SWOTting FE's at GCE

In the last unit of the senior STEAM course Systems and Models, we looked into peoples motivation to do things. We talked about Maslows Heirchy of Needs and how that plays into the motivations people have to do things in their lives. We watched a lot of TED talks and TED drawing episodes that explained where peoples motivations come from and how they appear. For the Action Project in this unit we were tasked with choosing an aspect of GCE and using SWOT to explain the good and bad things about it. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For my project I chose to look into FE's at GCE. It was difficult at first to come up with all of my SWOT sections but at the end I am very proud of the way my project turned out. Check out my project below.
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For my SWOT, I decided to examine the field experiences or “FE’s” that my school has. Field Experiences are sort of like field trips except they have more of a purpose. Our FE’s are trips we take in order to learn more about what our teacher has been teaching us. We get to meet with people who work closely with what it is we are studying. They allow us to hear another voice on the things we are learning in class.

Looking at something that is not a physical thing, thinking about the Commons (a shared resource that is freely accessible” for FE’s can be difficult. The resources that are used to make the connections for FE’s come from many different places. According to my teacher AMD “Some FE plans are brought in from previous years and previous successes. Sometimes we have one-of-a-kind opportunities, and lastly we rely on connections from our previous careers and relationships, people that the staff knows, people that parents/students recommend, and sometimes even just sending an email out cold, hoping that someone replies.” When teachers make or find connections for their class, they will often bring them to all of the teachers so they can possibly use them as well if it fits with their class. At the same time however, if no one can find any connections at all there is no starting point for any class. If that is the case then the class will just stay in the school on that Wednesday and work on something else.

The tragedies from the Commons relate to my threats and my weaknesses from my SWOT chart. FE’s sometimes fall through which can be very harmful to the teacher and the students. If an FE is planned and the group makes the trip to the site and it ends up being canceled, that's an entire class period gone because of poor communication between the guest and the instructor. Another big weakness is when the FE isn’t what it was expected to be. When that happens then the students are not engaged and it turns into more of just a random field trip. A friend of mine LS talks a bit about that. He says that “Occasionally, there are some FE's that don't fulfill the intended goal. If an FE just ends up being a presentation given to the students for hours on end, it fails to engage the students in their learning. These kinds of FE's become boring for students and don't excite us and make us want to learn more.” When the trips end up being disappointing, this can cause issues with action projects if an FE was important in order to complete part of the project.

Another threat that comes from outside forces is when we go places where there are other schools in attendance. Every term we as a school go to see a play at the Goodman Theater. We are not the only school that does this there are many other schools who attend these plays as well. Since FE’s have to be connected to the class, before we go to see the play, our instructors connect an aspect of the play to their class whether it be actual dialogue or the set in which the play is on. We will usually get work associated with it that we will have to do for homework. Once the play is over, the actors will come out on stage and all of the students have an opportunity to ask questions. Since there are a lot of other schools there, sometimes our questions don't get answered and instead a student from another school will just ask a question as a joke when GCE students had an actual question about the play.

Since the beginning of GCE almost 7 years ago, FE’s have been an important part of the curriculum. FE’s were something that was broadcasted when interested students were looking to apply. RD, a classmate of mine, says that she “likes FE's because they prove that what we're learning is actually important. If it wasn't, then there wouldn't be places to visit about that class.” FE’s are something that students like and want to have around. It gives them another voice that they can use to understand the material in more depth.

There are a lot of opportunities that come to and from FE’s. There are a lot of people within GCE that have different connections and friends and family members who may know something about what students are studying in the different classes in GCE. This allows teachers to always have some kind of connection to a possible FE. As well as having staff with connections, there are also tons of parents and students who can make connections. GCE is a very open community which gives students and parents a voice to help make classes work better.

When thinking about how FE’s play in with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, physiological is a big thing. FE’s require groups to travel all around the city. While this is a great way for students to see different parts of the city, it can sometimes take a long time to travel places. Sometimes travel time can take up half if not more of the designated time which causes students to get tired which can also end up causing an FE to go poorly. Self- Actualization is something that is really great that can come from FE’s. While on these trips, students are able to make potential connections themselves for internships or jobs in the future. These trips also play a big role in the esteem category from the hierarchy of needs. When students are able to connect a trip to a personal experience or something that allows them a sense of accomplishment. HT, another teacher of mine says that “The top success from an FE is when a student without prompting from the teacher can find a correlation between the course and the FE, deeper than that when a student can see how the FE is a solution to something that has been talked about in class.” Safety is never really an issue with any of the trip sites, the group take public transportation there and that is the only time where a student may feel unsafe. The trip sites are never in any unsafe neighborhoods and the students are always with at least two teachers. The section about belongness and love can be demonstrated by FE’s when students are able to go on these trips with their fellow classmates which allows students to become better friends and work together.

When it comes to thinking of a solution I thought of it from a systems approach. While there are a lot of good things that come from FE’s there are also those weakness and threats that come from them as well. While FE’s are very important to the curriculum, certain times classes will only end up going on one or two FE’s because teacher end up not planning any FE’s for the units. According to HT when asked if she thought FE’s were vital in order for the curriculums to work “Field experience are the biggest selling point of GCE, our slogan is broken down the walls between the classroom and the world” and we can’t do that unless we go out into the world. We want young people to be able to solve the problems in the world so they need to be able to experience things. It also allows students to gain communication skills and learn how to network which will come up later in life.” When a teacher is unable to schedule an FE, students will have those 3 hours to to do whatever work the teacher comes up with.

I-O psychologically is another way to think about FE’s. I-O is used to study different issues in workplaces areas dealing with people, teams, and organizations. This can play into FE’s when thinking about the different organizations GCE is connected with for FE’s. While also connecting FE’s with things they are learning about in class, FE’s are also a way for students to learn different skills. HT says that “FE’s allow students to gain communication skills and learn how to network which will come up later in life.” This interaction that comes from students talking to different people all around the city allows every party to see how they deal with different people.

The ultimate solution I came up with was that FE’s are a vital part to GCE curriculum and currently there is too little prep time. Lots of classes have not gone on as many FE’s as the teachers and students had hoped and I think that needs to change. I think that there should be some kind of base created where people (teachers and students) can put information on possible connections for different classes. Having this will allow teachers to always have a large variety of opportunities and choices to set up FE’s with. Overall, FE’s are very important and have been working well for GCE for almost 7 years, in order for them to keep working, everyone needs to do their best to help out and find different connections that can be used to create great field experiences for years to come.


Works Cited:

McLeod, Saul. "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." Simply Psychology. Simply Psychology, 16 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

"What Is I-O?" Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2017. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.

AMD. Personal Interview. 2017.

HT. Personal Interview. 2017.

LS. Personal Interview. 2017.

RD. Personal Interview. 2017.

The Vietnam War: Was It Just?

In the second unit of the Policy class we talked about the Executive branch. We focused on the different types of people that work in the executive branch and what their jobs are. For the action project in this unit, we were asked to look into a war and decide if the war was just or not. Something that was challenging for my in this project was picking a war. There are so many wars that the U.S. have been involved in. I am proud of the way my essay came out and I think that the war I chose had a lot of interesting information that made my essay very well- written.

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Wolfe, Frank. Protesting the Vietnam War. (1967). Flickr. Web.

The Vietnam War: Was It Just?

There are many reasons why the Vietnam war was fought, as well as many underlying reasons. The war was fought in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The main cause for fighting this war (in the beginning) was to keep France was taking back control of the Vietnamese land and to reunify Vietnam. Once they had defeated France, communism became a very pressing issue in North Vietnam The Vietnam War took place from 1955 to 1975 and involved over 21 countries including France, Japan, UK, North and South Korea, China, Soviet Union, Cuba, Cambodia (during the time of the Khmer Rouge), Australia, etc. Many of these countries were allies of the major opposing sides - North and South Vietnam. In the case of the U.S. we were allies with France so we stepped in to back them up. on March 8, 1965 to Some tactics used by the different sides were guerrilla and tunnel warfare and full-time soldiers. Tunnel warfare, in particular, was a significant feature of this war. Vietnam created hundreds of tunnels that would lead to trap doors, holding cells, etc. which were used by North Vietnamese guerrilla soldiers to get in and out of enemy territory without being detected. The south side of Vietnam wanted the entire country to become communist. The south opposed communist rule and when the U.S. saw that there was tension, we installed a government in Southern Vietnam to make sure that communism didn’t win. The Red Scare made everyone in the US afraid that communism would take over the entire world so they thought that they needed to protect their allies and any other country that they possibly could. By doing that we caused a widespread anger that caused the North and the South to go to war. We did not have a solid reason to join this war-- it was just for the Vietnamese to fight, but I don’t think that U.S. involvement can be considered just because we clearly were afraid of the possibility of communism stretching around the world, but involving ourselves and causing a lot of problems in not only Vietnam but the U.S.

The Vietnam War lasted for about 20 years, which means that there were 5 presidents that served throughout its course each of them got us more and more involved in a war that had nothing to do with us. The 5 presidents who served were, in order: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Beginning with Kennedy, he sent 10,000 “advisors” to train Vietnamese soldiers. Moving on to Johnson, he did quite a lot for this war. In 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened and Johnson was given the ok signal by congress to wage war. Johnson sent ground troops to Vietnam in 1965 and began Operation Rolling Thunder. In 1968, he began peace negotiations, which were continued in Paris by President Nixon, who started the retreat of the American troops right after the Vietnamisation of the war in 1969. After many violent anti-war protests, Nixon finally brought all American ground forces home Vietnam in 1971 and the Pentagon Papers were released by the Pentagon. President Johnson stated in his campaign that he would not ever send troops over to Vietnam; which he then went back on. He sent troops without an official declaration of war. In the beginning of U.S. involvement, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which was very important in our involvement because it started a lot of fighting after congress gave Johnson the “ok” to take any measures he deemed necessary to keep Southeast Asia (Yoshua Wuyts, What Was the Role of Each Individual President in the Vietnam War).

There were a couple policies put in place during the Vietnam war by the U.S. One of the most important policies was the draft that began on December 1, 1969 and called on all men born from 1944-1950 to participate in protect their country. President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed it so that we could have enough soldiers to serve in this army. He had previously said he would never send people to fight in Vietnam. He then was persuaded by the National Security Council to send troops without an official declaration. The National Security Council is a group that ensures the safety of all Americans and they felt that it was necessary to wage war in order to do that to their best ability. It was intended to give the U.S. more soldiers to fight in the war. There were 6,058,000 soldiers sent to Vietnam through the draft and 3,029,000 soldiers were volunteers (Bia Ku, The Vietnam War Draft).

The draft was hated by 80% of the population (Shmoop, Politics in the Vietnam War). People felt that the draft was just a way for the government to kill off a lot of people and it wasn’t fair to be forced to go out and die for their country. People became “draft dodgers,” which means that they either faked being mentally/physically ill, fled to Canada or Mexico, pretended to be gay, etc. In 1970, the draft faced its highest resistance rates ever. People began burning their draft cards, which is illegal, as a sign of protest. By 1972, 200,600 people had resisted the draft. I think that the draft was unjust. The draft was made up of 25% poor men, 55% working class men, and 20% middle class men (Bia Ku, The Vietnam War Draft). The board at the draft center would have to look through an applicant's draft status and usually would defer upper- class applicants. This is not fair because the draft forced men to go fight for something they may or may not believe in. Some people, because of their religion, did not believe in fighting in wars and were forced to because of the draft. He was initially not keen on the idea of sending troops to Vietnam, but was told by his advisors that he would be seen as a “weak and spineless president” if he didn’t send troops. He went back on his promise and ended up proposing the draft and sending over 2 million men to war. The consequences were pretty severe. The government faced a lot of backlash from the draft and people were incredibly angry about being forced to go fight and potentially die for their country. S The draft was hated by majority of the population. People felt that the draft was just a way for the government to kill off a lot of people and they thought that it wasn’t fair to be forced to go out and die for their country. People became “draft dodgers” which means that they either faked being mentally/physically ill, fled to Canada or Mexico, pretended to be gay, etc. In 1970 the draft faced its highest resistance rates ever. People began burning their draft cards which is illegal as a sign of protest. By 1972, 200,600 people had resisted the draft (Bia Ku, The Vietnam War Draft).

The Vietnam War had was fought for several underlying and immediate reasons. The war itself that was between the Vietnamese and France (which then turned into North Vietnam vs. South Vietnam) was just.France wanting to retake control of Vietnam was both unfair and unnecessary, and communism and the separation of Vietnam was a very pressing issue that scared a lot of Americans. I do not, however, support the involvement of the U.S. in this war. I think that we just nudged our way in and caused a lot more problems in both Vietnam and our own country. The U.S just jumped into a war that they weren’t meant to be in. We tried to fix something that wasn’t our job to fix. This war caused tension not only in Vietnam, but in our own country as well. It pitted people against each other and caused a giant resistance party to form because of the draft. President Johnson lost a lot of trust from the people of the U.S. after he went back on his promise and sent over 2 million men to die in a war that had nothing to do with them.

Citations:

Bia, Ku. "Vietnam War Draft - The Vietnam War." The Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, 9 May 2016. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://thevietnamwar.info/vietnam-war-draft/>.

"Guerilla Tactics: An Overview." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/guerrilla/>.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Vietnam War." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 May 2016.

"U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964 - 1961–1968 - Milestones - Office of the Historian." U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964 - 1961–1968 - Milestones - Office of the Historian. United States Department of State, n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin>.

War Team, The Vietnam. "From 1965 to 1973: The United States in Vietnam by Year - The Vietnam War." The Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://thevietnamwar.info/1965-1973-united-states-vietnam-year/>.

Wuyts, Yoshua. "What Was the Role of Each Individual President in the Vietnam War?" What Was the Role of Each Individual President in the Vietnam War? Quota, 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 May 2016. <https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-role-of-each-individual-president-in-the-Vietnam-War>.

The Cellphone Debate

For our second Action Project in the Argument course, we were asked to take a look at the GCE Code of Conduct and amend one of the rules. In this unit we talked a lot about the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and how both establish arguments. The purpose of this Action Project was to show the flawed logic behind a rule in the school Code of Conduct that students have to abide by. I am proud of how I remade the rule that I amended. I think that it takes very important things that go along with it into consideration. Newly amended, the rule will help benefit the school community. It was challenging to figure out which rule I was going to pick, but I am glad I chose the one that I did.
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Paper Shredders- You Get What You Pay For!, Trudy. Your Organized World. Sept. 12, 2012.

This picture reprints the metaphor of if you are using a piece of paper to do something school- related, and a teach assumes you are using it for other reasons so they immediately take it. If you can show that you are responsible to use your phone for school related things, you should have the option to.

The GCE Code of Conduct is filled with a bunch of different types of rules with sections including, truancy, plagiarism, dress code . The rule I chose to ammend states that we as students are not permitted to use cellphones in class, yet so many people do. The rule reads:

The use of electronic devices during class time or Field Experience, unless specifically authorized by the teacher for class work, is prohibited. Cell phone use is allowed between classes and during lunch. It also states that If a student uses his/her cell phone in class , the following disciplinary actions will be taken: First time- ­device into ‘class bin’ until the end of the class, second time- school personnel will retain cell phone until the end of the day, third time- ­school personnel will retain the device until parent/guardian claims it. If a student uses his/her cell phone during an FE, the following disciplinary actions will be taken: First time-­ verbal warning from FE Leader's), second time-­ FE Leader/s will retain cell phone until the end of the day, third time- ­school personnel will retain the device until parent/guardian claims it.

Deconstructed into a formal argument, this rule is:

P1: Using cellphones in class without authorization is against the Code of Conduct.

P2: Students are not permitted to use cell phones on FE unless authorized.

C: Students who use cell phones without authorization are subject to their cell phone being taken until the end of the day.

Students may need to use their phones to record something, send themselves a reminder, etc. Some students need their phones in case of a problem or emergency with their family. Students should also be able to take calls if they know they are important. If there is a case of a family emergency and someone calls the student, s/he should be allowed to check their phone. If the student knows it is out of the ordinary for them to be getting a call during school, they should have the right to check it. Students who have been deemed trustworthy should also able to use their phones if necessary. My rule change as a formal argument would be as follows:

P1: A student can only use their phone in case of emergency.

P2: This student must be one who is known to be trustworthy and will not use their phone to go on social media, text, etc. (unless there is an emergency).

C: Trustworthy students can use their phones for emergencies or class/FE use only.

To better understand my argument, consider the following situation: If someone is using a piece of paper to write things down, and someone else comes and takes it from them with the excuse that it is against the rules to use this piece of paper, it would not be fair. The paper is that person’s property and no one should be able to take that and assume that they are using it for something other than school when they aren’t. The paper being used is the person’s property. They are using it for a reason to benefit them in school. This goes along with cell phones because cell phones are a student's property.

If the current rule was changed, students will be able to use their phones in class when there is an emergency. There have been many times when students get an unexpected call, but they were not allowed to answer it. With my proposed amendment, students will be allowed to use their phones if needed. My argument has some supporters already. According to student DR, “When there is a time where access to a computer isn't well, accessible, there is some contradiction in the Code of Conduct because without my phone, my production and participation in class would be almost absent. Sure, phones can be a distraction for some students, but with the right guidelines and rules, phones should be permitted. For some students, phones are a savior.” DR raises another great reason for why my amendment is needed when he refers to the tech challenges students sometimes face and their inability to have a working laptop at all times

The rule that I am amending follows closest to the first amendment which states that “the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances is prohibited.” This amendment represents the rule I chose to change because students have a right to use their own property. Students own their phones, they should be able to use them if need be. Teachers should not be allowed to dictate if they can use them, especially in emergency situations. I understand that students need to focus, and they should not be able to use cell phones just to go on social media or text, but I think that people should be able to use their phones if necessary. This amendment will help benefit the school community because it places more trust in students.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

In unit three of the Forbidden Books course, we focused on diversity in different books. We each had to pick between the books: The Color Purple, Fahrenheit 451, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. The book that I decided to read was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. I chose this book because I read Fahrenheit 451 a couple years ago and I had seen and heard great things about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian for months. For this Action Project, we had to write an analytical essay about our books using one of the four prompts that we were given. The prompt that I choose was: How does one character in your novel transform and make peace with diversity? I chose this topic because throughout the entire book, the protagonist, Junior, has to battle with not being excepted and trying to diversify his surroundings. One of the major challenges I faced while writing this paper was figuring out good transitions into each paragraph. I wanted to keep the reader interested but not give the whole story away at the same time. Another thing I struggled with was picking quotes to use as evidence. There were so many that I could choose from that it was difficult to pick only five of them. One of my achievements during this project was being able to get a good introductory paragraph and a good conclusion paragraph. I am very happy with the way my project turned out.

MF. Photography. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian cover (2015)