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28 August 2019 Sociology of Ed., Intro (Discussion #1)

What do you think the purpose of education should be? Are current educational systems operating towards this purpose? I believe that education serves a number of purposes. Ideally I think it would be a “Great Equalizer” in the sense that people would come out of education having achieved a standard form of opportunity—one that would provide an individual the ability to support themselves on a living wage and pursue family, recreation, or further education as it pleases them. Something I wonder now is how fixing the biases of society would reveal the successes and failures of education, and vice versa, in being that “great equalizer.” I don’t believe an equitable school alone can overcome prejudice against an identity. Under our modern American circumstances, I believe an emerging purpose of schooling is to teach students critical empathy, a way of maintaining one’s compassion and emotion as a part of rationalization. The economic system under which the United States functions is cap...
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8 October 2019 Critical Memo Re: Anti-Positivism & Critical Race Theory

Giroux’s Anti-Positivism and Critical Race Theory in American Schooling Summary Schooling and the Culture of Positivism, by Henry A. Giroux, details his perspective that positivism (as a normative pattern of thinking) is problematic to, and the cause of, theories that there has been a “death of history,” which he criticizes for being reductive and pessimistic. He believes that neo-Marxist and phenomenological theorists have so far neglected to examine how the role of positivism affects schooling. Giroux chooses to address the topic of America’s “loss of interest” in history because he believes it is a unique example of the problem of positivism that schools connect to larger society (2011, p. 20), as well as history being the ironic, singular location of the root of the ideology. Giroux criticizes the presence of positivism in the hegemony of education for its “limited focus on objectivity, efficiency, and technique,” (2011, p. 20). Giroux traces positivism to the industrial...
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5 September 2019 German Class Observation

This essay reflects on an observation of a German 1010 class at my university. Arriving at the classroom, Ruthie and I found that Twitchell was very popular with his students. Several minutes before class began, there was excited discussion of popular media gathered around where he sat at the front of the room. Between his students, we managed to introduce ourselves and select seats at the back. My first note was that Twitchell was only speaking English so far, but I realized we were a minute from the start of the hour. The moment class began, Twitchell switched from English to German and his students gave their rapt attention. Twitchell only spoke the target language for nearly the rest of class, even in giving instruction. Using PowerPoint slides to display grammar and spelling on the board as well as repetition of key concepts and phrases, he got his students to catch on to their roles and participate collectively. The speed by which this occurred indicated to me that this is his...
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6 October 2019 Is Marvel Complex?

A Facebook response: The more I've engaged with enduring and complex literature, the more I've understood why a lot of mainstream books and movies are not at the same caliber as others... What I find to be the difference is that ideas can either be retread or granted new insight. Marvel movies are not consistent in providing any insight—they do occasionally, especially within their genre and for their audience, but I think the nature of their function as multi-billion dollar products collapses their potential to break new ground. Marvel uses outdated, repetitive writings tropes to convey character growth and advance plot, and when it comes to cinema, the way the movies are shot and acted is really rarely top of the game, arguably because the characters and ideas are not that compelling to begin with. They have the budget and talent to do these things, but it isn't done because it doesn't have to be to make a billion dollars. I would, however, argue that literature ca...
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My essay on Anna Anderson

The family is led down the stairs and into another dirty room.  They find themselves lined up against a wall, as a group of criminals may stand before a firing squad.  They did not know how close they were to that fate.  First to go was the father, once the mighty Czar of Russia.  Next they open fire on the Czar’s wife and children.  They are all dead in minutes.  Now all there is left to do is dispose of the bodies.  Can you imagine a young princess and haemophilic, adolescent boy escaping this situation?  In a Disney film, yes, this is perfectly possible, but in a heartless environment it unlikely even the young princess, Anastasia, would survive.  Making it across the harsh environment of Russia and through the revolutionary cities and towns was another matter.  Beyond the enormous amount of obstacles, there is also her DNA comparison, possible true identity, and her doubting past relations. Even though some of the Russian roya...
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The Larson Legacy

     When Charlotte first met Marius Showers-Bagley, she did not know her love at first sight was to become such a pit-falled path.  That her romance would soon become a tragedy.      The drama began in 9th grade of her prestigious music school, when Charlotte discovered that Marius had acquired a girlfriend.  At the time she had thought she and Marius had been dating, even though they had never voiced that assumption.  The discovery was a blow to Charlotte's self-esteem, but she retained her good-standing and continued life undeterred.  Friends of hers brought it up every once in a while, but she never let it unhinge her.  The alleged girlfriend was a rude Swedish girl named Patricia Starley.  Patricia was unbelievably hebetudinous and actually quite ugly.  No one knew what Marius saw in her.  Through all of this, Charlotte went on wishing she could have Marius, hating him and loving him at the same time.  Many...
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Devil’s Eye, Settlement Essay 10/24/12

        After the cataclysmic event that almost eliminated the entire world’s population it was figured that the world’s population was left at at an estimated triple digit number, lightly scattered across the globe.  Think of this as opposed to the almost 7,000,000,000 thickly spread across the Earth back before the incident.  The only option was to start over.  Luckily there were remnants of the modern world that would benefit in the rehabilitation of planet earth and the human population.  But we had to make it work. My company and I (a solemn group of less than 30) were, as if by fate, blown by storms to a large island that was once called Tasmania.  A large island for a small population just south of the better known country/continent once called Australia.  When we first arrived we had been half starved and dehydrated.  We had set off from the resource exhausted Australia in hopes of finding better land and were coming back...
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