Looking back on my short term and long term goals for this semester, I’ve realized that I need to step my reading pace up a little bit to meet my 70 page requirement per week. After finishing, I believe, our fifth week of the semester, I’ve only managed 60 pages per week at best with the 70 minutes of in class reading time. With only about 10 pages left in The other Wes Moore, I should knock it out and head on to the next book. Anyways, my focus for this week’s Blog is American Education, and the chances that the American Education system gives to every young man and women enrolled.

Although American students don’t score the highest global test scores(China), or have the highest literary  rates(Russia), or have the most advanced, innovative, and equal schools and programs for teaching in world(probably Finland), Americans have been known to have ingenuity and a drive to make a name for themselves through education. This inalienable right gives each and every student no matter the circumstances the chance to pave their own paths through test scores and hard work.

In recent years however, like the author Wes Moore,  children across America are not nearly as motivated to succeed in school, and take for granted education, mistake priorities for past-times, or do not have access to good education.“When it is time for you to leave this school, leave your job, or even leave this earth, you make sure you have worked hard to make sure it mattered you were even here” symbolizes the American Dream that is slowly being washed away in many 21st century students even with the chances the American school system gives to succeed. Comparing The other Wes Moore to today’s society, parallelism can be seen between Wes, the drug dealer slowly being sucked away from the benefits of education, and a student today entangled in video games,  and the internet, becoming distracted and dropping out.

Like the not so lucky Wes Moore, my brother had an experience of misdirection with his friends, the internet, and video games, and could not focus on education. He, like many other students in America today, nearly dropped out of school for 4 months claiming anxiety and stress led him to not feel suited to go back. It just so happened during his brake down that he spent more time online interacting then doing school work or paying attention in class. He is just one of the many students effected by technology. Luckily, today he has joined online schooling and is planning to return to Hebron to finish High School.

American Education may no be the best, and technology may be a massive distractor in the classroom, but if there is one thing we can all get from reading The other Wes Moore, is that through perseverance to stay focused and a good education, your future is in your hands and not someone else’s.

After making it through almost three fourths of the school year, teachers expect each student to find a comfortable routine of going to class, completing work, and reaching their goals on time, however, in my case its not that simple. Each day seems to get longer as more assignments pile up and motivation is drained. My semester goal was to read a book every three or so weeks and to average a page per minute, but with all the distractions, I have to grind each day  just to reach my smaller goals such as 80 pages per week along with the 30 plus pages of apush reading.

In my book, The other Wes Moore that I’m still not done with, I can sympathize with both Wes Moore’s struggles to stay away from the distractions of living in the hoods of Baltimore. I have no right to complain about school because I have it so good compared to them: A loving supportive family, friends, and motivated teachers determined to give each and every student the chance to succeed. The Wes’s fought the Drug game and poverty as children. I fight the laziness and repetitiveness of school. By comparing my childhood to theirs, I now realize that I should never complain about school because so many people around the world never get that chance to see, taste, feel, comprehend, or even think about the luxury’s that we at Hebron have. In the book, one Wes shoots a man while the other one is stuck at military school, both in worse situations than mine at this point.”The Notion that life is transient, that it can come and go quickly, unexpectedly, had been with me since  I had seen my own father die. In the Bronx, the ideas of life’s impermanence underlined everything for kids my age” symbolizes to me the one and only chance we get to live and that we should never complain about all the privileges we are granted.

 

This week was one of the busiest of the school year. With two tests, a lab, and an essay to write, there was very little time to spend reading at home, with most of it being spent studying. Last week I was only able to accomplish 40 pages while reading in class. This week I hope to accomplish at least 75 pages worth of reading “The other Wes Moore,” and to read around a page per minute.

What intriguid me after reading the beginning chapters of “The other Wes  Moore” was the fact that two very similar boys coming from the exact same background growing up took on completely different paths in life. How is that possible, for one man to end up with a life sentence and the other making millions as a successful author? To be successful, a man must reassess his character, and morality. However, to be able to escape poverty like one of the Wes Moore’s, and still be successful is nothing short of a miracle, “I realized just how similar were the challenges the young boys here and like the ones I grew up with faced. In both places, young men go through the daily struggle trying to navigate their way through the deadly streets, poverty, and the twin legacy of exclusion and low expectations.”(Moore, 170)

One main idea “The other Wes Moore” focuses on is the comparison between Choice verse Fate. Throughout the book, the reader watches as the boys define their fate through the little choices they make. Because their background is so similar and yet their outcomes so different proves that it was the decisions they made in their lives that was their determination.