Topic Discussion

While listening to the topic presentations in class, I found a few very interesting. Of course, I like my own topic a lot too, so I'm going to include that in the running.

Sexual Education:

• issues: media's misrepresentation of sex, parents aren't educationally qualified to teach their children, and abstinence-only education is ineffective
• This topic is sometimes a very heated discussion, but overall we should be looking at the safety, health, and growth of teens.
• impact: we aren't given the necessary educational tools to become sexually healthy and responsible adults through current educational programs. This promotes STDs and STIs, teen pregnancy, and unsafe/unhealthy relationships. 
• project: present to school board/teachers ways to improve education and then implement new program, put up signs/posters around school/community, and give a presentation to students.

Literacy: 

• issues: aren't focused on learning/comprehension, but on grades; many students graduate without being able to fully comprehend what they are reading; and, sometimes the education isn't available or the resources aren't.
• This was Julie's topic, and it's something that means a lot to me. I want every child to be able to read because it is such a basic thing that every human deserves. 
• impact: this affects everyone in one way or another. if we don't have educated adults we can't keep building and creating. We also have people who are living the kind of life that they shouldn't have to live. We are creating generations of people who don't understand what they're reading which leads to them not caring about bettering the world. 
• project: The Harry Potter Alliance does a campaign every year in April called Accio Books! which is a book drive which aims to fight illiteracy. Additionally, the HPA is also setting up a book club at this moment since our main goal is literacy this year. I think this would be a good project for me because I already have a lot of things in motion and we could add on to them with this project. 

Education: 

• issues: we base our learning environment off of getting the best grades and not on learning. This causes students to not care about the actual process of learning and instead find ways to get around it. This produces a group of people who, again, don't want to better the world, create, and do things with their lives. They want to find the easy way out because that's how they learned it.
• I find this topic very interesting because I know from experience that it seems like high schools are more like credential factories than actual places of learning and enjoyment from learning. We're always trying to get the best grades for the best schools and best scholarships to afford these best schools. This puts immense stress on students. I think implementing a new grading system is a necessary improvement. Students don't learn the same ways they used to (or we used to think they did). 
• impact: this affects all students because we are told we must make the grade and the idea of learning for fun or enjoyment isn't instilled in us, which causes us to not want to improve our world. 
• project: I think we could present to schools/school boards around the area ways to grade differently. We could also contact legislators in the state or at a federal level and suggest changes. Additionally, we contact different colleges and see why/how they actually accept students and why grade point averages really matter if they're not an accurate example of students behavior and personality. What other ways could they potentially admit students?