CI 414/504 - Fall 2022 Reading Responses

Sandra Aguilera's Blog Post: Climate Change.  Can Teachers Make a Difference? It has been 17 th  year when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. Many of those who lost their homes, family and/or friends are still trying to recover from this tragic event. Others realized that something needed to be done, too. Among the young survivals who transformed frustration and bad feelings into social justice action are filmmaker  Edward Buckles, Jr ., and  Jayden Foytlin , who were 13 and 11 years old when their houses were destroyed on August 22, 2005. To me, these two young victims of New Orleans are good examples on how adolescents become more self-conscious and develop “a natural hunger for social value” caused by various forms of discrimination. Their “natural hunger for social value” is the result of how their brain “is primed to promote healthy and adaptive learning” when facing certain levels of discrimination, as  Ron Dahl , a specialists in developing adolescent desc

      Many older generations are claiming that teens in this generation are "soft" and "lazy;" however, this generation has had to deal with a pandemic amongst many other major events. Young people today are dealing with issues of gender equality, unemployment, mental health, climate change, etc.       While we as a society have come farther into giving women the same opportunities as men, there are still a lot of disparities. For students, Title IX was put into effect to prevent discrimination based on sex. While 63% of Americans are saying that it has brought a positive impact, 46% of women still feel that more should be done (according to the first link). There are still many women who don't get a fair opportunity even with Title IX in place. Young women today are still fighting to get the same opportunities as men.           One of the biggest issues right now is slowly coming back to normal amid Covid-19. In 2020, the percentage of youth who were not in sch

Although COVID-19 is seemingly over, it is without a doubt that it hit us students hard. Given a whole new challenge throughout our (already difficult) semesters. We were faced with immediate online classes with little to no preparation. Until we were ultimately given a choice of hybrid schedules. Although I personally found comfort in taking classes from home, It was hard to say what each student preferred especially when there are so many different aspects of a classroom to talk about. According to a study given in the first article sited 80% of students preferred to attend school completely in person. Why would you think that's true? I would say the need to adapt fast had caused an impact on our mental health overall. Without the constant need to go to in person to school, students were unmotivated and got complacent. Students ended up dropping out of school and even leaving their job. We will never know whether it was the constant fear of the deadly disease or the dull, never e