A Moment in Time

The average American lives to be about 80 years old. That's 2488320000 seconds. A picture is a split second in time.  Assuming a picture captures a whole second in time (which it doesn't), that comes out to be 0.00000004% of a person's life. So why are pictures so important to people? The reason pictures hold such an important place to a person does not lie in its amount, but the essence which it captures. A snapshot allows a person to cherish a memory forever. While the moment is fleeting, the memory is permanent. A picture dispels the ephemeral nature of the moment into the permanence of memory. A photograph gives a person the opportunity to reflect on his/her past and essentially relive the moment. This is the magic of photography. While in reality it captures a millisecond of a person's life, it captures the eternity of memory and nostalgia. The photograph achieves what humans cannot: it paints a memory in a split second. This is why pictures are beautiful. This is why humans constantly find themselves desiring to snap every moment in their life. Pictures make humans live forever. It extends the absolute beauty of life beyond the bounds of one moment. Pictures are beautiful. 

A Modest Pro-prose-al

It is a melancholy object to those who write through the great English classroom and travel the school, when they see the hallways, the connectors, and rooms crowded with students of the English study, followed by three, four, or six essays, all in sub-par grades and importuning every student for an alms. These students, instead of being able to stimulate their mind and express their individualism, are forced to employ all their time in writing and perfecting their helplessly terrible prose writing, who, as they improve, either bear no fruitful use or simply fade from relevance from the students life in all.
"I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection." (Swift).
I propose that the teaching of writing an accepted method of prose in school be discontinued. Prose writing, while indeed provides students a method of writing, should not be the sole purpose of learning in the English classroom. That students are able to communicate their ideas on paper clearly and concisely is a given, and therefore should not be further adulterated with by the teachings of an English classroom. Rather, English classroom's should teach students how to communicate their thoughts creatively and give students their own voice, rather then the cookie-cutter "accepted" way of writing prose. Through the teaching of creative communications, students will be able to find their own voice, rather than the voice of their high school English teacher. Only then will the students be able to succeed in college and the real world, where they are valued for their own ideas and voice, rather than the voice the managed to learn to perfect in the high school classroom. I do hope that my thoughts will be duly considered, as I see a bleak future for this generation of young people if a change in not made in the English classroom surely and swiftly.

Has Science Gone Too Far?

We are all familiar of the famous posts on social media of ridiculous pictures of hybrids and scientific extremities with the caption "Has Science Gone Too Far?"; they have become a thread in the fabric of the internet. The humor which lays within these pictures is the fact that these images are so ridiculous that society blames "science" for such abnormalities. However, these pictures do hold a certain amount of truth: albeit hyperbolic in its portrayal, they illustrate the fact that science can indeed go "too far" and that scientific breakthroughs can very well be dangerous. This is the essence of Chet Raymo's "A Measure of Restraint". However, instead of warning society of the dangers of seagulls with very well defined biceps, Raymo instead warns of the potential dangers of the advances in genetic engineering. While the pictures of a seagull is quite terrifying, it does not equate to the "spooky Frankensteinian quality" (Raymo) of the uncontrollable consequences of genetic engineering. And although the absurd pictures of science going too far may seem impossible and absolutely hilarious right now, Raymo ventures to say that these pictures may eventually become a norm in society in which society comes to accept these advances as normal. Thus, there is no ceiling as to how far science can go, as society will eventually adapt to the changes which science brings, resulting in a never-ending cycle of advance and change.

Kelley of Nazareth

In her speech about child labor in front of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence Kelley achieves a dual-pronged purpose; she makes a call to action for the injustices of child labor and elicits the woman constituency to support her cause. Once upon a time, children were not forced to work arduous hours of labor, and Kelley acts as a Gatsby in trying to restore this past that seems so distant and unobtainable. And while the scope of her audience is wide-ranging, not everyone is included; she targets specifically the women in order to accentuate the point that the action of women is needed, not the repressive nature of man which ultimately is the root of all of the injustices that Kelley is illustrating. Her speech is enhanced by her masterful use of rhetoric, as shown by her effective persuasive form of speech, such as the cataloging of the states which violate the rights of children, ranging from "Alabama....Georgia... [to] Pennsylvania" (Kelley) and her use of irony in highlighting the "pitiful privilege" and "little beasts of burden" (Kelley). Her speech, through the portrayal of the harsh reality of children "working all night long" (Kelley), creates a delirium of stark reality; this delirium which she creates causes her listeners to see metaphorical pink elephants, in which this alcoholic delirium of suffering children is actually a reality. Kelley represents the master of persuasion: she is able to use any form of rhetoric to create stark images and convince listeners of her purpose. Kelley is a parallel to Jesus the Messiah, in which she brings the word of truth and God to her listeners in order to allow to see them the true light which the world should be seen; additionally, she is a martyr, in while Jesus was crucified, Kelley is killed in the eyes of the legislators, so while she makes her points open to the public, she loses support from the lawmakers.

How Teachers Alter Public Space

In Brent Staples "Black Men and Public Space", Staples illustrates how men of African American descent can create the phenomenon of "altering public space" (Staples). However, the abstract idea of altering public space transcends racial differences. In fact, teachers are fully capable of altering public space and the atmosphere around them. Take Ms. Valentino for example. In school, students are very respectful to her, striving to do well in her class and speaking most commonly in the language of educated, well analyzed speech. Ms. Valentino is able to create respectful, intelligent students while she is standing in the classroom. However, take her out of the classroom, and into a public place that is not a classroom, BuildOn CookOff Benefit Dinner for example, and it is a completely different atmosphere. Students speak in the language of colloquialism, informal speech, and the dry humor which characterizes everyday speech. Students do not feel the obligation to put on their best scholarly image and instead attempt to elicit a laugh out of Ms. Valentino and establish themselves as Ms. Valentino's "homie" or "bro". We simply view Ms. Valentino differently in this public event rather than the sanction of school. I myself mustered the courage to ask for a picture with my "good friend" Ms. Valentino, which quickly escalated into me taking a "selfie" with one of my teachers. 

 My point is, teachers, without even knowing it, can alter the atmosphere which the students feel around them. They create a completely different atmosphere within the classroom than they realize, and in turn, change how students around them think and act.