Ira Shore. Last blog post for the semester.

Things I had to look up:

Bettelheim: He is a phycologist. I just thought it was weird that they talked about him like I ready knew him. That confused me a bit. But looking up his name did give me more information about what he did and why Shor included him in the introduction. 

Pedagogy

Argument

What I got from Shor was that education is controlled by politics and standards that all students should follow by. In a lot of classrooms, there is a lack of curiosity, imagination and leadership opportunities so this makes it hard for students to grow. Us as humans we are naturally born curious and leaders but if schools do not reinforce that then we just stay in one place instead of moving forward.  We live in a country run by democracy which is driving by freedom of speech, critical thinking and a lot of institutions don't go by this. This is crazy because this should be the case for a lot of schools. 

Also, while reading this Shor was talking about questioning students schooling and that made me think. Was my high school challenging? Was I able to speak what was on my mind? Was I free to express how I felt? A lot of these questions popped into my head. To be honest I did feel like I was challenged at my Highschool. Like getting out to get internships, public speaking and  learning how to be professional was all really hard! The one thing I can say that I did lack on was learning how to improve my writing, math, and science. It is weird because at The Met since it is mainly internship based there really was not much room for students to learn science. So if you really wanted to learn you kind of have to go out of your way to go learn it. Which personally is a bit of a bummer. 

As for speaking my mind yes I felt like that was highly embraced at The Met. The only thing that made it difficult was actually saying the words. (Johnson) This eventually took time for me and my peers a bit to overcome. Eventually, it did happen but being able to learn how to say how we felt is a grat feeling.

Overall, I really enjoyed this piece it was a good way to connect everything together into one. 

Points to share: What were some things that challenged you in your high school? What are some things you wish your high school would do differently academically?

Kliewer

Quotes

Reading this article it did take a bit of time because of how dense the information was. I had to reread it a couple of times to actually get the material. I did get lost a lot when it came to the stories that were being told, it just got really jumpy for me. What I got from the article was students with disabilities are being looked down upon because people automatically assume that they are not able to do tasks compared to other students.

"Mendocino is what ]ohn needed-it's what he never had in North Hollywood, what he calls a "safe space." Like a lot of people in Mendocino,he's accepted for what he is, not what he isn't. He can concentrate on what he can do, instead of being shown or being told what he can't do."
Reading this quote, the first thing that popped out to me was August, Safe Spaces. Safe spaces should be created for everyone in a community. For the LGBT community, race, religion, disability ext everyone should be able to feel safe especially in a learning environment. "Classrooms lay the foundations for an inclusive and safe society: a just community where common interest and individual differences coexist." Safe Space 83. In the classroom, this is where students spend most of their time and hear valuable lessons can be learned not only academically but also about life. How our differences do not define us but shape us into something special and unique.

"So what, if you don't fit exactly where you're supposed to? You know, it's not like I fit many people's ideas of what teacher's are supposed to be like."
This reminded me of SWAAMP because they are the categories that define people as privileged. But either way, we are our own person and should not be labeled because of how we look, race, socioeconomics, and disabilities. What I got from this quote was that to embrace that we are different in every way. Do not let those labels define you.

Personal thought: When I was in high school I was in a program to get my teacher assistant certification. While in this program, we went on a trip to a school called the Meeting Street school. In this school, there were classrooms that were inclusive and noninclusive. I went to observe the inclusive classroom that had students with and without disabilities. While in this classroom, I saw that there were a lot of resources around, there were multiple teachers, a lot of materials like blocks and manipulatives for students that had ADHD and every student had a different schedule. Some students would go meet with speech coaches, rehabilitation coaches and would go to play rooms to release some energy. While I was walking around there was something that caught my eye the most, there was a pool in the school.  I wondered why there was a pool in the school so I asked our tour guide about it and he said it was for students who needed physical rehabilitation. I was amazed by how many resources there were in this school and how the students were with their peers as well. They never excluded students with disabilities in the classroom, they did everything like a community. It was a good experience for me to be able to experience something like this.

I am posting up this video, it talks about a student named Thasya Lumingkewas who is 8 years old and she has autism. In this video, it shows how she is becoming social and is now able to interact with students with the help of teachers and technology. This video touched my heart. The video is the third one down, it would not let me link the single video. Sorry about that. Hope you enjoy.

Video

Something to look at

I should be doing my homework for this class right now but, I stumbled across this article and this basically explains everything we talked about. This article is really freaking good because people sometimes judge by our skin color and just assume privilege by race. A lot of the time that is really not the case but this article breaks it all down. We are all privileged in one or more ways and sometimes we forget to notice it but Gina Crosley-Corcoran the writter of this article explains this in a diffrent light.

Link to the article. 

Pecha Kucha

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nmhvT1ILUdbETSD16e2dg1vzzQxWh9KpPHHQi2wX-vE/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=20000

Map The Authors

My Map! 

Oakes Why Schools Need To Take Another Route

Hyperlinks

The article I decided to look at was "Why Schools Need To Take Another Route" by Oakes. This article does hit a lot of great points it made me think about how I was thought in school. Like how the teachers made me feel or where they enthusiastic or not. Looking back it kind of depends on the situation I was in. But, besides this article was a bit confusion to me. I had to read it a couple of times but this article represents how students classes are stereotyped and how some of these children are put into different groups. These groups range from higher placement to the lower ones. Oakes is explaining how the higher placement students classes are treated a lot differently academically and personally.

1. The gap between them and more successful students has grown wider  not only in achievements but in attitudes toward school and toward their own ability to succeed.
In this article Oakes talks about how now a day students are being tracked so based on their social class they are placed in schools with fewer learning opportunities. For example, Oakes talks about how in school with higher placement will have more challenging classes like literature reading pieces that will help them for college-level exams and math. While with the lower placement classroom will only get a basic reading assignment and basic math just to get them by. In the link above the article talks about how much this education gap has grown throughout time. One thing that caught my eye from this article was this "Even the best performers from disadvantaged backgrounds, who enter kindergarten reading as well as the smartest rich kids, fall behind over the course of their schooling." I feel like this quote does relate to what Oakes is talking about in his article about how social class has a big thing to do with education. This quote also reminded me of Kozol because when it does really depends on where you come from. That these students from the lower placement will have to try so much harder to make it somewhere higher.

2.  Creating opportunities for all kids alike.


In the Link above it discussed about how class is now more important than race in school systems. Harder in ways that students who go to private school have resources and extra subjects like music, foreign language way to future a child's education. In some public schools this does become a little harder to obtain. Here is a quote from this article that sums up how wage gaps affect students. "Income has become a much stronger predictor of how well kids do in school, Race is about as good a predictor as it was 30 years ago. It's more that income has gotten more important, not that race has gotten less important." Some of the ways that Oakes talks about making these opportunities available for everyone is making it inclusive for all students. Where lessons should be taught with meaning, lessons being relatable to real life, complex and something that the kids can take from. This is a way for students not to be held back from their ideas due to skill differences. While I was reading this part of the article reminded me of my high school. A majority of what we were taught was about the real world. Of course, we had academics in our curriculum but what I learned in the internship that I obtained over the years taught me so much more about how the world works. It is something that is different from the usual school but it was complex. Some of the things that happened at my internships made me learn to think outside of the box.

Points to share/ Discuss: Why is it that this type of situations are still happening in 2016 I just find it strange we are such a devolped country. What are some steps to take to make this gap smaller? What if students were all granted the same education no matter what social class they fall in? How would we be able to accomplish that?

Social Justice Event

Sex Positivity, Feminism and Health Implication

By Deirdre O Donnell

The event that I attended was Sex positivity, Feminism and Health Implication by Deirdre O Donnell on March 24th, 2016. Overall I really enjoyed this event because of the subjects she touched upon were some that I learned in FNED, not only that but some I had no idea that was going on. It made me look around at how women are treated in the United States, related to abortion, health issues, social , political and economic equality of the sexes. One of the first things we did was a true and false questions about feminine health. One of the questions that really surprised me was that only less than 1% of rapist see jail time. That crazy how low that percentage is because rape occurs ever 107 seconds. That is an average 293,066 victims (age 12 or older) sexual assault each year. There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. Only 1 percent of these assaults are reported. So think about how many people that is who are getting assaulted. That just shocks me. Another thing that shocked me was that abortion is not available to women in every state. I know that recently Florida defunded planned parenthood but there are actually states where it is a law to not have an abortion. Women would have to drive thousands of miles to another state to be able to have an abortion. It is just unfair because these resources should be available for everyone. It just bothers me because we have made it so far when it comes to women health but now we are just backtracking because of laws like this. 

So overall what is Feminism ? Feminism is the support of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.A few of the most famous feminists are suffragist, Betty Friedan, Oprah Winfrey and a lot more who molded this society. One of the most iconic images of feminism is Rosie the Riveter. This is an empowering female symbol that still remains an icon to this day, reminding us of the incredible female efforts during the '40s. Feminist have molded the world and broke so many boundaries not only for women but people from different ethnicities as well. Feminist has broken barriers for little girls to do something bigger like become president or more, earned them the right to vote, they call out rape culture, and fought legal discrimination again genders. These people have done so much.

Connections to authors: While I was sitting at this presentation I thought of SWAMMP, Delpit, and August. SWAMMP because while in this presentation it was not only talking about women rights but also the treatment of colored women as well. Which would connect to SWAAMP because whiteness and maleness are valued in this society. August also played a role in this presentation. Deirdre talked about her experience with the LGBT community and also broke down what LGBT meant. Which a lot of us already knew because we discussed this in class. Deirdre also wanted us to explain what sex meant. A lot of the answers were towards heterosexual couples like penis goes into vagina ext. She continued to explain that there is not a right answer to this because everyone performs sex differently. Whatever floats your boat is not a wrong way with a man or a female. Lastly, despite because growing up as a female, we are thought the rules and codes of power of how to dress. In life, we are thought to respect our bodies and not to show much skin. We are thought these rules so others will not think badly of oneself. Even though it is our body and we can do whatever we want with it but since we are thought so young we come to develop this bit of self-hatred. If too much skin is showing,you're automatically accused of being a slut or a whore. 

Overall, I really liked this event definitely opened my eyes to some of the injustice we have in this country. Our voices do make a difference so sometimes we just need to stand up and say something. I will be looking more into these problems related to women. This event was very informative and engaging as well because these problems do affect me in some way.

The Problem We All Live With 562/563

Vocabulary

Elated - Extremely happy and excited; delighted; pleased

Conduit- A person or organization that acts as a channel for the transmission of something.

I really enjoyed hearing these articles it was definitely something different. Hearing the people who were part of these situations made it a lot more interesting. These people were personally interviewed to talk about this situation so a lot of this is their side of the story and how they felt. A lot of emotion can also be heard throughout the audio which really made me sympathize with the speaker. Nobody should ever have to feel like they are not good enough for a school that is mainly caucasian students. Also,  automatically bring stuff them in a box full of hateful stereotypes because of the color of your skin. Definitely really liked the podcast though I am thinking about whenever I have a chance listening to more stories like this on my free time.

Quotes

"I think that children can overcome the stigma of poverty. I think children can overcome the stigma of their ethnicity. But what they cannot overcome is the stigma of separation. That is like a damned spot in their being, in their self-image. And that's what segregation does to children. They see themselves as apart and separate because of the language they speak, because of the color of their skin, the origin of their parents." -  563: Part Two

I personally really like this quote because what the teacher stated is completely true. People of color can look over these things but looking at the bigger picture of how segregated schools are it ultimately goes back to where they come from. This reminded me of the text Kristof, Land of Limitation because these students are getting a poor education because of the location they are in. In that location, it is mainly African American and latinos. Kristof states "I keep thinking of his prodigious talents that were never fully deployed because, in the United States, too often the best predictor of where we end up is where we start." The Normandy school district had less to offer and in one case a reported follows an AP students from class to class and it was crazy what the reported saw. She saw that there were 4 periods of music, 3 classes of academics, one of the classes the teacher actually taught. Nobody in the Normandy is being pushed to their fullest potential because there is not challenge. These students are just left to figure it out on their own. While in Francis Howell one student who came from Normandy had a completely different experience. She was involved in sports, also in honor classes but was definitely being challenged academically. While the AP student in Normandy was receiving worksheets that looked like it was middle school leveled. It eventually depends on where you come from.

"In the schools where white families chose to stay, test scores for black transfer students rose. They were more likely to graduate and go to college. After years of resistance, Saint Louis had created the largest and most successful metro-wide desegregation program in the country. And then state officials killed it."

These are reasons why interaction is such an important thing for all students. African American students in the Francis Howell school district had better test scores, and most likely going to go to college. While in their former district, it was about half of the African American boys who did not graduate. Having these kids intergrade in a school that has more resources, funding, and benefits the students from Normandy will have the same opportunity. The students have greater educational needs and if they can not receive them then they are stuck. They have a bunch of disadvantages in the Normandy district.

Connections- While I was listening to part 1 of The Problem We Live With the part when the parents were outraged about the African American students coming into their school it reminded me of the Little Rock Crisis in 1957. In 1953, the supreme court declared public schools segregation to be unconstitutional because of the Brown V Board of Education case. Despite having a law to integrate students schools tried to find ways to resist it. In 1957, there were 9 African American students who were accepted in Little Rock High School which was an all-white high school. From this day on they are known as the Little Rock 9. On the first day of school, the students were greeted by a mob of angry white students, parents, and government officials. These students were not allowed to enter the school. It went so far that the governor of Arkansas had their National Guard block the entrance so the students could not enter. Eventually, 3 weeks later the president at the time Dwight Eisenhower sent troops to have the kids escorted safely into the school. These were some of the first steps to having school become integrated. How far we have come in history and we should not be backtracking now. Moving forward and try and having schools like in Hartford Connecticut which is 50 percent integrated.

Little Rock 9 Video

In The Service of What?

Words that I needed to look up to help me out.

Implementation
Altruism

Extended Comments

 For this blog, I decided that I will be writing extending comments on Ashley's blog on In The Service Of What? (Kahne & Westheimer).

In Ashley's blog, she is talking about The Met high school in Providence being related to the article which is completely true. Ashley has a sentence that basically describes The Met which is "In this article, the authors argues that the service learning experience improves communities and enriches classrooms withing the moral, political and intellectual domains." I personally agree with this because this is The Mets motto. The whole point of internships is about making a difference in the community but also having the students learn more about their passions and themselves. When I attended The Met high school at the end of each year there had to be an LTI project. LTI means Learning Through Interest so this project had to benefit the community the location that the student was interning at or the school.  An example of a LTI project I did was creating a zine about self-harm and depression. My internship was at an art studio in Providence called AS220 there I learned how to used an offset printer and the steps of how to make zines. This became my LTI project because it was a way for me to inform the students in my building to be aware of self-harm and how to pervent it and or ways of getting out of depression. This was how I was giving back to my community also giving a presentation in front of my whole building about depression. Depression is definitely something that is very serious with young adults and teens and this was a way to impact my peers that these issues need to be discussed. From that project, the environment did become a lot more open with students emotions and if there was ever an issue there was always someone and a counselor to talk to. 

This was some of the reasons I really enjoyed this article because these concepts of service learning are something that really do benefit both parties the people being helped and the ones who are helping.

Connections: This article does make connections with Johnson writing piece. If people of privilege have the resources to help the unfortunate it can really make a difference in someone's life. This is what service learning is mainly about sharing knowledge and helping others out. Being able to make a positive change.

August, Safe Spaces

Words that I needed to look up.

• Dichotomy
• Erasure
• Bigotry
• Disequilibrium

Looking up these words really did help me understand the passage a lot more.

Reflection

Safe Space is written by Gerri August this passage talks about the views of LGBT in schools and the community. The article talks about that there is not enough exposure going on in classrooms and communities. In classrooms, this is the place where students are taught to tolerate, explore and embrace subjects and people who are different from them and respect that. People are always going to be different and we learn that in grade school but, in school curriculums there is not a lot of teachers who are teaching students about the LGBT community and how they are the same like me and you. There is not enough exposure to the LGBT community and there has been a lot of backlash because of it. Kids and teenagers are being bullied because of their sexual orientation. Seventy-eight percent of gay (or believed to be gay) teens are teased or bullied in their schools and communities. The percentage of students getting bullied because of their sexual orientation is crazy because of bullying students can develop anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. About 30 percent of all completed suicides have been related to sexual identity crisis. Not only that but students sometimes even drop out of school because of being bullied or the fear of it.  This is reasons why students want to "stay in the closet" because of this type of backlash on the LGBT community. 

We live in a society that the norm is heteronormative assuming that that everyone is or should be straight. Teachers in the article do including books that refer to the LGBT community and teaching that to their students. This is the first steps to opening up a student's mind so they can be exposed and accept it for how it is.  These steps of just teaching them that there are two moms and two dads who offer the same love and caring as heterosexual couples. 

Some of the thing that caught my eye reading this and that I can relate to was that in history they never taught  me about the LGBT community. It is true we are taught about the oppression of slavery and the Civil War which was one of the bloodiest wars we had in this country. Also, Martin Luther King who is a famous leader of the civil rights movement well known for his I have a Dream speech about how he wants integration between the white and the black everyone knows that because we were taught that. The only time I learned about the history of the LGBT community was in Highschool. I was in an acting group part of the history program. For a competition, we learned about what the LGBT community and what they had done to get their rights throughout the years. Examples like Stone Wall, Harvey Milk, AIDS Epidemic, Dont ask Dont tell policy and a lot more.  Finally, we have marriage equality in all of the United States which is something the community has been fighting for! But overall I really enjoyed this passage. Opened my eyes to how these little steps can make a huge difference in a child.

“Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us”

Quotes

1. "The idea of not being completely responsible for how I feel about things today is scary. They influence how I behave, think, react to things." Page 129

While I was reading I thought this quote was 100% relatable to everyone. Unless you live under a rock but the only reason I am saying this is because every advertisement, television show, movie, and ext have influence people. The student who quotes this says she gets depressed thinking about it because media has molded her to dress the way she does. I agree with this because many of the women in magazines are the people young adolescents and teens look up to. So what they wear is what they would like to wear as well. Media has also influence women to have the "perfect ideal body structure". For a long time, it has been that women should have the flat stomach, big butt, hourglass shape body, long hair, and much more. It was not till recently people have been more open to women of all shapes and sizes. A couple of examples is that sports illustrator finally has a size 16 model as the cover of the magazine. Which is amazing because this is something that can open the door for a lot of women who are on the thicker side. Lastly, the Barbie company came out with a new model of toys. Usually, barbie is known for their ideal blond hair, tall, white women and that was what all of their dolls consisted of. But it was not till the past year the barbie release dolls that actually look more realistic. There are curvy, short, tall, some with darker skin than others. This a huge deal because kids can see that everyone is different and there is not ideal image for beauty.  

2. "I want to develop their critical consciousness, but I also hope to move them to action."

Overall, Sexism, racism are going to be in cartoons but this also does happen every day in real life. Sometimes we just become so blind when it comes to these issues. What the teacher is trying to point out is that sometimes we need to look a little closer and realize that these are big issues and a problem in our society. 

Questions/Comments/Points to share

I personally really liked this article because it gave the students perspective on how media affects them. This is something we can all learn from because at one point in our lives we have been dramatically influenced by media. Me personally media has affected me by how college is portrayed. This is kind of silly but the way it is portrayed is that college is just filled with a bunch of partying and or never having a social life because of how much homework needs to be done. College is something different and new. Me personally I am just trying to get my degree, make awesome friends, do new things and make some great memories. What are some weird misconceptions that media has made you believe?

Aria Richard Rodriguez

A couple of words that I had to look up because I did not know the meaning of them. Look them up did help me understand a lot more! Which was nice.

• Hark
• Bemused 

Reflection

In the passage, it talks about Rodriquez and his struggles of growing up in a bilingual household. Rodriguez grew up in a Spanish only speaking home and when he went to school all of the children including the teachers only spoke English. The struggle was that he had to learn a whole new different language but he felt like it was not right and that it was not his language to use. At first, he was timid about even speaking English in his classroom. He would hope that the teachers did not call his name to speak in front of the classroom. As time passed the teacher noted his silence and arrived at his doorstep to speak to his parents. From there on Rodriguez's parents and siblings were speaking English at home to get all of the use to the language. Soon English became Rodrigues primary language but he also forgot how it was to be Spanish. I personally think this was a win loose situation. It was a win because not only did Rodriguez become extremely comfortable with the English language that he became a writer. Which is amazing because it was a huge struggle for him to be comfortable and publically be able to speak English.  Also, his parents learning English was a plus because there was another form of communication besides Spanish. It was a loose situation also because I felt like he lost a part of himself like his identity. I am only saying this because in the article  he says this " I no longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents. The old Spanish words mama and papa I couldn't use anymore. They would have been too painful reminders of how much had changed in my life." It is like that since he so used to the American culture it seems like he lost some of his Spanish roots. Another one that was a downside was that the communication between the family was gone. Spanish was the thing that kept them together in a way it was so since that is gone the communication. He says "The silence at home, however, was finally more than a literal silence, Fewer words passed between parent and child, but more profound was the silence that resulted from my intention to sounds."

Reading Aria by Richard Rodriguez was definitely a different way to look at Spanish-speaking children. I personally really liked this passage a lot. To me this passage was so relatable it was a bit scary because I found myself nodding my head to a lot of the things that he said. One of the things was that whenever the teachers talk to him he felt a bit intimidated. "I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responded with ease." I felt like this too growing up because I mainly spoke Spanish at home so going into a whole new environment was completely different. I was shy and did not speak because of the fact I was scared I was going to mispronounce words. I eventually overcame my fear of being shy but it was something that took the time to actually get over. It took a lot of time and patience.

Questions/Comments/Points to share
This article reminded me of the SWAMP activity we did in class only because of the fact that this article was mostly revolved around being American. We value the English language so much that we all need to speak it no matter what. The question I had was was there ESL classes back in that time? I am asking this because this would have made the struggles of learning English for Rodreguez a lot easier and smoother.

Amazing Grace Kozol

Connections 

While I was reading I noticed that Kozol got to really see how it was like to be in some of the worst neighborhoods in New York. Kozol was able to experience this first hand being able to talk to the people who live in these areas and get their input on how the neighborhoods are affecting them. I wanted to connect Kozol's Amazing Grace and Kristof's USA Land of Limitations because these both have some of the same idea that states a person's future is determined by their surroundings. Surroundings will determine limitation in where they will go in life. 

1. While Kozol was in New York he talks about how the children there go through the most because of how young they are being exposed to things like homelessness, drugs, and violence. Getting introduced to these things so early in life can really mess up a child's development and their sense of innocence. What makes this so sad is that there is no way for them to get away from it because it is something that occurs commonly. Kozol goes to this community church were a lot of children go to get away from the terrors of the streets. He says this about the children in this community "There are children in the poorest, most abandoned places who, despite the miseries and the poisons that the world has pumped into their lives, seem, when you first meet them, to be cheerful anyway. These children are making individual choices to be happy no matter how hard life got them down and this can relate to Rick in Kristof's article. This is because Rick gave 600 dollars to his ex wife and that money could've saved his life. Rick had a terminal illness but it was his choice to help out his wife.

2. Another thing that relates both articles is that because of where both of these people come from this can determine where they will go in the future. A lot of the children who are in these poor parts of New York do not have a same opportunities and resources. These people and children live in cramped apartments that do not have proper heating and air conditioning. Roaches and rats invade these apartments but they have to bare with these horrible conditions. Not only are living conditions are rough but the school system horrible. One of the children that Kozol was walking with knew all of these iconic idols but did not know who George Washington was.  The same with Rick because since he did not have the opportunities to be able to be able to do well in school because he did not have the accommodations to help him. So he had to drop out of school and work.

USA, Land of Limitations?

Reflection

This article was written by Nicholas Kristof and was published in the New York Times. This article argues that depending on the type of environment someone grows up in will be based on whether or not they succeed. He also talks about the wages gaps between the rich and the poor.
In the article Kristof explains that there is a 4% chance for a child who is born in a low-income household can raise up to a top quintile in the United States. While in Britain the percentage more than doubles to a 12% chance. Alan Krueger who is a Princeton economist says that "about the same as the chance that a dad who is 5 feet 6 inches tall having a son who grows up to be over 6 feet 1 inch tall." There is a chance but it is mostly unlikely for that not to happen. Which is honestly the sad truth because no matter what people who get the short end of the stick have to try twice as hard to make it. But it is not all about “choices” and “personal responsibility.” it is something a lot more than that. Kristof is trying to explain that even with hard work and intelligence it is hard to turn around a life of poverty. 

Questions/Comments/Point To Share:
I personally really liked this article I felt like Kristof got his point across really well also had enough evidence to back up his argument. Another thing that I really liked was that it was not only statistics and scholars but he related this argument to himself by talking about one of his good friends Rick Goff. Kristof describes the thought “talent is universal, but opportunity is not.” This is real in a lot of ways. When I hear of this I think of the struggling artist and musicians because these people have a whole lot of talent but the only way to make it big is to know somebody or when it is the right time.  What do you guys think of this quote? 

A little about me

Hello ya'll I am Amy Ramos Lopez I am 19 years old and I attend Rhode Island College. This is my second year at RIC and, to be honest, I actually really like it here. I have made some awesome friends and it is not till recently I have started getting more involved on campus. I just got the job to be a summer orientation leader and I have also been working at disability services office for about two years now.
Besides that, I was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. I have also wandered around the city so much I know it like the back of my hand. I live with my mother, my two sisters and my dog Leo. My older sister is 25 and a younger one is 18. My older sister is my brobean.
Some of the things I love to do it adventure around and when it is nice out ride my bike.
Here are some awesome pictures!

This is me and my madre!

Fun Fact I was a Civil War reenactor in high school! 

  

This is my tiny dog Leo!

This is my bro bean, my boyfriend and I!