Final Essay

Sabrina Head 

Williams

English 1A

20 December 2013

                                                            Debt is a Killer

            Do you think the money you owe in college debt is worth a college degree? As soon as you graduate your mission is to start reducing your debt. This woman from Missouri named Dr. Bacon is terribly heartbroken because by now she still hasn’t paid off her debt. While making payments each month or probably weekly, you start to wonder how your life would be if you took the route of not going to college and just worked full time. A person who dropped out of college and works full time is stacking up as much money as a person who got their degree and is now owing huge stacks of money back. “According to the documentary College Conspiracy Dr. Pamela Bacon states that’s education ruined her life and that instead she would be better off working at McDonald’s”. If you doubt your schooling that much it was a huge mistake. College degrees are supposed to make you feel accomplished and lead you on a successful path. Debt is like a nightmare you can never wake up from. Student loans are dangerous but how eles will you get through college if you have no money. They set college students up to fail because debt is something nobody wants.

            Student loans create such a huge debt that college graduates can’t handle which puts a hold on their financial start in life. You just graduated college what’s the one thing you immediately do? Get your own house or apartment because by now you feel old and responsible enough to be on your own. Now how can you get a house or apartment if you already owe thousands of dollars? Since you have a huge debt, your plan now is to get a full time job ASAP and save money to get out of your parents’ house and pay back some of your debt. You’re stuck to living the same life before you went to college because debt put a hold on the things you most want. “Your life is consumed with massive debt, color-coded bills, and constant calls from malicious debt collectors” (pg.33). Your life becomes hectic because you have much to worry about at a very young age. You become stressed and live in debt. When you shy off debt collectors and it becomes out of control they start to take it out of your bank accounts.

            College graduates can’t focus on the start of their career because they’re too busy trying to pay off their debt so they settle for less and disregard their future career. You want to start paying off the debt quickly, so you don’t have time to look for the job you want as your future career. In the meantime people settle for less to get their things straight then overtime they start training and interviewing for their dream job. According to the article 7 College Graduates whose Lives Were Wrecked by Student Loan Debt, “Student debt has become the defining feature of their lives- the milestone around their necks that hold them back from a full financial future” (Mandi Woodruff). A milestone because it’s literally going to take forever trying to pay it back and there’s no way of escaping. Student loans keep us down because we could never achieve higher with debt on our backs. Debt is something I’m scared of, a way I avoid it is to not get a credit card. A way to have money all the time is to save it.

            As students take out these loans they can prevent a huge pile of debt by saving their money from a part time job to pay it back by the time they graduate. Even though college can be stressful itself you still have to time to manage a part time job on campus or even outside of campus. As you walk to your part time job you save money by not paying for gas. Your dorm and tuition is taken care of so you pretty much don’t really need to spend money. Saving money in general is very helpful when you run into big expenses unexpectedly. The debt collectors need to figure out a plan so that the people who owe a lot of debt can stay on track at a reasonable speed. Samuel and his wife were both college educated but Samuel started his own business. Suddenly his business went dry and he was left with no incoming income. “Although he and his wife made decent money, Samuel explained, they still lived “Paycheck to Paycheck” and had quickly depleted their savings” (pg.31). Now the times you really need your savings you wish you saved more. You always need a backup when things fail. Start saving now and you will be very fortunate in the long run. Samuel took the risk of having his own business because sooner or later you won’t have customers. Putting a little money away will overtime have a huge impact on you in the future.

            In conclusion, college student loans can put you in serious danger in the future. Everybody knows how loans work so they know what they are getting into. If you didn’t know about it, now you do so start saving money now. Most people look back and ask their selves if college education was worth it. It’s worth it but you need to learn how to make it work. Don’t let debt keep you from jumping right into your dream job after college graduation and be able to move out of your parent’s house. Don’t be broke as a joke.

military

 That cartoon article is true and I never really took that into consideration. The military should be helping the communities because they are there to serve for the u.s. It would be nice for that money to come and improve roads and schools but the military needs to be prepared if they need to go to war. The u.s is quick to want to start a war because they are equipped with new and improved wepons.

PUNISHMENT VS. REHABILITATION: A PROPOSAL FOR REVISING SENTENCING PRACTICES

I chose this article because the criminal justice system really needs to put this into affect. This article talks about how we need to keep prisoners in jail but at the same time rehabilitate them. Its a good idead because that reduces the recidivism rates. But california doesnt have money to just keep prisoners locked up. I remember reading something that said it cost 50 million dollars just to keep one person in prison. Prisons are expanding and they need more space or they start releasing people early and that does nothing but release a deadly inmate to do harm again to our society. The two schools could work because each place is focusing on one goal. I believe it will drastically reduce the recidivism rate. A way it wont work is if the prisoners dont want to talk about their feelings and learn, then what do you do? Stick them back in prison?

Tattoos on the heart

Every body should have compassion for gang members because they are a human beings ,but their priorities are just not correct. Gang members typically have no father so they find a group of men that support one another or their father must be the leader of the gang so they follow in his footsteps. They can be worked with if someone is willing to change their lives. I like how they set up a spot where the gang members  can hangout instead of roaming the streets looking for danger. Every body in a gang is someone's child and we should care for that person because their parents hearts are broken when they die . "I don't know who that kid is, but he was some mother's son"(Boyle23). At the end of the day that gang member was just a human being associated with the wrong crowd. Even if you quit a gang you will still always be known as that person in that particular gang for the rest of your life. Gang members will allow teenagers to follow in their footsteps, instead of telling them that they don't need to be around bad stuff. Maybe if parents had a more closer eye on who their children were associating with then they wont be the ones to see their child there lying on the floor dead.

9 pragraphs

 

Sabrina Head

Williams

English 1A

6 October 2013

Bad Teachers

            The lack of good teachers in poorly funded schools create homeless families. The parents of these helpless children are the ones who dropped out of school. It’s terrifying to read how these children are stuck suffering with the mistakes that their parents made. Bad teachers create dropouts who end up getting pregnant because there’s nothing else to live for. They become pregnant and put their child through the same thing that they went through. “She has been homeless for a year, he thinks that this maybe one reason she is so reflective and mature”. (Kozol184) Kids in that area have to grow u faster than they wanted to because they have to find a way to care for themselves. Parents set them up just to fail, however they can learn by their mistakes and get their lives together. “They don’t have it. What they mean is lack of brains, or lack of drive, or lack of willingness to work”. (Kozol192) Parents just have no desire to give their child a better life than they had. It will be extremely hard for a dropout parent to survive outside of their territory so they just live with what they have. By the lack of good teachers creates young high school dropouts who look for nothing better to do but get pregnant or go to jail.

            The lack of good teachers creates students who choose to end their lives early. When teachers don’t care about students, the students don’t care about the teachers. Good teachers encourage students to be enthusiastic about wanting to learn. When the students feel that they have no purpose to be at school they won’t make that their priority. The earliest kids feel neglected is the earliest they are going to get into trouble. “At eight years old, some of the boys are running drugs and holding money for the dealers. By 28, they’re going to be dead” (Kozol182) Drug dealers get kids to be in the industry young so as they grow older they will be experienced. Maybe if teachers were more caring to younger generations they won’t have the urgency to run away. 

            Prisoners are created when students drop out of school due to the lack of good teachers. When kids don’t feel like they are being loved they will run to anyone who they think cares for them. Dropouts have nothing better to do than to get involved with in violence, gangs and drugs. The longer they stay affiliated with those things the more corrupted they become. “He does not at all resemble the shy child that I knew ten years before. He is regarded as a kind of monster now. He was jailed for murdering a white man in a wheelchair”. (Kozol195) Who knows why he would do such a violent murder to a helpless man. Was he on drugs? Did he do it for gang initiation? That all creates more and more violence, if only teachers do their job extensively to not let children go down that path.

            Reading, math, and writing should be at the highest standard after high school. Those are the three basic essentials that will help you at the next level going to college. By senior year you should be reading every night, math should be at the level you need to attend college and writing should be taken to the next level, for example, well thought out long essays. Holding teachers to a specific standard, makes them really do their job. “Test scores in math and reading in America are graded not against an absolute standard but against on a “norm” or “average”. (Kozol200)Teachers around that are don’t have a set standard; therefore, they go off of what other students are performing at. In the local districts nobody is above average because you either below or at average. When you set standards and students rise above it teachers get recognition of a teacher actually doing their job.

            Making it to high school graduation is a big accomplishment. While growing up students couldn’t make it through all four years so they mainly dropped out by sophomore year. School boards should make it a standard to get at least 80% of the senior classes to graduate prior to passing the states exit exam. “ Of an entering ninth grade class of 20,000 students in Detroit only 7,000 graduate from high school and of these only 500 have preparation to go on to college”. (Kozol198) Some kids just disappear then later on find them either in jail or pronounced dead. By a standard of these students graduating pressures teachers to do whatever they have to get these kids to through all four years. There may be times when you can’t control a student’s actions, but at least you’re trying hard to get them as far and educated as you can. Having a graduation standard ensures that students will highly graduate school and attend college.  

            You probably don’t realize it but every day you wake up to start your day you are motivated by something and or someone. My motivation for going to school every day is graduating college. When I enter my classes especially my morning classes, I expect my teacher to be as motivation as I am. The day my day isn’t going well, my teacher should be the one there to motivate me when I am feeling under the weather. Students can also motivate the teacher for it makes the teacher realize that their students are eager to learn. “I have a room of 39 over-age, unmotivated sixth and seventh graders… I am not prepared for this, I have absolutely no idea of what to do.’ (kozol 64) Teachers need to be more prepared for anything that may come up. If you see your students unmotivated, do whatever you have to do to uplift them. Without motivation kids will never have a purpose to attend school.

Bad teachers are ones who fail by getting their students on the right education level. Students should be at or above the level they are currently in. Teachers who don’t teach the curriculum leave students still behind from the rest. By not being up to speed with your education not only affects the student but the teachers and parents as well. It affects teachers because they are not preparing students for the next level, however parents are affected worse because they send their kids to school to learn not to just get by. Counselors affect student’s level because they are assigned to any class and may not be ready for it. “In a mathematics learning center, seven kids are gazing out the window while the teacher is preoccupied with something at her desk.” (kozol 69) Growing up I have had several teachers like this one for example. It made it extremely hard to even learn at least one thing in that class. By these teachers not teaching wastes their whole year in that class when they could have been up to speed with the high schools out of that area. The way to improve student’s education is to discard all teachers that ry to ruin and hold back students right to get a good education.

Teachers are older than students so it’s the teacher’s job to guide them through the education journey. Bad teachers have an effect on students when they show no guidance counselors also play a huge role in a student’s education. Counselors keep students on their right path leading to college. When the school doesn’t have enough counselors it makes it difficult for counselors to keep track of all students. “Every fish swims on its own “(kozol 219) Mrs. Hawkins teaches her 5^th and 6^th grade classes to be independent. She actually teaches the class even the other staff agree. The way to be a bad teacher is if you teach your kids nothing, even if it’s not related to school at least you put some knowledge in their brains. The effect of not having any guidance is the sense of being lost and no one there to help you.

                        We can’t get rid of bad teachers because we have money to hire a new teacher. If their school already has no money to fund for children then how will they be able to pay for a new teacher with a higher salary? Most of the good teachers quit and went to find a job that will pay more. The rest of the teachers teach at the school because they are happy with the salary they are getting. The amount of their salary is how well they teach. For a low amount of money they do nothing but basically supervise the children. Then you have caring teachers who will try and teach you the best they can with limited resources. “It isn’t surprising that morale is low among these teachers or that the best of them are looking for work elsewhere”.(Kozol204)  Some of them are substitutes so they do nothing but pass papers out and tell them to do it. These kids waste their time and education and a school that will get them nowhere but they have to deal with it because they don’t have enough money to live anywhere else and everything with the segregation. Kids couldn’t go to another school if they wanted to because the rich people won’t let their kids get involved and brought down to suffer .

Article

http://www.hrmars.com/admin/pics/1658.pdf
This article is about how teachers show passion into their work with the students by having dedication ,leadership and being a role model. There's alot of great quotes in this article. The author of the article is cagri Mart, he gets to the point in every concrete subject he has to explain. I can relate to his opinions and facts because they are all true . 

3 paragraphs

Sabrina Head

Without future knowledge how will students proceed to the next step; for example, college? Everything we learn in school helps us by preparing us for the next challenging step. If our minds aren’t challenged then we won’t know how to get our minds thinking constructively. If college isn’t student’s goals then teachers can help them want to go to college. If they don’t want to further their education then prepare them for real world issues. “Because once they know they are a real part of this world and can effect change, there’s no telling what kind of influence they can have on the world around them”. (Duffy) An individual is going to find what they do best and take it into effect with the world around them. When in doubt a teacher should teach real world issues to teach students how life would be if you don’t have an education.

             A teacher can’t make you successful but the material can. Without teachers helping us succeed, who will? Our parents play a huge role in raising us but what about the children who don’t have caring parents? It’s important that teachers play a parents role in education. It’s important that teachers offer tutoring or after school office hours because some students need extra help understanding. “A new evaluation by that city’s school system shows that students who completed their after school programs got bigger test score increases in both math and reading than non-tutored students did”. (Viadero)With my personal experience I’ll say it’s highly important for after school help because my parents would be at work and nobody was there to help with my homework. For me tutoring helped a lot because my grades were rising. Students who go to tutoring every other day or when they’re scheduled shows that they have responsibility for their grade.  Without responsibly student will always blame the teacher for not teaching them properly.

            It’s very important that kids have someone to look up to because without that they would have no sense of direction to follow. By teachers being enthusiastic and full of energy at school is when the students are going to feel the same vibe. Having fun while teaching keeps students interacting with the class and yourself as a teacher. When students have that teacher that makes them feel comfortable in class they will be more open to their educational needs. For example, a student will go to a teacher for help if they explain the material in a way a student can relate to. If we don’t have teachers as role models then how significant does that make their job? Not so much important because teachers need to be there to inspire young learning minds. Be the person students what to look up to, not just as a person who grades papers. When a teacher comes into a classroom excited and joyful, 90% of the students are going to feel the same exact way. By coming in with spirit sets a mood for the classroom which helps everybody learn at a fun way. It’s most important that we teach respect starting from kindergarten. When they start to learn how to have respect for adults, it will never become a problem in the future.