What Shapes Us?

In my opinion, we are are not 100% products of our environment. We become who we are, not just because of one thing; there are many things that surround us and help us become a person of good or bad. Both Wes Moore’s environments were negative because they were surrounded by people selling drugs, but in the end, the Moores turned out to be different people. When Wes posed the question to the other Wes “If we were products of our environments?” The other Wes answered by saying that they were products of the expectations people had of them, which made themselves come up
with their own expectations about themselves. I disagree with the other Wes because the expectations of his family were for him to go to school, to study, and became a person of good. Tony did not expect his brother to become a drug dealer. His environment played a major role and not expectations. Wes become who he was because he decided to get involved in drugs to make extra cash. In the case of Wes, he became the person he is because he decided to do something with his life. His mother expected him to study high school, so she decided to raise the
money necessary to pay for the military school. Wes had become used to not being in school and did not want to keep studying, but when he learned what his mother sacrificed in order for him to attend the school, he decided to study to make his mom feel proud of him. Had Wes decided to drop out of school, he would have become a different person. The environment is not always responsible for who we are; it is part of what shapes us.

Pranks: Fun or Serious

A prank usually makes someone mad and another full of joy. Some pranks are serious, and others are just for fun with no negative results. In Wes’ case, the prank that one of the students at the military school did on him, made him stronger. When he figured out that his “friend” Sergeant Austin had pulled the prank, Wes felt stupid; he could not believe that this could have happened to him. The pranked opened his eyes into seeing the sacrifice his parents had done for him, for him to study at the school.

I have been pranked and tricked, but nothing serious, only silly tricks in between friends. One of the tricks that was once done to me was, I think, when one of my friends was telling me something that was not true and I believed his story (Not much detail, sorry). When I found out about it, I felt dumb because I spread out the story through the school. This made me think twice if what I was told was true. When something happens to you, it is most likely going to happen again. When someone lies to you, the next time they tell you something you are going to doubt their word. Wes Moore’s lesson was different than what it could have been, he could not have trusted anyone else at the school again, but instead he learned that parents sometimes make big sacrifices for their children to succeed in life.

We Want The Best For Our Younger Siblings

My sister is two years younger than me, and I do my best to talk to her about what to do and not to do. I want the best for her and don’t want to see her go through what I went through. She sometimes comes to me for advice and other times I just give her some without asking. Most of my advices are school related and how she should do things to achieve her goals. When her first year of high school began, I talked to her about what her plans for the future were and she was not sure. As a freshman, it is likely that none of them know what they want to do with their lives, but you should at least have an interest. I told her that she needed to startthinking about her future

because the earlier she does, the fewer problems she is going to have in the future. Once she knows what to study in college, she can take classes related to her field and not like me, who took classes not necessarily related to my field of study. “The faster you have an idea of what you want to do, 

the faster you can discover is that is for you, by taking classes and seeing how they are,” was something I told her to make her start thinking of what shw would like to do. By doing this, she is going to be able to find out if she likes what she wants to study in college. One of my biggest advice for her is; not to slack off in school because it is going to impact her grades. Even though she is not a senior or junior yet, what she does a sophomore and did as a freshman has an impact on her grades. I want her to be able to be more prepared when it comes to applying for college. I want to see her go to a good college and receive scholarships like they did to me. I don’t want her to have debts because I never gave her advice. As an older sibling, I want the best for her and to accomplish more things than what I did.

Decisions, Decisions

Many years ago, when I was in sixth grade, I had to make a decision: Did I want to stay in a monolingual class or go back to bilingual class. My decision was to go back to a bilingual class because I felt that it was the best option. I felt this way because I was going to keep learning English at a steady pace and not just into a world where I needed to have mastered the English language, which I had not. I was in the class for about 1 to 2 weeks and seeing that I was struggling and that I was not at the same pace as the rest of my classmates had the greatest influence on me to go back to a bilingual class. If I picked to remain in the class, I would have had to try even harder to keep up with everyone else and maybe pushed myself harder to keep up and do better. But what other decisions would I have made after deciding to stay in that class? There is no way to be certain of what was going to happen; Would I have become a F, D, C, B or an A student? Would I be in NJCU? Every decision we take leads to more decisions to be taken. Taking another direction can change you drastically.

In the case of Wes Moore, the other Wes Moore could have had Wes' life if he had picked a different route in his life. The problem is that picking an alternative can lead to the same path as the other option because of many decisions we have to make. One decision can change your lifestyle, but they can also lead you to where you are today. If I had picked to stay in the class, I might had still picked to go to NJCU and be the same person I am now. There is no certainty of what the future holds in hands for us. Once a decision is taken, we can only imagine what could have happened if we had picked the other option.
                                 

How does an activity like this promote or increase 21st century skills?

As time goes new methods of learning have been invented which are helping to improve our skills needed for daily life. During one of our classes, we participated in an activity based on the articles we read to get a clearer and bigger understanding of them. We had to be divided into groups and select reporters and facilitators. The reporters would write ideas of the articles. Meanwhile, the facilitator would have to connect ideas that connected and circled ideas that needed explanation. Using this activity is great for many things especially for find out who read and who didn't read. Another use of this is, we are able to see the different ideas every reporter comes up with from the three articles. Of course the ideas were different, but the great part was that we all saw how we viewed the articles and how other viewed the articles. Some ideas were closely related and there were the others that were not. What I noticed was that the ideas that were not related were the ones that showed our different perspective towards understanding the articles. This showed us that not everyone is alike, everyone thinks differently and does everything differently.

The most amazing part of this activity was doing it in silence. There has been no activity back in high school, middle school or even at an elementary school that was done in silence, talking was always permitted. This happens because as time goes on new tactics to adapt to current times are develop. This activity shows how we can collaborate, develop our creativity, think more critically and help out communication not just talking, but silent communication as well. Working together is key because when a facilitator indicates an idea needs more explanation others can pitch in an expand it. If I wrote that idea, someone else could expand it and make it have a whole different meaning than what I wanted it to have. Explaining the ideas circled causes everyone to think more critically. We cannot just say something, we need to expand it proving our point and answering someone's questions.

There are some people that in a regular discussion will not talk because they are shy, like me, or because they are scared that what they are going say something that is wrong or not related to the topic. These people will prefer to stay quiet and not talk, but this activity is where these people can take part in and pitch in more than a regular discussion. These people will feel more comfortable, and you will be amazed at what they are capable of accomplishing. In my case, I felt like I participated more in this activity as a reporter than I would have done in a discussion. In a discussion I might not say a lot of things because I might have been nervous, I might have been scared that what I was going to say was not related to the conversation, etc. I know that for the future I cannot stay silent, I need to speak up because that is what jobs and careers are looking for.

A problem from this activity is that those that like to talk in a discussion might feel uncomfortable performing this task. They might not want to write down their thoughts, or they don't know what to write because they can't pick what to write due to all of the ideas they want to say. Something that can help this activity is maybe to both things do the silent part, and then have a discussion in the groups. Everyone should explain their explanation of why they wrote their ideas for the articles. Both the talkative and the shy ones will take part of this activity that can increase areas in their lives are very useful.

Pop Culture Is Helping Us Unite

Pop Culture Is Helping Us Unite

Everywhere we go, there will always be someone using their cellphone. What are they doing? The answer to this question will most likely be, they are looking at social media. Social media has been the key to opening a world where pop culture is almost everything and everywhere. Regularly users are uploading images or videos that thousands of people are watching. Most of these images and videos have become pop culture to us because they have something in common, they are funny. We have always liked to laugh at anything and social media has made it easier to find something that will make us laugh. According to the video “Why Pop Culture,” pop culture is anything that makes us smile and brings us together. The images and videos are uniting people across the globe. There is no barrier preventing us from coming together and saying this is great, we are not going to argue on whether it is bad or good because we all like it.

When we are watching a good TV show that every is watching and liked it becomes part of pop culture. Even though people can say that watching TV shows is not good for you, they are not completely right. According to the article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” the writer Steven Johnson tells us that the TV shows are helping our intelligence to development. We are capable of learning new things and new information we might not had known before because of what we see and what others see. In addition to Steven Johnson, we have Alexandre O. Philippe who shows us, through the video “Why Pop Culture,” how pop culture is creating a positive impact in the lives of everyone. As kids, we had many toys, which are components of pop culture, that we used to help us imagine different outcomes of almost everything. We imagine of being in space, under water or even flying. Our imagination has grown thanks to toys that have become pop culture. Pop culture has impacted our lives that we use it to keep creating fun things for everyone.

Our lives have been impacted in such a way that pop culture has become a great way of uniting everyone. As I mentioned before social media has spread images and videos that we all like and we do not say ‘we don't like it.’ Politics, religion and social issues are some of the many things that are dividing everyone. Since we are arguing about everything, we have created different walls that are divining everyone into different groups that disagree with each other. These walls are preventing us from coming together and sharing wonderful times, but there is something that is destroying or disappearing these walls for an instant and that is pop culture. Pop culture will continue to bring smiles and happy moments to everyone. When we share the same pop culture, we forget about our differences and join together to have fun and enjoy. Everyone prefers to have fun and be together instead of getting separated by a wall that is build because of our differences.

Pop culture makes us smile and brings us together.

Alexandre O. Philippe video “Why Pop Culture,” link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_3UYncNwz4

Literacy has been introduced to most of us before we were even born. My mother tells me all the time that since I was in her womb, she and my father read stories to me. They say that children should be introduced to reading early in life. By doing this, we can start using our imagination and develop our literacy skills. At home or school, I looked at pictures of animals, objects or foods corresponding to one letter of the alphabet. Soon I began to put the letters together and read different kind of words.

        When I was around eight years old, I moved to the United States and started a journey towards learning a new language, English. My parents decided to hire a tutor this way I could not only learn English in school, but also learn at home. I start pronouncing and writing different types of words and putting them together to form sentences. With the help of my tutor, I quickly began to increase my literacy skills in English. My parents are always there to help me to improve my reading and writing skills.

        As I get older, I notice that reading books or articles were helping me not only to improve my reading skills, but also my writing skills. Today, I try to read articles to keep my reading and writing skills up and running. It helps me increase my levels of reading or writing levels. As I read more and more, I find it easier to write essays than it was before. But at times I prefer not writing them because some essay topics are new to me and I come to the point that I spent too much time trying to figure out what I am going to write down. It does not matter what type of assignment I get, I always try to do my best and keep on moving forward.