How School Gave Me a New View

The article about “Rigor Redefined” by Tony Wagner made me think about the kinds of skills I am being taught in school. The article talked about the seven skills needed to survive in a 21st century work environment.

One skill in particular stood out to me was the first one critical thinking that is exactly what we are focusing on in my Freshmen English class. The article focused on the work part of critical thinking but it started in my mind to think about the life portion of thinking I remember when I was taught to think very linearly that is very superficial thinking. For example when doing my history homework during the 2008 election the homework was to write my thoughts on the election I was surprised to see that I didn’t really have an opinion since I was relating the election to homework I didn’t make my own opinion all I did was memorize the information to regurgitate it 3 months later for a final. Now that I have been through part of the course focusing on critical thinking and asking questions to formulate my own opinion I feel that now I am real human being since before I was just a person who was trained to listen memorize regurgitate and repeat instead of applying my knowledge to solve problems.

I really must concur with Alex on his thoughts about video games and the emotional release they provide for people. About Mr.Thompson i do believe he is biased on his reports since 63 percent of the US's population plays video games. Link Here. Sure we have had incidents where kids have killed fellow class members it is very clear that video games alone weren't the only contributors to their madness. But their is also another thought that i want to share about video games and violence maybe someone who has been playing extremely violent video games and wants to take them to the next level would commit an act of violence. Notice these are people who have committed virtual crimes so much that their conscience has degraded so much as too not see the difference between reality and virtual video games.Anyways it is clear that if you play videogames that much as to not know the difference if you are commiting a virtual crime or a real one then you need help.

The Power in Money

Today I was perusing my google reader and I came across a supposed insignificant topic the title read “Apple Battles Entrepreneur Over ‘Pod’ Trademark” by Brian X. Chen. The article was about a small business man who was fighting Applefor the right to use the 3 letter word pod on his video projector.

While I was reading this one question stood out to me “am I at a disadvantage because I have no money and therefore I’m supposed to be wrong?” This question about wealth struck me as being true since in common life the person with more money gets better education, treatment, and social status. The question implied about people with wealth deciding the rules and laws I also believe is true since the person without much wealth can’t really decide the social ethic and therefore the socially acceptable laws. This is why I am so glad I live in a country that allows the masses to vote on decisions even though the wealthy still dictate what is acceptable.