setting goals

            Goal setting is important in every aspect of your life. This means that you have a specific picture in your mind, you write it down, and achieve it. It is important to see it every day. There are many factors that go into goal setting one general rule about goal setting is SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, timely). Now timely doesn’t mean that you have to set a hard goal to be done tomorrow this means that you put a time constraint on it to give a specific point to work towards. It is very simple a SMART goal would sound something like “my goal is to have room clean by the end of tonight” it has all of the components; it is specific: clean room. Measureable: clean can be measured. Attainable: yes, I can clean my room. Realistic: yes, I can have a clean room. Timely: by the end of the night. This all shows how simple it can be. Goals, to be effective, have to be positive. Writing your goals down is very important because in doing the writing it becomes more prominent in your mind every time you see it. keep goals at a low level and break them up if they are too big otherwise it will seem like you are not making progress. If you have a big goal then breaking it up is easy. Out-line the steps you need to take in order to reach that goal then set the different steps as a goal to work towards. Effective goals are performance goals not outcome goals. That means that you have to set goals that you have the most control over.

           

            “First and foremost, having goals paved the way for me to accomplish things that I probably could not have achieved without having a road map of short term goals leading to long term goals.” Said Jeff Symons, an 8 time All-American diver, 3 time world master diving champion. He has been a big inspiration in my life with his athletic success and business success. Jeff told me “My biggest goal in sports was to be an All American. That goal was set my freshman year in high school maybe even 8th grade. The time line was by the end of my Senior year.” He won his first All-American honor his sophomore year in high school and every other year in high school (1980-1982). His success story, the way he tells it, is heavily based upon setting goals. He would make a list of goals, both long term and short term. He would write his long-term goals on a sheet of paper and put it on his wall near his light switch so everyday he would read it. He also put them on his mirror to be sure he would see it everyday. He worked tirelessly everyday just to get better. “My main goal was to get better every single day and that would lead to achieving my long term goals.” Jeff said. “How did I achieve the goals?” said Jeff  “Hard work dedication, being mentally tough at all times, practice, practice, practice, and setting goals.” Upon graduating he went to Arkansas to dive for them. He won 2 All-American while attending that school. In his senior year he transferred to Iowa State University where he won another All-American award. He set the Iowa high school records for diving and they still stand today after 28 years.  

           

            A key part of setting goals is “you have to be all in” as Jeff puts it “If you second guess yourself you will not be able to accomplish the goal in my opinion.” I am a firm believer in this statement. This is true for any goals you set. If you just set a goal and don’t actually want to put the time and work necessary to accomplish it then it will never happen. Again, I’m going back to the clean room example. I set the same goal a few weeks ago but when I set it, it was more of a want then an actual goal. Therefore it never got done. This week however I set the goal with the intention of doing so. It worked out very nicely I found that I made time to do it and it got done quicker than I imagined. Goal setting can work wonders if you are willing to put in the time and effort. Effort is the biggest part. It is not achieving the goal is only part of it because if you put an honest effort in then even if you fail you would still be able to feel good about your effort. Setting goals is as much of a physical thing as a mental thing.

           

            Jerry Symons former head coach of the ISU dive team (1964-1998) is a great coach and athlete. He always talked about setting goals to both his teams and his family. As a child my dad told me about setting goals and how effective they are. When Jerry became a coach his record included a lot more than winning. In 1973 he won the College Swimming Coaches Association “Swimming Coach of the Year” award. In 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, and 1992 he won the Big 8 Diving Coach of the Year. In 1992 he also won an All-American award for coaching. He coached 29 Big 8 diving champions. And in 1998 he won “Veisha – nominated Faculty of the Year” award. His biggest lifetime goal was to become a coach. As an eighth grader in 1948 he spent his summer working for his high school coach. “ I did about everything from breaking up concrete to cleaning the bottom of the swimming pool with a hookah unit.” He worked a 40hour week for only 3 cents an hour. He was graded on the quality of work he did. “Every 2 weeks, pay day; $3.60 for the 2 week of work (if you got perfect pay; if not somewhere less).”  He worked for Coach Hefner for the next three summers. The pay stayed the same. By his senior year he was a lifeguard and helped with swimming lessons. “A lesson I learned was; to achieve anything in life, you need to work hard and to it to the best of your ability.” As a sophomore he broke his back while playing football and was in a walking cast for 12 weeks. When he got out of the hospital he helped manage the football team. That led him to become the manager for the basketball team. He returned to high school athletics. Technique was of great interest to him. He had very encouraging coaches that helped him formulate his ideas. Through this the seeds of his goals were planted. It took him eight years to develop his goal. The first step to achieving his goal was to graduate from college. In college he played football, was on the dive team, and ran track. He was a letter winner in all of these sports.

           

            Jerry usually started his goal setting with a question. For example, what would the team like to accomplish, and what would each individual like to accomplish. This way they can work backwards to create their goals both short term and long term. They also know where they need to be and when they have to be there. It is a very effective strategy. He taught that strategy of thinking to all of his divers.

           

            You need to set goals high enough to make you strive to achieve them. They cant be something easy that you can accomplish without much effort they need to be difficult and challenging. The higher the goals you set the better you will become. If you work to achieve your goals you will be surprised on how much you can actually achieve. “If you can picture it/believe it – you can achieve it,” said Tom Randall. Tom Randall played football for ISU and won an All-American award. He went on to play for the Cowboys and the Oilers. He also reiterates that goals give you a map of where you are going and how you can get there. “A lot of my athletic and business accomplishments have taken place after I had a clear picture in my mind of what it would be like after I accomplished my goal.  When it took place, it was very natural because I had already lived it out in my mind.” When you set goals properly this is how it usually feels. You are not surprised when you accomplish your goal no matter how big it is. By the time you do all of the work to reach your goal it feels like you deserved to win it. It only feels like a surprise when you are not properly prepared. Like my coach says “If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”  Goal setting is the building block for improving or changing your life. Even saying somewhere you would like to be in a year is a goal that you set. Goal setting is inevitable to achievement.

            Goal setting is important for every aspect of life. It can help you improve where you are and get you to where you want to be. It can also help you with getting stuff done that you wouldn’t normally get done. It has been proven by many people that goal setting works. Goal setting is very easy to do all you need to do is identify where you want to be and give it a time period to complete it in, SMART. Athletically goals are very important and most every athlete sets goals, whether they know it or not.

           

Research Paper: Bullying

Raising a Generation of Bullies 

by Kathryn Dawson

 

            In the last few years, schools have been cracking down more and more on bullying. Media attention has focused on cases where the bullied student gives up and kills him or herself, and often the reaction is that the school has not done enough to protect this child. Harsher anti-bullying laws have been passed, and schools have enacted stricter anti-bullying statues in an attempt to stem the tide of fatal bullying incidents. At National Sports Academy, bullying has been a hot topic as well; students have been subjected to countless lectures on bullying and stricter rules have been enacted. However, this societal obsession with bullying can be seen as part of a larger movement in the way children are treated. We coddle them into dependence and don’t allow them to develop social skills and coping mechanisms before they encounter bullying. Parents and teachers then rush to intervene in the bullying and realize that they are incapable of truly resolving the issue. Bullying is difficult to address because it’s pervasive but varying, has elusive boundaries, may occur in many different environments, and requires crossing a generation gap. Bullying is clearly harmful, and society’s goals should be to stop bullying, rehabilitate victims and bullies, and restructure our culture so children have a sense of independence, responsibility and empathy. 

 

Tyler Clementi, a student who recently

committed suicide due to gay bullying.

            Bullying is undeniably hurtful and countless examples of its effects fill the national media. Victims of bullying are at risk for behavioral problems, impaired performance in school, increased tendencies towards violence, and suicide. Students suffer because they feel continually threatened and unsafe, often at school, and frequently begin to show signs of depression. Unfortunately, these consequences were only seriously considered after the highly publicized suicides of Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Jessica Logan, and many others.

            To consider the effects of bullying, one must first decide what bullying is. There is physical bullying and verbal bullying, and can have an impact both on the victim’s body and his or her psyche. An NSA student who preferred to remain anonymous said that bullying must have, “prolonged malicious intent. It requires premeditation and motive. Like the bully must have some sort of goal, some desire in mind. They are either threatened…or they see weakness.”

 By this definition, bullying is a conscious choice, with an intention to cause some kind of pain to the victim. Bullies are willing to take the risk of getting caught in order to either disarm a rival or torment someone lesser than they are. It is not accidental, and always assumes that the bully is not only responsible for his actions, but is also conscious of the effect that s/he will have on his/her victims. This means that true bullying cannot occur at a young age because we don’t attribute a fully formed moral compass or sense of empathy to a child.  The legal system says that children are incapable of truly understanding right from wrong, so how can these same children be able to comprehend the fact that their bullying is hurting another human being?

            Considering that society has increasingly leaned towards the idea that children are helpless and hardly capable of working a microwave, let alone understanding moral complexities, is this belief contradictory to our supposedly progressive views? If one is to believe that children understand that their actions can have such severe consequences, then one must also acknowledge that they are able to function at a higher level than we give them credit for. If children are largely undeveloped, schools should aim to instill morals and perspective taking and question why this generation’s children are particularly disposed to bullying.

Before the highly obsessive childhoods of the baby boomers, children were given much more freedom and responsibility than they have now. What child hasn’t heard tales of the depression, when children played in the streets and only had to be home by dark? This was also mixed with the care of younger siblings, and sometimes the responsibility to help parents with whatever work that could be taken home. The idyllic, devil-may-care childhood idealized in Leave it to Beaver was then a pipe dream, as the idea that children would never help with work was considered absurd.

            As birth rates dropped and prosperity grew, children were being considered more and more fragile, especially as the almost unreasonable fears of kidnapping grew. In the baby-boomer days, children were no longer expected to work at all. However, fighting was still permitted in schools, and corporal punishment still occurred. Children were not considered breakable, and the idea of the child that could be irreparably damaged was not widespread. The spoiled baby-boomers grew up, and suffocated their children even more.

 

‘Helicopter parenting’ has handicapped children

            Parents created the idea of planned play-dates with close supervision. They intervened in every argument their children had, and so issues that would have once been resolved by children without adult action suddenly became reasons to worry. Children now are less responsible for their social interactions than at any time in history, and adults are more involved than ever before. This removes the idea of telling the adult as a last resort, and rather than resolve their issues themselves, children are often told to go to an adult first. While bringing serious problems to an adult can sometimes be necessary and beneficial, children must learn to interact on their own terms. If a child never learns to reconcile a fight without an adult making compromises and doling out punishments, that child will not be able to cope with future problems on his/her own. The child could grow up to be a bully, solving problems through aggression, or a bullied student, unable to confront the bully without an authority figure present.

            We have created an atmosphere where bullies flourish and all students are reliant on adult involvement. However, we have also made adults difficult for students to reach. A bullied student may be initially hesitant to confide in a teacher because bullying carries a stigma. The student may also be concerned that the teacher would say, “that’s not a big deal, just talk to the bully about it,” which carries the double embarrassment of belittling the student’s problem and making him/her a tattletale. Conversely, the teacher could overreact, as is likely at present, and put the bullied student in an uncomfortably public position. While the student’s initial bullying problem may be resolved, if the bully is treated harshly, it is likely that the bullied student will feel guilty and the bully (or his/her friends) will seek retribution. Once any teacher has reacted incorrectly, students will stop trusting all teachers because they won’t risk being similarly embarrassed. NSA has provoked that reaction, despite its close student-teacher relationships, by mandating that teachers report all bullying-related activities to the administration.

            Now that bullying has reached epidemic proportions, schools and parents must decide how to handle it. But to counteract bullying, schools need to recognize the problem and outline specific unacceptable behaviors. The term ‘bullying’ has come to encompass everything from “non-verbal body language,”(Oklahoma’s Parent Center) to “fighting, threatening, name-calling”(National Crime Prevention Council). NSA recently sent out an announcement classifying bullying as “deliberately, directly or indirectly embarrasses, threatens, causes harm or injury to or invites ridicule to” another person. Although extensive, these definitions are rather ambiguous. Correcting bullying requires a disciplinary system that is as flexible as the many types of bullying, because students who “indirectly embarrasses” someone should be handled differently than students who injures someone. Schools should evaluate bullying on a case-by-case basis and diversify whom they rely upon to judge the severity of each case. The victim should be consulted; although the school must be mindful that the victim may play down his troubles due to guilt, loyalty, or embarrassment and may exaggerate them due to ulterior motives, anger, or wanting to avoid seeming weak. More than one school official must be consulted because teachers and administrators are biased from prior knowledge of the student. While it is good that a teacher may have a sense of students’ personalities, s(he) is too biased to be the sole authority on punishment. Schools should recognize when bullying begins to become a trend, and try to deal with it effectively, rather than bombarding students with assemblies and aggressive punishments.

             Before combating bullying, schools must question why it arises and try to think like children and teenagers. Schools, including NSA, are hypersensitive to bullying because they want to avoid problems, as well as the accompanying liability and their initial reactions are to immediately crackdown on bullying with harsher punishments and find examples to hold up in front of the other students. When dealing with a disciplinary problem like bullying, faculty members seem inclined to resort to ordering students to behave, and occasionally educating them on the specifics of behaving. However, teenagers are not known for their attention spans or their inclination to follow orders.  They have the often-irrational need to rebel, so schools must be careful how they approach students. One student at NSA said, “every time [a teacher] tells us something tight-ass, we feel the need to go out and do the exact opposite.” Similarly, at NSA’s recent bullying seminar with Dr. Ray Havlicek, the atmosphere became immediately defensive and then angry when students felt Dr. Havlicek was yelling at them. Although he was logical and ultimately correct, students couldn’t take advantage of his expertise because they were too busy bristling at the rough treatment. When talking about bullying, faculty at NSA must avoid alienating students by being too authoritative. An unsympathetic approach would force bullying further underground and set students against faculty.

 

A recent Nationial Institute of Health study showing the

severity of depression in various bullies and victims.

Bullies may have complex motives for their actions and need more than punishment to help them change. According to Medscape Pediatrics, bullies, with the exception of cyberbullies, usually exhibit signs of depression equivalent to those of their victims. Without intervention, bullies are also more likely to engage in other violent behaviors, including carrying a weapon and fighting, according to the National Institute of Health. While a simple Google search will beat the subject of bullying into the ground, there are startlingly few articles on the rehabilitation of bullies, which should be key to creating a more peaceful environment. The initial goal should be to punish and remove bullying, but the long-term goal still needs to remain helping the victims and the bullies. A bully will not stop bullying because of a school suspension and a victim will not feel safe until the bully is removed from the school

NSA must approach bullying differently than other schools because of the community relationships but chiefly because NSA bullying is rarely malicious. While it could be argued that everybody thinks they’re an exception, NSA’s familial dynamics really seem to override most bullying behaviors. The only apparent example of bullying at NSA is boys wrestling to establish a pecking order, which is a social custom and therefore more difficult to change. Since this bullying isn’t spiteful, it’s habitual, students cannot be shocked into new behavior patterns.. One NSA student said, “change is necessary” but “they’ve gone from one extreme to the other and I feel like students at NSA, particularly the boys, they don’t understand that the old way isn’t acceptable anymore…they just don’t know what to do, that’s what provokes such extreme responses.” Bullying at NSA is be equally harmful but isn’t stemming from a conscious decision to hurt someone; it’s a method of establishing a social hierarchy, ‘the old way’. Students cannot instantaneously change their social interactions and will not react well to punishments and abrupt changes in policy. To be effective, a new policy has to be considerate of the student population and especially careful to be consistent in procedure, definitions, regulation and punishment of bullying. NSA must guide the students into a new custom without alienating them.

           

Are Humans Becoming Dumber?

Milan Bubic  

[Editors Note] Before you go about reading this article it is prudent you keep one thing in mind, I genuinely believe that we as humans are losing crucial brain matter in our inevitable path towards decreasing our brain potential.  If you do not agree or are offended by this in any way, I would strongly suggest you refrain from reading this article any further and offer my sincere apologies to you in advance.

In the last century or so, the human race has witnessed great progress through leaps in technological development. Take into consideration how we progressed from pen and paper, to type-writer, to computer and finally to telephone texting. Just imagine what scientific breakthroughs are responsible for building on the concept of a primitive box that “plays pictures” to a ridiculously wide paper thin sixty-inch televisions.  It is obvious that we crave and thrive on such breakthroughs.  Have such advancements, a testament to our great achievements, made us so dependent on technology that it is slowly turning our grey matter into mush, and us into sluggish, half-witted fools?

Since the existence of life on earth, all types of delightful and enchanting creatures have come and gone. Monstrous dinosaurs roamed the earth 65 million years ago and only 10 thousand years has passed since the last Wooly Mammoths of the Ice Age grazed on prehistoric shrubs and foliage. Earth has been home to some very interesting species that are now extinct, which raises the question, where do we fit into all this? Scientists, doctors and the like agree that the human race as a whole has evolved from being like every other creature on earth to at some point in time, becoming self-aware, conscious beings.  This simply means that we have evolved a higher understanding of our surroundings and have established ourselves as the dominant species while simultaneously establishing a complex civilization. Despite all these achievements and our cultural evolution, according to Stefanie Olsen of CNET News, we as humans have gradually become more dependent on technology and in turn, slowly strayed from the path of intellectual godhood.

Let us for a moment however, disregard the huge technological advances and take into consideration the daily rituals of the common person of today. He wakes up to an alarm set on his I-pod, heats up precooked sausages in a microwave, and toasts bread in a toaster. The kind of person who drives a car or rides a bus to get to work and one who writes his reports on his computer and who uses their cellular mobile at lunch to plan his day. Now for argument sake, if we were to suddenly remove the fridge (containing the sausages), the microwave (used to cook them), the toaster (for toasting the bread) as well as the car or bus (used for transportation). spell-check, the computer and the cell phone, what would we get? You would in turn be left with a very lost individual who wouldn't have any knowledge of how to go on about his day. Granted it is very unlikely that all these things just happen to disappear, but there is no denying that we have become dependent on such a lifestyle. We as humans have become so needy and reliant on technology that without it we are all but paralyzed, unimaginative entities with a bleak future. Most of the human population can no longer comprehend a life without a television or a computer, let alone a car or cell phone. For so long now, we have been consumed by technology that little children cannot grasp the idea of what it would be like live one day without video games. If this doesn't shock you in any way, then I fear you may have been compromised as well. To support this argument, as strange as it sounds, I will reference a movie I have recently watched, “Grown Ups”.  This film does a fantastic job of depicting the modernized children of today.  It clearly shows how they are dependent on their house-sitter and they are only calm when they are given either what they want or play some type of video game. They live in a society where “nonparticipation” in the outdoors is the norm. Mind you, these children are a very obnoxious and obviously spoiled-rotten, but the film does a noteworthy and honest job of illustrating the technological standard and its hold on the business of daily living within modern society.

In spite of human’s increased dependence on technology, let us examine now the flip side of this particular dependence.  There is a place in our society for increased use of technology, especially in the medical field. For example, the latest advances allow us to increase our ability to detect diseases, treat and operate on the human body.  Fortunately this has lead to a better quality of life and increase the human life span significantly. Imagine a world without cat scans, laser surgery and even something as basic as insulin injections for diabetes.  Radiation therapies that shrink and obliterate malignant cancers, laser eye surgery that restores normal vision, and defibrillators that reinstate a normal sinus rhythm are just a few examples that illustrate the use of medical technology to save, improve and prolong human life.

It is imperative to note here that lives are saved not purely by the advanced technology itself, yet by humans who invent this technology, and know how and when to use it best.  What we have here then is two paradigms going hand in hand; one is useless without the other.  The saying goes, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life”.  Basically, without the proper knowledge, the fishing rod is useless.

Where do we go from here?  How do we achieve a balance between technological development that is enriching and development that is robbing us of our human dignity?  The internet is a great tool that has reshaped our life and touches almost every facet of our lives, yet there are more and more individuals who are paralyzed by its power.  One can spend hours upon hours on the internet, surfing endless useless avenues.  Facebook and other such inventions have deprived the youth of our society from normal human interactions, real relationships, intimate contact, non verbal cues and skewed personal space norms.  Frank Lloyd Wright said “If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger”.  We must not let this happen.

Albert Einstein once said “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual”.  We must draw on this wisdom, and learn how to balance technology in our lives.  A child must be exposed to the newest technology in order to understand it, to master it and to continue its development for the greater good. 

I believe that such balance should begin in ones’ home sand then be reinforced in schools and eventually at work.  Little Johnny can play for thirty minutes on his X-box, after he has finished his homework and has come back from hockey practice.  Our schools must instill the importance of reading real books, storytelling, writing with a pencil and paper before computers are introduced.  The workplace has to be a gathering of a great team first, which use computer technology as a tool to bring their ideas into fruition. 

Technology and nature are intrinsically opposites.  Arguments can be made that technology is contrary to nature because it destroys ecological habitats, its factories pave over wetlands, its rare metals dug from the ground, and it can extinguish species:  an act that cannot be undone.  Damage done is final. 

Technology is contrary to humans in that it erodes human character, it separates us from nature which in turn diminishes our natural self.  We become consumers instead of receivers. We absorb rather than dream or create.

Contrary to technology itself, it is no longer regulated by nature or humans and can no longer control itself.  The Fermi Paradox suggests that none or very few civilizations have escaped the self destructive capacity of technology itself.  Contradiction is at the root of this debate, for the more we advance the closer we come to self destruction.

Contrary to “God” technology can be associated with an evil force.  The most catastrophic injuries to our species have come at the hand of technology:  atomic bombs, toxins in water, mind altering drugs, technological warfare, persistent radiation etc.  Technology amplifies violence, and such destructive warfare is designed with the sole purpose of killing as many humans as possible. At one point the ease of destruction becomes de-humanized. The mere push of one button could end over a million lives.  Pure evil at its prime.

In the end, technological development is a classic struggle between good and evil, paradise and hell.  As B.F. Skinner quotes, “The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.”   We have to be responsible for where technological development will take us in the future if we are to remain in it.  Development, scientific advancement, knowledge, all are neutral, it is rather how we use these that define us as human.  “The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.” Sydney J. Harris.  Balance is crucial if we are to maintain our greatest gift…which is to be human.

Research Paper- A bridge to Prep school and College

Studying away from home

By: Frédérick Hallé

Some students on a sunny day walking to go to class and to the library.

When we talk about studying away from home, people think College/University. It’s a right thinking but there’s more, much more. Students start to go away as young as 14 and I am insisting that it is the students’ decision and not the parents. Depending on the age, there are some different questions but thousands and thousands that people ask themselves before taking the decision, are the same. It is not a small decision, because most of the time, it involves money, big money. I agree that there are scholarships and financial aids but there is so many people out there that only a third of them get something. I’ll go trough all the questions, give you examples, and advice. The purpose of this writing is to help people or inform them about something decently important. I’ll focus on studying away from home at college because it’s a long and hard process but Preparatory school is also going to be part of my writing.

Studying, myself away from home, I left my French Canadian hometown only knowing how to say yes and no. I studied In Alberta, Canada for a year, and I am now in grade 12 at National Sports Academy in New York. Seeing and talking to my teammates and classmates, I can tell you that emotionally, still depending on your age, the first couple months, to a year can be really hard. When it’s your first time away, you miss your family or friends but as the time goes by, you get closer to the people in your school and it becomes your new family. Everyone without exception get homesick at least once during his or her first year. I said first year because after that you find ways to stay busy and you don’t have time to think about home. And people being away from home for a long time usually lose most of their friends. Everyone in this school that I’ve talked to, told me that they have around 4 close friends left. It is just inevitable because when you come back home you’re not on the same path as your friends. Being away from home completely change you, even though you don’t feel like you are, you end up gaining in maturity. With that, comes a new view of the world and new friends. Every time you change school or I would rather say boarding school, you only keep two and if, three good friends. It’s just the way life is made. Just to make it clear, when I talked about boarding, it could be also living in an apartment in college, or in a host family.

I know it might be hard to image or think of what I just said, for someone that have never lived away, and I remember saying that I would never be homesick or lose my friend but its just the way it goes. Destiny is made like this. Oh! And let me be clear about losing friends. You don’t become enemies; you just involuntary start not to take as much news from them as you use to, and verse-versa. I remember when I was in Alberta, the first 3 months I would called my best friend every week and when I started to have more friend at my new school I had less time to call and I didn’t care as much. It might sounds hypocrite but at one point you stop thinking about home. The truth is that usually when you’ve been away from home for a couple months you look forward to go back but once you get there, you are happy for two or three days and after you want to go back to your boarding school/dorm. This is obviously for people that enjoy there time of being a boarding student. If you don’t enjoy it, it’s either not the right school for you, or being away from home is not for you. Once you start to live away from home, you like it. And be careful, I’m talking about students from the age of 14 to 23. This time range is where you make most of your friends that you will have until you get really old. By being away as many as 8 months a year, you will become even more proud of where you’re from, and you will never forget where you grew up.

Money and time are such precious 

things that you can't just throw it 

out the window.

Unconsciously the question that people ask themselves before going away is if they will, emotionally, be able to go threw that huge step in life. The second biggest question is usually from the parents. Money! Some parents would ask themselves, even if they can, if they really want to spend 30 grants. Other parents would need to make sacrifices and get financial aid or the child could get a scholarship, which helps him to have an experience that would last in the kid souvenir forever. Usually it’s a family decision. For financially well-off families, the decision is much easier because there are not as many sacrifices involved. 

If you want to spend your money wisely, make sure you shop colleges. You want to apply to a college that you can reach, SAT’s wise, GPA wise, grades wise and the type of student that goes to that college. You want to make sure that, if you play a sport, that the coaching wants to have you on their team and that you will play at your sophomore year. I said sophomore because as you might know, unless you are really good, you don’t play at your freshman year. It’s a non-written rule. You have to wait for your turn. Eventually will come yours.

There is always a school for everyone you just need to find it.

99% of the time, the only thing that matters to get in college is academics. When we hear that if you’re a really good athlete you can get into a school, it’s a lie, it only happens 1% of the time. Even if you think that you’re an amazing hockey player or basketball player you shouldn't rely on that.

Unless you have an athletic scholarship, you will never get in the school that you don’t have the school curriculum for.

The story differs from college to preparatory school. To get in a prep school, its 55% academic, 30% is your personality and the other 15% is you as an athlete or artist.

Now that we’re talking on how to get in college or prep school, there are requirements more than just your grades that you need to think about a couple months before you apply. At prep school, they ask for your psat/ssat and for the toefl if English isn’t your first language. In eastern colleges they ask for your SAT and the western colleges asks for the ACT and also the toefl if you need one. If you want to know the SAT/ACT average of a school, you can order the U.S news and world report, best colleges rankings magazine of the year on the U.S news and world report website or you can find it on the website itself. I would definitely suggest you to go read more on that site. You can also read about health, science, money, travel and many other important subject of today’s world.

Recently, still on the same website, Kim Clark, the 15th president of Brigham Young University-Idaho and the dean of the Harvard business school from 1995 to 2005, wrote an article on 8 big changes to college admissions in 2010 and 2011.  Basically, colleges raise expectation for tougher classes, better essays.

1. Less time per application- 15 minutes is allow to the first read of an application.

2. Earlier deadlines- It gives more time to the staff to go trough the applications.

3. Less reliance on recommendation- "Ninety-eight percent of recommendations tell us what        students already told us," says Philip Ballinger, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Washington.

4. Less emphasis on high school class rank- More high school are refusing to rank their students.

5. More emphasis on tougher high school courses- "We would much rather see a student challenge himself and get a B" than take an easy class to inflate a GPA, says Kent Rinehart, dean of admission at Marist College.

6. More emphasis on application essays- The percentage of colleges that give essays lots of weight rose from 14 percent in 1993 to 26 percent in 2009, NACAC's survey found. Essays are especially crucial to elite colleges, where they "can make or break your application," says Pitzer's Perez.

7. More attention to the applicant's senior year- In the past, many admissions officers focused on an applicant's sophomore and junior years, and didn't put much weight on senior year courses or grades, says the University of Washington's Ballinger. That's changing. "We think senior year is the most important, and we don't want to see any slacking off. We want to see acceleration of educational difficulty."

8. More application auditing- Stanford, Harvard and a few other colleges have increased their factchecking of applications in the wake of the Adam Wheeler scandal. One tool that a growing number of colleges are using, says NACAC president Miller, is Turnitin, a plagiarism software program that looks for phrases in essays that match those in millions of websites, articles and books.

The eight points above were taken from Kim Clark article posted on November 15^th.

She wrote another interesting article: College living prices rise faster than inflation.

Personally, I think that those changes will help low students in a high ranked school and that it will decrease the chances of high students in a low ranked school.

Research Paper

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

By: Celeste! Brown

Thomas Jefferson said, “ The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.”  Euthanasia and assisted suicide create a large public debate to abide by that statement.  Many people are often confused as to what the difference between euthanasia and physician assisted suicide (PAS) is.  In lay terms, euthanasia is killing any living thing to ease or lessen its suffering at any point in its life.  Physician assisted suicide, on the other hand, is the medical practice of a doctor or medical professional helping a terminally ill adult human to commit suicide when there is no possibility of an improved quality of life.  This essay intends to show what the moral and ethical differences between euthanasia and PAS are and why PAS should be made legal in western countries such as the United States.

PAS has made some progression in climbing the legal ladder. In the United States there are only three states where PAS is legal. Even though the definition of PAS clearly states that it is the medical practice of a doctor or medical professional helping a terminally ill adult human to commit suicide when there is no possibility of improving quality of life, 47 states still find it illegal. Montana, Washington, and Oregon are the three states where the Supreme Court ruled, or a law was passed, concluding that PAS is a true medical practice making it legal. In Albania and Luxembourg PAS is also legal. I talk solely about PAS and not Euthanasia. PAS is a non- active way of Euthanasia. I believe that PAS is a form of euthanasia that should be accepted. In countries like the Netherlands, and Belgium the actual act of Euthanasia is legal. In Switzerland doctors are not punished unless it is carried out with “selfish motives” when Euthanasia is performed. Also this just shows that even if Euthanasia of PAS is not legal where you live it is elsewhere and people who are looking to use PAS will go to where they will receive what they want or worse, will perform the act themselves in an unsafe manner. Which presents another major topic of why PAS should be made legal which I will discuss later on in the essay.

Physicians View

If we take a look at PAS through the patient’s eyes, we can understand their opinion on the topic in terms of making it legal or not. Take, for example, a terminally ill patient. This patient is either in intractable pain or is experiencing a poor quality of life. They would prefer to end their life rather than continue until their body finally gives up. Does the state have a right to deny them their wish? I think no. It is your life and you should be able to do what you please with it. I strongly believe that if PAS does not become legal soon these patients will only be suffering more. Suicide is a legal act that is theoretically available to all. But a person who is terminally ill or who is in a hospital setting or is disabled may not be able to exercise this option -- either because of mental or physical limitations. In effect, they are being discriminated against because of their disability. According to the ninth amendment Patients have the natural right to do whatever they want with their body, as long as it does not affect anybody else or any other property, and they give permission, themselves permission to do it.

There are many different views on the ethics and values that are connected with PAS. There are many people who view PAS as a compassionate means to an end for the terminally ill, while others are concerned for the physicians who can be psychologically damaged. Likewise, patients who are refused assistance due to restraints on the physicians can affect both the doctor and patient mentally. The right to choose should be solely up to the patient, and the physician should support his/her wishes, if the patient meets all requirements at the end of life. In an interview about PAS physician Kenneth R. Steven’s Jr. physicians stated, “It was an excruciating thing to do…it made me rethink life’s priorities, this was really hard on me, especially being there when he took the pills and this had a tremendous emotional impact.” According to Stevens, physicians felt isolated with their feelings and had a hard time dealing with colleagues and patients knowing they had participated in PAS. Physicians felt helpless, knowing they were a means of healing, and knowing they couldn’t do anything more went against the very reason they wanted to become doctors in the first place. The majority of physicians feel that PAS should probably be legalized. However there are some disagreements as to the protocol for which it should be legalized under, according to a study done by the American Medical Association (AMA), “45% believe it should definitely or probably be legal, 34% believed that it should definitely or probably be illegal, and 22% were uncertain.” Even though the numbers are relatively close, the study shows the growing acceptance of PAS as a legitimate medical practice.

One specific Doctor who believes in PAS is Dr. Jack Kevorkian, or Dr. Death. Dr. Kevorkian was said to help 130 or more patients to their death. The individuals Kevorkian helped allegedly took the final action that resulted in their own deaths. Kevorkian allegedly assisted only by attaching the individual to a euthanasia device that he had made called the “Thanatron”(death machine). The individual then pushed a button, which released the drugs or chemicals that would end his or her own life. He never took any payment for the procedure or any other donations to aid this practice; he simply did it because he believed it was the right thing to do. Kevorkian stated, “Dying is not a crime.”  Due to Kevorkian’s actions he was tried numerous times for his actions, eventually ending up in prison from 1999- 2007 for second-degree murder. I strongly believe that Kevorkian’s intentions where nothing but the right thing to do. I believe that there may have been different ways to approach certain citations but because people don’t support him he did the best he could. In the end Kevorkian still supports his belief fully. He does believe that there is a safe and more efficient way of doing it but that PAS should be legal, and I agree completely with him.

60 Minutes Interview 1996 Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Hospitals take away food and water when a patient is in a coma, this is inhumane but is happening all across America. This is just the same as what happened in concentration camps in world war two. How can we as human beings justify that? Is starving really a better way of dying then simply letting the patient decide when suffering can come to a halt. Dr. Kevorkian believes that why not let the patient decide when they would like to die, all it takes is one simple painless injection, and unlike letting them starve to death and suffer. Supreme court disagrees they believe that, this sly way of a patient starving, is nice, it is ethical. Kevorkian believes that “We have lost common since in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma. We are basing our laws and our whole natural outlook on life on mythology it won’t work. ”

20/20 Interview Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Barbra Walters asks Kevorkian why he doesn’t tell his patients how to commit suicide. Kevorkian goes onto explain that patients are afraid to die alone, they are afraid to do it alone, they are afraid if they misfire they will end up worse then before. Kevorkian believes that there should be certain specialists that are aloud to assist in suicide just as there are certain specialists who are cardiac doctors. Etc. Etc.

Patients View

If we take a look at PAS through the patient’s eyes, different views are brought upon. Take, for example, a terminally ill patient. This patient is either in intractable pain or is experiencing a poor quality of life. They would prefer to end their life rather than continue until their body finally gives up. Does the state have a right to deny them their wish? I think no. It is your life and you should be able to do what you please with it. I strongly believe that if PAS does not become legal soon these patients will only be suffering more. Suicide is a legal act that is theoretically available to all. But a person who is terminally ill or who is in a hospital setting or is disabled may not be able to exercise this option -- either because of mental or physical limitations. In effect, they are being discriminated against because of their disability. According to the ninth amendment Patients have the natural right to do whatever they want with their body, as long as it does not affect anybody else or any other property, and they give permission, themselves permission to do it.

In conclusion, there are strong opinions and arguments against the effects PAS takes on physicians and patients. I believe that PAS should be legal in western countries like the United States for many reasons but the main reason is simply because its your life and you should be able to do what you please with it. If you are ever in a situation where you are terminally ill and decide that ending your life is what you want, then that is what you should be able to do. Consequently, the right to choose should be upheld as a terminally ill patient who meets requirements under laws regarding PAS. 

Technology: Is it makeing us dum?

By Brittany Moorehead

Technology is perhaps one of the most prominent aspects of today’s society. The American society is infatuated with all the new gadgets, whether it be the latest computer, the newest cell phone, or even the most high tech power-tool on the market. No matter what the technology is, people are swarming around stores to make the purchase. A society that once was dependent on the human mind is now dependent on these high tech gadgets. Everywhere you go, you see and use technology because it is almost impossible to avoid. The reliance on these little devices is transforming humans from independent and creative beings to individuals who have no idea how to function without the use of technology. While the growth of technology is practical for development, our reliance on it is too great and is impacting society negatively.

While at a hockey tournament in the Boston area, I was surprised to find a vending machine that was all touch screen. I had never seen such a high-tech vending machine before and it showed me how society is attempting to simplify our way of life on every level. My teammate, Kaitlyn LaGue, was also stunned to see such a modern device in a hockey arena. This raises questions as to why we find it necessary such modern and technologically advanced devices to purchase a bottle of soda; it’s simply ridiculous. People want and like the transformations that are taking place but are they blind to the negative aspects that will occur as a result?

One of the major concerns with a huge dependence on technology is that it’s not 100 percent reliable. Today’s society puts too much confidence in technology and when it fails, we are clueless. A Global Positioning System, better known as the GPS, is an incredible device that is extremely helpful in getting us from point A to point B. Although it is helpful, it’s not accurate all the time and can get you lost if there have been new roads built in the past few years. When an individual gets lost, they are not only lost in a directional sense but also in the sense that they have absolutely no clue what to do. They probably haven’t printed out directions or brought a map and are completely unprepared because they expected the technology to do all the work. Besides causing us to be unprepared and dependent, there is evidence that this device may have serious long term effects.

An article from MSNBC sites a study that shows that the dependence on the GPS may be eroding our brains. Some drivers use this navigational device so much that they give it a name, almost like they are a member of the family. Studies by McGill University show that the way in which we navigate around today may affect our brain functioning as we age. There are two ways that we can use to find our way around, either by spatial navigation strategy or a stimulus-response strategy. The special navigation strategy or the non GPS strategy forces us to build cognitive maps and use landmarks to help us find our way. The stimulus-response strategy or GPS strategy uses an auto-pilot mode which uses the most efficient route to get from one place to another. Individuals who navigated without the aid of a GPS were shown on fMRI images to have increased activity in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is involved in memory, navigation and is helpful in finding shortcuts and new routes. This area of the brain is one of the first areas of the brain to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease, a disease that causes problems with memory and spatial orientation. Bohbot, a researcher at McGill University, suggests that a GPS should be used to get to a new destination but should be turned off on the way back from this new location or when going to familiar locations. Drawing your own map can also be helpful to utilize the spatial navigation strategy. This is believed to be a good idea because Bohbot fears that a reduction in the use of spacial strategy will lead to an early onset of dementia. “We can use GPS to explore the environment, but don’t become dependent on it;” said Bohbot, “developing a cognitive map may take longer, but it’s worth the investment.” 

Think about what happens when the power goes out at your house. There is no television, no computer, no microwave, etc. I know for me, the television and computer are my main hobbies when I’m at my house and I’m almost positive that this is true for most American’s in today’s society. We simply cannot survive in the world as it is now without power because we “need” it. A few years ago a huge power outage brought the entire east coast to a halt. This is evidence that society is overly dependent on technology because they never saw this coming nor did they ever expect anything like this to happen, especially with the modern power grid. Some say this event was a freak occurrence but we need to learn that things like that can and certainly will happen in the future. Technology is great but no matter how developed and high tech the world becomes, we must be able to utilize the skills that we were born with.

Even though technology has improved today’s education by making information much more accessible, it’s also become a distraction to many students. At National Sports Academy in Lake Placid, New York, the internet and advancement in technology has become vital to the community. The school is made up of skiers, lugers, and hockey players whom all have different athletic schedules, which makes access to email and websites such as Apex Learning a necessity. Some of the luge athletes travel for three to four months at a time and online learning is the only option for them to receive an education while following their dream. On the other hand, some athletes at the Academy such as girls hockey players find online learning to be a distraction. While on learning sites such as apex, they have access to many other sites as well. Many students report that they become distracted by sites such as facebook while working on homework and quizzes on the computer. “It’s so tempting to check my facebook when I’m working on my computer,” said Kelsey Lynch, “which is extremely distracting.” She finds facebook so distracting that she asked a friend to change her password in order for her to work on a research paper with as little distractions as possible.

It’s extremely disappointing that technology has proven to have such negative impacts on society considering all of the positive impacts it has. Is it technology that is the problem in society or is it us? Perhaps we don’t have enough self control or patience to deal with not using it. We need to take responsibility for our actions and fix our ideals on how technology should be utilized because we are causing a great thing to have negative connotations. Our dependence and reliance on these gadgets is ridiculous and needs to change in order for us to live healthy lives and lives we were intended to live.

 

Research Paper- Obesity in America

America: The World’s Fat Friend 

By Gwen Schultz

The obesity trend that is widespread in America is a simple problem that is proving very challenging to solve. It is purely a matter of an energy imbalance. We demand and consume way more energy than we expend. The excess energy that does not get used manifests itself on the growing waistlines of the country and the obscene amount of carbon dioxide emissions we produce.  Personally, I have always thought of weight as an part of hygiene. You wouldn’t go without brushing your teeth or washing your hair, so why would you go without exercising and eating your fruits and vegetables? These days, it is no longer a matter of “preference” or “body type.” The obesity trend is affecting more than the individual and is having an impact on our society and our environment. If 60% of the population of American can have a healthy lifestyle, the rest of the population should be capable of doing so as well. Obesity can be looked at as more than just a disease or a disability: it is a stress on our healthcare system, an impediment on our environmental movement, and an indicator of the idle and wasteful aspect of our culture.

The trend of obesity is happening worldwide—an estimated 15% of the world’s population is overweight—but it is worst in the United States. Recent data shows that at least 64% of the population is overweight, with about 30% being clinically obese. Seeing as only about 15% are below the poverty line, not being able to afford good food is not an excuse. The problem here is the idea of overconsumption. As we Americans live and are comfortable in our “land of plenty,” more often than not we are not even aware of the amount of resources that it takes to sustain our comfortable lifestyles. For example, Americans eat three times as much meat as the global average. Due to the fact that typical Americans buy all their food at a store and don’t grow or raise it themselves—as about one billion people in the world do—we are detached from our food source and do not value our food highly. Plus, with our culture the way it is, people are becoming either too lazy or too busy to eat well and exercise. Our continuous advancement of society and technology in the past couple of centuries is great for our economy, but ended up giving us a “bigger” image.

This aspect of our health is also hurting us economically. The amount of money that goes into healthcare that is a direct result of obesity is enormous. Being overweight stresses all systems of the body, but in the long run it also leads to major diseases. Overweight people are more likely to develop Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and degenerative joint disease, to name a few. The annual estimated cost of treating obesity is $168 billion per year, an amount that makes up 16.5% of the country’s total medical care costs. Each case puts us back about an estimated $3500. With numbers such as these, you would think that it would be more urgent that people shed a few pounds—it would save some serious money for the United States.

Numerous studies have been done to show that the obesity trend in America and other’s populations is actually harming the natural environment. Just as second-hand smoke is dangerous to bystanders, carbon emissions produced as an indirect result of our obesity is harming us. Our overdependence on cars and our obsession with processed foods produces enormous amounts of excess carbon dioxide that gets released into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming. The consumption that leads to our obesity releases up to one billion extra tons per year in carbon emissions. A slimmer nation would consume less food, produce fewer greenhouse gases, and be generally healthier. An added advantage of having a population with a healthy weight is that it would take less energy to transport people. Some nations are already catching on. Japan, for example, does not have a problem with obesity, but still one Japanese airline—All Nippon Airways—requires that people use the restroom before they board the plane so that the plane weighs less. It may seem silly, but in fact it has saved the company millions of dollars in addition to saving 4.2 tons of carbon dioxide per month. The transportation issue becomes a vicious cycle: because of our dependence on cars we become a more sedentary population, which in turn only leads to even more dependence on cars.

In current times, keeping fit may become part of an ethical code. Staying in a normal weight range and reducing our consumption will relieve stress on the American economy and help the environment. Discrimination would not be the right way to go about it, but some social pressure would but a good influence. 

One of the ways in which industry has pressured companies into reducing carbon emissions is by using the “cap and trade” method. In this system, each company is given a limit to how much carbon emissions it can produce. While some companies might not be able to decrease their production, other companies will be able to get under the limit. Then, when they have emission rights “left over,” they can be sold to companies that were not able to meet the standard. This system works well because it not only rewards those companies that become environmentally-friendly, but also it taxes those that cannot get themselves together. The reason I bring this up is because the same sort of process has been suggested to encourage individuals or families to reduce their environmental impact. As opposed to putting a tax on certain foods or certain cars, this method would encourage people to a well-balanced environmentally-friendly lifestyle all around. Because it makes people pay, it would serve as an extra, urgent incentive for people to lose weight. Plus, it would make healthy choices much easier to make. Maybe these kinds of measures are what will take to get the message across.

There are several positive effects to this proposed system. One would expect that people would be more careful of their non-renewable energy use as it would finally appear more valuable to them. Non-consumption might become a more attractive trend. Personal energy expenditure—that is, exercise-based transportation—would increase dramatically. If we limit energy-consumptive entertainment (TV, video games), children will be encouraged to be more active. Processed foods, which produce a lot of carbon emissions, will have an increased cost as opposed to non-processed foods, fruits, and vegetables. Of course, all this is easier said than done. A major attitude change is in store for the world if this kind of progress is ever going to happen. And, as it puts the commercial industry and the economy in trouble, it is unlikely that these things will happen anytime soon.

One way in which we can tell that things are going wrong is the childhood obesity epidemic. In the United States, a shocking 20% of children ages 6-11 are overweight. If people are still talking about how genetics can play a major role in determining body size, let this be evidence that the cultural environment of the country is having a negative impact on kids. The trend directly correlates with the type of communities that today’s kids are growing up in. For example, the neighborhoods that we build in suburban areas are so set apart that physical activity is discouraged and automobile use is promoted. Neighborhoods, such as mine in Wallingford, Conn., are built without sidewalks. Buildings are designed with the intention that most people will use the elevators instead of the stairs. Commercially, junk foods are heavily advertised (especially to children), and low-cost energy-dense food is available at almost any recreational venue. In addition, sedentary activities, due to our economic environment, are promoted: automobiles for personal use, home entertainment systems, and video games. From this situation, the economy is boosted but our health suffers. The government is still subsidizing cars, roads, and urban sprawl, which only makes the situation harder to correct.

In the case of childhood obesity, however, it is hard to put all the blame on the “environment” because some of it definitely belongs on the parents. Again, people are too busy or too lazy to encourage their kids to lead an active lifestyle. It is much easier to entertain a kid with video games than to go outside and play sports—and probably cheaper, too. The sedentary activities involving electronics and staring at a screen (which probably gives young kids ADD anyways) are the biggest enemies to making American children slimmer and healthier. One idea that caught my attention in my research was a new city ordinance in San Francisco that banned McDonald’s restaurants from putting toys in their happy meals, the most attractive thing on the menu for kids. The ordinance says that the restaurants must eliminate the toys or make the happy meals healthier—either by adding a fruit/ vegetable option or by lowering the fat, sodium, and sugar content. In the end, I think this is an interesting idea but one that is not going to solve the childhood obesity issue. More responsibility needs to be placed on the parents, who should be making healthy decisions for their children on a daily basis. Also helpful is Michelle Obama’s campaign against obesity; giving the issue a higher profile is a big part of solving it.

Poverty is another main issue facing America’s obesity epidemic. This part of the issue shows that it is not only a medical problem, but also a socioeconomic problem. The highest rates of obesity are found in population groups with the highest poverty rates and the least education. Not surprisingly, the unhealthiest diets—those composed mainly of refined grains, added fake sugars, and trans fats—are much more affordable than diets consisting mainly of lean meats, unprocessed grains, and produce. One can forget completely about all-natural and organic diets that are so expensive they seem to only be available to the extremely well-off. A shift to diets consisting of more locally produced food would help the problem in several ways; fresher food is healthier, has not been modified or machine-made, and the carbon footprint would be reduced. Government subsidization or any other means of providing low-income families with cheap yet healthy food would be a major step. This would cut the obesity levels from people who have no choice but to eat unhealthy diets.

The solution to the obesity issue will come when we realize that the disease does not only affect overweight people, but also our society in general. If a different perspective is taken throughout the country (and the world), the rest of the problem will be solved easily and naturally. Exercised-based transportation will play a key role in reversing the trends, and government-subsidization of non-processed foods will help reduce the poverty effect. Generally, consuming less and wasting less will also help America’s waistlines and environmental impact. It is up to Americans whether we can do this voluntarily, or if we will have to resort to a fat tax or personal-level carbon trading. However we get there, it would nice to solve the problem before America gets any fatter.