For the last few weeks, I have been volunteering for STEAM Train, a program that my school organized to help middle school students think of creative ways to solve world problems. Some examples of these problems can be making useful things out of ocean plastic and strengthening existing materials. The high school volunteers are supposed to guide the students so that they know what is achievable and what is too out of their reach at the moment to get done. Some of the projects that I helped out with was making materials like Kevlar stronger, making edible water bottles easier to be carried around, and using immortal jellyfish to achieve human immortality. Even though things like these probably already exist, they wanted to improve on them and do the research for it to be possible to happen, even though they probably won’t be able to. I chose to volunteer here because I thought it would be fun to help younger students with STEAM-related projects. However, because of the pandemic going on, I was skeptical about being involved in this as I don’t know whether learning this kind of thing over ZOOM is actually helpful to them. From my experience in Online school, the classes like English, History, and French are easy to learn online because of the out of classwork, but the classes like Math and Science are not as easy to learn outside of class. We also don’t have as much class time, so the teachers don’t have as long to teach us the content that they would have if we were in person. A lot of my classmates are struggling with keeping up with the amount of coursework we are getting from our teachers, as a byproduct of less class time. Also, they are already attending online classes for 5 or more hours a day, so they could just be burnt out from it. But anyway, back to the camp. One specific project that I helped out with was using “immortal” jellyfish to obtain human immortality or to have a longer lifetime. Obviously, they didn’t have any kind of plan to do it, but they just thought it was a cool idea. It’s good to think of ideas like that, but I think that them coming up with ideas like that and then getting told that they couldn’t actually do it is worse than finding out themselves. To improve on this experience for them, I would make some slightly stricter guidelines on what projects they could do. Some examples could be that you could complete it in a set timeframe, or whether it is possible with the equipment they have access to. Another thing that I would change in this camp is adding a peer review type of time when other groups have to look over your idea to see if it is doable. In this article, the author describes this by talking about how learning is best achieved by criticizing rather than ideation. I have only been to a few sessions so far, but I plan to go to all of them until it ends. Keep in touch for updates!
Robots: To Keep or Not to Keep?
“TIMOTHY! YOU COME DOWN HERE RIGHT THIS SECOND, YOUNG MAN!”, Mom said.
“I’m coming, Mom!” I yelled back to her. Can’t a guy get some sleep in this place? I thought to myself. Nevertheless, I got up and started to look for my vest and pants. After pulling my clothes on, I slowly trudged down the stairs to my mama cooking breakfast. As always, we were eating hot cakes and eggs for breakfast. You could say that was a good meal, but after having it again and again, it changes.
“Tim, you really need to be getting down here sooner. If you come down here late one more time, you are making your own meal for the day. AND I MEAN IT!”, Mom said. But this did not bother Timothy, as his mother had told him this about a hundred times over this summer. My school was finally over, but my parents, being who they are, made me work on the farm with them for the entire vacation. Who would want to do that? The truth is, I’m not even sleeping when Mama calls me down for breakfast. I’m wide awake, and I’m gazing at Uncle Sam pointing at me for the U.S. Army. I want to work in the army to help. I think that there should be men fighting out there to protect our homes and I want to help them.
“Mama, I think I want to join the army,” I said a few weeks ago, rather bravely.
“What? Y-You, want to join t-the army?” Mama stammered. She acted this drastically because unfortunately, Papa had died in the army a few years ago. The memory was still fresh in my mind, the messenger coming home and telling us what had happened to him. My mother had wept for weeks, and nothing could describe what shape she was in. I knew she would be lonely without me, but I wanted to be doing something instead of just waiting for the news of the war. So that day I signed up. It was a wonderful feeling, waiting for the letter to come to our little house and tell me where to go to start training. And finally, it did.
In the letter, it said that I would be placed in the U.S. Air Force. I was very proud of myself because my old man had been in that section as well. My mom had tears in her eyes, making me feel extremely awkward. It had been a long time since I had seen her cry, and I knew why. She was trying to stay strong for me, even though I knew that we were in financial trouble. We couldn’t afford a good house, let alone one of those fancy new robots. The robots were a newly released product from TAC Industries. I don’t like it very much, because they can only make our economy worse. They will take all of our jobs in the factories and the offices, leaving thousands of working men and women with no way to support their families. And I knew this from experience.
Before Papa died in the army, we had a good house, but still, we could not afford a robot. He got paid well because he was one of the best soldiers in his squadron. One day, I want to be just like him. But I know that day will never come unless I rise through the ranks, getting better and better at what I do. But my first step is to go to my first day of basic training. When I got there, I met everyone in my group that was with me. There was probably 100-150 people there, not mentioning the innumerable robots studying everyone’s ID. One person even had to leave because they did not have their ID with them! After they dismissed him, they warned us that this could happen to anyone else there if you do not obey your elder officers. We were all frightened of them and I swore to myself that I would never question one of their orders. We were all ordered to do push-ups for as long as we could.
After what felt like a lifetime, we finally left to see our sleeping quarters. They were all incredibly strict, but this is the Air Force. All of the people in my quarter were fairly nice (thank god for that) and we started talking to each other about the day’s work. There was one particularly nice person that slept right next to me, and his name was Blake. He seemed to have come from the same background as me; not having an abundance of money, but also not poor. Over the next few days, we did many drills and exercises, and yesterday they taught us about the military punishments. Those scared us all. There are some that shame, some that maim, and the worst was execution. When we settled down to sleep, I remembered my mama and our homemade meals. Even though it had just been a few weeks into the Air Force, I was already feeling a little homesick.
“ATTACK! ATAAAACK!” someone yelled. Everyone quickly woke up and got into their uniforms. I was probably the best pilot in my group, so the general told me to get into a plane. There were a group of soldiers that the enemy sent into our territory, and they were lobbing hand grenades into our camp. One of the sleeping quarters were on fire, so my comrades rushed in to douse the flame. However, they were a tad too late. One person that was sleeping did not hear the bellowing of the soldier and was consumed by the flame. Other people were hurt in the fire, but no one else was killed. Right then was when it set in that I was in the Army, not back at home. You die to the enemy, or you fight for your country.
Soon, there were small battles all over the border, some we started and some they did. I was in many of those, going up in ranks. Finally, I was like my father. I sent letters to my mama, and though her responses were very delayed and short due to the cost of sending letters, I appreciated it all the same. A couple weeks later, there was a huge battle right on the border. Apparently, both sides had decided to attack at exactly the same time. I jumped into my plane, and I took off. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but one of the reasons that I love these planes this much is because they have a personal robot with them. AB-203 told me where the enemy was, and where to drop the bombs. After a lot of deaths on both sides, we came to a treaty to keep the robots instead of scrapping all of them for more materials. Both sides thought that they were useful after the war.
And that is why right now I am using my own personal robot right now, to record everything that happened to me during the war. A few days ago, my wife told me that she invited Blake over for tea. I was elated that I would be seeing him again, and just think the number of stories we would tell our children.
Black Panther Podcast
Today I listened to a podcast by Song Exploder. These guys invite major movie/song producers and they piece the music together step by step. The one I heard was on Black Panther, the new Marvel movie. I really liked it because I personally love the movie because of the new religions brought into superheroes.
This podcast was about the origins of the famous movie Black Panther, as I told you earlier. It told us the meaning of a lot of the sounds that were played; even the most simple ones. However, to make the podcast not go on for days explaining everything about the movie, it only described to us the general setting and one character: Kill Monger. To all of you readers that have not already watched Black Panther, he is the main antagonist in the movie. He was from Wakanda, and after several years in Oakland, he finally returned to get revenge on the man who killed his father. (Spoiler Alert!) It turns out that the current leader of Wakanda’s Dad killed Kill Monger’s dad. I think. That may be wrong, as I watched the movie a long time ago.
Going back to the podcast part of this blog post, the music scorer for the movie tells us listeners about the entrance of Kill Monger and how they made it match his personality and his religion. When all the action starts at the beginning of the movie, the beat drops, and the 808 starts. The rap beat starts with no words. This is the background of him in Oakland. Eventually, though, the music blends into a more royal sort of beat. Together, these two sound make a really cool beat for a character entrance.
If you want to listen to some song exploder podcasts, just go to www.songexploder.com. There are about 130 podcasts to listen to. I hope you enjoyed that blog post!
Should high school students be required to study a foreign language?
I have been debating this topic for a long time because even I need to study a foreign language in middle school. I study French because that is the way my sister went, and she helps me a lot with mine. I think high school students should be required to learn a new language because when you go to different places for work and other reasons, it is good to come prepared.
For example, when we went to Switzerland, a lot of people there spoke French. I was not in middle school then so I did not know the language yet. My sister, though, did know it. My dad made her study more so that she could converse with people in Switzerland.
I have been talking about French for a long time, so let’s talk about Spanish for a bit. In 20 countries, Spanish is the ‘official’ language and then there are even more that many people speak it in. Spanish is spread all over the world and it is a very useful language if you are out traveling. I do not have much experience with the language, but my peers tell me it is a fairly easy topic to understand and learn.
That is why I think not just high school students but middle school students too should learn and understand a foreign language.
Dave the Potter
Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier is about an African American slave who was interested in pottery and poetry. He was born into slavery in 1801, as the rest of his family had been slaves too. He made pots out of mud because was not wealthy enough to afford it. He was also a budding poet, despite the restrictions of being a slave. Most slave owners make them work in the farm, but this one let Dave do pottery. Dave was one of two only potters in the world that could make a pot that could hold twenty gallons. He was a very famous artist. The book describes how good he was at his job, because of the similes, like “Pulling a rabbit out of hat”, and “The walls of the jar rose up like a robin’s puffed breast”. The people admired the pots, but because they were made by an African American they didn’t sell.