For my research project I am thinking of using either a video format, perhaps with presentation tube or through youtube.  These formats are great because they would allow me to more thouroughly explain some topics and will be the most visual form of presentation that I could use.  This could be used to show examples of the extracurricular activities.  The problem is that the videos could take quite a bit of time to create and to show in the presentation.  For this reason I might use prezi to present my topic because of its ease of use and that I am sure that I could get it ready by presentation day.  Sorry that this isn't longer but there really isn't much else to talk about what I am using to present my project.

Kronholz, June. "Academic Values of Non-Academics." Education Next
(n.d.): 4-10. Print.

This article has many major points to it.  One of the first points is that when the budget gets cut, one of the first thing to go are the extracurricular activities which leads into the rest of the article.  The article shows that those who attend these extracurricular activities have almost double the chance of getting into college as compared to those who don't.  The article shows that although going to some of these clubs don't really raise grades they merely make the students enjoy school more which makes the participate in school more and be absent from classes less. Also that these extracurricular activities teach the students about leadership, self discipline and persistance for doing work among other benefits from doing extracurricular activities. 

This subject seems to directly connect to my inquiry project because my project is about performance in school based on extracurricular activities, the differences between school related activities and other activities, and the effects of extracurricular activities on getting into college.  All of the points and research that is done in the article can be used in some way for my research project.  The information from the article about extracurricular activities is showing the points that these activities do have a connection with success in school. 

There are many articles on this subject that I will need to look into.  It seems that quite a bit of research has already been done on this topic.  Most of the research seems to be quantitative with doing mass research which means that I will need to do more qualitative research to get different views on the topic. I think that my project will go well and that I will have enough sources to deal with to support one or the other side of the argument.

My research topic was difficult to come up with.  I had many topics from
the effect of graduation on jobs, testing in school and how much work should
both teachers and students be putting into school. In the end I chose the topic of the effects of extracurricular activities on student’s grades.  I have heard
before that the people that chose to participate in these activities do better
in school, but too many can get in the way.  The extracurricular activities that
have very little to do with school most of the time, such as soccer, are put
into account for those who are going to college.  In the end I will try to figure out how these activities reflect which students will do well in school.


I am interested in this topic because I have been told for a long time to get involved in as many activities as I can because it would look good on college applications and it would increase my grades.  I want to research to actually see if these activities do indeed increase grades.  In school I was involved in multiple clubs and student groups.  Science Olympiad, the entertainment
club, the computer club, and the chess club were all groups that I joined.  These were fun groups to be part of and some had hard parts to it but I am not sure how much they helped me actually in school.  I can see the advantage of Science Olympiad for example because it had to deal with many scientific topics such as chemistry and physics but other clubs like the computer club were mainly people playing video games, although we sometimes worked on computers.  For my research I am planning on taking a poll in a school to get the average grades of those who participate in these
activities and those that don’t, maybe varying based on how many of these
activities they have.

There are different problems with the education system.  One of the things that is wrong is the standardized testing that takes place.  Not student that I have heard from and no teacher that I have asked has ever like the standardized testing system.  This prevents the teachers from teaching their subject in an effective way.  The testing forces the teachers to teach the students how to take the tests, not how to actually learn the subject.  I feel that this is a problem because the main point of school is to gain knowledge and to use that knowledge in the world and not actually learning the subjects and instead learning just how take tests seems counterproductive.

I feel that the current school system is also counterproductive.  It is difficult to fail with the current school system due to the different failsafe systems that are in place.  These systems are similar to the first point, the focus is on the no child left behind by making school easier.  By making school easier, the students don't learn as much as they should defeating the purpose of an education.  This system along with the standardized testing and other parts of  school come together to really defeat the purpose of school.

I think that schools need to be almost reworked from the ground up.  Schools need to be focused on giving the students a strong education.  I feel that schools need to make the requirements to get completely through more difficult but at the same time, have more opertunities to get back into school.  From what I have seen many students just are not focused on school and don't realize the value in school.  As the students grow up they realize how important that their education is.  There are dozens of things that I think are wrong with the school system but th

This article was oddly enough, about the five paragraph essay that pretty much every person that I know has been writing since early on in school.  I agree with some points that the authors are making but they made some points that I did not agree with. 

I agree and understand that the five paragraph essays are stopping or not encouraging creativity. This is bad for both the teacher and the student.  Writing has a huge amount to do with creativity and basically dropping this aspect out of the essays that are written makes the essays weaker in general. These five paragraph essays are also fairly limited.  You can generally only talk about three specific ideas for the three body paragraphs.  You also have to do the introduction, the body paragraphs and the conclusion focusing on general  parts of the essay like grammar and transitions not focusing on the actual topic of the essay. 


Where I don't agree with all the article starts with the mention of five paragraph essays used in classes as a starting point in writing, which seems like a good idea to me.  But in the article it was explained where the students consistantly wrote the bad five paragraph essays from one class to the next with not one teacher correcting them, however I don't believe that that was the five paragraph essays fault but either the teachers before them or the students.  Without the propper formatting for an essay even one with great ideas could be unreadable.  Although there are other ways to write an essay the five paragraph essay seems to be a good starting point.

One major advantage that I can see with the five paragraph essay is how easy the grading would be compared to a dozen different styles of essays.  Most teachers that I know of in high school and below just don't have the time to deal with the different essays or the enthusiasm to figure them out.  The teachers work from 7 AM to 4 PM leaving very little time for things outside of school.  

This article was interesting to read and had some good points to it.  I liked that the article was showing both sides of the debate on the five paragraph essay. Like many other things though, there isn't a side that is completely right over the other side.

The bank model of education is the one most similar to the education in Mike Rose's story.  This is because most conventional education in the US is the bank model of education.  The teachers in Mike Rose's article were just there to throw information into the kids heads or banks.  This information although useful it seemed like they never learned the true meaning of a subject.  Knowing to do algebra but not knowing why that is probably led to Mike's faulty way of doing algebra.

Problem-posing method of teaching seems like teaching seems like a very hands on style of teaching by the teachers to the students.  In the article it says that the problem-posing teachers is always cognitive which is learning through experience and through the senses.  That is compared to the banking education where there is some cognitive learning but there is also much narrative learning where the teacher is just talking and the children learnt the information.

I think that this article is interesting and that it brings up some very good points about our education.  Most people may memorize the name of a famous painting and its painter but they don't even know what the painting represents.  Without that the information about the relation of the painting and painter is useless.  Through the problem-posing education the students learn to percieve the world not as a static object but as a constantly changing one.  Problem-posing education also is based on creativity and stimulating acting upon reality.

I believe that each form of education has its uses however.  I feel there are certain basic facts that are needed to learn, and that attempting to teach these basic facts through problem-posing education would be unreasonable in the amount of time it would take. Problem-posing would involve a very direct form of education which would be very difficult to do in the United States because of the time, money, and manpower that it would cost to even attempt to do this.

So, this is my first blog and I am not really sure if I am supposed to blog about this article.  But I don't really know another way to respond to the article that doesn't have a link to turn it in so I am expecting this to be the right way.  This article was interesting about how school was changed so drastically through he changing of the styles of families. With the change of families, home schooling became more difficult and to become educated schools had to be formed.  This was drastically changed by Horace Mann who completely changed the education system to not only educate but to unite people together.  By unifying the people this new system of education brought together these people to unite under the government.  This system of education was also ment to be equal to everybody, no matter what your financial situation was you could get educated  which helped unify the people further.  Education was also put in for the government because for the government to function properly it needs to be run by educated people. In the article it is also explained that people who are successful and stay successful are people who are intelegent and they have to stay intelegent or they lose their positions in success.  The problem with this system is that even though school goes with politics the school system wouldn't work if politics were put directly into it.  If the politics were directly in the school system then the people would not be getting generally educated and they would be biased twards different political groups and ideas instead of having the ability to chose their own political path. This article definatley changed what I thought about the school systems in the US.  Although it is about politics it is also about educating people so that they can have a better life.

Personal section.

Well I just saw a circus ad on the TV for a circus that I went to.  It was pretty intertaining but I hated it because my alergies absolutley destroy me there...
I got