Francisco Martinez

M. Williams

English 1A

January 5 2014

                                                     Final Essay

Technology has grown immensely in the past few decades. Some can say that technology has overpowered humans. With so much advanced technology, there is no need for labor work. Jobs have been cut down a lot in the past few years. Along with the placement of technology in our lives, there are many factors that contribute to the distress of more than 90 percent of the people living here and the hard times they spend working and/or searching for a decent paying job. They say money isn't the key to happiness, but money is the key to survive and the key to living as well and without money, with no jobs, and with low incomes and low living wages, life can become nothing else but a stress for everyone, that is, everyone besides the top 1 percent.

The current living wage is barely enough to make it by. The cost of living is high, and going up, while the salaries stay the same or even drop. The low salaries are barely enough to cover our basic needs and sometimes not even enough to pay off our debts. The average American spends half their life in school, working to pay for school, and going to school to make a better salary, a salary that isn't much different from a person that doesn't go to school and instead spends their whole life working. On top of that the student loans have to be payed for and sometimes the debts are way too high. So then what was the point ? Either way we are stuck with low salaries that we don't deserve, but again its better than having no job at all, because finding a job is already hard enough so therefore we learn to appreciate what we have and we ignore all the injustices.

No jobs and low living wages make an enormously unfair impact into each and every one of our lives. Most of the bottom 99 percent of Americans struggle daily to earn the little they have, its never a lot and in some cases its not even enough because Tavis mentions that “Homeless families increased 28 percent, from 131,100 in 2007 to 168,00 in 2010"(48) This means that many Americans don't even have homes because either their pay rates are too low or they just don't have jobs. Its sad because we are the ones that work the most for what we want and need, but we are the ones who have the least, and as time passes, we keep having less and less, “the richer just get richer and the poor just get poorer”, all they do is pass down the money onto the next generation, and of course money means power so they pretty much govern us, thus making themselves richer and richer as we struggle with the little money that is left to circle around. Tavis Smiley says, “Over the past 40 years, household incomes have remained stagnant for all but the top 5 percent of Americans”(65).  There is just no way for us to possibly get a chance to better ourselves or to even receive what we deserve for our hard work, we basically have to pay to live, and prices keep getting higher and higher, all that leads us too is to failure.

Although our country’s money is not distributed equally,  or even close to equally, and although we are being controlled by top richest people of the world, they say that “In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.” So therefore we can get our economy’s money moving a lot more smoother. If we were all just to step up and come together as the 99 percent that we are, with the occupy movement that tries to take place all over the country, we can easily start earning what we deserve. We all know that socialism won't work, but why not fight for what each and every one of us has worked for.

In conclusion, overall it is clear that our government is controlled and overpowered by money. With so much technology replacing workers, jobs are getting harder and harder to find, and the jobs that are still out there aren't paying nearly enough. Many Americans are suffering and struggling day after day because of this, and its just not right. Eventually the upper 5 percent will have all of the money because this economy cannot work if none of us have enough money to spend. Prices go up, but salaries don't, it doesn't make sense, but like they say, there's more of us and way less of them, so if we really wanted to, united, we can change all this.

               The topic sentence that stood out to me the most was, "the teachers aren't motivated to teach the poor students properly," because I feel like a teacher should not base if their going to really try and push students based on where they come from and how they live. Teacher don't try motivating those students because they feel as if they will get no where no matter what, but who are they to determine that? Every child should get the same opportunity in education. Wealthy or poor, white or black, it does not matter. A teacher should give them all equal support to whatever dreams they have, even if they seem impossible. In Savage Inequalities the author Jonathan Kozol writes, "A child is not born to the station of its parents, but with an indefinite claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought and labor. It is in conformity with the theory of equality ... to give as near possible to every youth an equal state in life." (101) which supports the idea of equality and fairness to every child regardless of everything else. Yet teachers dont bother trying, they give poor kids no options in life.

3  paragraphs on part III of Rule of 3:
               

               This world is becoming highly competitive, good preparation is the key to success. Good preparation mainly comes from school and teachers. I feel like the job of a teacher requires the most dedication and the most responsibility. The problem is that there are many passive teachers out there that lack passion and don't care about the students. A teacher holds a good piece of the future in their hands because we, the students, are the future, and their job is to shape us and form us into the best that we can be. Many teachers don't realize, but our future lies in their hands. Many students need support, support that some don't get at home, support that they can only get by their teachers. While many teachers are making the best of every individual student they have others are really hurting their future letting them fall into failure or just simply not giving them the guidance they seek for, thus letting them fall into a world where eventually their only allies become drugs and crimes.

                A class room should be a place for students to get their first glance at the real world and at what they want to become in life, and a teacher should be a type of mentor. That is where a successful student arises from, that is where he starts off with good support and guidance from the teacher. The teacher should also make the students surrounding easy for for them to open their minds into knew things and that can help them acquire knowledge and it can help them set their dreams and find their correct paths. If a teacher does not help their students out in this way that can make them struggle a lot and make them want to give up, when they truly have the initial potential they need to become successful. That can ruin a good head start to what could have been a successful person in life.

                 Also, teachers are our role models, we look up to them and admire their knowledge. When we see a passionate teacher full of positive energy, we in some way become passionate ourselves and become eager to learn form them. But what happens with a passive teacher that is only there looking forward to their paycheck at the end of the month and not looking forward to teaching their students and hoping to make them blossom into successful people of tomorrow? We begin to question why we are even there in the first place and we begin to loose our desire to learn. We make the environment among us unpleasant and negative because a teachers mood and passion really affects the whole class. A negative teacher's sends out negative energy to the students and sometimes even out to the whole school.

              

             

Francisco Martinez

M. Williams

Eng 1A

9, September 2013

              A Passion for Teaching

                 I read an article called A passion for teaching, it was a very interesting article for me because i felt that it related to the Passion Project. It supported what i thought was one of the best and most important concepts of the script, the passion teachers/instructors have for their job. I personally think teachers play a huge roll in our education and our academic decisions and passions. In The Passion Project, Ray says “Students have to feel like they're at home so if they wanna be comfortable they gotta get comfortable with the teacher… We gotta feel like the teacher is real, like he or she really truly wants to help us.”, I feel like this is true because in all my school years I've had them all ,good teachers and bad. And those who truly take the time to help us on the side whenever we need, those who actually seem interested in us, have made the biggest impacts in my life. They have helped me out the most in every sense and i feel like thats exactly what a teachers job is. A passionate teacher can motivate us, they can push us, they can make us think more positively, thus they can direct us to our own personal success. “He is the most passionate teacher i have ever had in my life, he flies around the room and makes every lecture enjoyable to attend. He helps us individually and pushes us to success”, this is shows how important a passionate teacher is to us students. And more than just teach, they need to interact with their students, help them each individually because every student is different therefore learn differently. Its the teachers job to find the right way to interact with every student and give them the support and attention they need.

1. Blog space reflects me because it shows who I am and what I like. It lets everyone view my dearest passions and it gives them a glance at what I'm all about.

2. I have many passions, i love anything that has to do with water and the lake. I'm very passionate about riding atvs, though the most important thing to me has nothing to do with any of that, the most important thing to me right now would be my education.
3. I'm in school because I love learning and although I'm not the smartest man on earth I like to learn and I want to have a strong education and become something in life.
4. From this class I hope to gain better writing skills as well as better thinking skills. I want to be able to analyze any script thrown at me and find the deepest meaning into it.