Left Behind, Way Behind (text response)

                In this article Bob Herbert clearly states how children are not getting the education they need and not even making it through high school in an era in which a four-year college degree is becoming a prerequisite for achieving or maintaining a middle-class lifestyle. He believes that this is a sounding alarm about a critical problem that is not getting clearly enough attention.

                Bob grabs our attention by pulling us in with a statement, “First the Bad News.” Of course that’s going to grab our attention because we all are noisy and want to know what’s so bad. He then proceeds to go on and talk about the even worse news. He does this by giving some pretty startling statistics about American kids and how they rank out of the 29 nations. We ranked 24^th out of the 29 nations in math literacy and the same for problem-solving abilities. The Center for American Progress and the Institute for Americas Future states that there is an urgent new commitment to public education, much stronger than the No Child Left behind law, and must be made if that slide is to be reversed.

                Bob also points out the fact that the kids who need the most help are poor children from inner cities and rural areas. He proves this point by taking a passage from education task force established by the center and institute and presenting it in his article. Not only do the poor kids need help though, but the well-off do too. They found that only 41% of nonpoor fourth graders can read proficiently. He also goes on to add how Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton are poor role models for students and instead kids should be looking up to the kids who are in the college labs, libraries, and lecture halls for long hours and remain afloat in our high competition society.

                Not only does Bob make a strong argument but he also gives us some recommendations on how we can make our children’s education better. One of which should be that the time children spend in school should be substantially increased by lengthening the school day and in some cases the school year. He also suggests an effort to be made to connect schools in low-income areas more closely with surrounding communities. A final recommendation presented is to get highly qualified teachers into the class rooms.

                After reading the article I think that Bob made a very good and strong argument by presenting us with statistics so that we know how bad our children’s education really is and then going on and giving recommendations on how to resolve this issue so that our kids can too survive this ongoing struggle to make it in the workforce. He provided a thesis and claim and then backed it up with support and evidence. He also adressed a wide range of audience including every parent thorughout the U.S.  and this works because it raises awareness that we as parents maybe are not sending our children to the best schools. We all want our kids to have the best education they can get for them to be successful in life.

On Facebook, Biggest Threat to Your Private Data May Be You. (Text Response)

In this article author Jacquielynn Floyd pulls her audience in with a hooking attention getter, “Don’t friend me! I mean it.” She argues that all the hysteria and hand-writing over privacy could readily be sidestepped by not posting private information on the Internet. It grabbed bloggers attention when they noticed a change in the micro-print of Facebook’s terms of service stating, “Facebook owns you!.” She claims you are your own front line of defense in maintaining your privacy. She backs it up with several warrants noting that we shouldn’t share what we wore today, how we feel, or what time we need to be at the dentist so that all of our friends can sift through the information for what’s relevant and their friends can do the same to them. She also notes that we should have enough sense not to add a “friend,” somebody we haven’t seen in twenty years and we didn’t really know that well in the first place. All this evidence answers the question, what business do we have getting all huffy over Facebook’s terms of service when we chose to put all of our personal information out on the web for everyone to see? This addiction to a temporary rush of joy that we all experience when we talk about ourselves publicly is making our ability to distinguish between our public and our private selves less and less likely. She also asks the question, how can we expect somebody we don’t know to safe guard our privacy if we think so little of it ourselves?  She concludes with the statement “Facebook has obligations to its users but long before that, users have obligations to themselves.” I think this article is very well written and provides a good argument with warrants and evidence that back up her claim. Her audience includes millions of people ranging from young to the old and from one race to the other. Having solid evidence like the ones presented in this article helps us agree with the argument that we have loss sense of what information should remain private and what should be seen publicly.

Out of the Woods: Today's Kids Can't See the Forest for the MTV (Text Response)

            In the article Out of the Woods: “Today’s Kids Can’t See the Forest for the MTV,” Joel Achenbach argues that children are staying indoors too much and are alienating themselves from nature. He argues that kids need to go wild and get in touch with their inner animal. He wrote this article based on his opinion of how kids played outside all the time when he was a kid, compared to now a days. We have to practically beg our kids with something to get them outside. He also doesn’t support his topic with any real statistics from the past to the present, but I still think that anyone reading this article would agree with what he was saying. I believe that people would agree with his side of the argument because his audience is the parents of children.  In this article Joel clearly states that “Ultimately it’s our fault as parents, that we’ve let our kids get so soft and indoorsy.” When parents read this article it automatically makes them think of the good ole days when they were kids and they had no choice but to play outside. Although Joel Achenbach does not use concrete facts, his examples throughout the article make his argument solid and successful. Some of his examples include how kids now have the option to watch MTV all day or spend all day on the computer or Xbox, accusing technology. He also gives examples on how parents are overprotecting their kids, filling their heads with the idea that the outdoor world is dangerous. This article is successful in making us believe our kids are lazy because his examples are persuasive and straight to the point. It leaves you thinking after you read it, if your kids are in touch with their wild animal.  

Out of the Woods: Todays Kids Can't See the Forest for the MTV (Free Choice)

              Joel Achenbach argues in this article that children of this generation are staying indoors too much, and becoming more and more alienated from nature.  I agree with him on this topic. As a kid, I remember spending almost all of my time playing outdoors making mud pies, playing house in the tree house, or playing whiffle ball with the neighbors.  Now days with personal lap tops, internet, Wii, T.V. shows, etc. kids want to spend their time inside in front of their computers or T.V. set. When asked to go outside and play or help do chores kids, look at their parents like they just asked them to go churn butter or run 5 miles. In the article, he states that he believes parents are the number one contributor to this problem.  Parents are becoming way too overprotected, hinting to the children that the outside world is dangerous, and that the land is full of creepy strangers, speeding cars, and germs. Parents can now just push their kids in front of the television or computer screen keeping them easily occupied so that they can do their own thing and not have to worry about their kids running off. I found on cdc.gov that during the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and rates remain high. In 2010, no state had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. I didn’t realize how bad this issue really was until one summer I baby sat for a family that lived in the wealthy Weaver Ridge estates. The kids got everything they wanted, all they wanted to do all day was watch T.V. and play their Wii video games. I had to brag them with things just to take the dog on a walk, only walking maybe a block down the street and back. By the end of the summer, I had them spending most of the day playing outside and interacting with their neighbors and only allowing them be inside no more than a couple hours. As Joel Achenbach puts it, children need to get in touch with their inner animals. They need to go wild and not be afraid of the beautiful Mother Nature.