and business that I didn’t know. College will give me the chance to study something that sparks an interest in me, so I don’t believe that it will be as bad as high school. In my opinion if you know there is something you want to pursue a future in and you know very little about the subject then I think it would be dumb not to go to college and further your knowledge. Unless you plan on marrying rich or winning the lottery then I would agree that people that go to college are more likely to make more money and avoid unemployment. Depending on the career you plan on pursuing if you don’t go to college and you apply for the job along with someone else the person who received a degree will be the one to get the job.

O1.) Oakland, California University Shooting

After reading an article on the recent shootings of several people at Oikos University a small religious school in Oakland, California, and how the killer 43 year old Juan Goh felt no remorse made me absolutely sick. Goh was kicked out of college three months prior to the shootings due to his behavioral problems, anger management, and that he was deeply in debt and had tons of thousands of dollars in tax liens, including from the Internal Revenue Service. I believe that this triggered the horrendous events, and that him saying he was picked on was just a way to justify why he killed all those people. From what I read Goh took a receptionist hostage and went into a classroom looking for a certain female administrator, who wasn’t there. When Goh realized that she wasn’t there he shot the secretary and ordered all the students up against the wall. Not all of the students were cooperating so he began shooting. In quotes Goh said, “I’m going to kill you all”. After he was done in that classroom he carried on firing in several other classrooms killing over seven people and wounding three. He ended the killings and drove off in a victim’s car. Shortly, after Goh surrendered to police at a grocery store in the Oakland suburb of Alameda. When arrested, Goh was very cooperative, calm, and remembered very specific details of the shootings. All I can say is that people are sick, not everything in your life is going to go as you hoped. There are many people in this world I absolutely can’t stand and I have been rejected plenty of times from things I really care about. There is never a bad enough situation that would make it okay for you to take the lives of others. I hope that Juan Goh realizes one day that what he did was wrong and that not just innocent people were killed but their families were left to deal with the hurt and pain.