Welcome back!

Welcome back!!!!

Sorry I cannot be there with you all...I was really looking to seeing your faces and hearing stories about break...I am stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina (well while you are reading this, I am hopefully on my flight back) because I was bumped from my connecting flight to California from London (well, technically, Madrid). So sorry! I will probably get back and get to school around noon - so if you need anything, make sure you stop by after school - even to say hi (please!!!).

I know I still have your journals, so for today, please watch the below link on the big screen (Mike Handforth the Great should be able to help log the class onto youtube)...it should take about an hour.

BEFORE you start, I want you to take out a sheet of paper (you will turn this in to me at the end of the period, but will later put it in your journal, and will also blog it) - Please write down approximately five childhood dreams you had - Write for about 10 minutes, and then go around the class and have everyone share at least one dream. IF you have met any of these childhood dreams, check them off and tell me when you did it.

AFTER you watch the video, I want you to reflect on it...what did it make you think about? How did it inform you on what you can do to accomplish the dreams on your list? If you have accomplished a dream, what strikes you about the parallels between how you did so and Professor Pausch's lecture? Once you have finished writing this part, turn in your paper (with your list of dreams) in my bin.

Additionally, I will give you a quiz on Tuesday to assess your understanding of the lecture so take notes as necessary.

So...Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.

LINK TO VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo



Additional announcements:

1. I will have the documentarian come in after school sometime this week (fingers crossed - he is filming at the moment, and is going to make time for us)...make sure you have edited your documentaries before you show him what you have done. We will showcase these films in two weeks. Be ready!
2. We won't be doing a vocabulary quiz this week...so relax! :)
3. We will be viewing documentaries on Tuesday through Thursday...be prepared to present your work to the class (just a few minutes to introduce what we will be seeing - and to teach the rest of us about the war you researched - if you need to meet with your group for a minute to discuss how you are going to do this, may be a good idea).
   
4. Make sure your book reports have been posted on your blog...
5. Also, make sure you have finished reading the government packet I gave you to read over break...
   
6. We will be starting the America on Trial project later this week...just as a heads up! More info later on this... (by the way, got some good support from the European schools on this one...oh, and also, by the way...buildings DO have roofs in Slovakia.)
   
7. I miss you guys! Can't wait to see you!

All my love,
Elika :)

Is this true???

So my brother just moved to Beijing to teach English until next November...As he was on gmail chat letting me know he cannot check our blog out from China (banned), he sent me this link...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wbody25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixworld.html

25 Reasons Why I Support Barack Obama

It really is as easy as this...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/8/152147/6944/588/472335%5C

Princeton - Early Year Abroad

February 19, 2008

Princeton Plans for an Early Year Abroad

By KAREN W. ARENSON

Seizing on students’ desire for a year off before college, Princeton University is working to create a program to send a tenth or more of its newly admitted students to a year of social service work in a foreign country before they set foot on campus as freshmen.

Princeton’s president, Shirley M. Tilghman, said in an interview that such a program would give students a more international perspective, add to their maturity and give them a break from academic pressures. She called it a year of “cleansing the palate of high school, giving them a year to regroup.”

Dr. Tilghman, speaking ahead of an announcement Tuesday, said that she hoped to begin the program in 2009 and that Princeton would not charge tuition for the year abroad, and would even offer financial assistance to those who needed it. A committee of faculty and staff members, as well as students, is to work out other details.

Growing numbers of high school students have opted to take a “gap year” before entering college, and many colleges offer one-year deferrals to students they admit. A small industry has developed to place some of them in work or travel experiences in other countries that often cost thousands of dollars. But experts say they believe that Princeton will be the first university to formalize such a program for entering freshmen, though many institutions offer study-abroad programs for students already on campus.

Proponents of the year off say it allows students to discover themselves and the world before they enter college.

“People are too young when they start college,” said Allan E. Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education. “This way, they would have a year to mature, and they can do something constructive.”

Dr. Goodman said most programs sending high school students to study in other countries placed the students with host families. And, he said, college students who enter study-abroad programs usually go after a couple of years of college, so they have had more experience living independently.

As for Princeton’s idea, he said: “I can imagine the lawyers having some hesitation about this. The kids are young. The university doesn’t know them yet. And it is not safe in every country in the world.”

But, he added, “I still think it’s neat, and that it’s very doable.”

The university said it expected to start with a smaller group of students and expand to 10 percent or more of its entering class.

Dr. Tilghman said that she recognized that not all families would be interested in the program, but that she expected it to appeal to many. She said that the university had enough money to run the program for a couple of years and that she expected to raise more to pay for it on a permanent basis.

The committee to be announced Tuesday will work out details including what the program will cost, the legal issues, how students are to be selected and what organizations they may work with abroad.

Why??

http://www.newsweek.com/id/117875?GT1=43001

After taking a look at the janjaweed militia, it may seem hard to understand who these people really are, and why they are doing what they're doing. It's scary to think of their reach and power. Why is the international community doing so little to stop a group that is committing genocide not only against the natural habitat, but also against their neighbors? Better yet, IS it our responsibility to help? Why or why not?

Common Sense

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/singlehtml.htm

Feel free to print from this link! Let's try to have it read and ready to do a Final Word on Wednesday on the first two chapters (read up to Chapter 3: "Thoughts on the Present State of the American Affairs")!

Have it all finished for Friday!

what classrooms should look like in 20 years...

What classrooms should look like in 20 years.

The current president of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, believes that the current French education system is a failure, though it is well known for its rigor and high academic standards. The failings of high school education in France, according to Sarkozy, are that schools rely too much on rote memorization, too much “theory and abstraction,” and that too little value and respect is given to teachers and the teaching profession. Sarkozy has also charged that French universities are a failure because there is little financial motivation for students to succeed with virtually free tuition, and as a corollary result, sufficient academic facilities are either absent or lacking in quality. The French president further claims that French academia does not correspond to the needs of the French economy.

Sarkozy has much to say about the current failings of French education, and much of this may be zealous newbie political banter, but his proposals for education reform in France are at best vague and he doesn’t appear to have any particular objectives in his mind for these reforms. President Sarkozy proposes that students be exposed to more of a “civic education,” with studies of comparative religion and art, trips to businesses, walks through parks, and sports. He would like higher tuition to be charged at universities, both to discourage deadbeat students and to provide more funding for improving the quality of facilities (and presumably the faculty??).

It seems that Sarkozy would like the French education to model American-style education. And in my view American-style education (even progressive, cutting edge American education) is intended not so much to prepare students to be civically-minded and culturally aware as to feed office workers into academia and tech jobs and the service industry.

Is that really what we need?

On the other hand, what kind of army is all generals and no soldiers?

(http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9769433)