Challenging The Teachers

"Can the United States raise the status of teachers and teaching in general so that more talented young people are attracted to the profession?" This question has been asked numerous times and Kati Haycock has given an answer to solve this problem. In her article responding to the question in the New York Times, she proposes that the U.S. improves teacher training. I absolutely agree that to raise the status of teaching and to attract more intelligent young people to the profession, that the U.S. needs to improve teacher training. In her article, she says we must “enrich the programs” and “ratchet up their admissions requirements.” Meaning that we should increase the level of the preparation programs so that the interns will be challenged and then we are able to “weed out weak” and less intelligent candidates and keep the strongest ones for teaching. Keeping the strongest ones for teaching will also help the country’s future because they will actually understand and grasp the meaning of the material they are teaching, which then allows them to pass the information to the students’ brains in a more effective way. Also being able to know the material well, will earn the teacher some respect from the students because no student wants to learn from an air head that doesn’t even know the material themselves. In my experiences, many of the teachers I have go straight from the book and worksheet for worksheet. When my teachers do this, I find it harder to follow along and understand the meaning, but when other teachers explain in depth and expand on the curriculum, I find myself understanding the material better and then scoring higher on my tests. I tend to respect these teachers more and take them seriously because they know what is going on in the class. Students respect teachers when they are putting the effort in to help them understand the material. What if the new interns don’t want to work as hard, so raising the requirements to become a teacher actually drives them away? Well, in Haycock’s article she says that research shows the new interns that come into the preparation programs find them to be “so mindless that they can’t transfer out of them fast enough.” Even if there were some that couldn't’pass the new requirements, that would just open up the doors for the numerous amount of bright and driven young people to teach the students of America.

The Great Gatsby Analysis

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's reflective hopelessness reveals how humans catch a glimpse of something remarkable, but then soon fill it with hopelessness and will never or can never make it enchanted once again.

"As the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away...I became aware of the old island that flowered once..." With the darkness fallen upon him, he is now able to see the real island and all its beauty that it once had. Fitzgerald is saying that some people can not see past the destruction until it is taken away from their vision. People first see the beauteous world and then give into the temptation of inessential building and the ones that come later can not see past the ugly to look at the beauty, so they keep adding to the inessential. We are prone to our past mistakes and actions.

Fitzgerald says we are "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Boats against the current never go anywhere because the current is pushing back against them. Fitzgerald is meaning that humans are hopeless and can never push past the obstacles that stand in our way of making the world we live in essential again. If we are "borne back ceaselessly into the past," then we will always repeat old bad habits that we will not or can not stop. He is basically saying, that humans keep trying, but are getting no where.

Fitzgerald's reflectiveness of how humans are never searching for the good, but just dwelling on the awful can stop us in our tracks and prove how hopeless we are because we will never learn from our mistakes and move forward...just like the boat against the current.

3rd Quarter Reading List of Books

I read 4 books, the equivalent of 7 books.

• Along For the Ride 432 pages


• The Truth About Forever 400 pages


• I Heart You, You Haunt Me 240 pages


• Fahrenheit 452 192 pages(the read was harder so counted for 2 books)

My favorite book that I read this quarter was The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. Macy Queen is 16 years old. She is the average bump on a log, with a brainy boyfriend and dull job at the library. Her whole life she has focused on making her mom happy and maintaining a perfect lifestyle. That all changes one summer when her boyfriend Jason leaves for Brain Camp and she bumps into the Wish Catering crew. Delia, Kristy, and Wes help Macy develop into a beautiful butterfly and start living life as she wants it. Along the way, they encounter many adventures and heart to hearts. This book inspired me to move out of my comfort zone and start having fun and doing activities that maybe I wouldn't have tried before. This story has adventure and love all wrapped up into one breath taking book.