Standardized Testing: Why Do We Need It?

I personally dislike writing tests like this because they stress me out and I'm probably not the only one who gets stressed over them either. I think they are good to see where the students are at in English and Math but they shouldn't count for marks. I know OCA is just a test to see where you are in English because you're coming from middle school and it is a good test so you know what will be expected of you in grade 9 English class. Grade 9 EQAO is used for marks in Math class which I don't think is fair because some people get stressed on tests and actually do worse than they know they can. I know it doesn't affect marks by a lot but it could put someone into the position of failing right before exams. In grade 10 all students are forced to take the literacy test. If you don't get above a certain grade you can't graduate until you do or take a course to get the credit to graduate. This is not fair because a student who gets 90% in English class could fail somehow because of something stupid and have to take it again in grade 11. Overall I think these standardized tests are dumb and unnecessary. They should be used to see how the student is going not for marks.

 

 

TEDx Experience

I went to TEDx Waterloo on Wednesday March 29, 2013. I found it extremely interesting what issues people have faced in their lives. I liked how there was a 9 year old that talked about saving the oceans because she had a good message and it was something she was very passionate about and you could tell by the way she presented her information. One of my favourite talks was Holly Painter she kept me interested the whole time. I think the event was well run overall but it was a little unorganized at some points. I left at around 3:00 pm because I was tired and getting bored. I think after lunch everyone started getting tired because lunch was too long. There was a lot crammed in one day so I think maybe having less talks or shorter talks would be a good idea for next time.






Here's the link to the TEDxWaterloo website:
http://tedxwaterloo.com/

Human Nature: Good or Evil?

In my honest opinion I think people are essentially evil in one way or another. I don't think people started off this way but over the years it has come to it. I think that the things we get taught can be used as evil instead of good. We hurt one another just for the sake of hurting someone whether it's physically or verbally. If people were essentially good then there would be no wars, no reason for walk outs and sit ins, and no reason to hurt anybody. Even the nicest people have evil in them. There is a point where people break and snap and sometimes that's the only time you'll see evil in a nice person.. Every single person in the world is evil. I don't really think there are bad people in the world just good people who make bad decisions and when they make that bad choice you see the evil in that person come out.
 We are taught to be good, nice to everyone, and to share. It's hard to do what we are taught when everyone around us is doing the exact opposite. When you are a young child you can't tell good from bad so your teachers and parents are there to tell you good from bad. Their opinions on what is good and what is bad could be completely different. The real question is what is good and bad?

Personality Explorations

  In doing this assignment I have noticed that I my major learning style is kinesthetic, I am an easy going person who enjoys working with people and am good at it and that I'm a creative person.
  I am a person who likes doing rather than watching or listening due to the fact that I am a kinesthetic learner. Kinesthetic means hands-on stuff and prefer learning by doing. I tend to pay attention better if there is some sort of movement going on. I noticed that I always have something in my hand when listening to something because it's easier to pay attention.
  I also noticed that I'm a people person so I like working with people. This was proven when I was finished answering the questions to Quiz #5-Interest Inventory as well as Quiz #9-True Colours Personality Assessment when my brightest colour was orange and some of the qualities were flexible and easy going which makes it easy to work with people. I like group work most of the time because sometimes it's easier working with people rather than by myself.
 The assignment showed me that I am a creative person. I do enjoy writing about what I want over doing a topic assigned by the teacher. In Quiz #4-Work Values one of my top two work values was self-expression and after finishing Quiz #6- Myers-Briggs Type Inventory one of the career possibilities was a journalist. I found out I was a Communicator in Quiz 10-Changemaker. I had an idea I was somewhat creative beofre this assignment.
 I found this assignment really interesting because most of the quizzes I took gave results that somewhat matched my personality and such. I found almost all of the quizzes accurate although some quizzes were not. Overall it was an interesting assignment even if the answers sounded nothing like you because you got to find out things about yourself you may not have known before.

Alison Flemming

Recently my class had a guest speaker come to talk us about her job. Her name was Alison Flemmign and her job was social media. So basically her job is to do twitter updates and make facebok pages and update them for companies. Although I do enjoy social networking I don't think I would like a job doing so. I feel like I would get bored of just tweeting and updating facebook all the time. Some aspects of the job sound interesting but I just don't feel like it's something I would enjoy doing even though I go on twitter for at least 5 hours on a daily basis. I thought she was a good guest speaker and answered questions well to help give us a greater knowledge on her job. Something else she did that I liked is she knew exactly what she wanted to talk about and explained what she does extremely well. Overall it was an enjoyable presentation even though it isn't a job that I am particularly interested in.

Scout Finch

"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks." -Scout

Being the lucky grade 10 student I am I get to read To Kill A Mocking bird for English! I was asked to write about my favourite character basically. I decided to choose Scout (Jean- Louise Finch). Scout is the narrator and one of the main characters. I think she is interesting because she curious about absolutely everything that everyone says and does that she doesn't understand. She interests me mostly because she is brave and intelligent. She proves this throughout the first half of the book an example of her bravery is when her, Dill and Jem go into the Radley's backyard to try and talk to Boo. An example of her intelligence is the first day of school when her teacher asks her to read and write things for her she gets scolded for being more capable of reading and writing than all the other students who have failed the first grade a couple times. The funny thing about school is Scout hates it with a passion and tries to do everything to get out of it.

Late Mark Punishment

At this point 5% is taken off each day late which is fair unless the student has a legitimate excuse for the work not being done. In that case the student should talk to the teacher right away before class but I think that should be the only exception. Although it is the students fault if the work isn't done sometimes the teacher is at fault as well because in some cases the teacher does not give the students enough time to finish the project as they need which is unfair to the student.  I think it is a little unfair to give a zero after it's a week late but that's probably the only way that students will get the message that work needs to be handed in. I don't think students who don't hand in work should be monitored because I feel like they would just skip. Also if they have other things to do during their MSIP they shouldn't be forced to do late work.  There could be a reason why the student isn't getting their work done and if it happens often the teacher should confront them privately to see if there is a reason that is keeping them from doing their work.