On the first day of finals my professor gave to me…

Happy finals week! Well… not really because all the stress, anger and fatigue brought on by lack of sleep and trying to cram four months of learning into two short weeks really isn’t what I have in mind when I think of the concept of fun.  The list of things I would rather do than study for finals includes clean up the set after the Jackass guys do a take, do anything the Jackass guys do, step in the ring with Rocky Balboa, wrestle a crocodile, try to score a touchdown against Brian Urlacker, pledge a frat at Dartmoth University, or take a round house kick to the face from Chuck Norris.  Anyway we all know that it’s near impossible to study under high levels of stress so I figured I’d get everyone into the holiday season by sharing my two favorite ways to de-stress from finals week.

1. Go to the gym:  There is a reason why this one is first, and not just because it’s my favorite way to relieve stress.  First off, this isn’t just some stress relief method that I used because I enjoy working out.  IT ACTUALLY WORKS!  Working out has been proven from countless studies conducted all across the country to relieve at least some stress in the individual 100% of the time (plus it was on Sport Science and they can’t put anything on TV that’s not true).  Don’t believe me; stop ignoring what’s spitting on your shoe and thing about it.  Working out cause’s physical strain on the body, it causes the individual to physically exert itself to the breaking point relieving aggression.  By some people, this is called releasing aggression.  Furthermore, it releases two chemical hormones with in our brains, dopamine and serotonin.  Ever heard of runners high?  Dopamine is what causes this feel good accomplished relaxation for the individual. What part of that sounds stressful? As for serotonin, that’s the best part.  The release of serotonin has a little side effect known as focus.  It is actually proven that the release of serotonin before studying helps the individual remain focused during study sessions thus, higher test scores.  I’m serious, look it up. Plus you get in shape while you work out, and there’s nothing wrong with that. 
2. Have a Beer (only if you’re 21): Like I said if you’re 21, because in no way shape or form did I, or would any of you have a drink while you’re under the legal drinking age.  I’m not saying take a study break and get plastered before going back to study for finals.  Seeing as one of the side effects of alcohol consumption is memory loss I can’t imagine that would work out in anyone’s favor.  No, take a little study break, get a beer from the fridge, sit on the sofa and watch some sports center.  First it’ll help remind you that life’s too short to get worked up for a final that makes up such a minor insignificant part of your life.  In the words of Benjamin Franklin “beer is proof that god exists and wants us to be happy.”  And he was one of the smartest guys ever to live so how could that statement be inaccurate.  Second, again alcohol is proven to relax you, and relaxation means less stress.  But like I said, just have one.  Good luck with finals. 

The Journey of Hope and my Final paper topic

Two and a half years ago I joined Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and immediately became very well acquainted with its national philanthropy, PUSH America.  PUSH America is a philanthropy designed to raise awareness, money, and promote volunteering for those with physical and mental disabilities.  This philanthropy creates so many opportunities for people less fortunate than us.  For example, here at CSU every Wednesday we participate in PUSH bowling, in which every Wednesday we go to Chippers lanes with the kids from Respite Care (a local daycare from children with mental disabilities) and bowl and hang out with the kids for an hour.  The payoff is amazing, just to see how happy we make those kids each week and how much fun it is hanging out with them each week.  In addition we put on many other events such as regional ride, our fundraiser in which participants ride a bike from our chapter house here in Fort Collins to the Pi Kappa Phi chapter house in Boulder.  However PUSH America’s participation does not only exist here at the collegiate level.

Each summer PUSH puts on an annual summer long charity event known as the Journey of Hope or JOH (the inspiration for our regional ride).  However it is not a mere 50 mile local bike ride from chapter to chapter, instead it is a 4,000 mile bike ride starting in early June at the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco California and ending mid-August on the footsteps of the capital building in Washington D.C.  Each day, the rides will begin by waking up at 5 am, riding an average of 75 miles, and then they must have the energy to participate in events that range anything from raising awareness in the local town to participating in a friendship visit similar to our PUSH bowling.  In addition to spending the entire year prior training for the physically challenging summer ahead participants must also spend their time fund raising to necessary $5,500 needed to participate.  All that money goes directly to the philanthropy; the things like water, food, and a place to stay are all donated as riders pass through each town.

So why am I posting about this event?  Well, last week I received the amazing news that I have been selected to become one of the participants.  I am incredibly nervous, as this will be one of the most incredible events that I have ever participated in.  From what I hear it is an incredibly life changing event and I can imagine it will be even more so from the stand point of a perspective teacher.  This experience is something that I’m sure will teach me a lot about things that I will encounter in my future classroom, and I am beyond excited to see what I learn over the course of my next summer.  It’ll be hard but like I said, the payoff will be well worth it. 

Banned Book B.S.

First off, I would like to say kudos to Alex and Lexy.  You two lead an awesome and very informative discussion in class today.  Second, I am once again incredibly angry, due to the fact that I learned today that the novel that has come to be known as the greatest American novel of all time, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has been noted as too offensive and censored for the classroom.  I understand that the use of the N-word many come off as offensive to many especially sense it is used in an excess of 500 times throughout the course of the novel and by no means am I trying to promote racism by leaving it in.  The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how much we would like to pretend that slavery never happened, it did, and we need to be able to understand our past if we are to create a better future.  The use of the N-word was simply part of that history, and ignoring it is not going to make it go away.  As teachers, it is our job before teaching Huck Finn to put it into context for our students and explain to them the offensive nature of the word, instead of taking the easy way out by removing the word thus taking away from the story behind the novel.  Read it not in an offensive context that the word has come to be associated with today, but in a historical context that is a part of the story in the novel.

Moreover, in addition what startled me in class to day were the criteria behind banned books from our public schools.  If that wheel is what it takes to get a book banned than every Shakespeare play, and really and novel and or short story for that matter, must be banned from our schools.  Things like sexuality, violence, and drug use are simply a part of being human (not that I am promoting those themes, they are simply just the only ones I can remember from the wheel).  Without stuff like that in the novel it would be an incredibly boring and unreliable read.  As a teacher if you are really that concerned by someone’s parents being offended by what you are teaching their children, (other than telling them to grow up and stop babying their children (just kidding (but seriously))) allow them to go to the library and read another book instead.  One other thing that I thought was messed up: Harry Potter.  Really? I mean really? You have to be joking me.  The original barely presents any of the criteria used to classify a banned book, and presents many great lessons to teach to our students.  And if you are really going to play the “my child won’t go to school because he thinks that he is going to get an admission letter to Hogwarts” card, stop point fingers at other people and tell him that it is a FICTIONAL novel and has very little basis in reality. 

Everything I learned about voting I learned from South Park

It’s a pretty common fact that South Park is one of the greatest shows ever in created.  Say what you want about it, “it’s offensive, it’s rude, it’s disgusting, it’s abrasive” but you can’t deny it’s hysterical.  Matt Stone and Trey Parker are comical geniuses.  They ignore every social norm, cross every line, and offend everyone.  I’ll repeat that again in case you missed it, they offend EVERYONE.  That is probably the best part of the show.  No group of people, whether it is celebrities, controversial religions, or politics, is off limits.  Either everyone is okay to make fun of or no one is.  That’s what makes the show so great and has allowed it to be one of longest running shows on television.

When I was in middle school, back in 2004 when Bush ran for his second term, for the first time in school my teachers began really going in depth about how the presidential election works.  They fed us all the usual BS about the electoral votes and all the logistics of the presidential campaign and a lot of other bull crap that I have sense forgotten due to its unimportance (mainly because my teacher was presenting it in biased liberal manner).  However the night of the presidential election, over family dinner I was telling my dad (a heavy conservative) about all the liberal propaganda I had learned from my teacher at school.  Although he was incredibly infuriated from what my teacher had told me, my dad did not feed me the entire usual conservative BS about how every liberal has it wrong.  Instead he sat me down in the family room turned the TV on and said “Son, the truth of the matter is voting is incredibly important and you need to make your own decision on which side you are going vote for.  Although each party is going to have their own ideas for how the country should progress, this is really all you need to know about each of the presidential candidates.”  Then he showed me the first episode of South Park I have ever seen, and to this day it remains one of my favorites.

To an immature 13 year old, watching a dirty toilet humor TV show with incredible amounts of derogatory language is the best thing ever, especially best my Dad was letting me watch it (my mother was not as cool about it as he was).  However, even though it is incredibly inappropriate, this episode of South Park nails voting right on.  In the episode, PETA shows up at South Park elementary school and demands a change from their school mascot, the South Park cows.  The school decides to allow the students to vote school wide to what the mascot should be.  Among the variety of completely logical and viable options there is the “other” category on the ballet, and boys organized the entire school to enter either a giant douche or a turd sandwich.  Thus hilarity ensues throughout the rest of the episode continuing to make fun of P-Diddy’s vote or die campaign, PETA, and lots of other topics.  The episode ends with the best message that to this day describes voting the best way that I have ever heard it.  No matter which presidential candidate you’re voting for, your options will always be a giant douche and a turd sandwich.  No matter which way you vote there are always going to be aspects of the candidates’ plan that are screwed up and viewed as questionable.  I did not vote the way I did because I come from a largely republican family, I voted the way I did because I studied up on both the candidates and decided that the giant douche is the option for me and the best country on the face of this planet.  So go out there and vote and always remember that either way you vote, there will always be some part of the candidates plan that makes him disagreeable. Here’s a clip of the message, but be warned it’s South Park.

The worst teacher I ever had part II

Through-out my schooling I’ve encountered a lot of different personalities with my teachers (as I’m sure you all have deduced from my blogs).  The cool thing about this is that by the time I reached high school I had encountered so many different ridiculous and most times god awful teaching styles, that by the time I reached high school you could have given me a monkey for a calculus teacher and I would probably be able to do just fine.  However amidst all though teaching styles there was one that I was never able to deal with.  I’m you’ve all had one of these teachers before, the kind of teacher that will make even the most exciting topic as stimulating as the six hour drive through Kansas.  They are never bearable, and the say I am able to stay focused for the entire class period will be the day pigs fly.  Unfortunately I have had way too many of these teachers throughout my career however there is one of these teachers who sticks out more than any other.  His name was Mr. Geonoso, and worst of all, he was my sophomore year government teacher.

The first thing that you need to know about this guy is that he taught the worst subject possible for his type of personality.  US government is already a pretty boring thing to learn about without a monotone 60 year old war vet droning on about how he got pulled over on the way to work in the morning with a samurai sword in the back seat of his car.  He was funny guy but like I said, extremely boring.  I think I heard more about that guy’s ridiculous stories from working in a mental institution than I learned more about government.  Sure he taught us, but it was pretty much the bare minimum.  I swear that his lesson plan looked something like this: 15 minutes of lecture, then useless babble about something completely unrelated for the last hour and fifteen minutes.  The worst part about his government class, it was at 8 in the morning.  Nothing is worse than that kind of teacher that early in the morning for a teenaged high school student.  Seriously the entire time spent in his hot stuffy classroom, my eyelids felt like they had a 100 pound dumbbell attached to the end of them.  A nice guy but that late in his years it was pretty hard for him to relate to his students.  Learn from this man, don’t be that kind of teacher.

My thoughts in a literature class

As English majors I’m pretty sure that this is something that we can all agree on, literature is pretty neat (yeah I used neat, get at me).  It teaches us a lot about ourselves, social interactions, and basic things about human nature.  In addition I think one of the coolest things about it is using literary analysis to search for symbolism and “the deeper meaning” behind a piece of work.  It’s just so intriguing to me to dive into a piece of literature and discover its meaning and purpose (I’m probably one of the few people who actually enjoyed principles of literary criticism).  However earlier today in one of my classes, after a heated forty-five minute discussion about how the “end of the world” novel we are reading portrays how the screwed up human race is driving ourselves into oblivion, I began to think “is this discussion really happening?”  I’m not disagreeing with any part of that theory because the novel portrays things like animal experimentation, excessive drug use, and televised suicides which people watch for fun; but these are major themes in the novel so why do we need to spend a vast majority of our class talking about different ways in which the novel shows this?  It made absolutely no sense to me.

You see the thing about literature is there is no one sure fire way to look at a novel, in fact there are way too many to count, and sense everyone’s mind operates in a different way you get different ideas about what a particular piece of work says.  I’m sure that part is pretty obvious however people spend so much of their time debating about particular ideas and get so complex in their theories that sometimes, to me at least, it seems a little counterproductive.  Maybe it’s just because I’m not a very good literature student but a lot of the time whenever someone says something along the lines of “the author is saying how crappy we are as people through how her ideas in the novel lead the characters to their own destruction, what do you think Andrew?” it takes every ounce of my being to not sarcastically respond with “Or maybe the author just wanted to write a novel about the end of the world.”  Like I said when people read they all read for different reasons and for me, even when it’s for school, I read to enjoy the work as much as possible.  There are so many different purposes and meanings behind works of literature and while I do think that it is fantastic to explore all of them from as many angles as possible, it’s almost foolish to spend 45 minutes of class trying to debate different sides of the same coin especially when the coin has a large value in the piece of work. 

The meaning of life

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”  This is a quote (of which I do not know the origin), is one that think says more about life than any I have ever heard.  As humans, we always strive to discover why we are here.  People spend lifetimes trying to discover the meaning of our existence but in all actuality it is one question that we are never supposed to know the answer to.  You can search all you want but we will never know until we pass into the next life (or whatever happens after we die), so why waste our time.  Give your life meaning, make a difference, create your own meaning to your life but don’t waste your time trying to find an answer that doesn’t existence because you won’t find it.  Another one of my favorites (that I again have no idea who originally said it) is “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die tomorrow.”  This is another quote that puts our life in a perspective that we should all strive to live by.  You never know when you’re going to die, maybe not for another 100 years maybe tomorrow, either way we’re only here for a short while so why waste your time doing something that you don’t want to do.  In my opinion this is how everyone should live life, and while we may make the wrong decision at times, learn from it and move on, don’t dwell on it and waste your time here in misery looking for an idea that never exists.   

Here’s the part where I relate this to education.  If you didn’t notice on Monday my description of my genre paper was not the most confident and descriptive one, in fact, I’ll be the first one to say it, it probably sounded like I had a half thought out idea that I really had no stake in.  That is not because I procrastinated and threw some half thought out idea together at the last minute, in fact I actually spent the whole weekend working on it in an attempt to come up with an idea that I felt confident enough to turn in and attribute to my work ethic and the rubric criteria.  I went through probably five different ideas of what I wanted to do, but sense we have very little structure to these genre papers I kept second guessing my ideas.  First I hand the idea to make a video, of which I was going to depict different styles of teaching and how they affect the students but I felt like the comedic side of me would have made seem more like a hysterical Youtube video other than something that could be considered even remotely academic so I scrapped that idea.  Next I went to a board game that would depict a typical semester for a teacher and all the hardships they encounter but again it wasn’t an idea that I felt confident enough about the way I depicted this so again I went back to the drawing board.  Next I went through various ways to show the difference between the different types of schooling, I went through multiple genres and finally settled on making brochures advertising local area (St. Louis because I know them the best) high schools to show the difference between the ways that parents can have their children educated.  I finally think I struck gold with this idea but it’s neither here nor there.

This blog post is about why I was so indecisive in the first place about my idea.  As the quote says “the meaning of life is to give life meaning,” do what you enjoy and disregard what doesn’t seem appealing to you, pretty self-explanatory.  Most class structures do not follow this idea, they give you a specific set of topics of things to do and you have to follow the criteria to earn a decent grade.  Take one step out of the line and you get marked down.  Most assigned projects and papers follow a standard and give students very little wiggle room for what they can do about them.  Not only are they incredibly boring to write but students learn very little from them because they have no interest in what they are writing about.  This is why our genre papers and blog posts are so enjoyable because they have very little structure.  We have general criteria (education) but other than that we can talk about almost anything we want.  This is what I see as the biggest flaw of the education system when I went through it.  Every single class I have ever taken before 301D has said this is what you have to write, this is how you write it, and if you don’t like it then too bad.  I have become so accustomed to this type of structure (and I think you all can agree) that when I was told in this class to communicate whatever in whatever way I want as long as it has something to do with education, I felt lost.  I feel like this system needs to be implemented sooner in grade school.  Definitely not in the early years, but encouraging students to voice their opinions in whatever manner they want will prepare them better for what comes after college.  I mean, how many times after graduation will you have to write an analysis paper about the symbolism in Shakespeare.  Never, that’s what I thought.  It confuses students like me who get into less structured situations like this, and we have trouble deciding what to do.  Anyways I’m going to go cry about the fact that the Cardinals didn’t make it to the World Series this year so let me know what you think. #12in13

Big Brother Little Brother Foundation

So earlier today I was watching a collection of Saturday Night Live commercial sketches and I came to this conclusion: this is the best show ever.  I mean where else can you see Sean Connery make thousands of innuendos about Will Farrell’s mother, that girl from Brides Maids sing about Sasquatch, and Chis Farrley screaming “Da Bears” all in a matter of about five minutes.  Nowhere, that’s what I thought, so stop saying otherwise.  Anyways amidst all the hysterical commercial parodies there were two that made me laugh so hard that I was rolling on the ground in tears after.  Have you all seen those NFL play 60 commercials?  Well if you haven’t they are pretty much depict NFL players throwing footballs around with children in an attempt to promote children to have positive role models and exercise on a regular basis.  This snl skit is a parody of those, and the best part is both skits are with Payton and Eli Manning.  

In the oldest of the Manning brothers snl skit, Payton is pretty much doing the exact opposite of what a good role model should, attempting to steal cars, hurling footballs at small children, and even making one of the kids get a tattoo of his face on their shoulder.  But even better is Eli’s, entitled the Big Brother Little Brother Foundation, in which Eli picks on children who bully their little brothers.  Apart from giving me a seizure of hysterical laughter it really made me think about what we were talking about in class the other week with bullies in the classroom.  As the SNL skits make a parody of, it is really important for us as teachers to be role models for our students.  We need to treat every single one of our students as an equal and celebrate their differences and our students will follow suit.  In addition bullying needs to be stop as soon as it is spotted, if it’s not it’ll escalate and continue to hurt the victims.  I have personally be on both sides of the spectrum, it is not fun for the people it hurts and it’s a terrible way to make someone feel better about themselves.  Anyways here I couldn’t find the Payton skit but here is Eli’s SNL anti-bullying skit.  Watch it!

Types of schooling

Today there are so many diverse options that students have about how they want to go through their schooling.  No doubt, which ever option they choose students are going to learn a lot about the way the world works, but what are their options?  Which one is going to provide the best possible education for the individual student?  Well in today’s society there are four main options that a student has about going through grade school: a charter school, home school, private school, and public school.  Here is my opinion on all of them

1)      Charter school: A charter school is a fantastic option for students who already know what they want to do with their lives.  Whereas in a traditional high school students have a list of core classes that they have to pass to graduate, a charter school will have these classes too but they are more narrowed onto a specific career (i.e. theater).  So like I said, if a specific individual already knows what he or she wants to do with their life after they graduate than a charter school is a fantastic option, however it has its downsides.  The opportunities after graduation from one of these schools are very limited.  Pretty much the two options are to go into the work force or to further their education from their charter school by attending a higher institution for learning that is specific to whatever their charter school focused on.   If a student changes his mind on what he or she wants to do after graduation options are very limited.

2)      Home schooling: In my opinion this is the worst possible idea for a student to experience grade school.  I have very strong opinions about this so get ready.  What is one of the main points of grade school? Not only for students to get a basic education of everything that they will need after graduation but to teach them a very important part about life: social skills.  In home schooling, students stay at their respective house and are either taught by a tutor or one of their parents.  Their only classmates if they have any, are going to be very limited, which in most cases is just their siblings.  This is a fantastic idea if you want to shelter your children but we all know how most of these kids turn out.  They lack very important social skills that they are going to need later in life, and have very little chance for future success.  So like I said, it’s a fantastic way to shelter your kids but about 90% of the time it doesn’t work out in their favor.  It’s just a bad idea to begin with.

3)      Private School vs public school: Really these are the two best options for students to experience grade school.  They provide a traditional schooling experience with all the core class and will give students all they need to be successful in the real world, but both have their down sides.  Private schools are expensive, they are well worth it if you can afford them, however they are well out of reach for many middle class families.  In addition, they provide the same thing that many public schools provide so why waste the money when you can have the same experience for free.  Public schools also have a down side.  They are state funded, and while many of them provide an outstanding education, some are very underfunded with sub-par teachers; these schools will lack in some areas and can at times provide a terrible education for their students.  But like I said, these cases are far and few and nothing that hard-work and motivation cannot persevere through.  Either of these types of schools is a fantastic option for students.

Someone please revoke Snoop’s voting privliges

With elections only week’s away undecided voters all across the country are scrambling to find the right choice for the future of our great country.  With debate season heating up undecided voters are given multiple reasons to choose one of the respective candidates; literally all you have to do is turn your TV to CNN and watch it for twenty minutes and it will provide you with thousands of components of each of the candidates plans for the future of America.  Okay I may be exaggerating a bit but you get the picture.  Being an out spoken republican, I already know who I am voting for but I didn’t just blindly stumble into this decision, I researched all over the web, watched the debate and made the choice that I believe best suited for the country.  Believe me, I’m not that ignorant, if I had liked what Obama had to say better I would be voting for him, and if you are voting for him I will respectfully disagree but at the same time say if that’s who you truly think is best than I will support your decision.  However, there is one stipulation, be able to support your decision with an intelligent argument.

Recently, one of America’s most well-known musical artists, Snoop Dogg, posted a picture on his twitter entitled “why I’m voting for Obama.  Like I said above, if you are voting for Obama that’s fine with me as long as you can support your decision with an intelligent and well thought out evidence.  Let me repeat, INTELLIGENT AND WELL THOUGHT OUT EVEIDENCE.  The Mr. Snoop Dogg (who’s picture I will not post here because of it’s inappropriate nature) did not provide any type of evidence that could be considered as remotely intelligent, in fact I am willing to bet that my two year old niece could support her standing as a voter better than snoop can.  Okay that was a little much but you get my point, nowhere in Snoop’s unintelligent babble did he contrast either sides plan for the country, in fact one of the reasons that he stated that he is not voting for Romney is because his first name is Mitt.  Yeah you read that right because his first name is Mitt.

Like I said, if he had provided intelligent reasons for his support of Obama, I would have been right behind him in his decision, but he didn’t.  Alright Snoop, if you want to vote for Obama because he plays basketball you shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place but please don’t post this on your twitter.  You have so many idiots who follow you on twitter and are now solely going to vote for Obama because you and him use the same hair clippers.  Seriously though, Obama should thank you for posting this, half of your followers are now going to blindly vote for him because of you.  If you want to read Snoop’s reasons behind voting just Google image search “why Snoop Dogg is voting for Obama” but be warned, he drops the N word and F bomb a couple times and your IQ will probably drop after you read it.