Reflection Post

Use your 1st Semester reflection sheet to write a blog post on how you did last semester and how you plan to improve your academic performance this semester.


Last semester of school was really good due to the fact that I continued with amazing grades that really satisfied my parents and myself. However, this is the semester in which I have to look back my academic and time management flaws and, based on those, start planning for this semester and the following two years.

I have to admit, last year, I procrastinated a lot, and even though I turned everything in and got good grades, I still consider it a major flaw of my studies. That is said because I would leave everything to the last minute which meant I had to hurry to finish it, which always resulted in a work that could have been ten times better if I just sat down and completed it with patience. But no, I wanted to watch YouTube videos all day and then rush all my homework so I could go to sleep. Procrastination is really bothering me so I will need to find ways to fight it back. 

Also, another factor that is in my way is the laziness that does not make me want to cross that extra mile. Sometimes I just do work with just enough effort to get a good grade, instead of striving for the best and getting the best possible grade. It can be only some points or even decimals of difference from one normal piece of work and one with my best efforts, but this difference will matter immensely in the futre of college application and IB. So whenever I feel lazy about homework I should remember some wise words and watch this video:

Now the biggest of my flaws is time management. I never actually tried to manage my schedule because I was really lazy to do start a list or something similar; this serves to show how lazy I am to even the most simple stuff. However, as I have been receiving a lot of work and doing some work outside the school, I will need to organize my time so I can have a balance between studying and resting or doing nothing. I know that I will have to sacrifice some of my free tiem but in the end it will be worth it. With this balance I will not need to stress on my work, I will not leave everything to the last minute and I will have to do anything fun afterwards. For this I have found 11 simple tasks that will help me on this specific issue.

One big event that helped me reflect about the coming years is the PSAT. The results of it were not what woke me up, but when I was doing the test I saw how unprepared I was for it, so I decided to talk to my school´s College Counselor to see what I did not know about the SAT and the IB course. I learned a lot about what the Collages require from a student and about the SATs, which I will look into it and practice for it. Now that I am in tenth grade, I should be doing my best and preparing myself so I can achieve my goals in the future.

Communication in Promises.

"Why was communication essential to understanding among the children of Promises?"

    In the movie Promises, the audience is introduced to Moishe, Mahmoud, Shlomo, Yarko, Daniel, Faraj, and Sanabel; these are all kids that live either on Jerusalem or on the refugee camps around them. During the movie, they show their points of view on the Israeli and Palestine conflict over the land. Each one of them has a distinct opinion due to their religions: Mahmoud, Faraj, and Sannabel are Muslims and believe that the Palestinians should have the land, while Moishe and Shlomo are Jewish and believe that Israel should continue, whereas Yarko and Daniel are secular and just want to stop the conflict. The goal of this movie was to show their perspective and then try to make the kids meet in order to play and discuss the issue.

   The conflict between these two cultures is a quite old one and it does not seem to get any closer to peace, so the idea was to make kids, the future generation of both sides, to communicate with each other. Communication is necessary whenever there is a dispute for something so all perspectives can be shown and understood for the process of reaching a peaceful solution can please both sides. Adding children to a debate of opinions is also very effective since they do not know much about the other's opinion due to their age which means less experience and knowledge. If they never contact the other point of view, they might grow with a biased view and just increase on the violence of the conflict. While if they gain knowledge about each other, they will be favorable to understand both sides and provide solutions in the future. As they got together, they saw how similar they were and how foolish all this idea of separation seemed.

-Israeli Checkpoint

   Coming together is not the only method of communication used for the understanding of the kids in the movie. Even though they all are neighbors, it is hard for them to come together due to the Israeli checkpoints which do not allow the Palestinian kids enter Jerusalem, so communication was an essential method for them to know each other and establish a discussion. An effective method of communication used was the phone to call each other. Faraj was able to call Yarko and Daniel in order to get to know each other and schedule their friendly meeting. Another method of communication that brought opinions together was by B.Z. Goldberg, the director, himself. He was able to send messages from kids to another and he was also responsible to introduce them to many different perspectives. Finally, this movie was another part of communication that helped on the understanding among the children, since many of them only were exposed to the other kids when they went watch it on the cinemas. As they watched the movie they were exposed to the suffering many of them passed and to what each of them believe on, also exposed to the possibility of meeting the two groups represented by the meeting of the kids. Also they were not watching the movie by themselves; people from various cultures came to them and talked to them about their opinion on the conflict.   

      

Racism to respect - Blog Post

Mateus Pianowski
Topic: "What does it take for someone to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect like the transformation that occurred in Derek?" 

     In my Acdemic Leadership class, we have watched the movie "American History X," which contains a powerful lesson about racial hate and its possible outcomes. I it tell the story of how Derek, the main character's brother, changed from a radical racist to a white man that shows respect the other cultures and people. As we watched the movie, I noticed exactly four reasons that took Derek to change his prejudicial behavior and these are: contact, outcomes of hate and reflection.

     Before talking about the motives it is important to state that the change that Derek made was actually something drastic due to the fact that the he was a radical racist. We can put him at the second level of the pyramid of hate, because he led a small group of Neo Nazi Skinheads, he killed 2 black men, and invaded a Korean market. What I am trying to say is that these reasons that are going to be presented are somethings that are so strong that can change the opinion of man like Derek.

    Contact is the first and the most important reason why Derek changed his mind is that he had contact with a friendly a black man when he went to prison after killing those two men. Until he went to prison, the character never had any friendly contact with a person of different race, the only contact was the violent ones caused by his prejudice. Derek never thought he was so much alike to a black man, thus he always believed on white supremacy. Without contact between races, ignorance is created and people tend to separate from each other. One man that sought this contact was Martin Luther K. Jr with his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In this speech, he says that he dreams of that one day a white chid and a black child can hold hands in peace.

    The second reason is the outcomes of hate, these can be serious consequences that can happen to a person as a response to the racist acts of a said person. In the movie, Derek's hate caused him to become a victim of rape in the prison showers which made him reflect on what could he do to stop and prevent these bad things to happen to him. These bad consequences can change the thought of racist people based on how terrible they affected them, so they can stop. Unfortunately, Derek lived a life of extreme prejudice which also caused his brother to get shot. 

    Finally, there is reflection. Derek came to a point of reflection after he was gang raped and was asked by his mentor the following: "has anything you've done made your life better?" This is where Derek notices that all this hating he was carrying never helped him or his family and then he decides to stop with the racism and take care of himself and his family. People that are in the middle of this change of thought reflect like Derek in order to fully change and  to see what is their next step to prevent that racism impacts their life again. After reflection, some people should take help from anti-racist groups like SHARP to completely erase their thoughts of hate.  


    My twitter: @MateusPianowski
   My About.me: Mateus Pianowski

Blog Post - Resoponse to the Seattle Boycott Article

     Last week, one my teachers showed to our class an article that talked about the ongoing boycott in a school of Seattle. Garfield High School has boycotted the MAP standardized test, but what surprised me the most in this event was that every teacher of Garfield supported the boycotted. To my understanding, these MAP tests are forcing the teachers to teach their students the answers to these tests, while the students lose their creativity, they do not learn anything from the subjects.

                                                   

   This is the definition of the verb teach that I have got from dictionary.com: to impart knowledge or skill to; give instruction to. It clearly states that it is the act of give your knowledge or skill to others and instruction them through their learning. My point is that with the standardized tests, students will only receive instruction of how to go well in the tests and no knowledge will be received, which makes the meaning of teaching obsolete.

    In my school we do have the MAP test, but it works different than in the other schools. Let me explain something first, here all teachers make their own test, quizes, and assignments to grade the students. The MAP test we take does not inffluence our grade at all, when we asked our teachers about it, they said it was test that would show how well we are doing in specific subjects. We take these tests once every quarter and there are four tests: a Math test, a Science test, a English Language test, and a English Literature test. I really dislike these tests, because for most of them they ask question about content that we don't even know about. Plus these tests, from my point of view, are a huge waste of time. I support the teachers at Garfield that are trying to get rid of the MAP tests so they can finally truly teach their students.

Seattle Boycott Article: http://processofliving.com/2013/01/27/under-pressure/

Fourth Assignment - Elections

   The USA elections put always a show for their own citizens and the countries that rely on the result, as we all expected, the 2012 elections did the same thing and its outcome was more four years for Barry Obama. I should state first, that as a Brazilian, I did not know much about the electoral college votes, but I have understood how it works after the three weeks we discussed the elections in class. To start I am not surprised that Obama won the elections, but I am surprised how it was not a close victory. I thought Obama would get 280 electoral votes while Romney would get 260, but the president won with 332 against 206. All the research showed how close, in terms of popularity, both of the candidates were and then on the election day this happens. For me, his re-election means his past projects will continue and his efforts to create more jobs will also continue, but I don´t think there will be many new changes in the following four years. My opinion is that because there is some much to recover from the 2008 depression and now there are more problems because of the Middle East conflicts and the European crisis. The Obama government is already occupied with these topics, so there is not much room for innovation. Now for the world, in my opinion the other countries will continue their actions because for them, nothing has really changed with Obama continuing on power. During the elections I found this video regarding the fight between both candidates, I love the ending (sorry, but there is foul language on the video). 

Blog Post 3 - Goal Setting

Blog Post 3 - Goal Setting Assignment

    After the time management class by Ms. Terrell, she asked for our class to settle goals by the challenges you face with your own time management. I made two goals and they were to finish any major assignment two days before the due date and to not procrastinate on my homework or study time. For my first goal, I tried to follow one of Ms. Terrell’s techniques which were to take note of assignments on a to-do list. I never liked to-do lists because they seem really a childish idea, but I tried to turn that in one habit. It lasted one day and I did not do any more of those lists, because I am really lazy to take note on almost everything we had for assignments and I memorize when I have things due and if I forget, I check Edmodo every day. Even without the list I actually finished major assignments two days before their due date, for exception of the simple and easy ones that I would do one day before. To improve my behavior towards this goal I must follow what I told myself and finish even the easiest assignments two days before the turn-in date. My second goal was a bit tricky to beat, procrastination is something that I do not occur to do much, but when I do I get mad at myself for wasting my own time. As I said the lists were not going to help, so I had to figure what to do. Homework can sometimes be extremely tedious and I just keep wasting the time I could use for it by watching YouTube videos. To beat it I just had to put in mind that if I had all the time I wanted after I finished my homework and studies, unfortunately for the most of the times I ignored myself and procrastinated. So I want to improve on this go and try to minimize procrastination as much as possible. 

Second Assignment

Second Assignment

     When I graduate I want to go into Medicine School, but not in Brazil, probably, in the United States. The main reason is that the country we are living is going from bad to worse and I am a hundred percent sure that it is not going to be better in a short period of time. Another would be that outside of Brazil are located the universities with the best Med. courses and my goal is not to be just another doctor around the world, but to be the best in the entire world. I have already made some research in being a doctor in foreigner countries; it is not easy to let them give you a permission to practice it in their society. One of my fears of the path to become a doctor is this restriction.

 

     According to what I have heard, if you want to practice medicine in another country you need to live in this country for five years and you will only be able to practice there, which means if I study outside Brazil I will never be able to practice in my homeland. To tell the truth, I do not even know if my information is correct since I based on what people said and a really quick search I did on Google, but if have to struggle to become a doctor I will not give up. What I think Academic Leadership will help me is to answer all these questions that i have and the others that I may face in the future. One more thing is that I know a bit of what questions I can make and answers to the recruiters in other to impress them. I would like to finish this post with the video of my favorite doctor, Doctor House!