Ideal student part 2

So apparently I’m having a sense of déjà vu and am now typing a blog about the ideal student…again. I don’t think my concept of an ideal student is that different now than it was before though. The big thing I’ve noticed is I feel grades don’t really say everything even more now. You can have a student that works hard, does everything he’s asked, and still comes out without a great grade due to some circumstance that is out of their control. It’s bound to happen, it’ll happen to some more than others, I feel sorry for the ones that it happens to a lot. A student shouldn’t be 100% based off a piece of paper that lists grades.

It’s like that saying it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Students don’t have to be at the top of the class to prove they’re great students. It’s having the drive to succeed, and the work ethic to actually commit to things that makes them the ideal student.

Honestly, I feel that the performance in the classroom is the least contributing factor. It’s a little bit
of a paradox, being in class doesn’t contribute to being good at class. I think it’s more important to want to be that student. You can sit anybody in a chair and they could learn and be a good student, but the ideal student has to have that want to learn. Having outside influences like a good circle of friends and family are extremely helpful in molding an ideal student because it gives them confidence and support.

So I guess all in all I’m trying to say that an ideal student is a hard worker, someone who strives to succeed someone who wants to learn. Ideal and perfect aren’t completely synonyms, students can make mistakes, being that student with the 4.0 GPA isn’t the biggest factor. Besides, nobody’s perfect so the concept of a perfect student doesn’t exist. An ideal student is a student who when he leaves the classroom knows that there is nothing else that they could’ve done.

Stem Cells + Communication = ?

How do stem cell research and the written, oral, and visual communication thinking domain connect? Well how did you first learn about stem cells? Unless you were a scientist or researcher who first thought of the idea of using stems cells, you probably heard about it somewhere. That's communication. Without this communication there would never be any information passed along.

The way society has grown and evolved has created several new forms of communication. In the past people always depended on newspapers and radios to get their information. Now with things like the internet and televison, we can reach across the world sharing information easily.

There are various types of communication, each having their own pros and cons. Articles, books, and websites are the main forms of written communication. The difference though is that articles and books don't have to be in the electronic form. Websites though alow for more information because you don't have to worry about physical pages, you can just add another electronic page, allowing for endless customization. They can be used for many things. I've found articles about this history of stem cells, about the problems, and some that are just Q&A's.

Oral communication is great, especially for persuasive purposes. It allows views to see the speaker and their body language and gestures can help to reinforce their points. It also has the benfit over written communication that you get the tone and emotion of the speaker. two people can read the same thing and come out with two completely different views on how to interpret it. The main forms of this communication are speeches. A great example connected to stem cells is the speech Barack Obama gave describing his efforts to reduce the restrictions on research.

Visual communication is basically an enhancement of oral or written communication. It allows for things like pictures, or charts, or graphs that help reinforce points. Television is the main visual communication form. It gives off the same messages as written and oral, just sometimes with more technology involved. You see tv pundits all the time arguing about controversial issues and one of those issues is stem cell research.

All in all, ommunication is essential to stem cell research. Without it we wouldn't be able to share ideas and gather new information. Its these new ideas and pieces of information that drive the advancement of stem cell research, without them we would be nowhere.

Gender Divided Classrooms

Establishing gender divided classroom s would seriously harm children’s development. Yes, sometimes having the other gender in a classroom can be distracting for everyone, but by separating the genders you create a whole new set of problems. Gender divided classrooms aren’t going to solve this problem, just change it. Students need to develop these social skills for life anyway. They’re going to have to interact with the opposite gender eventually. Why not give them time to develop those skills before throwing them into the world to fall on their face. If anything this would make the problem worse. It will create a gap between the two genders. How are you supposed to understand the other gender when you have no interaction with them? It will just lead to conflict which will make the situation worse. Yes, there are differences between boys and girls and their learning styles, but dividing classes isn’t going to help. By dividing the classrooms, it almost feels like a punishment for learning differently. Have parents interact more and promote different styles of learning, have teachers find new methods that can teach to either side, these things will help, not gender divided classrooms.

One of the big reasons to support gender divided classrooms is that it allows teachers to teach to each gender’s “strengths,” which for boys would be math and science. Well according to “Girls' and Boys' Developing Interests in Math and Science: Do Parents Matter?” they discovered that girls can be just as strong. It doesn’t take altering schools to make that happen either, it just takes some support from parents. In their study they followed a group of children all through grade school and monitored their interest in science and math. The results showed that children of either gender can be more interested in those subjects with a little motivation from their parents. So why split up the classroom when there’s a simpler answer lying at home?

Source: Jacobs, Janis E., and Martha M. Bleeker. "Girls' and boys' developing interests in math and science: Do parents matter?." New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development 2004.106 (2004): 5-21. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.

Boys and Girls

In my article, a group studied about 500 students by running them through a ridiculous gaunlet of various tests, 6 different math tests, and 2 verbal/logic tests. The results showed that in most canses there was essentially no difference between boys and girls. The big differences were in mental math and arithmetic problems, where boys outperformed the girls. Basically girls can recognize concepts better, but boys can do the actual problems better.

In my experience, I can see where these ideas would come from. I remember a lot of times in school, being able to work out these giant, ridiculous calculus problems, but when someone else asks me how I did it, I drew a blank. I just knew that it was the answer. Also I noticed some difference in my academic team when it came to math. Through my 4 years we had five people that were really good at math, Jason, Greg, Chris, me, and Jared. What's in common with those? They are all males. I think the reasoning behind that though is later in the article how boys seem to be quicker at doing math, which in academic team, you have to be able to do semi-complicated calculus problems in usually 3-5 seconds, if youre lucky you may get 10.

This also is shown in a way by Gladwell. He goes into detail about a woman trying to recall her middle school algebra, and can't recall what the slope of a vertical line is. She was able to figure it out, it just took her a little while to go through the thought process. So she had the skills to do the problem, just she needed to work through it a little slower. If you were to look at it from Dweck's mindset point of view, there was very little difference between boys and girls, it all depended on how much you were motivated to finish the problem or succeed in class.

Essentially, there may be a small difference, but I don't think its anything too huge. Its more about applying the information than knowing it. Girls seem to understand better, but boys seem to do better. Its basically a gender trade-off of understanding for computation.

Gladwell vs. Dweck

In the first year seminar justice system, the students are represented by two separate, yet equally importanat books, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Mindset by Carol Dweck. These are their stories...

Okay so the whole cheezy rip off of the Law & Order opening sounded better in my head, but it gets the point across. Like the police and attorneys, these two books function by themselves with individual purposes, but at the same time, when put together, it makes life better for everyone, (except for the criminals and people who have to pay the lawyers ridiculous amounts of money). Both books deal with life, and in a way how to make life better, they both have parts that support each other, but also parts that oppose each other.

First, the similarities. Both books talk about success and how to grow into a successful person. Both of them do this by analyzing countless anecdotes, ranging from young hockey players in Canada, to the Boston Red Sox, to a young girl who's life turns upside down when she is admitted into the KIPP Academy. They both also address possible failures too. Gladwell discusses Christopher Langan (pg 69) who had all the potential in the world, but just didn't have the resources to take advantage of it. Dweck talks about chef Bernard Loiseau (pg 37) who lost it all after one bad review, including his life.

Both authors also emphasize ways to achieve this success. Gladwell outlines the 10,000 hour rule (pg 35) where someone must work 10,000 hours to fully master their craft, for in\stance, the Beatles, playing countless shows in Hamburg before making it big. (pg 47) Dweck focuses on the concept of the growth mindset, if you're always looking to achieve more, and to work more, eventually you will grow. For instance Jim Marshall (pg 33) who returned a fumble 66 yards for a touchdown... the wrong way. He used it to his advantage though and it allowed him to grow and he played a ridiculous second half.

There are differences though. To Gladwell, the key to life is success, you're nobody if you don't succeed in life. Dweck on the other hand emphasizes growth, which can lead to success as well, but that's just something extra. Gladwell believes that success is tied to what resources you have and how you utilize them, while Dweck focuses on using the success (or lackthereof) as a way to push yourself to grow even more. In Gladwell's eyes, Marita could have had the biggest growth mindest in the world, but needed KIPP academy to take advantage at all and have a chance to get out of poverty. (pg 250) Dweck looks at crybaby/Tennis player John McEnroe, (pg. 31) and showed how he was trapped in a fixed mindset, had he been in a growth mindset, he could've been one of the legendary greats of the game.

The two books are very connected, they both present great ideas. I fell like if you could take the best parts of each book and combine them together you would end up with the ultimate key/guide to success. They both present the same ideas, just with their own opinions mixed in. Which, isn't a bad thing, because otherwise it'd be two of the same book, and who'd really want to read it twice?

Success? a disease?

"Success is the disease of me" is a very interesting quotation. Its borderline paradoxical. You're combining success, which is something that almost everyone in life wants, with disease, which I can't think of any disease that, yes, I'd love to have that. The opposition is what makes this quote so memorable though. It's a statement that is very open to interpretation though. Does it mean that all success, or is it like the whole "too much of a good thing," concept? People have differing opinions on this.

We know that Gladwell is borderline obsessed with success, look at his book, it has success in the title. It's jam packed with stories of how people became successful. The only story about an unsuccessful person was basically to prove a point that he should've been successful.

So how would Gladwell respond to the statement, "Success is the disease of me?" First he would probably see it as an opportunity to write a new book, or at least a sequel to outliers. The he would probably laugh at the notion. As noted earlier, success is like crack to Gladwell, he can't get enough of it. Telling him success is bad is like telling a surgeon that he shouldn't perform that heart surgery he's about to perform, they'd both call you crazy. To him, success is like hollywood, there's no such thing as bad success. Look at one of the examples Gladwell uses, the Beatles. Yes, they were one of the greatest bands in the history of music, but eventually they split up, three of them went on to have decent solo careers (poor Ringo...), even being elected into the Rock and Roll hall of fame as solo artists, but how much of that success do you think came from being associated with the Beatles? Getting success off of a name, is that really the "right" kind of success? to Gladwell, it doesn't matter, its still success.

To me, I think there can be bad success. If you didn't work to get it, it will get you in this false sense of believing that you can do anything with little effort. Also success where the ends don't justify the means. Congradulations, you're successful, but how much did you throw away, how many people did you step on to get that 15 minutes of fame? Was it worth it? If its hard earned success, then more power to you, you deserve what you got, and it'll make you a better person in the long run anyway. Sometimes the success isn't even the most important part, its what you pick up along the way that counts.

So basically, success is good, Gladwell will back that up by writing 285 pages about it. It can be a bad thing though, it can get to your head and affect you, or its sometimes just not worth what you have to do to get to that point.

Am I a natural?

I'll admit it; I really struggled with this one. The concept of a natural can even be taken a few different ways. To me, I view a natural as someone who can excel at something with little to no work/practice/preparation.

There are some exceptions, most athletes are usually required to practice, which helps them get even better, but when you look at guys like LeBron James, Lionel Messi, or Michael Phelps. You can tell even from a young age what they were going to do in life. They were all exceptionally gifted, blessed with God-given talent and attributes that allowed them to thrive in their given field.

I think one of the key aspects is that concept of God-given talent. You've heard all the rags-to-riches stories about how people worked their tails off working at their craft over and over, and eventually rising up to become a star. All three of the above athletes, by the time they were 13 they were blowing their competition out of the water, they didn't need all that working to turn nothing into something.

So in the short version, being a natural comes down to having some God-given talent to go on and using work/practice to supplement that. Which then brings the question, am I a natural at something? Honestly, even in just the past few days I've had this argument multiple times, and every time I find myself on the same side, saying no.

Maybe it's because to me I see "being a natural" as a bit of an ego inflator, I feel it would make me sound conceited if I said I was. Trust me; I have about 20 pages of text messages arguing this point to death. People argue all the time that I'm just a natural at school that everything comes so easily to me. It really doesn't though. I work my butt off studying, doing homework, and surviving through much stress filled episodes. There's a lot of luck involved. Do I think that I was just born like this? Not a chance. I just do what I do and hope it all works out.

Some say that my lackadaisical, float through school lifestyle would constitute that of a "natural"- all play and no work. Me, I think it’s a combination of luck and hard-work. God-given ability? Not really, so I'm going to finish this kind of depressing blog post by casting my ballot saying no, I'm not a natural.