Underdog is a term usually used for referring to someone who has no chance of overcoming adversity. Lower class communities are seen as the underdogs of the world. A lot of the time people are judged from the communities they were brought up in, but in most cases the worse place they were raised the higher chance they have to overcome adversity. Even though lower class people do not have the same amenities that wealthy families do, they adapt and overcome.

Families struggle everyday in lower class neighborhoods to pay the bills and keep food on the table. A lot of the times it can be overwhelming for parents to deal with everything on their plate. Referring to the Poem (Underdog By: The coup) " When She breathes, she swears it feels like plastic wrapped round' her face." I think he was trying to portray a picture of a struggling mother caught up in an evil game we call life. Parents have to do what they have to, to keep their families fed and sheltered. Sometimes we lose track of what is going on in life, and it all comes barreling down on us at a moments notice.

So often in today's society we are struggling to make ends meat that we don't stop and notice whats going on around us. We create almost a fake sense of reality that we live day in and day out. As the coup states in his poem (Underdog), " Coming home don't never seem to be a celebration. Bills, they piled up on the coffee table like they're decorations." In reality a lot  of us are working to survive this cold world, and we fall so far behind in bills and many other aspects of life, and we feel it would be almost impossible to catch up. 

The Passion Project II Response

Organic learning is a tender topic in America today. Although children in America should be learning in an environment evolved around their learning style that is not the case. Our education system is based on a philosophy that our children should be learning from a linear curriculum. Not everyone learns the same way, some people learn visually or hands on, and some learn just through inhaling information from books. Our school systems are ran like a factory in certain ways.  Big companies have goals to create linear products for the cheapest price. Our education system bases our pass or fail scale on a linear statewide exam. Every student across the country gets the same information they were hand fed by their underpaid and unmotivated educators. Teachers are almost like factory line workers making sure we’re all assembled correctly and have the knowledge to gain access to college. "It's not a factory; it's not an institution; its not a public service; it's a community." ( Jeff Duncan-Andrade) This quote made me thing alot about our education system. The men and women educating our children usually have no community connections to them. They are purely their for a paycheck. A classroom should be a place of great discussions where everyone is learning, including the instructor. Class discussions open the minds of many. I feel it to be very Beneficial to talk about my thoughts out loud with my peers and get their opinion. We need to understand that our minds are an amazing tool. When we discuss our ideas with other people we get to see things in more than one way. Too many people go through life with a singular mind set, but that is not healthy. 

   Why cant we be taught useful skills coming through our education system? During elementary and Jr high, i understand learning the basics and how everything works in the world. But when we get into high school we need to start being more blunt with our teachings. Why not send kids out into the real world with skills they can actually use like critical thinking. Why not prepare us for what lies ahead? Not everyone is going to give back to the community the way school teaches us. In America today our companies are outsourcing work to other countries for cheaper labor and materials. With the job market crashing and our education system skimming along doing the bare minimum on teaching us life skills. College is not for everyone, and that is perfectly okay. America is built on lower class america and the jobs that come with it. Not everyone will become a neurosurgeon or chemist. Once our education system utilizes our creativity and not our memorization skills, it will run much smoother.
  

Ken Robinson: What in education is out of date?

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with it. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we can save our country." (Abraham Lincoln) I believe what president lincoln was saying is a great example of our education system today. I think our education system is out of date in the standards we set. We are enthralled by the theories and examples of the past, and that causes us to use out of date techniques. Our education system is based on the fact that life should be linear with everyone else. They preach that we should all take the same path from high school, to college and start a career in which we have studied for. Ken Robinson said something during his speech that I found very interesting, "Not everyone needs to go to college, that doesn't mean they can't go, but they don't need to go now." As technology advances, so does our education. Today's society revolves around many talents and skills that are not always taught in any college course. Our education system has standards set on information they think we should be learning. They are stuck on the theory that we must learn what they think we need to learn, and nothing else. We do not promote a free thinking society. In a way, we are creating a mind controlled society. Starting in high school we are shunned for thinking outside of the box, or believing that something can be done or seen in more than one way. We are impaled by the thought of us having a fixed mindset. This goes back to our past readings in this class about the banking theory. All Elementary schools through high school and even some college courses use the banking theory. They hand feed us information they want us to know. Persuading a young child that being a fire fighter is not a adequate profession because it doesn't necessarily require college is absurd. The theory's that our generation is being fed, will not benefit us in anyway. We need to change our lesson plans to build individuals rather than conforming them too the ways of "Society" 

About Me

Dear whom it may concern,

My name is Troy Roush. I am a current student at Chabot college. My short term goal is to graduate with my AA degree,and then transfer to a 4 year school and obtain a degree in Fire Technology. My Long term goal is to become a firefighter paramedic.  I currently work part-time, go to school full time and coach a youth baseball league. I enjoy learning new things, and having professors who like to engage with us, not just put work in front of us and not interact.



-Troy Roush