If Students were the Teachers...

What if students designed their own schools? Not as in structurally, but as in independent learning.

First things first, it sounded a lot like Genius Hour. 

I did not understand how it was as if students designed their own schools. The students still had to follow a strict plan of schedules and deadlines. Instead of Genius Hour, it seemed like Genius Day! There was very little difference between the two programs, except for the fact that "school" lasted for the entire day. There was no sense of freedom whatsoever. This new school still had an unchangeable schedule, the same amount of time, and teachers still present. If one wanted to design a school, wouldn't they have the choice whether to have a flexible schedule for the students, or possibly different ways of learning? Instead, the only thing that changed were the subjects. 

   I'm probably being too harsh on the restrictions. The benefits of having self-taught classes are just as good as Genius Hour's. Cooperation, discussion, independent work, and troubleshooting are certainly good abilities to have. The idea of a student created school is interesting, but to really be a "school", you would really need to have more choices.

speech draft 2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1II8y8LgQE7yC_Qk3fMhAcidr0w-BdxAMftwYB35bF-k/edit

If students Designed Their Own School

When I looked at the title of this video, my first thought was that it wasn't a very good idea. Especially since it's an entire semester. Our class did something similar to this but we only did it for about a month. Al though it would be much easier for the teachers to get paid and do nothing, the students will have to teach themselves the courses that they had to take. such as the Sciences, Art, the Orientation, and the Collective Endeavor. Teachers are hired for one reason, to teach the students to become smarter in a certain profession. Even though there is advanced technology right now, not all of the answers are online. That's is why teachers are there to help them, not mentor and coach them. Also, the students think that it is a good idea if there is no report cards, no tests, no quizzes. If there are no grades, how are you going to know how much you improved. Also, without any tests, students will think they can slack off and pass the course by doing nothing. This is why I think this project is not a very good idea and a very big gamble as Principal Marianne Young also stated.

Speech Draft

https://drive.google.com/?tab=wo&authuser=0#my-drive
https://drive.google.com/?tab=wo&authuser=0#my-drive

Speech Draft

Eddy Leung
Humanities 8

“I like smiling, smiling’s my Favorite”

How many of you have watched the movie “Elf” with Will Ferrell? And do you know what his favorite thing to do is? It's smiling! Every opportunity he gets, he smiles because smiling benefits him and the people around him. Right now you might ask “how could smiling be good for me?” Well to name a few, when you smile it increases your health by lowering your blood pressure and stress and more, it's also natural drug by giving you serotonin and endorphins and pain killers , and smiling makes you better looking. Also, smiling doesn’t only affect you, but the people around you. Smiling is contagious, when you smile people around you want to smile because it’s a natural instinct and you know what happens when someone smiles, they get all the benefits along with it. It’s a win win situation.

At this point of my speech you all should be smiling right now and if you’re just putting on a fake smile just so you can get all of the amazing benefits, it’s not going to work. Putting on a fake smile can be worse than putting on a poker face. It has been proven that if you put on a fake
smile, you end up gloomier than ever You know how when you go to Starbucks and the employees greet you with a “how do you do” and a cheerful smile? You think they are smiling because they love seeing customers? No, they are smiling because their boss told them to and at the end of the day it just kills their mood. Also, if you make a fake smile while you’re already upset, it can result in more harmful things. However women suffer from this way more than men do because Mother Nature made us in the way that women are more emotionally expressive than men.

This is why I am telling you to smile and follow Buddy the Elf’s ways, to smile any time you can. If you need a reminder, write one on your hand, leave a sticky note on your forehead, do whatever it takes even if you have to dress up like an elf. Because as One Direction once said "that's what makes you beautiful"

SPOOCH DREFT

What is art? To me, it’s a form of expression. What are video games? Engaging and expressive, and pretty fun, to boot. But video games? As art? It’s not as far as a stretch as you’d think.
 
Hi, my name is Alayna and I like video games as much as the next person. I want to try and clear the reputation of video games being considered violent and “mind-numbing”. How might one do this? Start thinking of ways video games could be portrayed as art. Surely some games out there must have a hidden meaning, an underlying theme, or just fantastic art and music.

Speech Draft

The Pros and Cons of Composting

Have you ever noticed our new organics cart and why it’s there?  It’s because of something new called composting. Composting isn't really new per say but I don’t think any of you have ever really thought about it. Composting is a great way of recycling organic matter and it turns all our food scraps into soil; although it does have its pros and cons.

There are lots of advantages of composting. It diverts organic material away from landfills because landfills are starting to overflow and also as yard waste decomposes in landfills it can generate methane gas which could explode if heated. There are also economic benefits. By composting you are saving money by not buying as many trash bags and it reduces the costs for transporting waste to landfills. If you’re composting at home it can also enrich your soil so that you don’t need to buy any fertilizer.

Although good things do come with disadvantages. For example it takes a lot of work and time to maintain the right temperature and wait for it to slowly decompose and there’s also a high cost to shred the materials so it decomposes properly in a community compost site. The biggest problem would probably be the odour that comes from composting; it can attract cats, mice and raccoons. It could also attract lots of insects like flies, ants and sometimes even termites. These problems can quickly be solved though by not putting in meat,dairy or oil products to avoid odour or pests.

Lots of communities are now starting to compost. Surrey, Burnaby and Vancouver are all encouraging people to compost. In Surrey we now have the green bins where we put all our food scraps and they later get transported to the Richmond Fraser soil and fibre which is a composting facility that takes all our food scraps and turns it into soil or mulch for selling.

Many people haven’t really thought of composting but as the landfills overflow and more pollutants are being spread into the air the best we can do for our trash is compost. Sure, there are a lot of disadvantages, but if you can overlook them you’ll realize that it’s a good idea. It’s great that the community started composting and I hope that we will continue.