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http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/mediarelations/NewsandSpeeches/2008-2009/20090622_grad_rates.htm

This article talks about the increase of high school graduation rates. In the article they act excited that the rate is 60% (the highest in four years). 60% graduation says alot about the modivation of students. Just over half of the public school population past, this also in includes students who just barely past. so the actually percentage of students who were modivated to do well is a smaller number.

http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-925/rate.htm
This website states a study that examined the drop out rate between normal school and a school that was based more toward a future career. The article states that the more focused the curriculum is, the less kids will drop out. The reason for this they state is because students have an idea of why they are learning something. Education can be explained like this: Imagen someone is making you jump up and down 100 times in one minute. If you only jump up and down 64 times, will you really care that much. It all depends if you know why you are jumping. If jumping less then 65 times results in the death of a kitten then yes. But if you arent really sure why you are jumping, and you dont want to be jumping, chances are you wont care.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/05/dropout.rate.study/index.html
This article was pretty basic except for the part where a girl talks about why she dropped out. She talks about how she lost interest after two of her friends were killed in a gang shooting. This brings up the idea of school in the big picture. Mabye kids arent motivated in school because they dont see it as that important compared to things in their life, such as staying alive.


http://diplomaguide.com/articles/GED_Statistics.html
In this source the article tells us basic facts about the GED. One interesting not about the GED is that the average age to get one is 24. That means that sometime after high school kids are remotivated and take extra steps to get where they want. Another Interesting fact is that one of the main reasons listed for getting a GED is "lack of interest in high school". I found this interesting because it shows that kids can get the end result of high school with out going through the process.


Unmotivated high school students need to personally see the connection between school and a sucsseful career and must gain the confidence to think they can do well.

This is an important topic because it has to deal with a major problem in schools, motivation. It is obvoiuse why the more kids that graduate the better it is for the society. Which would you want, 100 kids being doctors or 100 kids washing cars. I am not saying that high school is the only way to a good job, but it helps. By analyzing why kids arent motivated you can come up with a solution.

interview

Me:first lets start with the basics, how much schooling have you had.
Buisness suit man: I have a dagree in (a major that sounded made up) from (some college i have never heard of)
Me: Do you think that getting the dagree helped you get where you are
Him: yes its the only reason i am where i am today.
Me: so nobody can get to your level with out one
Him: No you need the dagree i got to get where i am
Me: so by getting the level of education you got, do you consider yourself better then some people
Him: Well i worked harder then them and i have a more important job then some people, so in a way yea.

Me:what do you do for a living
Teacher: im a teacher
Me: what do you teach
her: 5th grade history
me:is what you teach important, will they need it in years to come
her: i think so, just not directly. They will not need to know every fact just the general information. it prevents ingorance, and mabye the kid will realize they love history and become a historian.

me:what level of education do you have
hipster: I am currently going to school at bmcc
me: why community college
hipster: well i messed around in high school but then my parents convinced me that some college is better then no college
Me: what do you wanna do as a career
hipster: i dont know yet
me: so you went into college with no clear sense of direction
hipster: yea. I decided to just go in and hope i find my way soon
Me: i hope you dont go hiking with the same additude.
hipster: What?
me: nothing thank you for your time.

Me: hi, what grade are you in
Kid: im in 1st
me: do you know what you want to be when you grow up
Kid: i want to be a actor
Me: when the teacher tells you to sit down what do you do
kid: sit down
me: why?
kid: because the teacher said so dummy
me: why do you listen to the teacher
kid: because shes the boss and you always listen to the boss

Me:how much schooling do you have
brandon: i stopped after highschool.
me: do you think college is a necessity
brandon:no not really. It helps and you should. But i didnt go to college and look at me now im living in America. (brandon is my muay thai coach from australia)


The main thing school teaches you is how to do what ever you need to pass. for example, the kid knew to listen to the teacher. As you get more into school, it gets alittle more complicated. Depending on what kind of life you want to live, depends on how good your gonna do in school. If you want to be a top notch buisness man you need that dagree, so you are gonna need to get good grades. But if you want to be a muay thai coach, you dont really need to get a college dagree. Because of that all you dont really have to work that hard. I have come to the conclusion that school is not about teaching you the facts, but how to work to reach a goal. For example if you have an C but you want an A you need to figure out how to do that.

1. The teacher is never at fualt.
2. If you are not good at school it is assumed you will fail at life.
3. Students dont have a say in anything, no matter how many people voted you into student council.

In society school is seen as something that turns useless kids into someone the society can use. A diploma is like a stamp that tells the world we can be used. There are two stamps we get. The first stamp is high school. If you dont graduate high school and get that stamp you are considered stupid and worthless. If you graduate high school but dont go to college your are in a slightly better place but you are considered worthless. Only after graduatting college are you considered to be worth something to society, only then do people give you full respect. For some reason spending hours in a building where you learn things that you dont want to learn about, being treated as less then a person, and under the constant pressure to please; somehow doing all of those things gets you respect. Seeing someone as less of a person because they didnt do good in school is like seeing someone as less of a person because they didnt do well in jail. Because lets face it there is not much diffrent between jail and school. In both you are shuffled around from room to room under the watchful eye of superiors, for the ultimet purpouse of making you worthy to enter the world.

video analysis

The main point of my project was to show that cool is like a voice in my head that goes against what we originally think we should do. In the video juan places a high school student. In the first scene he sees katherine, a pretty high school female. Aberham, who plays the original voice in his head, tells him to go talk to her. Juan takes his advice but is shot down. Walking away he bumps into jace who is a tough guy and challenges juan. Once again aberham comes in and tells juan to apologize and avoid a conflict. But then granit comes in. Granit gives juan the opposite advice and tells him to act tough right back to jace. Juan takes Granits advice this time and jace not only backs off but offers juan a cigerette. Abe reappears to tell juan not to take it and that cigerettes are bad, this time granit physically moves abe out of the way to tell juan to take it. After juan takes the cigerette katherine comes back up to him offering to go to the movies. this time juan places it cool and gives her a mabye. the film ends with granit and juan walking away together, then granit turning back and giving the camera a sinister smile.

The point of the movie was to show what really goes on in the quest for cool. When ever we are faced with a choice we have to opposing voices in our heads. One voice (abe) is what we really want to do, the other voice (granit) is what needs to be done to be cool. The second part of the message is that unforetunetly listening to the cool is what gets us accepted.


. In this project i filmed and directed. I told people where to stand and what to say.
I wouldnt say that making art is cool. I mean that in the way that making art helps with the persona of being calm, which is my definition of cool. I like making movies because its you can express your ideas in more ways then most other art medias. In books you can write your thoughts, and in visual art you can show what you want to say. Only in movies can you do both. You can use dialog to get your ideas across, but you can use visuals at the same time.