Student of the Month
2001-2002
Writer: Amy Smither , Teacher: Mrs. Landerer, Period 1
What I Plan to be and How Math Will Help Me Get There
The cameraman holds up his fingers. 5?YOur body is trembling and my heart is racing. 3???" Good morning and welcome to this edition of CNN," I announce as I stare at the camera before me. " Today's top story, President Smith decides to cut taxes throughout America." My mouth speaks, and my ears listen. I am bringing news to millions, brightening their day. News reporters are very important, for they bring live coverage and new headlines to America's television viewers. The world of news is my dream career. My goal is to become a helpful citizen who will bring up-to-date news to other citizens. The news is very important. Without it, people would not know what is going on in the world around them. Wars, battles, political encounters, joyous celebrations, and important discoveries are among the many topics that news reporters provide information about. Mathematics plays a subtle, yet important role in my training to become a news reporter. Math will help me become a news reporter for several reasons. News reporters have to announce percentages and statistics all of the time. To announce these topics, they have to understand what they are speaking about. From the high-tech equipment down to the cameraman's fingers, a television studio is a great place to use math.
Stocks are a major part of today's economy. Without math, stocks could not exist, for they are made up of numbers, decimals, and percentages. Every day, news reporters have to announce the last day's stock quotes. This information is very important, for many people depend on stocks for income. These news reporters have to understand
stocks, a difficult subject, in order to explain them to the public. They cannot just read off a teleprompter or a paper handed to them. This is one case where reporters have to use math in their daily lives to make their job more successful and rewarding. A news reporter's job is to cover different stories. For example, if a news reporter was to cover a story about the government, they would have to know math. Why? Government budgets are a popular topic to cover. A news reporter has to understand the budgets and how they operate. This does not apply to just the government, but to other areas, like school systems. Budgets are everywhere and math is needed to understand them.
The world economies involve math in many aspects. News reporters have to cover the economies of many different countries. Another example of using math in the news world is when a news reporter covers business. News reporters have to interpret different business reports. They have to understand the business's profits and losses.
Sports are a huge part of the news. Many people rely on the news to tell them the sports scores. They have to understand batting averages and percentages and statistics. It is important that they comprehend the basic information to deliver the sports news. Often, news reporters are sent to different countries to cover different occurrences. When they are sent there, they have to use a different currency. For example, they may have to find how much one Euro is worth. This is very complicated, and can take awhile to memorize. News reporters have to negotiate their own salary. Just like any job, they have to discuss what they are paid with their boss. It is vital to their job, and without this, they would not be able to have a good job and make a living. Math is a very important aspect of the news. It hides in every corner of the world's stories. Math creates a huge advantage to reporters when they deliver their stories. Therefore, math is vital in my training to become a news reporter, and to reach my dream career.
January Student of the Month Essay
John Allen
Teacher: Mr. Gleichenhaus, Section 1
What I want to be and how Social Studies will help me get there?
I was sitting in front of my computer, writing a program, when it happened. It destroyed me. I got a call from my school. They told me that I had failed the last math test of the school year. I had to stay back. When I went to the school the next day, I went to the same math class I had gone to for the past year. I entered, and began typing problems on my calculator, the same calculator I had used on the test. I typed in a problem, and it was incorrect. Puzzled, I entered the problem again, making sure I did it properly. It still was incorrect. I wrote the problem on paper. It was correct. I typed in a simple problem on my calculator?+2. It showed me five. Someone hadn't programmed my calculator correctly. I changed calculators, took the test, and passed.
A successful video game programmer requires several different skills. And, believe it or not, Social Studies will help you greatly. You are probably asking me how Social Studies will help me with this. Let's take a step back for a second. When people think of Social Studies, what do they think of? Politics? United States history? Large textbooks? Most likely. But not too many ever consider the skills involved in this great class. Teamwork, for instance, is one of the skills that we learn by doing group projects or having certain students in a class perform a skit. In programming, it would be tough, or even nearly impossible, to complete a video game program alone. Or, if it is a great game, within 10 years. Even worse, think of having a team of people who just aren't working together. Different ideas, different ways of programming, it makes programming hard. So, without teamwork, people would probably have just finished writing the code for the first video game.
Another skill that we learn is listening skills, which we work on when we pay attention in class. We need this in programming because without it, we wouldn't listen to what other people thought of our programs, and thus, couldn't improve over them. We also wouldn't listen to the people who work with you, which, if they are good ideas, is a very bad thing.
Yet another skill we need that is found in Social Studies is organizational skills. We get organizational skills from doing projects and assignments. Could you imagine doing the beginning of a project at the end and the end at the beginning? That would be terrible in a program. It wouldn't be right to, in a math program, get the product before you type in the numbers. Would it? I didn't think so, considering nothing would appear on the screen and the program would be a failure.
Another skill that we learn is to correct our mistakes. In Social Studies, do you not correct your work? I sure hope so. If there was a program filled with mistakes, as shown in my introduction, it would be a failure.
And yet another skill that we learn in Social Studies is believing in ourselves. You might be sitting, staring at that last sentence, wondering, "Now, how in the world does he get that idea?" I have a simple answer. Whenever you raise your hand to answer a question, do you not believe that the answer you are to give is true? When you turn in an assignment, do you not believe, or hope, that you receive a grade higher than your expectations? I hope so. When writing a program, you must always hope that your game with be a success. If you don't, then you will not put in your best, and you may never finish the game. Or it just might never become what you wanted it to be.
Another great skill we learn is learning from our mistakes. Let's just say you did a project in Social Studies, but you wrote it totally by hand and you aren't exactly the neatest person in class. You don't get that great of a grade. Obviously, you won't want (or try not to at least) to write it again. In programming, let's just say that you make a program that didn't sell too well because of the storyline. Now, in the next game, won't you try harder to make a better storyline?
Without these skills, programming would be extremely hard, if not impossible. Obviously, Social Studies is one of the greatest classes. Not because of the information, but because of the skills you learn. I hope that the next time you hear the word Social Studies, you don't think of large textbooks, history or politics. I hope you think of all the great skills that this class gives to you. I also hope you understand how Social Studies has changed your life for the better.
February 2002 Student Essay
I Will Make a Difference
By: Laura Soskey
A smile splits the tan face of an 8-year-old boy. I've just taught him how to write his name. A deep warmth fills my heart until I nearly burst. Tears spill from my eyes as I gaze at this child. I have made a significant impact on his life and those around him. I did this, me, just one person out of 6 billion. I made a difference.
This is the kind of experience I might have if I joined the Peace Corps when I get older. When I grow up, I want to make my life useful, not only to myself but also to others. The goal of the Peace Corps is to "promote world peace and friendship." In the Peace Corps I would directly help people who are less fortunate than I am. Although I believe that donating money to a good cause is worthwhile, it is not as effective or meaningful as physically helping people in need. I'd like to see my impact on the lives of the people I help.
Social Studies is very important to my future if I wish to volunteer for the Peace Corps. I would probably choose to go to a country in Central or South America, because I plan to learn Spanish as I go through school. I would need to know the geography, language, and history of the place I am sent. The geography and surroundings of the place I am going are some of the most important things I'll need to know because the people of these poor countries rely mainly on crops for their livelihood.
I'll also need to know the history and culture of the people. Many of these people live in close, tight-knit communities with strong family ties and customs that date back to the ancient civilizations. I would need to know about their past culture in order to understand their lives.
Social Studies also teaches skills such as good communication with other people. This would be essential because I would live in a foreign country for more than two years and it would be important to develop a congenial relationship with the people I go to help. If I went to a Central or South American country, the main language would probably be based on Spanish, but probably wouldn't be the exact dialect I learned in school, so I would need to learn their language to communicate with them.
The most important thing I will need to bring with me from Social Studies is the survival skills that people in earlier civilizations used. Since one of the principles of the peace corps is that a volunteer doesn't live a more luxurious life than the people they are serving, I would only receive a small amount of money for humble necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. This means I might need to live with less food than I usually eat or a shelter that is not as comfortable as my home.
These sacrifices would be more than worth the benefits I would gain from the experience. I would be able to help a group of people in a way that would impact their lives forever. It would so rewarding to see how I had helped people I had cared for or taught. I would also carry a gift with me for the rest of my life. I would have an appreciation of the luxurious life I am able to live in the United States. I would look upon that boy's face and know that I guided him in a monumental accomplishment-writing his name. The whole experience would be so rewarding simply because I used my life, my heart, and my knowledge to help people less fortunate. I made a difference.
Presented at 02/20/02 meeting.
January 2002, Student of the Month Essay
Student Winner: Jonathan Lohse
Mr. Heaney (Class Teacher)
What I Want to be and How Science Can Help me Get There
You feel like you're apart from the rest of life since you are not focusing on one facet of life here in America-you are creating the utilities for every single one of life's functions to occur without fail. You know that bad planning comes not from ugly buildings or ugly streets. It comes from seeing people acting in ugly or unnecessary ways in response to the flawed environment you have given them. You almost feel like you're playing God, but you know that what you are doing is justified because you cannot hear from everyone before you make your decisions. You are an urban planner, and you have the arduous task of trying to anticipate what people want in a building or area you have built or rebuilt without really knowing. You consider the need for others' space alongside your own.
This mission to improve human life by focusing on its surroundings appeals to me because while the people who use a building or street do not know it's designed for them, the planner does. That feeling would be something I would love to experience. After I have graduated from college and gone on to graduate school, I hope to become an urban planner, so I can be a part of that unseen relationship. I have always had an interest in architecture, skyscrapers, maps, and everything to do with, coincidently, urban planning. Also, I have always had an intense fascination with projects that were going to be built but never came to life, like a proposed 300 billion dollar city to house 500,000 people in an area we visit to see Devils games, and call 'The Meadowlands'. The idea of fleeting permanence on land that has seemingly always existed gives me a sense of awe and respect towards our civilization. That awe comes from the knowledge that most of what we do is in accordance with the great 'plan' of human life: thinking for the greater good.
After reading an article in "The New York Times Magazine" about how certain architects are responding to the crisis in New York City, I became very interested in thinking of ways we could rebuild the World Trade Center. What I came to realize was not that we have to build something to look beautiful, but that the way we choose to build on that land will ultimately reflect on the society who experienced this era. That glimpse of knowledge, that a building can come to make an indelible mark on mankind, is one of the reasons I want to become an urban planner. Above all, I want to have many opportunities to evaluate our society in order to come up with not a book or article, but rather a building. I think a building is a much more worthwhile result of deep thought than some words on a paper. It is a tangible landmark.
However, you cannot create a landmark without making sure it works. You would not want future generations to look back and evaluate our society by the number of accidents that occurred on our congested streets, the amount of water main breaks we had, or the amount of little children who became carsick because the light from the sun was reflecting too brightly off the windows of a high-rise. We want these things to be 'under the radar' so the real ideas we have can stand out. The only way to do this is by applying engineering, physics, mathematics and science to our designs. I could not design a great building without science, so without science, I could not be a successful urban planner.
I think that being the mastermind behind a social statement would be rewarding. I would also love to improve human life, or at least be involved in creating its theater. Being involved in creating the setting and storyboard for our society, and achieving recognition for it, would be a very fulfilling part of my life.
I think fulfillment drives most people to choose their careers, and that is good. What would fulfill me most would be to become an urban planner, and thus become an unseen part of the lives of others. It seems that wanting to become an urban planner has always been an unseen part of me, but now that I can see it, I can say without a doubt: "I want to become an urban planner."
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