The Essay the Teacher Didn't Get

Middle School teachers are so very sinister, they rip your legs out from under you, and then claim that they are preparing you for the future. They love to watch their young students squirm in pain as their grades fall lower than ever before. Teachers just love to tell us that we're wrong and point out our faults every chance they get.

Students despise these kinds of teachers. The hatred towards them has grown from a young age. Students need positive reinforcement along with some kind criticism. Teachers now scold a student when they are wrong, even though the assignment is far to difficult for the students level of education. Take my middle school English teacher, we'll call her Mrs. Z, she assigned a 4 page essay to be written in one class period. On top of that the topic was given to us at the beginning of the period. She told us that "this will prepare you all for college"...in my head I responded "We're not even in high school yet!!!". She also said that we had plenty of time to get the task done, which was 55 minutes. Well, the end of class came and she took up the papers even to the dismay of the students, who at the time were not done. Then she shewed us out the door.

The following week when we were all in our desks, she moved her rather bulbous ass to the front of the room and said "I am very disappointed in all of you". The room became silent as she passed out the graded essays. Then sighs and angry moans filled the room, as we all saw our rather low grades, most of them F's. She hushed us and stated that "If you keep this kind of work up, you'll never survive in college". All of us were infuriated with her, because most of our final grades were a letter grade lower than they were before the essay.

This method of teaching will only bring the teacher headaches, from bickering mothers and whining students. It also brings students a fear of higher education, because of the scaring done by teachers. A teacher that can treat us like people rather than lower life forms can be a great teacher. Any teacher mirroring Mrs. Z's teaching techniques deserves to be taken out, never to return to the teaching pool again.

Politics...Through Bloging?!?!

It's hard to imagine a suit and tie politician sitting in front of his computer everyday writing on his blog. Well today that is exactly what some politicians are doing in order to reach a new and more expanded audience. Politicians like to hear feedback and get comments on the decisions or actions they've made or are planing to make. Blogging helps them do just that.

Blogging allows the politician to write somewhat of a daily agenda for everyone to read, so, when he gets back to his computer he has criticisms or praises waiting for him. He can hear the voice of the people which helps him in an up coming debate or in making his next big decision.

Blogging also helps the politician vastly increase his audience, because as we all know the web is a information highway and much as a congested freeway the web is full of surfers. The Internet also is big among the youth of America and blogging would open doors to the newly registered voters.

The only step that politicians could make in order to increase the impact of their blog would be to announce it at a televised conference, television commercials, and even on commonly traveled web sites to give the blog some attention.

For more information, including the sourced information above see http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2007/01/14/metlegblog0114a.htmlhttp://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2007/01/14/metlegblog0114a.html

Exclusion Of Gays From Boy Scouts

In the past years the most moving and influential event in my life was when the Boy Scouts Of America decided to discriminate against homosexuals. They stated that gays were not living by the Boy Scout Law of being "clean" and the Scout Oath of being "morally straight". The association banned any gay troop leaders and any gay scouts. One Scout spokesman stated that "A homosexual is not a role model for traditional family values" and "An avowed homosexual wouldn't be a role model for those values," [in the Scout Oath]. BSA decided to ban gays even when all of the other youth organizations were not "The Girls Scouts of America, the YMCA, 4-H clubs, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Jewish community groups, don't exclude gays." BSA also lost over $530,000 in public governmental funding in September 2000 alone after the vote was passed to exclude gays from its organization.

At the time of this decision I was a Boy Scout and I was also gay. I felt targeted even though at the time I was not publicly out with my sexuality. Why should it be such a big deal? Why does it even matter? It shouldn't and it doesn't because it is nothing I can change. Just because I'm a homosexual doesn't mean I can't climb a mountain, swim the mile, go backpacking, and do everything else a straight male could do. In most cases I was the best at whatever I did and I was proud of myself. I went backpacking for 88 miles with a 40 pound pack for 10 days in the Rocky Mountains and I swam the fastest mile in the entire summer camp.

BSA tried to stop gays, because we weren't going to get married, have kids, have a little dog, and a nice house in the suburbs; we were going to find our love elsewhere, somewhere they didn't approve, but in the end they didn't stop us.

Even through all the obstacles I proved that I could be a good boy scout, no, a great one.

For more quotes that correspond to the sourced ones above and for a list of organizations/states petitioning against BSA's ban of gays see http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/boyscouts.html

My Intro

My name is Scott and I'm a freshman at Auburn University. I'm majoring in Zoology and hope to pursue a job at Disney World's Animal Kingdom. I'm self revealing, open, organized, outgoing, social, optimistic, positive, and I love to stand out. I am gay and I am open to any question about homosexuality so feel free to ask. I have been life guarding for 5 years now. I love cars, water sports, animals, Chinese food and hanging with friends.