An overwhelming amount of goodness in the news this week and last:
Government is not the problem: From Newsweek, an interesting take on why the government isn't doing so well. As you'll see from this story, it's not the government, it's the people. What do you think of this theory on the United States' recent troubles? Can you see any of this mentality in the MA community? Is there an MA angle in here?
Schools New Math: the Four-Day Week: From the Wall Street Journal, this piece looks at the abysmal state of American education. With huge budget short falls and states in a pinch for every extra dollar, education is an easy place to cut. What are your thoughts? On one hand, a 3-day weekend would be nice, but at what cost? What are your thoughts on this situation? What would happen to the MA community if cuts knocked out some school days? classes? after-school programs?
Framing Childhood: From the NY Times, this piece takes an interesting look at how digitizing our lives will impact the next generation. Is this the way of the yearbook? Of the newspaper? Will we all be so consumed with documenting that we forget to live?
What Were They Thinking: Just a fun WSJ read about politicians and their mistakes. While the topic is politicians, you could substitute professional athletes into the story with ease. What is it that makes those in power think they are immune to the consequences of their actions? Maybe politicians and professional athletes are stuck in a perpetual state of adolescence? Thoughts?
11 comments:
Pullin' an Eiseman.
2) Schools New Math: the Four-Day Week: I finished the article feeling ambivalent and nervous about the future of the United States' school system. On one hand, a district in Georgia is, "on track to save 39 teaching positions and $400,000 by the end of the school year," while on the other hand, it would deprive high school students nation-wide of a more thorough, quality education. I have yet to come up with a definitive answer of whether or not I am for or against this controversial subject, but naturally, I am leaning towards the normal, 5-day school week throughout the US.
Stylistically, the piece was a very straight-forward read, yet I found it to be a bit bland. Because this is primarily a news piece, I know it is difficult to add some "spice" to the article, but I feel like the author could have added a little more "oomph" to it. On a happier note, I did like the graphics that were integrated into the article.
3) Framing Childhood: I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, especially Heffernan's sense of humor. She did a very nice job of integrating pop culture and factual information into the piece, while also giving us, the readers, her own outlook on the topic.
Relating this article back to MA, it's very plausible that our newspaper or yearbook will become a photographic/digitized "purge." More and more I find students of a younger age (and their parents) beginning to take digital photographs to comprehensively document their lives. Who ever said this was a bad thing though? I don't think kids are "forgetting to live" by artistically documenting their lives, neither parents. I do agree with Heffernan though, that our society, and certainly members of our generation (and the next to come) rely heavily on technology as a means of documentation.
We the Problem
I think the article is right when it says how people in recent years have become more demanding of the Government. I believe this all started in 1981 where Reagan said these words in his inaugaration, "Government cannot solve our problems, Government is the problem." He created an attitude that people could get items for free instead of paying for it. People expected everything to cost less once inflation stopped and Reagan implemented his policies. He caused a deficit however which makes sense when there are no taxes and spending is not dropped. The deficit was not on people's minds as they saw how they had to pay low taxes. Taxes have gone so low that Obama's tax rates are even lower than Reagan's. No wonder we are in this high deficit.
The attitude of "no pay, yes gain" has come back to haunt us with the economic crash because of that attitude. With people forgetting the attitudes before Reagan, they are looking for someone to blame and their blaming falls on the Government. Yes, the Government originally encouraged the attitude of people which led to the economic crash but overall, it was the people themselves that kept the attitude and delivered the economic crash.
Alec
The most recent comment was also mine.
Scandals in Politics:
People get elected into Washington and immediately, they find themselves in strong power. They directly impact the laws of a country with 300 million people and laws that could potentially affect the rest of the world. This could lead those representatives and Senators to believe that they deserve to do whatever they want. Of course, most politicians do not believe that and are too honest to do anything illegal. Still, I believe there are more scandals and some (not all) come out because someone was taking revenge. Eliot Spitzer was the New York Governor before Paterson and Spitzer saw the call girl. He had very prominent New York politicians out to get him because he was trying to limit their power.
On factors involving corruption, not only is the temptation and the sense that it is deserved prevalent, there are other factors too. The culture of the representative's home state is large too. In some states, politicians have to be corrupt to gain allies to help them move up in power or support on bills and laws. Overall, I believe the political culture is the strongest influence, though because in some places, politicians with little power are dishonest.
On a different note, I liked how Christopher Buckley started the article with a joke. Political scandals are serious. This information could make people more cynical(which is slightly happening to me right now) and also make them lose trust in their politicians. A joke though makes the tone of the article less cynical. Even if the information itself is not positive, you can still laugh along while you read the bad stuff.
Districts Explore Shorter School Week:
I find this interesting for a couple of reasons. It is really interesting to see that one decision can help in so many ways such as budget, but harm in so many others. It not only can affect a child's education, but it can cost many workers who can not compensate for the lost hours a reduce in pay by 20%. I never realized that so many schools had been already using this four day system and the number used came as a complete shock to me! Additionally the fact that it wasn't just one area but many different states had been experimenting with this four day week. Personally I don't think it is that good of an idea if it extends school hours, but its not really my decision. Style-wise this piece had a lot of sources and a lot of varied opinions. It was not bias and used far more then three sources within the article. In addition the piece also had a lot of useful and MEANINGFUL statistics which added to the article.
Not sure we can comment on this but ill do it anyway: What were they thinking;
I liked this article because it really demonstrated the fact of how stupid the people we elect can really be. We elect these people to make good decisions and represent us as common people in a positive way. However not only do they fail to represent themselves in a good manner, but it shows how poor our decisions were for electing them. I like the writer's use of comedic language and witty phrases to add a lighter side to an actually serious issue. This writer used his extended vocabulary to help his cause and add to the story giving it more meaning. This is an issue which could be added to a lot of other aspects of society and that is important for our MA voice to do aswell. Make connections and tie things together. FInally I'm not sure this writer used three quotes, but yeah that was my only flaw.
Ilana Salant
Schools New Math: The Four-Day Week:
I think that everyone, myself included, fantasizes about 3-day weekend. School, no matter how fun, can become tiring and exhausting. At the end of such a grueling week, what is better than 3-day weekend to "take a load off?" If this 3-day weekends became the normal routine, recurring week after week, there would definitely be consequences, as Chris Herring conveys in his article. Though Ms. Mason says, “"The savings so far have been phenomenal," I think it’s important to take notice of what we are losing when switching to 4-day weeks. People like bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc. are suffering due to this new week, which, quite frankly, isn’t fair. I am not sure how cutting the hours of such works positively affects the U.S job market. It’s also important to look at how it’s affect the education of the children. The picture that is with the article shows a very moving picture of children asking for another day of school. If they want to learn, shouldn't they be able to?
1) What Were They Thinking?
This article was very informative about politicians' secret behavior that is rarely discussed. Although I knew about the major cases in which politicians were caught in scandals-Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, and John Edwards- I never knew how commonplace it was for politicians to make downright stupid decisions. Not only was the article informative, the writing was witty while discussing an outrageously awful subject. The layout was crisp and the placement of the pictures of each politician was nicely organized. I think because sports stars and politicians feel that they are adored, rich and famous, they can do whatever they please and no one will ever find out because they are so powerful. Hopefully after the two latest cases with Tiger Woods and John Edwards, other men of power will realize how quickly one can fall in the totem poll.
Framing Childhood
I liked reading about the new age of parents and children. Pictures from digital cameras and e-mails have become the new written letters. From the second a child is born, the article describes the mother literally typing, attaching, and sending an e-mail to all her pals including some updates, and most of all, the baby's picture from a digital camera. Although many people have started documenting almost every aspect of their life, I am all for the new trend. The more documenting we do, the more legacy we leave behind. We are not wasting our lives taking pictures, we are capturing a piece of happiness so when you look back you can remember special moments. I am all for snapping pictures of people from the moment they are born. I love seeing pictures of different stages of my, and other peoples' lives.
Ilana Salant
Framing Childhood:
I think at Virginia Heffernan’s article, Framing Childhood, touches on a very prominent part of this generation; how technology is taking over our lives. Documenting ourselves every step of the way has become the status quo, the norm. Heffernan conveys the idea that parents are becoming obsessed with documenting every second of their child’s life. Yet I think that this documentation “epidemic,” if you will, relates to the high schoolers too. In my opinion, Facebook plays are large role in this. Relationships aren’t official until they are “facebook official.” The highlight of Winter Formal is taking pictures to later upload onto facebook. I think that taking pictures of important occasions is a good thing to do, as long as we know when to draw the line.
Framing Childhood:
I read this article literally right after my mom's friend sent us a picture of her 4-day old baby. I see how this might be the easy alternative to informing mass amounts of people about your life, but the treasure of seeing that baby for the first time in real life or other events of that sort is lost by the digital revolution. This is all very recent as well; I remember back when I was in 6th grade that taking pictures was all about having them to look back as memories, and now its about uploading them to Facebook for everyone to see.
I think the way to ensure that the Yearbook and the Voice don't fall into this is for all of the pictures used to be natural. Anything staged or forced is taking a picture for the sake of having a picture. Photographs should capture memories that naturally occur.
We the Problem:
This article was very interesting and definitely had some truth to it. I When it comes to government of any kind, no one is ever going to get exactly what they want. Every single person is going to have to compromise in some way. I thought about Open Forum when relating this to MA. It seems that all we do at Open Forum is complain about things we don't like without thinking about why those things happen and why maybe they can't be changed. I'm sure everyone just wants to make MA better than it already is, but there are better ways to go about doing that instead of complaining.
Schools New Math
This idea of a 4 day week is both good and bad depending on the age of the students. I think that when kids are in elementary school and middle school, it does not matter if they have a 4 day week. Honestly, looking back I remember a LOT of wasted time and goofing off. If the teachers got rid of games, silent reading, and other things that arn't extremely necessary to do at school or even learn, there wouldn't be a problem. In terms of high school and college, I don't think it would work out. It would be interesting to bring this article to MA as a whole and interview students, asking what they think.
Framing Childhood
I was actually waiting for an article like this to be written. I am so weirded out by how many parents with young children are obsessed with posting pictures of their children. A couple of the people I babysit for have facebooks and every week there is a new album with the latest activity their kids did. At first I thought it was cute but now it just seems as if they are no longer living in the moment. I agree with the author in that they are so obsessed with actually capturing the moment that they don't enjoy what their kids are doing when it initially happens. I think this is a problem at MA as well. People are always taking pictures and documenting their lives without actually living it to the fullest. Don't get me wrong, taking pictures during important isn't wrong; but when it is constantly being done to capture every single moment of your life, it is a little crazy.
We are the problem:
AGREED. That's my one word on that article. The point it made about our politicians (that WE elect) being for the most part just like us; stubborn, uncompromising, and irrational was very accurate. Though I'm not trying to defend politicians, I think too often we describe them like some sort of alien species and don't realize that they are trying to just represent us, and so they represent all of our downsides as well. I applaud this article for not using the overly dramatic and whiny tone made popular by people like Glenn Beck to talk about government. Rather, the article presents a harsh truth for the reader in a calm tone and doesn't throw out random accusations at the public or the often maligned 'next generation'.
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