Interview

After reading the children's book "Butter Battle Book" and watching the animated short film, we were tasked with interviewing some one that lived through the cold war. During the interview I learned quite a lot about how the world worked 60 years ago.  When asked simple questions like, "what was your social life like?", "Were you scared of the USSR?", and " how did politics influence your daily life?", the answers were quite surprising. Social life was a large part of the fifties and sixties.  Many people felt like they had reputations that had to be upheld. Women always wore nice clothes and treated men with respect. Children listened to their parents and elders.  Men were valued members of society.  The social life much like it is now, was very complicated. Cold war influences did not scare people from having a social life nor did it frighten them into submission. The only part of life that was affected was the schooling. Teachers taught students how to prepare for a nuclear attack just to be safe. They struck fear in the minds of young children that someday soon, planes would drop bombs on American soil. We may laugh now at the ridiculousness of the drills because in all reality they wouldn't do anything, but during this time, they took them to heart. This leads into the second question. The Soviet Union struck fear into our political leader for quite some time. When asked if they were ever frightened of them, she said " it wasn't so much the Russians I was scared of, it was more the cubans. After they got those missiles from Russia everything got way more serious. The thought of a nuclear war then started to hit home with me. But I didn't let it ruin my life. I moved on like most people and as you can see America got over it. The last question sort of answers its self. Politics were the world in the Cold War era. With a war of words taking control of the media, national leaders controlled everything. National leaders were consonantly thinking about the situations at hand and how to prepare for the world coming to an end.

A modest Proposal

A Modest proposal to solve the problem of America looking dumber and dumber on a global level, when compared to other nations through testing.

Consider this, a nation that is on the forefront of all thing technological, military, and economic. Yet imagine that this supposed super nation is ranking among the lowest in the world on a global test for high schoolers, Getting beat by countries that were thought to be near third worldly when considering military, economy, and technology.  America ranks among the lowest out of 30 countries on a global test given to high school seniors. We do not want the leaders of other nations of the world thinking that America no longer has the capabilities or knowledge to be a superpower.

My solution to this problem to to simply take the stupidity out of the school systems. If we simply kill those students whose test scores and GPAs as of their Junior high years, are not adequate to for the global level of testing. I believe that if we simply give our student the opinion of death or better grades and study habits, they will make choices to better the future of our nation. This solution will not only help advance America as a world leader in academics but also help solves many problems that derive from poor study skills.

The First problem to be solved with this proposal is that America will now go back to being on top of the world when it comes to education and academics. Secondly, I believe America has an overpopulation of dumb people and if we kill those that are showing signs of dumbness at a young age, they will not be able to reproduce and continue to populate our nation with unintelligent people. Third, teachers will have it easier, due to fewer bad students. With only the good students that study well left in high school, teachers will be able to teach more in a stress free environment. Fourthly, There will be less bullying. With most bullies being less intelligent students picking on the “nerds” if you will, having only smart students left in high school will lead to a better environment for all involved.

Those that are not in favor of the killing of many of our citizens may say we can solve this problem with less radical solutions. Some may say it would be better to simply try and advance the education system and teach better study habits at younger ages. Some may say that if we can teach the things that are on the test we can do better, many schools around the world in other nations dedicate weeks to studying for these test and only these test. America could do this as well. Others think that a different school system would help more, if we go to school 6 days a week, all year round, and for as much as 12 hours a day, we could surpass all other countries in the world.
With America’s youth becoming less and less intelligent, a proactive change has to be made. With the proposal at hand, we could solve many of the nation's most pressing challenges. This would not only lead to a better America, but also a presence in the world that is only a fond memory for us. With simplifying distributing a test and killing those that do not pass, we will help insure that only the smartest children are representing our country. These are only my ideas but I for one, will not be improved by this, I have no children, I simply want what is best for the nation.

( note, this is only my version of a modest proposal and does not in any way show how I feel towards this problem.)

The article of the week this weeks talks about how exercise not not is good for you body but also for your mind.  I believe this to be true.  Fitness helps in many ways that you would not expect. sure you can control your weight, you can become more flexible and stronger, but you can also mentally relax and control your self.  P personally believe that exercise is something that our country lost. PE in schools is a joke. There needs to be structure to classes dealing with physical education. This is not only because America has a large population of overweight individuals, but it is proven that the student that work out will  be more relaxed and get better grades than those who do not.  This situation is a win win, the only down side is that students will actually have to do something in PE! Schools need to really look into revamping the physical programs so that kids can do better in school. I can not see any moral or ethical reason to not make PE a hard class.