Dinner as a family

Coming home after a long day of both sports and school and being able to sit down at our table for dinner sometimes feels more like a privilege than not. With it only being my sister, my dad, and I there are times when things get very chaotic believe it or not. However one thing that keeps us all together is being able to sit down for a few minutes and eat dinner as a family. 

There are days when we just sit there around the table in silence, as not many words are shared, but there is present feeling of togetherness because when there is just the three of us, there are times when we don't all get along. But then there are other times where we share our days and laugh about the good things that happened during the day. We reminisce about the good and the bad and fill each other in on what our day was like. Together we sit around our table and eating freshly made food.

Research shows that eating together as a family at least 5 nights out of the week can increase a number of things and set good habits. Your kids understand and start to cherish family time, new foods are introduced and tried, healthy habits are set, test scores improve and for teens, dinner as a family can decrease the want to try and so such things like smoking and drugs.

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20339151,00.html  

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr had a unique ability and capability of using his words to make crowds move. The way he spoke, the passion he included, and his personal touches, were all qualities that enhanced the ideas that King was sharing with his followers. In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" King is responding to eight clergymen about peaceful civil disobedience. “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” Those words spoken by Martin were powerful. During this time the treatment of blacks in the United States was poor and many were looked down upon. Martin Luther was sharing his thoughts on how things should change and why they should change. He thought it wasn't fair for the colored people to be judged based off their color and he thought it wasn't right for them to be looked at differently. When he spoke the words “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” he was trying to explain why he was becoming so frustrated. He was right, it doesn't make sense for good will people to act like they don't really understand, when in actuality they can understand, but they chose to make things difficult and act like they don't which is frustrating compared to ill willed people who try to understand but misunderstand the point. At least the ill will people try, whereas the good will people don't. So in all fairness it was acceptable to Martin Luther King Jr to become frustrated with the clergymen, because they had the capability of understanding why he wanted peaceful civil disobedience, but they chose to complicate things and act unacknowledged and question the thoughts of Martin Luther King Jr. 

To ban or not to ban books?

When we classify books, we put them into genres such as fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, biography, etc.. We don't classify them as appropriate or inappropriate, suitable to be read in school, or not. For most people when picking a book they might pick it depending on a few different things. They might pick it based off of the author, the type of book, or maybe even because a got a certain award. Rarely do people pick it for what the content has to offer. 

However, this situation is different in schools. The books picked to be read in schools are picked for certain reason such as the type of book, the content, or so that they match up with the curriculum being taught. Each grade level has books that will read and a reason for reading them. Although most people seem to agree that the books being read in classrooms are acceptable, there are those select people out there who would disagree and would challenge  that the book should not be read and be banned from the reading list due to certain topics that appear throughout the book. Most times these people are parents who are very sensitive and want to protect their kids of what the real world is like. 

Most often these books are challenged due to the content and the overall theme of the book. Most would like to argue that its not appropriate for young audiences to be reading because the content is not suitable for this time and age, so why should we be deceiving our children and teaching them about things that happened in history which were way wrong? Now this maybe seem acceptable because yes, there are many events that happened in our history, like the mistreatment of the blacks or even Hitler, that we should not be proud of, but at the same time we should look back onto those times and see it as what is different now, why or how it has changed, and what caused the change. We only learn from our past, so why should we be banning books that explain and give an account of what happened or what it was like? 

A certain group or person may want to ban their child(ren) from reading a certain book because of the content again, or it could possibly contradict what they believe, it could be a sensitive subject that they wish to not talk about with their kid(s), or they do feel it is not necessary for their child(ren) to be reading such controversial matters, therefore they want the book banned from being allowed to be read in school. 

On one hand it could be deemed acceptable to possibly ban a book, but on the other hand these is going to be a time when these issues appear again, so why not learn about it now then later. There comes a point in a young adults life when certain things become apparent and should be known about. Its important to talk about these sensitive and controversial matters at a younger age, particularly in a school setting like a classroom where everyone can feel safe,  when they are still developing opinions and understandings, rather than later when opinions are already formed and they feel like they already understand everything and won't try to understand a different point of view. In books, the author writes the way they do for a reason. They address a particular problem and create a story line around it to show the problem and share experiences of those times. Sometimes it can be a real sensitive problem or a serious problem but students should be able to explore those matters. If they learn why it was wrong, chances are that they aren't going to be doing it. 

Also, reading books with sensitive matters or controversial problems, certain issues such as racism, stereotyping, and and poor choices could be broken and really looked at. Reading those certain books, could lead to discussion which in the end would have a positive outcome or affect and let kids see the issue, but also learn from it. 

So should books be banned? My answer is no. There are to many negative effects from banning books that far outweigh the positive effects of banning books. I personally think if a parent does not want their child(ren) reading a particular book because of the content, that the child should have to read the book but the parent could be the one having the discussion with them about the certain issues that they feel are unacceptable.

About me

My name is Kaley and I am a junior at SkyView Academy in Colorado. I am a full time student athlete so an off season means nothing to me. I run cross country in the fall, play basketball during the winter, and soccer in the spring. In my future I hope to attend college and become an Athletic Trainer. That is my dream job. I love sports and being athletic so I want to have the chance to share my love of sports while helping others who share the same love as I do.

This blog is an assignment for my AP Language and Composition class. This class is designed to be a college course taught to high school students, like myself. Sometimes during a blog post, I will being answering a prompt and others I will write about something of my choice. I look forward to writing this blog.