Teenagers, and Bad Decisions

     Kids today continuously make bad decisions. Psychologists at Temple University used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on 40 teenagers and adults to determine if there are differences in brain activity when adolescents are alone versus with their friends. The findings suggested that teenage peer pressure has a distinct effect on the brain signals involving risk and reward, helping to explain why young people are more likely to misbehave and take risks when their friends are watching. Teen's are not even active either, all they do now is sit around, playing video games, doing drugs, or watching TV.

    The sad part is teenagers have a large variety to choose from today such as Marijuana, also known as pot, or cocaine, a white powder. There are many other varieties to choose from those are just two of the commons. 

     When you make bad decisions such as these , and many others, you don't just hurt yourself. You hurt the people that love you as well. One of the most painful and frustrating things for parents is watching their teens make bad choices and "throw it all away." Some of the choices include running with the wrong crowd, blowing off homework, dropping out of school, and engaging in risky behavior. 

     Bad choices happen everyday, all around us, sometimes we don't even see them. People die everyday because of other people's bad decisions. A split-second decision by a 19 year old driver to pull in front of a semi tractor trailer is believed to be the cause of Monday's crash near Oswego that left the driver and two other teens dead, Illinois State Police said today. Brian Herrera, of Plainfield, was driving a black Ford South on Schlapp Road around 3:15 p.m. Monday and pulled in front of the semi heading east on Illinois Route 126, said Illinois State Police Trooper Jason Shrake. Simple choices such as should i or should i not pull out onto the road can easily cause catastrophe.

     Everyone makes bad decisions, some worse than others.It is our job as responsible young adults to try to prevent such decisions. From now on think about what you do before you do it, if it seems like a bad choice then it probably isn't a good idea.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/teenagers-friends-and-bad-decisions/

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-05/news/chi-3-teens-die-in-oswegoarea-crash-20120604_1_crash-truck-driver-semi

http://www.empoweringparents.com/Tough-Love-When-Good-Kids-Make-Bad-Choices.php#

 The ever changing opportunities in school.

Hawaii is expanding its preschool education program to encourage and assist low income families to send their children to preschool. A child who enters kindergarten without first attending preschool may not have the proper knowledge for success in school, and may be less likely to have the necessary social and behavioral skills. This can slow down academic progress in the classroom, impacting all students. A study quoted in the legislation showed that 60 percent of kindergarten classes in Hawaii had a majority of students who were unprepared for school. In addition, the Hawaii State School Readiness Assessment indicated that fewer than 60 percent of kindergarten students had attended preschool. Before this bill was signed, Hawaii was one of 11 states without a government-funded preschool program. Eleven out of fifty is not exactly a good ratio. In my opinion that is a bad thing. Eleven out of fifty is below fifty percent,below half, and in school  below a 60 is failing. So to me the government is failing our students.

The average family in Hawaii pays 640$ a month to send a child to preschool. The "Preschool Open Doors" program provides approximately 6 million dollars to help pay for approximately 900 to 1,000 children to attend preschool in 2014. This amount is less than the original proposed amount of 32 million dollars, which would have provided funding for approximately 3,500 students. this program will help participating parents who enroll their children in any licensed preschool program in Hawaii. In my opinion that is sad. The future of our nation rest's on the shoulders of these young children, and they made major cutbacks on the allowed budget? It just doesn't seem right.

Governor Abercrombie, governor of Hawaii, remains optimistic about the future of state-funded preschool education in Hawaii. Last year, he established the Executive office on Early Learning with the hope to begin a program that would provide publicly funded universal preschool in Hawaii. This was only the first move in what looks to be an ongoing effort to increase public access to preschool. This leads me to believe that even though the government is making budget cuts there are people out there working to better our education program, and that there is hope for the ,bright young, youth of America. 

http://www.educationinamerica.com/blog/hawaii-expands-preschool-opportunities/

Current Connection 1.1

What is different between education in the past and education in the now?

A few differences are known. For example increased knowledge, and constant increasing complexity and quality of materials. There are also many more. Did you know that the issues involved with student behavior are totally different now than they were in the past. 50 years ago, the most common behavior problems were talking and chewing gum in class. Students respected their teachers and obeyed them and the rules. if they didn't respect the teacher, they at least showed them respect. There was the occasional fight, but nothing that was not handled quickly and effectively. Standing in corners, missing recess and spanking were acceptable punishments. Now, behavioral issues can involve almost anything from showing teachers disrespect to the most dreaded of all, school shootings. In my opinion this all started well the rules got soft, and parents started spoiling there children. Also it could be caused by them not disciplining their children. If you do something wrong but you aren't told it was wrong then whats to stop you from doing it again?

Schools were smaller back then, so parents usually knew the teachers. Curriculum was focused on academic subjects like reading, writing, arithmetic, science, etc. Formal sex education was nonexistent in schools. Prayer was allowed without questioning that it was "unconstitutional." in fact, when schools were first organized,  the Mcguffy Readers that were used contained scriptures from the Bible. "Zero Tolerance" was unheard of in the past. There are so many classes that a student can take now that they barely have time for the time to focus on there more important classes, and if they don't do the work for their non required classes they still get into trouble.

The school year was also shorter back then. The year started after Labor Day and ended the last of May. There were no choices for lunch. we ate the one meal that was prepared or just did not eat. There were no vending machines in schools. This is part of the reason why i believe that the children of today are so obese. They have access to food all the time therefore they almost are always eating.

There are indefinably more differences,relativley short ones, but that is just a few of them.


http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_different_between_education_in_the_past_and_education_in_the_now

the threat of nuclear war

Matt Harris
3A
5/17/2013
There is a lot of buzz about North Korea threatening to develop and launch nuclear warheads.
Peter Vincent with pry says this "North Korea could deliver a nuclear bomb in the hold of a freighter under a foreign flag to destroy a U.S. port city such as New York or Los Angeles. They could give a bomb to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda or Hezbollah to deliver by truck or plane across the porous U.S. border. They could use a false-flagged freighter to move a Scud or their medium-range Nodong missile close enough to make a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland."
     I understand where Peter is coming from. There are many ways for North Korea to detonate a warhead on U.S soil without us even knowing it was there until it blew up, but i do not believe North Korea would take the risk of nuclear fallout.
 Peter also went on by saying  "What about North Korea’s claim that it has long-range nuclear missiles that can strike the United States right now? If our current crop of leaders is as prudent as were President Dwight Eisenhower and Sen. Lyndon Johnson in 1957, they would warn the American people that North Korean nuclear threats to the U.S. heartland may be real. After all, North Korea has had at least three successful nuclear tests and successfully orbited a satellite the latter being the usual indicator that a nuclear power has achieved intercontinental reach."
     I also agree with this but yet again I believe the risk of nuclear fallout is do big and to dangerous to take chance. Plus Eisenhower wouldn't know how to face this threat because their wasn't any advanced tech like this in is day and age.

bibliography page for Technological Advances

 http://oldbungalow.blogspot.com/2012/12/when-did-people-start-driving-cars.html

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/26/4748778/timeline-americas-space-program

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Technological advances

Technological Advances

It’s amazing how far the human race has come from the wheel, to things no one believed were possible in the past, such as the space shuttle, computers, and cars that can top 250 mph. "On May 5 1961 Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr became the first American in space. Aboard the freedom seven he flew above the Earth for 14.8 minutes and attains a speed of 5,100 mph." Today we don’t just have space shuttles America has many satellites and an actual space station, which is capable of staying in space permanently not just for a few minutes. The car started out as nothing more than a horse drawn carriage. People actually started driving cars in 1769. "However through research and trying and failing the fuel gas powered automobile engine was invented in 1805. But we didn’t stop there gas powered engines were soon created later in the year 1885, but through modern tweaking and improvements on engines." Instead of driving a measly 15 to 30 miles an hour, some extremely expensive modern cars can reach over 200 mph such as the Lamborghini aventador which top speed recorded is around 220.

Yet another major advancement in technology is the timeline of computers. First of all not just one person invented the computer. Many people contributed to its creation." The z1 computer was the first freely programmable computer, and was created by Konrad Zuse in 1936. The first consumer computer was created in 1974/1975." Before the computer was invented people used letters which would take weeks to get across the country. Now modern computers can send an email across the world in a matter of seconds.

These are just a few major technological advances out of an infinite amount made by mankind. 

Gay marriage is wrong

Gay Marriage Is Wrong

            There are only a few states that allow gay marriage. California is simply one that does. But there are even more states that disagree with marriage of the same sex. Some states have even made specific amendments (laws) that do not allow gay marriage. Texas and North Carolina are just two of many states that disagree with it. I personally disagree with gay marriage because of many reasons. Number one being the bible says in a few different ways that being homosexual at all is wrong. The new testament states this in Romans 1:26-27: "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.". The code of leviticus also states this"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (18:22) and goes on in even further detail by saying "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them" (20:13).  My second reason for disagreeing with being homosexual in general is that a male and a male cannot reproduce naturally. Same goes for a women and another women. To me that is basically nature saying homosexaulity is wrong. These are just two of the many reasons why i disagree with gay marriage, because if you disagree with homosexuality in general than you do not support gay marriage.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/what-does-the-bible-reall_b_990444.html

http://statesthatallowgaymarriage.com/

the past and the present

The current and the past

3A

Mrs. Pickett

Matt Harris

There is a huge difference between vehicles today and vehicles in the late 1800’s, when people first started driving gasoline powered cars.

Today people drive electric cars that are better for the environment and doesn’t burn fossil fuels and pollute the atmosphere. Not to mention today the cars that do run on gas get approximately 20-30 miles to the gallon, but when gas powered cars were first invented probably got around 5 mpg. In the late 1800’s people had just invented gasoline fueled cars that burned lots of gas.

Another huge difference is the vehicle’s top speeds. The average modern car can reach around one hundred mph and there are many cars that can go even faster. The fastest car in the world is the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport. It can reach almost 300 mph. Compared to 1800’s cars which probably couldn’t top 30 mph.

There are many huge differences between cars drove in the past and the cars of today. Mileage and speed are just two of the biggest.

Current connection

            Matt Harris

3A

Mrs. Pickett

Current connection.

 

Obama proposed to take guns away from all U.S citizens on August 6 2012. I strongly disagreed when he did this. There are plenty of reasons for Americans to be able to possess semi automatic weapons, assault rifles and high capacity magazines. A ban for semi automatic weapons would be a ban for most guns on the market. People don’t need assault rifles or anything fancy to kill people. There was a shooting in the Sikh temple where the gunman used a common 9mm Springfield semi automatic pistol. It doesn’t matter if they do put a ban on any guns. Criminals will still find a way to get them. Obama voted for all over/under and side by side shotguns to be outlawed in 2003. In 2004 Obama voted that we shouldn’t be allowed to keep guns in our homes for protection. I disagree with Obama on the simple fact that criminals will always have guns and if we don’t have them at home how are we supposed to protect ourselves? We couldn’t, we would be at their mercy. Think about that next time you decide guns are a bad thing.

current connection

Matt Harris

3A

Mrs. Pickett

Current connections

            The Present and the Past        

            In the past (namely the 1700's) there wasn't exactly a lot to do to pass the time. A lot of people didn't have fun; they simply worked because they had to  survive day by day. In the days before technology invention, such as cars or computers, all people did was work and farm. Occasionally children would play outside, for example hanging out at the local pond to fish or swim. At that time they did not simply hunt for fun, they hunted for survival bringing food to their families. There was not enough food to waste according to farmers, which at that time made up" 90% of the U.S population." They worked very hard to provide food and comforts for their families; they were some of the most tough and hardworking people in history.

            In today's society Americans have become sedentary and obese. However our current technology is so much more advanced,  the farming workforce could probably produce 200% more crops than farmers in the 1700's in half the time.  Yet in 2008,  there was a reported "50.2 million people starving in the U.S." The reason is most people in today's society  waste ten times as much food as people in the 1700's. If  people in today's society could just learn to work harder, eat what they need and not what they want, then maybe we could be the hardworking farmers that we once were.