Hero Essay

Mr. Viles said to post this in the blog so that he could read it.. so well here it is...

Lisa Neal: Superwoman or Teacher?
Everyone should have a hero. We all need someone in our lives that we can look up to and respect. I, myself, have one such hero. In fact, some might even go so far as to call her a superhero. Yes, I know that when we think of a superhero we find ourselves picturing the generic comic book idea of a person that wears funny pants, a cape, and can fly. Though to my knowledge she can not fly, she has been known to wear some pretty funny pants and I bet that if you asked her nicely she would even model a cape for you. My hero, that just happens to be super, is Lisa Neal.
Lisa Neal, from a distance appears to be an ordinary 7th grade teacher that is involved with many extra curricular activities within the district. She has a fairly large family and spends many of her summers on the stage at a local theater. Thus, she appears to be a fairly decent person. However, take the time to meet her and you will soon find that she is anything but an ordinary woman. She excels on every stage that she chooses to set foot on, whether it be at the local theater or in the classroom. I, personally, have seen her perform on both stages and do not believe that there is another person out there that could fulfill either role as well as she does.
Lisa Neal was my 7th grade social studies teacher. No one student could even begin to accurately describe the first impression that this woman will have on you. Perhaps, the most memorable moment in her classroom was when she showed up to school dressed as Ben Franklin. She acted out a small skit and wrapped the entire class into how dangerous it was for these men to be participating in the signing of The Declaration of Independence. Another wonderful trait that she possesses is the ability to have her class hanging on her every word. Up until that year if anyone had asked me “do you believe it to be possible for a teacher to have complete control over a classroom without yelling?” I would have responded with “nope it is not possible”. She makes it possible. Just one disappointed look from her and even the worst of the worst immediately cease all that they are doing. As a teacher, Lisa Neal makes an everlasting impression on all of her students.
I believe that the biggest impression she has ever made on me occurred during my 8th grade year. I began experimenting with things of which children in middle school should never experiment with. As the year progressed, the level of hope amongst my friends, family, and teachers only seemed to drop further and further down the scale. She alone seemed to be the only one still standing that had any hope left. Without this woman I honestly believe that I never would have turned my life back around to the extreme extent that I have. I know for certain that I never would have taken honors classes at the high school. Whatever the situation a student of hers may be in, she will appear by their side with an infinite amount of hope.
At our 8th grade graduation she sang Mariah Carey’s song “Hero”. It could not have been more appropriate. At the end of my 8th grade year she made me promise to email her twice a week until I graduate. Though at the time I thought her to be utterly insane, everyone knows better than to contradict her of all people. By the beginning of 9th grade the emails had already flourished from twice a week to twice a day. To this day her quiet expectations still produce motivation and her lines of non-judgmental communication still remain open 24-7-365. This means more to me and so many others than could ever be stated in a single essay.
Lisa Neal is by far one polychromatic woman. She is a talented thespian and a truly amazing teacher. You will never meet anyone as pliable, veracious, and considerate as her. She prefers to wear her heart on her sleeve and compassion flows from her like water from a creek in the spring. She is a complex woman of many trades but above all she is my hero.
Ashley Nichols

The World is Flat post 6

I found this to be a truly amazing book. I learned a lot that I had heard rumors about or had seen on the news but had never had any real knowledge of. The flat world has a huge impact on everyone, even me and how I communicate with friends after and during school. According to this book I am pretty much on the right track as far as my future plans go. If I stay on my current path my career choice should be fairly "untouchable". All in all I find the flat world at the present date to be an amazing place and I believe that it will continue to be just as amazing as long as we do not begin to take matters too far.

All in all I found this to be a really informative and useful book. I am a better informed American citizen because of it. Friedman seemed to remain unbiased the entire book and it seems as though he definitely wants people to embrace the flat world. I found it to be rather insulting that he just skipped over all of the American people that had lost their jobs to outsourcing without a care. But other than that it was a decent read.

Everyday I take advantage of the flat world. I enjoy the cell phone service and it is a major way to keep in touch with all of my friends through text messaging. You can accommodate almost all of your needs through a computer. After school and extra-curricular activites, I can come home hop on the computer, look up my assignments, complete them all through Microsoft Office, send an email to my mentor, and then log on to instant messenger to chat with all of my friends that are bound to be doing the same things. During the day if I need to briefly inform my mother of some sort of news I can send her a text message from my phone to hers so that we are both on the same page. Lets face it, the two and half hours that I spend on a bus every day would be simply torturous without my iPod, providing me with access to all of my favorite songs and games at my fingertips.

According to Friedman my future should be fairly "untouchable". He uses the word to describe jobs that can not be shipped overseas to foreign countries for their workers to do at cheaper rates. He says that any "specialized" job can not be shipped over to China for their laborers to do. He says that these are people such as Michael Jordan and J.K. Rowling. While I will most likely never fall into this category I probably will fall into another he describes as being "untouchable". I plan to get my bachelors degree in teaching and go on to get my masters in school counseling so I can be a middle school guidance counselor. Friedman says that "untouchable" careers are also careers that are "localized and anchored. This category includes many, many people. They are untouchable because their jobs must be done in a specific location, either because they involve some specific local knowledge or because they require face-to-face, contact or interaction with a customer, patient, colleague, or audience". Being a middle school level guidance counselor does require face-to-face contact and interaction with all of your students, therefore someone in China or India would have an awfully hard time filling the position.

In short I believe that the flat world is something that we should embrace. Without technological developments we would stay in the same mind state forever and human interaction would never grow. Now it is just as simple to have a best friend in Japan as it is to have one two states away. I would be beside myself without all of my small pieces of technology that I carry around. Sometimes development in this area can be taken too far and you can lose sight of the purpose, but for the most part growing and learning together as a world instead of a country I believe can and will be very beneficial.

The World is Flat post 5

The question on the minds of most readers from the very beginning of this book is, is the flat world a good thing for America? This is a complex question that we see even Friedman struggle to answer and the answers that he does provide us with are purely speculation. The flat world will have a different impact on each American family. The question that seems to be asked the most is "what will happen to our jobs?" Everyone would like to hear that they will be safe in the future and will always be able to provide for their families. However, due to outsourcing, many of our digital or factory jobs are being sent overseas. Due to their weak economies and huge populations China, India, Europe, and Japan are willing to put in the time and labor for a fraction of the price of American workers.

Friedman tells us that this is a temporary problem. He says that "as the Chinese economy opens up to the world and reforms, the wages of Chinese knowledge workers will rise up to American/world levels." So Friedman believes that overtime these economies will open up and their labor prices will rise to that of ours long before Americas economy could ever possibly come crashing down. He also notes that as Americans we may lose some of our jobs to them now but that it is essential to just keep moving through because it will all change soon enough. This puts the mind of the average American to rest. They have now been reassured that we will all have jobs in the future and that our economy will not be taking a nose dive any time soon.

However, for several family's this does not provide any reassurance at all. Many people have already lost their jobs and been thrown out on the streets with a simple "nice working with you". My dad worked at Dexter Shoe for 20 years and they threw him and everyone else at the factory out so they could ship the company over to China. At this point my dad was 40 and forced to go on to college to simply be able to provide for his family. The state pitched in and in the end it worked out okay. For my grandmother however, things were not quite so great. She had worked at the factory for 36 years and was now too old to go back to college. By the time she could graduate it would be close to time for her to retire. So though Friedman's speculations are enough for most people, for some it is not nearly enough.

The World is Flat post 4

In The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, Friedman shows us many positive outcomes for flat world but in doing so we stumble upon a select few negative consequences as well. The world seems to have become a much less personal place. A man that Friedman interviewed for his book happened to be a salesman and he stated that his sales were beginning to drop because he can no longer connect as well with his clients. Everything is done digitally even sales so salesmen are beginning to have a lot more trouble relating on a personal level with their clients before making a sales pitch.

Often times a lot of confusion can come with the lack of human interaction. At one point in the book we are told of Friedman's frustration as he tries to get a phone number from a robotic answering system. However I am sure that the managers of the company will not pay much attention to a few peoples frustration levels when it comes down to pay day. It is much cheaper to keep a computer operator working than it is to keep an actual person on the phones all day long. To this Friedman says "because when you take the middle man out of business, when you totally flatten your supply chain, you also take a certain element of humanity out of life."

Technology is improving our world in several ways and making everyday life much easier for all of us. However, I fear that we are beginning to lack when it comes to human interaction. We have gone from person to person interaction, to person to computer, to what is now computer to computer. As technology continues to advance even further I am sure that this is not going to be getting any better anytime soon.