Formal Paper #3 Final

The k-12 curriculum in the words of sir Ken Robinson "educates you out of creativity, in school we are taught subjects in the order of their importance with Mathematics at the top followed by the Languages then the humanities and at the bottom are the arts." Is this this how we should allow the system to mold the minds of the generation to come? Is the future not to be built on ideas and creativity to ensure that every human unlocks their potential and makes the world a better place? The current k-12 curriculum in itself forces students to learn what it is believed that they need to learn other than what they want or desire to learn, this stifles their freedom and creativity it prevents them from truly working towards becoming the person they really want to become. We then teach our students that individuality is a right, a precious gem, while our system focuses on a small demographic. In reality what we are saying to our children is [Yes it is ok to have your own sense of creativity, yes it is ok to be individuals and be expressive in a manner you are comfortable with, however in the real world only people who are pursuing certain professions are focused on.] Students who have a passion for the other subjects are "...steered away from things you like on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that" and these subjects are viewed as less important. 

Here in the Jamaican education system in high schools, they rotate a set of subjects for the classes each year depending on the year you enter the tenth grade, for example a set of students from one year would have classes that focus on the sciences while the students of the year behind would have classes that focus more on technical designs; however this depends on the school. Jamaican High Schools all belong to a particular data set where a school is either a Traditional High School, a Technical High School or an Upgraded High School. The Traditional High School are the schools that every child works hard on entering, however most Traditional High School Focuses more on teaching the Sciences and Languages with the Arts being the most over looked subject area. The curriculum is geared towards cultivating Children of Law, Children of Sciences, and Children of Humanities and rarely Children of the Arts. This can be the product of the world and the places the system focuses on the Sciences, the Languages and the Humanities, and this has been so for years, every parent works hard to allow their child to be able and set goals on attending the Traditional High Schools as opposed to a Technical High School or a Upgraded High school on the premise that the Traditional High school is the better choice for every child while this is not so, not every child would like a profession in the Sciences or Languages, some wold much rather to do the Arts unfortunately the Arts in the Jamaican traditional High School are seen as an extra curricular activities and its only value is ironically to ensure that the students are well rounded. This system is stifling our children who are being forced to abandon their artistic dreams so they can be seen as 'upstanding citizens'. The most important change this system needs is to make all classes available to the students who wish to study in specified areas as opposed to being forced to learn subjects other than the core classes of mathematics and the languages. 

 In order to learn successfully the willingness to learn is usually essential, having the drive and being enthused about the things you are learning makes the process easier and feels rewarding but with the current k-12 curriculum it is near impossible to learn in this way. "Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects, at the top are Mathematics and the languages then the humanities and at the bottom the arts" with a curriculum based on such a hierarchy students are taught what society believes they should learn based on what the society believe to be important. This can be seen in our workplaces, no longer are people eager to work, no longer are people bursting with fresh new ideas for improvement. It is impossible to do so when you are doing what the world wants you to do not what you love and desire to do, this curriculum limits the creativity of students and restricts their freedom of choice limiting their potential needed to create a society where everyone is considered a valuable member of it, instead of thinking freely we are made to memorize information only to regurgitate it which is not truly learning anything, as John Keating in Dead Poets Society says "I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself" and our system does not allow that, we see it in our classrooms on our exams there is no room for discussing the endless possibilities. Sir Ken Robinson explains "we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or more like we are educated out of it." The current education system isn't designed to produce better students but to; as Sir Ken Robinson says "....the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors" because in this era that is what is seen as a stable job or a stable form of income. Therefore imagination is no longer valuable which will only lead to trouble in the future, we are still discovering the Earth after billions of years of evolution, as we are discovering more ways to reach the corners of the universe, for this imagination is essential and the current system does not encourage the growth of it our aspirations are useless without it. It is time for a change. 

The current academic system, the k-12 curriculum is outdated "our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability and there is a reason, the whole system was created around the world, there were no public systems before the 19th century, they all came in to meet the needs of industrialism" and that age is over, we are in an era of intellectual progression that has a need for more free thinkers, imagination and creativity. In order to make this change schools need to have a wider subject range and variety that should be made available to the students so they can freely choose for example some schools are only limited to visual arts (drawing) and performing arts listed under drama or acting, other art classes such as sculpting painting cinematography dance music and wood carving would be nice additions to the curriculum. Teachers need to be more attentive to the interests of their students allow for the curiousity and the need to learn and explore to manifest and build so that the students may find a path that they wish to take professionally and help should be given to guide them to this point. Our students will be the one to take this world further, progress is needed but without imagination we will be frozen, never moving forward.

Works Cited Page

Robinson, Ken. "How school kills creativity." TED Talk: Feb 2006. Web.

Freire, Paulo. "An Incredible Conversation." World Conference on Literacy Interview. 1996. Web

Dead Poets Society (1989). Film

Rough Draft paper 3

The k-12 curriculum in the words of sir Ken Robinson educates you out of creativity, in school we are taught subjects in the order of their importance with Mathematics at the top followed by the Languages then the humanities and at the bottom are the arts. This process in itself forces students to learn what it is believed that they need to learn other than what they want to learn, this stifles their freedom and creativity, it prevents them from truly working towards becoming the person they really want to. Students who have a passion for the arts are forced into other subjects because "art isn't profitable" and is viewed as less important.

Chalk notes

Chalk shows school life from the teachers point of view.

opening scene~
Teacher asks the student what comes to mind and the student doesnt respond, teacher replies this is why we are here..

Each teacher has their individual struggles dealing with and understanding the students, especially Mr. Lowrey a new teacher at the school trying to get the hang of teaching, and working with his students, he starts out intimidated and confuse but over the course of the school year he becomes a bit more comfortable and makes a connection with his class.

Group Exercise (Friere)

Friere had a lot of experience with education because three of his children became educators. He was prisoned in Brazil for 70 days as a traitor which inspired him to write Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This gave him lots of time to reflect of education and be able to criticize the education system. Friere addresses the teacher as a “narrating subject” and the students as “listening objects”. For example he states in his Pedagogy, “This relationship involves a narrating subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students).”  He claims that “the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing” which shows how highly he thinks of himself and how little he thinks of the students, as if they are helpless individuals. He worked for 10 years as a special education advisor to the world congress of churches, during which he traveled worldwide to help countries implement popular education and literacy reforms. The website clarifies the student-teacher relationship by showing us Friere’s desire for a radical democracy.  Other than these points the website did not really clarify the ultimate purpose of his Pedagogy. The Banking Concept of Education talks about his critical view on education and the website mostly talks about his life and the challenges that he faced.

Compare and Contrast Essay: Two Educators (Final)

In the world of education there are good teachers and there are bad teachers. What makes a good teacher? A good teacher is someone who can relate to his/her students to a certain degree while still remaining professional and a figure of authority, someone who cares about teaching enough to put out the extra effort so his/her students can learn what they are being taught. A good teacher must also be respectful towards his/her students and understanding. 

For this essay i will be doing a compare and contrast between the teaches Mr. Escalante and Mr. Keating. I will be focusing on the similarities and differences of their teaching styles, environment, student teacher relationships and the results of their methods. I will also be giving examples of good teaching and bad teaching for both teachers where possible.

          Mr. Escalante is a perfect example of what a dedicated teacher is, dedicated to his students and to his job as a teacher. When Mr. Escalante first met his class they seemed mostly unruly and most of them were delinquents, instead of giving up on what seemed to be a troublesome class to teach he saw the potential in them and got them seated and began to teach. For his first lesson he taught them fractions, for this topic he used a more hands on approach using apples to teach them what a fraction is, he took apples and cut them into different pieces, he then distributed them throughout the class giving each student a different fraction of an apple then proceeded to ask the students how much of the apple they had. This teaching method is not the norm and is a perfect example of the kind of teacher Mr. Escalaent is. 
           Mr. Escalante continuously went out of his way to make sure his students were learning. When Angel, another delinquent from his class showed interest in learning math Mr. Escalante helped him instead of turning him down. Angel asked for extra text books so that he could study at home without his other friends knowing because they would think differently of him, Mr. Escalante being  a good teacher and understanding the situation gave him two extra books, one for his locker and another to keep at home to work from, in doing this he created a stronger bond with his student gaining more trust.
           Learning that the school was going to be closed if the grades of the students did not go up and realizing that his class can do better Mr. Escalante declared that he would begin teaching them AP Calculus and have them take the AP Calculus test. This would be a difficult task for Mr. Escalante along with his students because he had never taught AP Calculus before. In preparation for this he told his students that they would need to get their parents permission and that they would need to do extra hours of math work after school, on weekends and even through summer holiday to pass the test. Mr. Escalante even went as far as to sacrifice time with his family to teach them, even when they began to doubt themselves and their ability he kept pushing and encouraging them, going above and beyond to help his students. As they worked during summer break in the sweltering heat he gave them oranges during class to keep them hydrated and cool. After all the hard work they passed the test.
           After passing the AP Calculus test his class was accused of cheating due to them all having similar answers and getting similar questions wrong. Knowing that his students were innocent he did all he could to defend them, challenging the proctors who were investigating the incident, going as far as insinuating that they were racial profiling his students based on the fact that they were all Latino. Not being able to prove the students innocent or guilty of cheating they had to take the test again, Mr. Escalante told the class that the test would be completely different and that they would have to do extra work to pass the test again, sacrificing more personal time to put in the work. While teaching his calculus class Mr. Escalante also taught a English class older Latin Americans for free. During one of his English classes he suffered a heart attack and fell down the stairs and was later admitted to the hospital. After being admitted to the hospital for a heart attack Mr. Escalante snuck out of the hospital against the doctor and his family's wishes to help finish preparing his class for the retake of the test.
           Mr. Escalante is a great example of a good, dedicated teacher who truly believed in his students, he had the opportunity to get a higher paying job but stuck with his teaching job because of his love for it.


        Mr. Keating is also a teacher who is dedicated to his job as a teacher and his students. Mr. Keating's class was completely different from the one Mr. Escalante had. Mr. Keating taught at an all boys boarding school which he also attended when he was younger. His class was filled with boys that seemed well mannered and disciplined due to the strict nature of the school. For his first class to change the mood he takes them out of the classroom and into what seems to be a hall or lobby, a change of environment to stimulate learning, here he jokes around with them to help them get comfortable with him, he tells them they can call him Mr. Keating or if they are feeling more daring they can say "oh captain my captain" a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman.
         Mr. Keating's teaching style was unorthodox compared to the other teachers at the school. During one of his classes he asked a student from the class to read the introduction of the assigned poetry book they have for class, in the middle of the student reading he told him to stop and told the class to rip out the entire introduction from the books, that there should be no equations or formula for poetry as the book stated, he told them that poetry should come out naturally and feel natural, he was teaching them that learning should not just be memorizing formulas and facts but should also include free thinking and promote personal creativity. Mr. Keating did many things to get them out of the classroom while teaching them, to put them in different environments to stimulate them, in one exercise he made them read a line of poetry then kick a ball as hard as they could.
         Mr. Keating was always willing to help his students in any way he could possibly. For his first assignment to the class he had each student write an original poem read it in front of the class, one of his students Todd Anderson who is very shy did not do the assignment due to his fear of public speaking, Mr. Keating had him stand in front of the class and shout to loosen up, he then pointed towards a photo of Walt Whitman that was hung in the class and told him to describe him, Todd began describing him and Mr. Keating told him to close his eyes and use his imagination and go with the flow, and Todd ended up creating a beautiful poem on the spot. This exercise helped break out of his shell and strengthened the relationship between him and Mr. Keating.
        Mr. Keating is a perfect example of a teacher who loves teach, who promotes free thinking and is willing to bend rules and tradition to help his students learn.


While Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante were from different era's and taught in different environments, Mr. Keating in the posh traditional all boys school and Mr. Escalante in the public school in an area with plenty of crime and delinquents, both teachers were dedicated, kind and understanding teachers who put their craft and students first. They are both passionate but Mr. Escalante was more hands on and personal in his encounters with his students and their life and education, Mr. Keating on the other hand provided more mental support and advice when asked, keeping his professional distance while continuing to help his students learn and grow.

Is Mr. Escalante a good teacher?

Mr. Escalante for the most part is a really great teacher. He is dedicated to his job and to his students, he has a lover for the subject he teaches, he has a love for his students and believes in them like no one else does, he genuinely wants them all to succeed and make something of themselves, to break the trend of what is expected of them based on their race and where they live. Some examples of his good teaching are:

When Angel came to him asking him for an extra text book to work at home from so that his friends wouldn't see him working and think differently of him, instead of refusing him Mr. Escalante provided him with 2 extra books apart from the one that is allowed for class, he gave him one for his locker and one to keep at home.

Believing in his class and seeing their potential and proving this by having them work towards taking the AP Calculus test, when no one else believed they could do it, not even the students themselves, he made them believe they could do it, had them put in the work and he made the sacrifices to help them succeed. He went as far as to check himself out of the hospital early after having a stroke and falling down a flight of stairs, to come to class to prepare them for their exam.

How did your high school experience compare to Gatto's claims about high school? In what ways? why?

My experience of 6 years of high school (i repeated a year) was very similar to what Gatto claims. The Classrooms held around 30-35 students at a time, all being taught the compulsory classes, these consisted of Mathematics, English, the sciences, a second language, religion and the arts.  with the exception of the Arts we were all taught the same things, but it was less learning and more memorization, not much free thinking involved if any, you get questions/problems and there is an absolute answer, so we were to memorize the formula to get to this answer.

As students we were all graded and ranked based on our grades, there was always a person at the top of the class in terms of grading and someone at the bottom, those who score highly are regarded as the good students, the intelligent ones, the best, while those at the bottom are seen as slackers, dunces and unintelligent, this method in a way dictated that a certain group of people will always be successful and another is doomed to fail, further separating them in the future into different social classes, this all based off a common grading scheme across multiple subjects, when in reality good grades do not make you smart, everyone is smart in their own right, everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Someone who isn't "school smart" can still be a genius in his/her own right. This system also uses the "integrating function" forcing children to think alike, and ultimately be predictable. An example of this is group work/assignments where students are supposed to work together to solve the problems given, what usually occurs is the person who is most extroverted with the strongest views takes charge and everyone is forced to conform and go along with his/her's opinions/orders, opposed to when someone works on their own, especially someone who is introverted, they are more likely to be able to think freely, to be unpredictable to a certain degree. Free thinking results in progression, while conformity leads to a stagnant society.

This method is practically, in my opinion, used so that after the separation into different classes, the upper and the lower, the upper class has more control over the now con-formative lower class and is free to do as they please with little to no contest or resistance.

Discussion Questions on John Gatto's "Against School"

Gatto refers extensively to Alexander Inglis. What's Inglis' "profile"? List the details that Gatto provides about him. Why does Gatto want us to notice this? Whats Gatto's purpose of emphasizing Inglis' "Past accomplishments"?

What is Inglis' Profile?
A lecture on education at Harvard

List the details that Gatto provides about him.
He is well informed of the educational history of the United States.

Why does Gatto want us to notice this?
So that we know that Inglis is a reputable source. Inglis "makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820's: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table."

What's Gatto's purpose of emphasizing Inglis's "Past accomplishments"?
(There was no such information on the paper)

Compare/Contrast Essay Re: Two Educators ( Rough draft)

What makes a good teacher? A good teacher is someone who can relate to his/her students to a certain degree while still remaining professional and a figure of authority, someone who cares about teaching enough to put out the extra effort so his/her students can learn what they are being taught. A good teacher must also be respectful towards his/her students and understanding.

For this essay i will be doing a compare and contrast between the teaches Mr. Escalante and Mr. Keating. I will be focusing on the similarities and differences of their teaching styles, environment, student teacher relationships and the results of their methods. I will also be giving examples of good teaching and bad teaching for both teachers.

Dead Poet Society Notes

Good teaching.

• Mr. Keating on the first class takes them out of the classroom, a change of environment to stimulate learning. he also tells small jokes to lighten the mood and make the students more comfortable. He motivates them telling them to seize the day why they are alive, because everyone eventually dies.
• Mr. Keating tells the students to rip out the introduction of their poetry book, saying that he author is wrong, that there is no measuring poetry, that they must learn for themselves and not what the author says.
• Mr. Keating tells them that they read and write poetry because they are human.
• He is teaching them to be free thinkers.
• Mr. Keating uses different/unorthodox teaching styles to stimulate his students.
• Mr. Keating has them stand on his desk as an example for them to view the world differently.
• Mr. Keating puts Todd Anderson on the spot to try and make him loosen up, and improvise a poem.
• He teaches them that poems dont have to be complex to be good.

Bad Teaching.

• The other teachers do not care about the interests of the students as much as Mr. Keating. And insist on teaching them what they should learn instead of what they want to learn.
• Neil Perry's father refuses to listen to his opinions, forcing him to do what he wants, dictating his future to him.

Synopsis

The movie is filled with many moments of good teaching and student teacher relationship between Mr Keating the poetry teacher and his class. He taught his class how to be free thinkers, thinking outside the box, how to seize the day, to enjoy life while they are alive and leave a legacy. On the other hand the other teachers at the school, especially the Principal Mr Nolan, was hell bound on sticking to tradition. Mr Perry was another example of bad teaching, or more accurate bad parenting, he forced his son to do what he thought was right for him without considering his own feelings. In the end Neil Perry giving up on his dream which his father took from him took his own life. Mr Keating is used as a scapegoat pinning the blame of Neil Perry on him.

Stand and Deliver "notes"

he first teaching scene where Mr. Escalante appears. The class room has no discipline or control – bad Teaching

Restaurant Scene where Mr. Escalante and Fabiola Escalante (wife) show up to have dinner in the restaurant that one of his students (Ana Delgado) family owns and complains to the father about her schooling – Good/Bad teaching

1st meeting scene the principle and vice principle are discussing the schools accreditation and the failing test scores. Mr. Escalante speaks up about the students will only achieve the standards you set for them and nothing more. Good Teaching.

2nd meeting scene Mr. Escalante speaks up again about want the students to learn calculus and strive for higher expectations - Good Teaching

Teaching scene Apples Mr. Escalante begins class buy wearing a costume and cuts apples to use as props for his learning exercise. – Good Teaching

The fight scene where he sees the fight happening outside and stops Angel from Participating – good teaching

Teaching scene where they are actively participating in a math exercise Mr. Escalante uses gigolos and woman as the problem and the makes crude statements about the students – bad teaching

The people that live in the school district/are are mainly Latin American. The is filled with mainly delinquent students. Mr. Escalante's teaching style is more hands on and sometimes seems unorthodox. He uses visual examples when doing problems. One example is when he was teaching the class about fractions, he used an apple as an example by cutting them into different portions and distributing them throughout the class, then asked them how much of an apple each had. This is also an example of good teaching.

Education Narrative: Learning to play League of Legends (Final)

Learning to play League of Legends

"A Nexus and a Dream" - Andrew Giles

League of Legends is a online real time strategy role playing game. As the term "real time strategy" implies, strategies are created before and during a game and the players have to adapt during the matches.


In league of legends players from across the world compete together in a virtual world using avatars called champions that are all unique in their own way and play style. Playing this game is a constant learning process as you have to learn to work with people that you usually have never met before, learning team work and critical thinking. The players play on a map/stage called summoners rift in 5 vs 5 showdowns, the aim is to destroy the enemy nexus in their base to win the match.


I had always heard about league of legends from my friends for over a year, they would disappear for hours at a time to play the game, i initially had no interest in it because I was already engrossed in a MMORPG (Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Game)called Maplestory. For months I continued with my daily life, but i would continuously see more and more people around me speaking about and playing League of Legends, and eventually i decided to give it a try to see what the fuss was all about.


Once i had downloaded the game and registered my own personal account on the website I loaded the game and awaited the beginning of a new adventure in the virtual world of gaming. Upon starting the game I went through a walk through and explanation of the game, you play as a summoner in the world of league of legends and you use avatars called champions in 5 v 5 and 3 v 3 games to fight against and with other summoners, when you win games you are rewarded with experience points which level up your summoner profile, leveling up to certain levels also give you access to summoner spells which are extra abilities you can use in game. you also receive influence points which can be used to purchase new champions to play with and runes which will be explained later on. One of the first things explained were the objectives of the game, the most frequently played map is called summoners rift where the tutorial takes place, the map is divided into two halves, one for each team, each team has a base where the nexus is and where the champions you play with spawn at the beginning of the game and where u re spawn after you die. The map has three lanes: Top, Middle and Bottom , each lane has two turrets which attack enemy champions and minions that come near them. within the base of each team there are also five turrets, three inhibitors and the nexus, you are to work with your team to destroy the enemies towers, inhibitors and the nexus for the win.


In my first games i was only allowed to play against (bot) champions, which are characters pre-programmed to be played against. As the game started the explanations showed me the main keys on the keyboard which you use to cast your spells and activate your skills, these keys are: Q,W,E,R,D,F. You also have the option of changing the keys to whatever you prefer. It also demonstrated how to use the mouse to move around on the map, where u right click the spot where you want your champion to move to, and you left click when targeting monsters or champions with your skills and spells.


After playing a few bot games i got to the level where the game allowed me to do PvP (player versus player) matches. At this point my friends began to explain bit more in depth the mechanics of playing the game. I was taught that there are 5 roles when playing, these roles are: The top laner: usually a Tank/Bruiser, Jungler, The mid laner/APC (ability power carry), and the dual bot lane: Support and Ranged AD Carry (Attack Damage). I had to try all roles to learn which one best suited me and to learn how to counter them when playing against the enemy team, i preferred playing the top and mid lanes, mainly because they are solo lanes and I didn't really need to rely on my team mates much in lane, while when playing support or ADC you depend on each other completely early game, which can be very frustrating when one or both are incompetent.


I continued to play for nearly a month until I got to around level 20, the max level for your summoner profile is 30. With the level of skill players between level 1 and 20 matches were usually very close when it came to wins and losses because we were all around the same level. By this time i had around 50 wins under my belt and my confidence was growing as I won more and more matches, that is until one day in a 5 man pre-made team of my friends and I, we ended up facing off against one of the top League of Legends Professional teams in North America, TSM, at the time I had no idea who they were other than that my friends told me they were pro's. After a quick 30 minutes we were destroyed and TSM won. This made me realize how little skill in the game I really had.


Eager to improve further, I continued playing daily, aiming for level 30 where i could face more experienced players regularly. On my way to level 30 I came to learn that this game also had many toxic/rude and offensive players which I had to learn to deal with, I resorted to muting them from chat in the game so I didn't have to deal with the negative attitudes and it has worked ever since.


My journey from level 1 to level 30 took me nearly 4 months, which was a month ago roughly, upon reaching level 30 I learned about the ranking system where all level 30's were ranked from Bronze, which is the lowest rank, to challenger which is the highest, and withing each rank their are tiers 1-5 which further rate their skills compared to others in the game. Even though I am at level 30 I have yet to play any ranked games, i'm still learning a lot about the game and I still only own a small amount of champions to play with, a mere 24 champions out of the 116 champions available. I will continue to learn and practice since with this game you always learn something new about it. Hopefully one day I will become good enough to play with the professionals.

My advice to anyone who is interested in learning to play league of legends, be open to advice from more experienced players, and try to have fun, after all it is still just a game.

What makes for good teaching?

Good teaching requires a clear outline of what is being taught and what is to be learned, both the teacher and the student need to understand this. The teacher should be able to grasp the interest of the student and understand how the student learns, what helps the student learn better, with the aid of proper resources and learning material, examples and experiences. A pace should be set where the student can learn comfortably but efficiently while promoting his or her natural skills/abilities. 

The student also needs to be receptive and give the effort to understand what is being taught, to practice this knew knowledge, and retain it.

So in a sense good teaching requires mutual understanding, a good 'teacher - student' relationship  that is somewhat symbiotic.

The main thing i wanted my readers to understand about the educational experience in my first essay

I wanted my readers to understand the difficulty of working with others, and learning something completely new at the same time, and that no matter how hard or difficult it is, to never give up.

Ken Robinson Ted Talk - Education

Everyone has an interest in education. Education goes deep in people like religion. People are being educated for 5 years in the future without knowing what the future holds. Kids aren't afraid to be wrong. If you are afraid to be wrong your creativity will be limited because you afraid to try new things and fail. We are all born with creativity but are educated out of it. The arts are at the bottom of the educational hierarchy. People who are brilliant think they are not because the things they liked in school and were good at were deemed irrelevant. Woman are biologically better at multitasking than men. Intelligence is distinct.

The educational system needs to be rebuilt.

Summary of my Ed Nar revised

Originally i had planned on doing my ed nar on learning to draw/create art and the difference between my schooling in Jamaica and the United States but i didn't feel i could properly expound on the topic comfortably.

So i decided to change it to my experience learning to play the online real time strategy role playing game league of legends, i will speak on things like my first experience with the game how i got interested in it, my learning process and who taught me the basics, the game mechanics, and my interaction with the online community of the game.

Learning to play League of Legends (really rough draft unfinished)

League of Legends is a online real time strategy role playing game. As the term "real time strategy" implies, there is no one way to play the game, strategies are created before or during a game and the players have to adapt during the matches.
       In league of legends players from across the world compete together in a virtual world using avatars called champions that are all unique in their own way and play style. Playing this game is a constant learning process as you have to learn to work with people that you usually have never met before, learning team work and critical thinking. The players play on a map/stage called summoners rift in 5 vs 5 showdowns, the aim is to destroy the enemy nexus in their base to win the match.

I had always heard about league of legends from my friends for over a year, they would disappear for hours at a time to play the game, i initially had no interest in it because i was already engrossed in a MMORPG (Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Game)called Maplestory. For months I continued  with my daily life, but i would continuously see more and more people around me speaking about and playing League of Legends, and eventually i decided to give it a try to see what the fuss was all about.

Once i had downloaded the game and registered my own personal account on the website i loaded the game and awaited the beginning of a new adventure in the virtual world of gaming. Upon starting the game I went through a walk through and explanation of the game, you play as a summoner in the world of league of legends and you use avatars called champions in 5 v 5 and 3 v 3 games to fight against and with other summoners, when you win games you are rewarded with experience points which level up your summoner profile, leveling up to certain levels also give you access to summoner spells which are extra abilities you can use in game. you also receive influence points which can be used to purchase new champions to play with and runes which will be explained later on. One of the first things explained were the objectives of the game, the most frequently played map is called summoners rift where the tutorial takes place, the map is divided into two halves, one for each team, each team has a base where the nexus is and where the champions you play with spawn at the beginning of the game and where u re spawn after you die. The map has three lanes: Top, Middle and Bottom , each lane has two turrets which attack enemy champions and minions that come near them. within the base of each team there are also five turrets, three inhibitors and the nexus, you are to work with your team to destroy the enemies towers, inhibitors and the nexus for the win.

In my first games i was only allowed to play against (bot) champions, which are characters pre-programmed to be played against. As the game started the explanations showed me the main keys on the keyboard which you use to cast your spells and activate your skills, these keys are: Q,W,E,R,D,F. You also have the option of changing the keys to whatever you prefer. It also demonstrated how to use the mouse to move around on the map, where u right click the spot where you want your champion to move to, and you left click when targeting monsters or champions with your skills and spells.

After playing a few bot games i got to the level where the game allowed me to do PvP (player versus player) matches. At this point my friends began to explain  bit more in depth the mechanics of playing the game. I was taught that there are 5 roles when playing, these roles are: The top laner: usually a  Tank/Bruiser, Jungler, The mid laner/APC (ability power carry), and the dual bot lane: Support and Ranged AD Carry (Attack Damage). I had to try all roles to learn which one best suited me and to learn how to counter them when playing against the enemy team, i preferred playing the top and mid lanes, mainly because they are solo lanes and I didn't really need to rely on my team mates much in lane, while when playing support or ADC you depend on each other completely early game, which can be very frustrating when one or both are incompetent. The lanes and roles go like this: Top lane tank/bruiser, Jungler, APC mid lane, ADC bottom lane and Support bottom lane.

Finger Paint

Finger paint can be defined as any coloured substance applied to a surface using your fingers. It was first used by serial killers utilizing the blood of their victims to leave messages for their loved ones to find. Finger paint comes in many different textures. Finger paint has been recently used to draw alchemic symbols such as transmutation circles. Finger paint sometimes costs an arm and a leg.

A comparison of Ducks and Chickens

Ducks and chickens are similar in that they are both edible birds. But while ducks can fly chickens cant, ducks also migrate south for the winter yearly while chickens don't. Ducks also prefer to stay in water while chickens prefer the land.

Art Life

Creating art is a way of life, a skill, an expression of self, a form of communication, beauty to be admired and symbols inspiration. For some creating art is like breathing, inhaling inspiration and exhaling your interpretation. For others it is much harder, they spend years of blood sweat and tears, learning and polishing this skill, making it something original, a signature, a trade, it is an endless learning procedure. Inspiration and ideas sometimes have to be searched for diligently, like mining through rock to find a single gem, rough and unpolished, but filled with potential, and the artist with his skills polishes this gem as best as possible, to make it appealing to most, or solely to express it the best he/she can. This inspiration, this idea that is so hard to obtain sometimes is so fragile and fleeting at times, it vanishes as soon as it appears, rarely does it linger for long.

Persons that put their all into their art, they bare their souls, their essence and forge it into their craft for all to see, to express them self in a way words cannot. Make themselves vulnerable in an effort to make connections, bonds, sometimes to simply be understood. So please try to understand and appreciate.

Art varies from simple to complex to obscure. Everyone can create their own form of art, their own expression. We are all artists in our own way, creating and not realizing.

Art is Life.....

Topic of the first Essay

For my first paper assignment in the class i will be focusing on the difference between going to school here in the United States and Jamaica, mainly learning how to draw, how the learning environments, availability of supplies, influences and requirements affect this learning experience.

The most important thing I have ever learnt

The most important thing I have ever learnt

        The most important thing i have ever learned would be how to draw, or to be specific how to draw properly. 

        Art, especially drawing always came naturally to me as a child, for fun, but growing older the reasons i drew changed and i began researching formal ways/techniques to draw, dealing with perspective, anatomy, balance and such. I used many sources to practice and learn, these varied from friends who were more skilled than i am, to internet tutorials on the human body, still life, lighting, composition and such, to professional artists and art teachers. It is an ongoing learning process that doesn't end until death, continually improving.

         It has been very important in my life as a way to express myself without words, and to give examples of the things that go on in my mind, to make my creativity and emotions be visible and come to life. Without drawing i don't know what kind of person i would be today, which makes it the most important thing to me.

Ed Nar "How I learned to Program Computers" and "How i Learned to Live Google Free"

The things i learnt from reading the sample Education Narratives "How I learned to Program Computers" and "How i Learned to Live Google Free", and how I can use them as possible models for my first paper assignment.

In both blogs they started by stating the topic of the blog post and what it is clearly about.

The layout for "How i learned to program computer" went like this:

• He started by stating the topic of his post.
• He then gave a short summary of his process.
• After which he gave a full story of how he learned to program computers.
• He then broke down his learning process process and milestones and explained them in detail.
• Throughout his post he also had picture examples of his progression.
• For the final section he gave advice on how to do what he did.

The format in which the article is done allows it to be easily read, understood and navigated.

For "How i Learned to Live Google-Free" the layout was very similar.

• The creator had the post divided into multiple sections.
• Each section gave detailed instructions on how to achieve what he had.
• To the right side of his post he had a poll to get an understanding of how many people used Google related devices.
• Links were provided throughout the post as references for some of the claims maid in the post.