A Technological Rant (A Reflection on American Studies Day)

Last week at American Studies Day, I, as well as my peers Gavin Taves, Annie Soler,and Parker Nixon, led a student panel on the topic of Technology. We struggled a lot during our limited preparation time with how we could present the widespread topic in only a 40-minute time slot, and ultimately we ended up deciding to present our students with a simple question. Since this is the way most of our time in American Studies is structured (and we all know we can talk for hours on a single prompt), we figured it would spark a good discussion and we would end up learning as much from our students' opinions as they did from our thrown-together presentation. Thankfully, it worked. The question that we presented them with was this:

At what point, if any, does technology stop being beneficial to society and start limiting us?

While at first, it seemed a hard question to answer, we ended up getting some really great opinions and new outlooks from students in our discussion. Ultimately, the conclusion that we came to as a group was that in the space of monetarily-driven America, technology has been too focused on moving forward and creating new, bigger, better products, rather than focusing on covering the tracks of detriment that technology leaves behind socially, and setting limits on technological advances.

One particular example that we discussed was communication via technology. While it may seem like a great idea to be able to keep in touch with friends and family 24/7 through devices like cell phones and the internet, it seems to have been forgotten that distance makes the heart grow fonder. An excess of technology in communications has superconnected Americans, often to the point of withdrawal. In a world where we're constantly bombarded with overwhelming amounts of technology, it's not difficult to sometimes want to retract back into the ways of the past. Connecting this back to my point of social communications, I believe that the accessibility of conversation has made Americans more socially withdrawn. Conversations that can exist at any time often lose their meaning as true conversation. This, in turn, limits the true social potential of Americans using technology to communicate.

I can see I've already gotten a little bit off-topic, but I'd like to take another tangent. Another topic that we covered in our discussion on AS Day was the idea of over-reliance on technology. This can be seen pretty clearly and pretty constantly, especially in the time and place we exist. Even just yesterday in class, the overwhelming ecstasy that emerged in class after we were told that we would not have to hand-write our final essays illustrates this reliance quite well. We all know how to hand-write an essay; we didn't spend so much time learning penmanship and cursive in elementary school for nothing. While typing surely provides an advantage, it's just an interesting thing to think about. Should it really make that big of a difference? Shouldn't the content of the essay be more important than the means by which it was composed? Could typing an essay be limiting to our writing skills in any way? Don't get me wrong; I'm as happy as the next student about the nature of our final exam. I'm not sure what I'm trying to prove or solve at this point, but it's just something that's been on my mind.

Overall, American Studies Day, and especially my own student panel, was a great learning experience for me. It's sometimes difficult to relate class topics to the real world, but the day itself was an amazing look at the ways in which the topics we cover in American Studies can be applied to every day life. The way that all the topics connected was incredible, and when I was presenting I really felt like I was a part of something worthwhile and applicable IRL. Good feeling.

Separated, Not Segregated

Reading yesterday in class about the possible amendments to education of ethnic studies in Arizona, I was reminded of a documentary that I recently heard about on PBS. Based on an entirely African American school in Bordentown, NJ, "A Place Out of Time: The Bordentown School" reminded me a lot of the experimental learning and ethnic studies that are being considered to take place in the state of Arizona. However, rather than eliminating ethnic studies entirely from the curriculum, and teaching students of all ethnicities that they are the same, the Bordentown School took drastic steps in the opposite direction.

The Bordentown School existed from 1886 to 1955, and provided a place for people of color to learn separate from the segregation and racism of normal schools. Just to clarify: a separate school was created for black students, to avoid segregation. So really, the school was the complete polar opposite of what the Arizona school administrations are proposing. Rather than trying to get rid of segregation in schools by simply not teaching it, the Bordentown School purposely separated African American students from white ones so that they could study their own ethnic backgrounds without the influence and awkwardness of whites in class. It was structured, voluntary segregation, and it actually worked pretty well.

However, the Bordentown School, which was technically referred to as The Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, was also institutionally racist in that its purpose laid in training African American students in low working-class occupations. When the school attempted to add more of a college preparatory curriculum, they were met with much resistance.

Referred to in a New York Times review as a "somewhat flawed experiment, " the Bordentown School certainly was a change from traditional racism, but it wasn't quite the ideal. Whether America will ever truly reach that ideal state of nonexistent racism is unknown and perhaps impossible. The cycle of racism in the United States reminds me a lot of a term that Mr. O'Connor used in class today: a cycle with accumulation. While racism in the United States will never truly return to the stages of enslavement, we do continue to cycle our beliefs about diversity and race. While the Bordentown School was a step away from racism in many ways, it also went to show that racism is an integral part of America's culture.

ADD/ADHD: Over and Under-diagnosed (JT#3)

After conducting my interview with psychiatrist Jonathan Bloomberg today, I was left pretty pleased with the entire thing. I feel as though it will help my Junior Theme a lot, considering he seems to share many similar views as I. One thing that I found shocking about his statements, however, was that he believes ADD in the United States to be vastly under-diagnosed. In a nation, and even a school where I can clearly see the over-diagnosis to be extreme, it's hard to believe that there's many people out there who don't have access to the same ADD medications that students at New Trier do.

From a personal standpoint, I know that about 50% of all of my friends are currently on medication for ADD, whether it be Adderall, Ritalin or Concerta. For a long time, I thought that this number was ridiculous; that they were just exaggerating attention-deficit and hyperactivity symptoms to receive extended time on tests and sympathy from teachers. While many people think this way, and this may seem to be an alarmingly large number of diagnosed and medicated children (it certainly was for me), it's actually quite the norm in the United States. While it's estimated that only 3-5% of the population have ADD or ADHD, the growing amount of diagnoses in recent years is remarkable (Koch). As of 2006, 4.5 million children aged 5-17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Among these diagnoses, the main prevalence seems to be among upper class, insured, white, English-speaking boys (CDC). From these statistics, the most logical explanation for the ADD diagnosis issue seems to be a misunderstanding of the disease itself.

Contrary to the belief of many, ADD is a serious disorder that does, in fact, exist. The problem lies not within the creation of an imaginary disease to get attention or special help; rather, it lies within the exploitation of the all-encompassing symptoms of ADD/ADHD. The three main symptoms of ADD/ADHD are hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattention (Breggin). Obviously, these three behaviors can be applied, to whatever degree, to any child with half a creative mind. Like many other psycho-pathologies, ADD doesn't have symptoms that can be measured quantitatively. And this is what makes it so easy to over-diagnose. Parents in high-income brackets who want their children to excel in accelerated high schools (NEWTRIER WHAT!?) are more likely to look for easy outs like mental illness than parents who don't have the money or resources to be insured or to seek out professional help.

And this brings me back to the point that Dr. Bloomberg brought up in our interview. ADD and ADHD certainly are real disorders, and they have a huge impact on a child's life. However, the lack of child psychiatrists in the United States (there are now only about 6,000, including Dr. Bloomberg), combined with ADD's stigma of being a nonexistent disorder, combined with the accessibility of drugs, makes it vastly misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

Day of Silence

Today was the Day of Silence at school and, while I strongly believe in the cause and I tried to commit to the event as much as possible, I found myself surprised at the amount of people not participating at all and I ended up gaining a new perspective on what I personally think the day should be about.

I started out the day with the intention of remaining silent for its entirety, but I soon found this to be a redundant and pointless aspect of the Day of Silence. I completely respect those who were able to go through the whole day without talking, and maybe this is all just an excuse for my lack of the ability to shut up, but I found myself feeling very uncomfortable and confused during the time I spent in silence. Maybe this is the point of the day: to experience the uncomfort, confusion and anger that in-the-closet or openly GLBTQ students feel every day, but personally I felt that being open with my opinions would have made a much stronger impact on those around me.

When I walked through the halls at school wearing all black and refraining from speech, I still heard people making fun of those who were choosing to participate, yelling out things like "Day of Silence is so gay!" and the like, for the sake of irony. And there was nothing I could really do about it. People at my lunch table used the word 'fag' on purpose, just to see if they could provoke me to speak. Ultimately, I ended up giving up on remaining silent just because I felt like it was not only an unrealistic representation of the suffering GLBTQ students face, but it also put me at a disadvantage in defending the cause I was supposed to be taking pride in.

Like I said, maybe my frustration with my inability to speak is exactly what the day is supposed to be about- the frustration that students feel every day when they're forced into the socially-molded niches of straight boys and straight girls. At the same time, I don't think that silencing the students in school who want to speak out against abuse is the right way to go about making a change. If we want to encourage more students to end their silence, don't we want to encourage speech?

I understand the gesture of giving up one's own ability to speak to encourage another to exercise theirs, but it all just seemed too forced to me. While I will continue to support the Day of Silence and I'll continue to try every year to keep myself quiet for a day, (it hasn't worked in the last three...) I really wish that there was something more I could do- something more vocal and more active. Something that wouldn't be so difficult for the whole school to participate in, but would still ellicit a positive response. Something that would make GLBTQ students see the amount of support that they have from the New Trier community, without having to walk through the halls and hear the voices of hundreds of students on a day when supporters are supposed to remain silent.



P.S. I don't really know how this relates to anything that we've talked about in class... Umm, Perilous Times? Freedom of Speech y'all.

The Pathetic Beginning of a Mental Outline (JT#2)

...So this paper is due in roughly two weeks, right?

Having had the past three weeks in the library to research, luckily I'm feeling pretty confident in my topic. Since it's changed a little bit since the last post I made, I'll give the blogosphere a refresher on what I'm writing about.

Q. Why does America believe in the use of psychoactive drugs in molding a nation of more "productive" citizens?

A. The American "quick-fix" mentality has become our identity, and psychoactive drugs are the quickest and most widely available "fix" for lapses in mental health that we know of.

Maybe that's not worded too well... But hopefully it makes sense. I still don't really know what we're supposed to be using the blog for in the writing process, but I'm just going to use it to organize my thoughts. So here's my pathetic beginning of a mental outline; don't judge.

I've been focusing most of my research in the past couple of weeks on antidepressants, although I'm going to talk about ADD/ADHD stimulant drugs as well. The fact that I'm still in the midst of reading Prozac Nation is probably what's causing me to focus in on this part of my essay. I know we're supposed to be working with tons of different sources and materials and fitting them together, but I'm sure my essay will still come together just fine. Either way, I think I've done a pretty good job of getting together multiple contasting sources for each of my two current desired topics. Have a look!

ANTIDEPRESSANTS:

-Prozac Nation -Elizabeth Wurtzel

-Listening to Prozac -Peter D. Kramer

-"Exit Joe Camel. Enter Joe Prozac." -Arianna Huffington

ADD/ADHD STIMULANTS:

-"The Ritalin Epidemic" -Vincent H. Miller

-"The Evolution of Play" (NPR story)

So this post ended up being a lot more pointless than I thought it would be... I'll definitely make some human progress by the time I try to post anything else up here and call it a blog. Fourth quarter stressin', that's all. Goodnight!

American Ideals in Mental Health (JT#1)

So I think that I finally know what question I want to cover for my (ahhh!) Junior Theme. While it's taken me a long time and a lot of confusion, I think I've got it at last.

Why, as a nation, do we believe that prescription drugs can alleviate our mental health problems?

Of course, I haven't run this question by Doc O'C or Mr. Bolos, and I'll probably end up changing it six more times before coming to a final final conclusion, but I like it! And I definitely feel like it's based on a true American stigma. The "American Dream" defines not only American ideals for things like what social class you shoul belong to, what kind of car you should drive, when you should marry, how many children you should have, and what kind of occupations are considered "success," but it also defines another aspect of the ideal American's life: their mental health.

After beginning to read Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation, I find it clear that through Wurtzel's eyes, prescription antidepressants do much more to a person's life than just solve depression-related problems. In fact, they create just as many problems as they solve. With each drug she's placed on, Elizabeth seems to need another drug to counteract its negative side effects.

"I take two little green and white Prozac capsules when I leave his office, and dutifully resume taking a twice-daily dose of lithium, also downing twenty milligrams of Inderal each day- a beta-blocker normally used to lower blood pressure- because I need it to counteract the hand shaking and the other tremorous side effects of lithium. Taking drugs breeds more drugs" (19).

All of this, to me, begged the question why do we think that drugs will solve all of our problems? While I have no idea what the answer to this question is, I look forward to pursuing it in my Junior Theme. It's a problem that's really prevalent in America, and while I try really hard to take as few medicines as possible, it's easy to see the over-use around me. Especially when dealing with something as fragile as the human brain and its emotions, it's scary to think that over-prescription and over-use are so common.

Selling an Addiction

I recently read a pretty fantastic blog post by Maeli about possibly false advertising stemming from color scheme selection on cigarette boxes, and while at the time I found the idea a little bit ridiculous, today I came across this article about cigarette boxes and ads aimed (through color scheme and design) towards teenage girls. Thankfully the ads were pulled in 2008, but the long-lasting effects of specified advertising remain.

Called "Camel No. 9" (and meant to resemble Chanel No. 9 perfume), the cigarettes were placed in chic black boxes with pink trim, and marketed in magazines like Glamour and US Weekly. The company offered promotional gifts like berry lip balm and cell phone jewelry with cigarette purchases. Of course girls were going to be inclined to buy cigarettes that were advertised as "light & luscious" and offered them gifts as innocent as jewelry and lip balm.

The article not only reminded me of many of the "6 Weapons of Influence," but it also made me think of the discussions we had earlier in the year about advertising to children. Teenage girls may very well be just as easily influenced as young children, and when it comes to smoking cigarettes, our minds are easily swayed by those of our peers. Ads like these don't help at all in supressing cigarette addictions, and it's estimated that under the influence of these advertisements, 174,000 underage girls began smoking.

When we talked about immoral advertisements earlier in the year, I wrote a blog about the vulnerability of children. Looking back on that now, and noting how characters in children's ads seemed to go through a "drug-like withdrawal" when not supplied with their favorite products. I remember being absolutely appalled about that, and reading drug advertisements aimed at minors seems even worse. These corporations really are selling an addiction (at an illegal age too), and all they care about is the profit.

Daisy, Jim, Native Americans and "Chinamen"

Since the beginning of the year, we've talked a lot about groups that have been oppressed in our country. It seems that throughout our history, we as Americans have abused many of the minority and disadvantaged groups in our country, and left them with nothing. Just as Huck and Tom left Jim all alone with $40 at the end of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn after he had endured an entire adventure with him; just as we placed thousands of Native Americans in downtown Chicago during location, and just as Ludacris dumped all of his "Chinamen" in the middle of the street at the end of the movie Crash, just telling them to "go," Americans have a tendency to throw money and displacement at a minority or disadvantaged group and pretend like everything's okay.

While this trend can be easily observed among different racial and ethnic groups, there's also another "disadvantaged" group that throughout history has been frequently helpless and abandoned: single women.

This line in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby reminded me a lot of many class discussions that we've had about abandoned American cultures, all of the times that we've left disadvantaged people in the dust.

"I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms- but apparently there was no such intentions in her head" (Fitzgerald, 20).

Daisy is a fantasticly strong female character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, but there are still many things that she cannot deal with. When I read this line, at the very end of the first chapter, the only thing that I could think was where would she go? While she clearly doesn't love Tom and she resents her life with, I believe Daisy can't leave Tom for fear of having nowhere to go. He is the source of her money, her wealth, her well-being. If she were to get a divorce, she would have been just as well off as the thousands of Native Americans taken from their homes and dumped in downtown Chicago during "relocation."

Hopefully now that Daisy and Gatsby have revealed their love for each other, Daisy will feel more confident about leaving Tom, but it doesn't change the fact that women during the time of The Great Gatsby needed a man to latch on to in order to have a successful life. The marriage process turned them from "girls" into "women," no matter what their literal age was.

"Shutter Island" and Veteran Insanity

I saw the movie Shutter Island tonight, and among the many other emotions that filled me upon it's completion (I was sobbing...), I couldn't help notice how similar it was to our conversations last week about mental illness being targeted at a specific group.

In the film, directed by Martin Scorsese, takes place in 1954 and follows the story of a man named "Teddy Daniels" (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who takes a suspicious visit to an institution for the criminally insane after hearing that it performs mental experiments on its patients. Being a World War II veteran, Daniels can't help feeling emotionally attached to the patients after seeing the results of the experiments conducted on captives in Nazi death camps.

At one point in the movie, Daniels and a former doctor at the hospital actually talk about the experiments done on patients; the lobotomies, the experimental drugs, etc. She tells him that the insane are the perfect subjects for experiments because nobody will believe a word they say. Once you're deemed insane, everything you say is only a part of that insanity. What you may see as the truth, they only see as a "defense mechanism." Not only that, but anybody can be constructed to seem like they're insane, all they need is a little bit of life trauma. The doctor actually tells Daniels that he's probably the perfect candidate for a crazy person; he fought in a war.

This also reminded me of the movie The Jacket, which follows the story of a man played by Adrian Brody, who is shot in the head in combat and placed into a mental institution upon his arrival back into the United States. They perform brutal tests on him and they blame it on his "insanity". This theme of military veterans being deemed "crazy" really shocks me. In a country where we're supposed to celebrate our veterans for the incredible service they provide us, we can't even begin to imagine the things that they go through. They see more trauma while serving than most of us see in our entire life, and upon their return we call them insane?

I'm not saying that this happens often, or even at all for that matter, but I thought that it was particularly sad that in the movie Edwards was targeted and exploited specifically for a duty that he performed for his country. It made me wonder if many returning veterans really suffer from prominent mental health problems. Looking around the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health website, there's clear subcategories for veterans suffering from PTSD, homelessness, substance abuse and depression. How much of an impact do you think war can have on one's mental health? In that respect, how moral is it to send our soldiers there in the first place?

Figure Skating: Femininity in a Men's Sport

In class on Thursday, we talked for a while about the differences in "athleticism" between male and female sports players. While much of the class agreed that men could be considered more "athletic" than female players, they mostly said so because men are naturally larger, faster and stronger than women. They can jump high enough to perform slam dunks, which many women cannot. However, Mr. Bolos brought up a great point that perhaps our own views on athleticism are contrived due to the male-driven foundation of most popular sports. Basketball, for example, was created by a group of men; obviously their version of athleticism is what will be rewarded.

However, during class I couldn't help but think about the kinds of sports that are associated with women: dancing, for example. A dancer's graceful and emotional yet disciplined movement is something that comes far more naturally to a woman than to a big burly man. If that was our definition of athleticism, women would surely be considered higher-level athletes.

All of this seemed very clear to me up until I came home last night to my mom watching the Olympic men's figure skating finals. After seeing the performances of Johnny Weir, Evgeni Plushenko, and Evan Lysacek (the gold medalist who is from Chicago and adorable, by the way), the one thing I couldn't help but notice was how flamboyant and feminine the sport was. My younger brother even commented a couple of times on how "gay" it all looked. Remembering our class discussion, I immediately thought to myself, 'Oh! It must be because figure skating was started by women and is a primarily women's sport; no wonder the standards are held to a higher feminine skill level!'

So, I decided to research it. What I found shocked me, though. Apparently, figure skating was actually founded by men in the 1700's, and men's figure skating existed in the 1908 Olympics before women's skating was. A sport founded by men and yet praising the qualities of a woman's grace; why?

I guess it's because figure skating is considered more of an art form than a sport, even though it exists in the Olympics. Despite all of the stigma that may come with the femininity of their sport, I consider the men who placed in the figure skating finals incredibly devoted and athletic competitors. Hopefully someday enough Americans will look past the stigma associated with men in tight, shiny jumpsuits and realize that they're just as much athletes as Shaun White, Shani Davis, and the other male representatives of our country that we all idolize and support so greatly.

First Racism, Now Fatism?

I'll admit it; I spend way too much time on glamour.com. I think I've been on this website for the past hour and a half, reading nothing but articles and blogs on body image. I'm not sure how many I've read but I lost count after the first four pages of links. (Yeah, I know I don't have a life.) When I started reading these articles, on the site's Health and Fitness blog "Vitamin G," I was expecting a bombardment of posts from super-fit women, instructing me on how to lead a healthier life. Considering the fact that my last workout was an uncountable amount of months ago, you could imagine I was a little bit intimidated.

In reality, the site was overflowing with feel-good articles about how to feel good about yourself no matter what your size (I'm not by any means calling myself fat, but it's always comforting to know that women of all shapes can feel comfortable in their own skin). Reading for hours, I began to feel hopeful about the future of American style, the downfall of the super-skinny modeling cliche, and the constantly body-conscious attitude of almost all women today. It all put me in a really great mood, to be honest. That is, until I came along an article that included the following quote on "fattism" (discrimination against obese people) from British journalist Amanda Platell.

"I am a fattist. I find obese people unappealing in almost every regard. They are physically unattractive, they lead unhealthy lives,they take up too much space on public transport, and (most of all) they are a strain not only on their clothing but on NHS resources. The secret of their size? Their outsized appetites are matched by a lack of self-control and even less self-respect."
-Amanda Platell, Daily Mail

A waste of space? A waste of resources? ...Really? When blogger Sarah Jio (the author of the post) refers to Platell's views as a "lack of compassion, understanding...humanity," I couldn't agree more. A hater is a hater, no matter what justifications they may think they have. Could she be compared to the racist characters of Huck Finn? Certainly. (Fun fact: Platell has also been accused of homophobia and racism in the past.) Platell justified her hate for overweight people by claiming that every single one of them could be skinny if they wanted to be. She bashes those with "fat genes" and "heavy bones" to justify her hate with the fact that she herself has "fat genes," and yet she has combated them her whole life and made the commitment to stay thin and look young. And congrats to her.

All I'm saying is how does she expect overweight people to want to follow in her footsteps to staying thin when all she does is bash them? Does she really think that it will propel them to be more active? Rather, it would probably have the opposite effect entirely. It's necessary to feel comfortable with yourself and your body before you can think about changing it. Maybe bashing fat people makes Amanda Platell feel better about her own body and what she's done for it, but it's a really sad way to cope. Maybe Amanda should start reading glamour articles (like this one), and stop being such a hater. It's not helping anyone.

Huck vs. Jim: Some Commentary on Racism and the N-word

I wouldn’t think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head. Dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ‘low no nigger to call me dat” (67). – JIM

In many of our recent class discussions on the controversial book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we have focused deeply on whether or not the beloved main character, Huck, is really a racist through his frequent use of the n-word in the book. While it is true that Huck is only a young boy of thirteen or fourteen, and very impressionable, much of the class has argued that that has no bearing on whether or not his use of the word is justifiable. Huck uses the word constantly, he knows that is a derogatory term, and that makes him a racist, just like everyone in America at the time. Right?

At the same time though, Jim, almost as prominent of a character as Huck (though African American), seems to use the word as openly as Huck does. The question I mean to raise is, who is more impressionable: Huck or Jim? Why is Jim's use of the n-word justifiable while Huck's is not? In class, we almost view Jim's use of the word as sad because he's been raised to think in such a derogatory way about his own race. Huck may not be African American, but he was raised under the same influence that Jim was. Can he really be held accountable for his actions?

Talking about this in class made me think a lot about the use of the n-word in modern society. It seems that the only people that find it acceptable to use the word are African Americans themselves. Famous rappers (with an extremely large target audience) use the word more than anyone else. I know plenty of young people, even several students from New Trier, that put on a "ghetto" image in order to appear different from their peers; they listen to rap music and they even use the n-word like the rappers they admire. These students are almost never African American; but they're just repeating the words of their favorite rappers; what's wrong with that? If we can call Huck racist for being an impressionable young boy, isn't it only fair to call anybody who sings along or listens to rap music containing the n-word racist too? Not to say that a high-school student shouldn't know better than to go around whipping out derogatory language like nothing, but personally I think that it's more up to the African American rappers; the adults in the situation, to realize the effect they're having on ALL kinds of societies, and take responsibility for it.

Performers today push the envelope with the n-word; rapper Nas (pictured above) even fought to title a 2008 album "Nigger." Thankfully, his label didn't allow it and the album was released untitled. (How would white people have referred to that album on TV and when talking to one another without getting beat up??) These rappers may think that they are "taking pride" in their race by demeaning themselves, but in reality, they're only keeping alive a horrible term that should have died long, long ago.

Money DOES Buy Happiness. (It's Proven!)

While I was surfing the net today, procrastinating before starting to prepare for the final tomorrow (eek!) I came across an interesting looking article on my homepage. The article, which was linked "rich worry their kids are spoiled" actually made me laugh silently to myself when I first looked at it. Rich kids? Spoiled?? How could this be! I thought sarcastically, while clicking on the link to read the seemingly ridiculous piece.

The survey first states that 35% of wealthy American parents believe that their children may be "too spoiled and have too many material possessions." While I'm living in Evanson for the time being, I did go to Sears School in Kenilworth (as do my younger brother and sister right now) and I know how spoiled rich kids can be. I was always lumped into that "rich Kenilworth kid" group when I got to New Trier, and it's probably one of the most annoying stereotypes out there.

As I skimmed through the article, I came across another tidbit that I found particularly interesting. Of those surveyed, 2/3 have "developed a greater appreciation for the non-material wealth in my life" and half said they "feel more centered because the recession has given me an opportunity to re-evaluate my priorities." People are actually becoming happier during the recession? Talk about a shocker!

I then thought to myself, I wonder if people with less wealth really are happier than extremely wealthy Americans? So I googled it, in hopes of writing an amazingly happy-go-lucky blogpost about how money really DOESN'T buy happiness! (I was pretty excited, as you can tell.) However, the study that I found is not necessarily as optimistic as my initial thoughts were.

In an article called "The Economics of Happiness," I found that families with yearly incomes of $150,000 or higher (top 10% in the country) had a reported 53% feeling "very happy." Good for them! Wow. This was, of course, compared to less than half that amount of happiness in the lowest 10% of Americans. I found this piece of information very sad, and I was forced to change the title of my blog post to read that money DOES in fact buy happiness.

It's weird, because I feel like I always hear about the people with the least getting the most out of life- countries like Bhutan measuring their people in GDH (Gross Domestic Happiness) rather than Gross Domestic Productivity. Being happy is being productive anyway, isn't it?

It's not like I'm going to go around believing that I won't be happy until I receive my brand new HDTV, but that survey really did kill my mood a lot. Just a little more finals week joy :)

FinalsWTF

It's exactly 1:12 am right now. I have school today! Aaand, I have

finals

tomorrow.

Finals tomorrow, and I have homework due in every class today. What's up with that?? I've been listening to the same six songs on repeat for the past three hours, and before it has even begun, I'm starting to get a little sick of this whole finals week thing. Winter break was nice and all, but can you actually call that two weeks of nothing a break?

Oh yeah, sure I'll go ahead and take two weeks off to do something fun- but while I'm at it, I have to remember not to forget everything I've learned in the past seventeen weeks of school, because we'll all be tested on all of it when we get back! :)

Not only should teachers be a little bit sympathetic to the fact that students like me haven't even gotten on a decent school sleep schedule yet since the break, but maybe New Trier needs to rethink their whole first semester finals outlook. Maybe, just maybe, New Trier would be a better place if every class was a little bit more like American Studies.

Talking in class about standardized tests made me rethink everything I'd ever heard about them. Not that finals are standardized tests, but in many ways they are. If I believe that I've learned a lot in a class this year, what's the need to be given a multiple-choice test on it? It's setting students up for disaster. These multiple choice tests are designed to trick students. Isn't that quite the opposite of what teaching is supposed to be about?

I understand that this post may come off very angry and very obnoxious, but I thought that teachers were supposed to encourage their students to take risks, not throw them curveball questions from twelve weeks ago and call it 20% of their final grade.

Our American Studies final is something that I'm actually pretty excited for right now, because I guess I'm not looking it as an evaluation of my knowledge as I'm looking it as an evaluation of our class structure. I love this class, and I hope I'll be able to represent it well when time comes to write my essay tomorrow.

Well, I guess I should go then. I'm about 80% done with my homework and I'm pretty sure that's the same amount of my brain that's already asleep.

Creativity and Competition at New Trier

Our class discussion about creativity being rewarded and discouraged in schools made me think a lot about what aspects of my own academic experience allow me to be creative, and which do not. The consensus that I've reached is that, from my personal experience at least, New Trier provides many academic opportunities that can serve as creative ones as well. For example, Dance Day, LitFest, our extensive and extremely successful music program, and of course, the art department.

Art has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember, and although sometimes many New Trier art students can be really intimidating, the program offered here is a really great thing. While I'm looking to apply to AP Art next week (aah!), I know that even if I don't get in, there's still so much I can learn from any of the other art classes offered at New Trier that I could take instead.

New Trier has a reputation of breeding the best of the best; our student excel at everything they do, more than any other school's excelling students. Always. Why would a student choose to try something new when they know that there's already a pre-existing 50 students who will be better than them at it? Competition is, without a doubt, the greatest limitation on creativity at New Trier I can think of. While New Trier's "competitive spirit" (to put it kindly) can put a damper on creativity, and encouraging students to participate in new activities, it's the amazing programs we offer that allow students to become the "best of the best."

I personally don't think that I am the best of the best when it comes to my art, so it took me a while to decide whether or not to even actually apply for AP Art. I knew I'd hate myself if I didn't even try, but spending a whole year with gifted art children could be just as damaging...In the end, I've decided that my goal for this whole is to not let other students get in the way of my personal improvement. I will not compare myself to other artists, I will only compare my work to my own previous work. And I will be proud of myself.

Have you ever shied away from doing something because you were afraid of embarrassing yourself, especially in the competitive world of New Trier? Or are you a person who can try new things easily?

The Vulnerability of Children

After the discussion we had in class today, I was left thinking a lot about the vulnerability of children and how it's exploited by the media and by corporations. It really surprised me when the lady in the documentary (Lucy, I believe?) claimed that she didn't care about the moral repercussions of her job pretty much because it's what she was asked to do and it made her money. Personally, I think that using children as a ploy to get their parents to buy them things is extremely immoral, because it takes advantage of a parent's emotional attachment to their child. Of course, if a child nags their parent enough, their parents are bound to buy them what they want (unless these parents seem to have an extreme kind of self control that I definitely don't...) When it's two parents (or in growing cases, only one) parent up against their child, backed by millions of dollars worth of marketing, as well as their child's peers, who do you think is going to win? There's only so much a parent can take.

These corporations are taking advantage of the vulnerability of children in that they are easily influenced and led to believe that they need toys that they definitely don't. Of course that's immoral; it's taking advantage of a person based on age. Could these corporations use similar marketing ploys to take advantage of the weaknesses of elderly people? Probably not...and yet taking advantage of a child's undeveloped brain is considered ethical and "fair."

The kinds of commercials targeted at small children scare me sometimes.

Not only are they way too fast-paced and crazy, it's actually hard to take your eyes off the screen. Watching TV with my 10-year-old brother makes me fear for his future. Characters in TV commercials can be shown displaying extreme happiness when they're exposed to the product being marketed, and yet in some cases they can also be seen going to a drug-like withdrawal from the products when they're taken away. (Sonny from the Cocoa Puffs commercials, anyone?). This kind of advertising is harmful to children's impressionable minds because it leads them to believe that they actually need these products, not only for fun but for survival. They're taught that money can buy happiness, which as we all eventually learn, does not.

Among tons of other issues I had with our class discussion today (and yet failed to acknowledge at the time, as usual), I feel really strongly that targeting children is a really low way to get products sold. It's immoral and unfair not only to parents but to the unsuspecting and extremely targets. I don't know what kinds of steps could be taken to ban this kind of advertising but maybe someday corporations will realize the horrible influence they are on our nation's growing generations. (Wishful thinking I guess.)

The Modern Family: Boys vs. Girls

My younger sister and I have an older brother and a younger one; four children, two parents (if separated), one family. Over the break, I've found myself spending a lot of time at home, just hanging out with my family. We hosted a Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's house, and it was that night that I realized something really weird about my own family dynamic (and I'm assuming that of many others).

When setting up for dinner, it was mine and my younger sister's responsibility to help prepare the food, set the table, serve everyone, and do all the dishes following the meal. And what did my 10-year-old and 18-year-old brothers do during all of this? Play video games in the family room, of course.

First of all, it's called a family room for a reason; it's not for you to monopolize everyone's time and viewing space with your pointless brain-melting video games (I'm not sure which is more pathetic, the 10 year old or the ADULT 18 year old). Secondly, is this really what we want a boy's place in the modern family to be?

Personally, my mother is a very very old-fashioned woman. She believes 100% that there are certain jobs better suited for men and ones designed for women. And according to her, if there is a job available in the kitchen, a woman should always be the one to take it. Men have better things to worry about! (Like in this case, Assassin's Creed). Considering the fact that she's a single mother working to raise four children primarily on her own, I never had expected this from her...

Anyway, this whole Christmas Eve not only enraged me (bad timing, right?) but it also made me question my family dynamic entirely. If my sister and I are responsible for all of the homekeeping, what are my brothers responsible for? Not to seem bitter or anything, but I do my fair share of work, why shouldn't they?

In the past (where my mother seems to be living), I guess it was normal for women to stay home, raise children and take care of the house while men went out, pursued jobs, and made money to support his family. If this was still the case today, wouldn't it be true that boys should be held to a higher academic standard than girls? Shouldn't they be urged to get jobs at a younger age?

I don't know about other girls in our American Studies class, but at home I find myself and my sister held to exactly the same (if not higher) academic standards than my brothers. I'm also the only child in my family to have/ever have had a job...my brother is 18. Tell me this doesn't sound weird.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking for out of this situation, but I really feel like this modern family dynamic focuses much more on molding young women than molding young men. I know that women have a lot more opportunities now than they did before, and that the amount of stay-at-home dads are increasing, but I can't help feeling the way that I do.

I apologize if this post is a little bit rant-y, but I'm wondering if anyone feels the same way I do. When parents choose to mold their children into ideal modern citizens, how are the upbringings of boys and girls different? Why is so much more stress put on girls becoming ladies (as far as I can tell) than boys becoming men?