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Stress

I don't even know if anyone looks at this anymore or has time to, but I think everyone can relate to this post.  I'm not quite sure why I'm wasting time writing this, but I felt like someone needed to put our thoughts out here.

STRESS, I don't think I have ever felt as stressed as I do right now.  With 7 tests this week and a french final, I have had no time.  My schedule and suffering hasn't been as bad as some of my classmates.  If the teachers only two lost days, which doesn't seem like a major setback, why it has proved to stretch time to the absolute end?  Also, why bother testing us on something and then have a final within 3 or 4 days!?  We only have one weekend to prep for finals because we were so swamped with homework and projects from last weekend.

At what point do adults lose the feeling of what is was like to be a kid?  It is June 2nd and summer, along with enjoying myself is the last thing on my mind.  What is the purpose of shoving one more chapter of useless facts down our throats, to spit onto the final exam? Most of our teachers have children, would they want to put their children under this same pressure?  They preach about understanding the pressure and telling us its not about the grade but the learning experience.   Do they realize our entire lives our based on GPA?  Thats just the world we live in.  

I think that there has been a complete breakdown in communication between the educational system and students.  Google educational studies, it is proven increased workloads do not increase your intelligence, yet thats exactly the method being used.  Now for the millionaire dollar question, why doesn't anyone get it?

Turko Mongol Timeline

Day 8 Life of Pi

Here is the Day 8's Homework: Respond to the following question and make a blog post.
You guys have 2 nights to do this, so it's due Fri. 4/17 by Midnight.

Pi's adventure can be described as a hyperbolic coming-of-age tale. Can you describe an event in your life which served as a "turning point" for you. Find similarities/differences between your experience and Pi's.

Life of Pi day 5

In this section of the book, Pi finds himself stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, separated from his family but surrounded by wild animals. Obviously, few people ever experience anything like this. Is it possible for us to relate to any aspects of Pi's experiences, or can we never understand what he has gone through? If we can relate to him, how? If not, why not?

I'm not that great at titles either...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420084779742873.html

There is a process in debate where both schools in a debate get to “strike” one judge from a panel in order to ensure that the judging panel is as unbiased as possible. Mr. Oppenheimer points out an argument two coaches had over one such strike in order to try to attack modern debate.

He says that scholastic debate today does not incorporate witty flourishes or glamorous speeches. However, that is not what the essence of debate is about. If you need to use catchy phrases and practically sing your arguments to win them, you have no place debating. Modern policy debate is about research, preparedness, knowledge, and an ability to think on your feet. It is not an issue that “debaters no longer aspire to combine erudition and inspiration.” In my opinion (and many people agree with me), it is much more important to have a substantive debate where actual issues are discussed than it is to mindlessly rattle off ultimatums.

Mr. Oppenheimer points out that some college debaters now practice postmodern debate. However, he fails to notice that those people are in a minority. After 57 debates across the country, I have yet to debate such a team. And it’s not just me. I know of only 2 instances throughout the entire year where a “critical affirmative” was run. And, even if a consensus were reached that postmodern debate is bad, eliminating it from debate would be impossible, because it is the very lack of rules that makes debate so interesting.  

Mr. Oppenheimer brought up the issue of talking fast and shorthand (which is typically referred to as “flowing,” a method used to take notes at a rapid pace). However, there is absolutely nothing lost by quickening the pace that you speak at. He uses the fallacy that either you make smart arguments or you talk fast. This is decidedly not true. If one could get away with making bad arguments because they were talking quickly, I would quit debate. He fails to notice the incomprehensibly large amount of research done before every tournament. Debaters are sure of their arguments before the round, and that keeps the arguments intelligent and tricky.

His argument about the more enthusiastic converts makes no sense. If he says that smaller high schools and colleges bring about modern debate, then he is making himself a victim to the very argument he set out to take down. This would mean that modern debate is a step in the right direction because older debate was exclusionary, and was senseless and dead-end competition between snobby products prep-schools. If he is saying that those “scrappy workhorses” should be eliminated, he is once again setting out to create a more exclusionary environment.

He goes on to show ignorance of how modern debate truly works. His claim that debate is “unmoored from oratory” is unfounded. There is a system at debate tournaments at every level where judges award speaker points based on how persuasive the debater was. At the end, all the speaker points are tallied for each debater and the ones with the highest totals get rewarded. He also says that debate does not prepare Americas youth for the real world. However, does the process of flowing not help during a particularly long meeting, or during a lengthy lecture? Does the ability to construct an argument effectively and based off of research not help write reports and papers?

Also, if Mr. Oppenheimer wishes to change presidential debate, perhaps he should run for president, or write the candidates. I doubt that Obama spends much time reading peoples complaints about the stylized fashion policy debate takes on. At the end, he once again brings up the point that you can talk slowly and convey ideas. This is entirely true. However, there is no reason you can’t talk quickly and convey just as smart, if not smarter, ideas.

As we debaters actually say, in a world where 70% of congress has debated in high school, we should try very hard to focus them on learning about substantive issues, rather than mindless cliché phrases that will woo crowds.

Life of Pi Day 2

Here is our "class illustration" (click on it to see it bigger):
And the question to go along with it:
What, besides religion, did you feel that Yann Martel was emphasizing in the section and how is this expressed in our class illustration?

If you notice the answers getting repetitious and have nothing new to add, you may try one of these questions instead:

1) Either: what new insight does our picture reveal to you?

2) Or: what specific portion of our picture do you find problematic?

Notes from the questions:

In your personal life, what do you get out of your religion and does it relate to the car metaphor? If so, how?

• God is your GPS
• Who is Martel talking about?
• destructive--larger=worse?
• reason:car; religion:gps
• answers questions
• fuel=will power/motivation

In your opinion and ignoring Pi’s religious affiliation, what religion suits Pi the best?

• Buddhism- ignores labels, about self, Pi=Buddha, live in the now
• Bahai- accepts all religions with own philosophy
• no religion- do whatever he wants
  

Using the text, what connection do you find between religion and human nature?

• 2 steps towards God, he runs towards you (p. 61)
• people need religion to create boundaries
• Pi's house with all 3 religions--want to believe in something
• human nature to want answers
• book comes out on 9/11-->people turn to religion in times of need
  

Martel asserts that animals only attack when threatened. We find that his description of animals can be closely related to people. Do you think that in the same way there are no truly evil people, just people who are threatened?

• tragedy and anger-take it out on those who don't understand
• vicious circle
• are we too nice to evil people?
• no "Voldemort" evil--nobody capable
• always a motive
• everyone has some good--people who act without threat
• greed in humans, not in animals
• man most dangerous animal in zoo