It is often suggested that where we live helps to shape how we see the world. How do you think your experience, your ideas about the world, your education, opportunities, and interests would be different if you had grown up and attended high school in an urban/inner city areas OR in a rural area?
Please consider drawing upon any real or imagined experiences you have had personally about urban/rural life, or those from pieces you have read as part of your studies at CHS/Epic.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Opportunities
What opportunities do you have in your community and your school? (You can look at this question in many different ways; there are positive and negative opportunities around all of us.) Are there opportunities that you wish you had?
In our school we are unable to use cellphones in any class, only during 4 minute passing periods. We have 8 hour days with 7 classes and 1 "homeroom" or "study/help time". Each of the students in the High School get distributed a Chromebook to use throughout the 4 years of high school.
Hi Kylie. We aren't allowed to have our phones with us at school, we have to keep them in pour locker for the whole day. Our study time is called seminar, and it's a silent class to do all of our homework. We have a class called crew and it is your "family" for you whole high school career, the students stay the same, but the teacher(s) change each year. We also have a class called CCS. It stands for College Career,and Skills, it helps us with college applications, FASFA, and real life lessons.
Since we live in a small town, there aren't many options when it comes to jobs. Your choices mainly involve fast food. I work at the only Walgreens in town. It's a lot easier to know everyone in town though, and the community is usually really close to everyone.
For Dierdra: Living in a small town is nice because it can be very friendly and welcoming. However, I really enjoy the excitement of being in a larger city. If I moved away, I would miss the people more than the town itself.
One opportunity that I have gotten is to tutor elementary students after school. This includes helping with homework and directing students through games. I really enjoy this time. I have always wanted to be a teacher, but this opportunity has made me realize how much I want to be a teacher. I am unsure if I would have gotten this opportunity somewhere else.
An opportunity that I have had is being in the Upward Bound program. Upward Bound is for students who's families are unable to help them pay for college. Upward bound has allowed me to be able to tour a lot of different colleges, take classes and stay at colleges in the summer, take fun trips, and overall learn a lot about college, as well as helping me apply for college, financial aid, and scholarships.
I'm a part of Upward Bound too. I find it helps me in some ways, they really try to show how college really is, and you can use the money they give you to help with college.
An opportunity that I have had is being in the Upward Bound program. Upward Bound is for students who's families are unable to help them pay for college. Upward bound has allowed me to be able to tour a lot of different colleges, take classes and stay at colleges in the summer, take fun trips, and overall learn a lot about college, as well as helping me apply for college, financial aid, and scholarships.
I had the opportunity to travel to Spain and Costa Rica through our high school. I went to Spain with some people from my Spanish class and then Costa Rica the following year with biology. They were both amazing trips that I would not trade for anything.
Hello Gwinnmikala. My name is Rene. I was wondering what was you experience on both trips ? Do you know how to speak Spanish? What did you like the most of Costa Rica and Spain ? Would you like to go visit again ? For how did you stayed overthere?
Rene, I loved both trips! I do speak Spanish, I've taken Spanish class all 4 years of high school. In Costa Rica I loved the beans and rice the most, along with the beautiful weather. In Spain, it was the atmosphere. The people were always very welcoming and helped correct my Spanish if I said something incorrectly. I would absolutely visit again. I plan to study abroad in college to Spain. I was in Spain for 10 days and Costa Rica for 7 days. -Mikala
Dierdra, The best part of going to Spain was the people. It is so drastically different. They kiss everyone when they meet. My Spanish is not the best since I only use it in class at school but if I said something incorrectly to someone they would very politely correct me. This really advanced my speaking abilities. The hardest part was trying to explain things to the people in Spain. Especially if I did not know the Spanish word for it because then I tried to think of words that meant the same that I knew how to say. Overall it was an absolutely amazing trip and an amazing country to visit. -Mikala
Hi that is such an amazing opportunity our school takes the freshman to Wisconsin every year before school starts ,so that the students are able to collaborate though different tasks.
I bet it was worth all the saving. But yeah like Sapphire said our school takes the freshman to a camping recruit to get to know one another. Our school also takes all students to visit colleges like Augustana College, Lewis University and Western Illinois University.
Because it is such a small town, there aren't very many places that you can go to hangout with friends. Usually we drive to Appleton (40 minutes) or Shawano (20 minutes) to go to places that are actually fun and new. We also don't have many opportunities for jobs for high schoolers. There are a few fast food restaurants and bars, but if you don't want to work with food, there are only a few other places you can work. When it comes to school, it's pretty cool being in such a small school because you get to know almost everyone. We have a graduating class of about 127 seniors. You grow up with a lot of those kids, so it creates a pretty close class.
We don't really have that many fast food options in town here, but if we drive to other towns we can have many more options. My friends and I find ourselves at buffalo wild wings and taco bell a lot on the weekends when we go to the nearby cities.
One opportunity I've really taken advantage of is the small class sizes. Music is a really big part of my life, so I can pretty much go into my choir teacher's classroom whenever I have free time, and usually she is open to work with me on anything I'd like. Our small size also gives all kids opportunities to participate in musicals and plays, and still get a decent part. It's also let me become very close with people who have the same interests as me.
I had the opportunity to read books to kindergartners through National Honor Society. Every Saturday, I have been given the opportunity to teach younger kids the proper fundamentals to play basketball because I am on the basketball team.
There are so many great opportunities to get involved in the community, but I feel like with the small community comes the gossip, the name game/favorites, and some negative effects. There also really are no big opportunities that I know of to effectively expose people to diversity because the town is so small. It is good and bad depending on how you look at it.
Our community is only made up of a little over 4000 people. Which means everybody pretty know everybody. There are disadvantages and advantages to that. With our town being so small, there isn't a whole lot to do, we have a bowling alley, and a few places to eat and one good place to get coffee, otherwise we have to drive to another town to do something else.
I have also had multiple opportunities through our German program. I have hosted a German exchange student twice. Our school has a partnership with a small school in Germany that had been with us for over 20 years. I have also had the opportunity to stay at my first echange student's house for a few weeks in the summer. First, the German students stay at our houses for two weeks, then tour Chicago and another large city for one week. The following summer,we tour Germany for 1 week and then stay at our exchange student's house for 2 weeks.
At Epic Academy, you have the opportunity to visit many colleges individually, to be on the honor role, become an athletic sports master,you can receive merits for good behavior,become a epic legend and be apart of different activities that epic has provided. Being at epic has made me a better writer,learner, a non-stop problem solver, and a professional educator for the future that is not too far away.
Some opportunities here at Epic is that our after school department give the students a insight on what people careers are like. For myself I am involved in: Music Production ( Students who want a career with music, learn the life of a recording artist or a artist. To take on challenges and also successes at what they do best ) Dance Team ( To show people the skills that you developed on technique, and to perform for sports events, or events that need entertainment. The dance perform at our Epic Honor role Skate Jam! ) Year Book ( To have a chance to show their creative writing ). There a lot a Epic that's give the students a career path
I think that it is school how your school honors honor students. We just get our name in our town's newspaper and nothign else. Our after school activities are not so career focused. The activities are mainly sports. We do have clubs that operate during our all-school study hall, but nothign really that helps us develop career goals.
In my community I have the opportunity to be a great role model and attend different volunteer events, because I do have a Pageant the "Pure American Teen National Sweetheart 2015". At my school I have opportunity to be involved in so many actives such as volleyball, cheer leading, and softball. My school has a something called intensive week where we visit different places based on the career you have for that week. One year I had sports management I went to visit the United Center where I got to see the world cup from hockey in the actual arena and I got to see the old bulls tickets, photos, gym shoes, and so much more. It was outstanding.
Hi Katie, during intensive I've experience so many careers, we get to choose them, so my freshman year I did video production dealing with cameras and how to edit them, I got to make a video acting as though I was news personality. My sophomore year I did rock climbling i enjoyed myself ,but it didn't go to well for me because I had on false nails, my junior years I did sports management where we got to visit the United Center, and this year last semester I signed up drama and we got a tour of a theater downtown Chicago.
There is a velodrome right down the street from EPIC. I had only witnessed the high speed bike trail on television until I took a group of students there for a firsthand experience. The students had the opportunity to make their own velodrome bike for free, train and join the team.
I’m sure there’s many opportunities out here, where I live, on the Southeast side of Chicago, you just have to look past its negative outline. For example, there are many gangs here, unfortunately, and I feel as though many male teenagers let this influence them to believe that they have to be a part of this. Even if you’re not involved in a gang you're still, of course, affected by it. Since I walk to and from school, and have been doing so for a long time, I’ve always had an anxiety that something horrible was going to happen while I turned a corner. However, there are a lot of benefits and opportunities living near the city, you just have to look, like at the library they give calendars for when museums are going to have free days. I’ve, personally, experienced After School Matters, which is a program for Chicago high school students to get involved in something they enjoy doing while getting a paid check at the end of the day. I’ve met so many great people through this program and made a lot of memories.
In our school we are unable to use cellphones in any class, only during 4 minute passing periods. We have 8 hour days with 7 classes and 1 "homeroom" or "study/help time". Each of the students in the High School get distributed a Chromebook to use throughout the 4 years of high school.
ReplyDeleteThat's cool we have the same type of rules I'll say.. we get 5 mins no cell phone and we have chrome and macs ,but we can't take them home sadly.
DeleteHi Kylie. We aren't allowed to have our phones with us at school, we have to keep them in pour locker for the whole day. Our study time is called seminar, and it's a silent class to do all of our homework. We have a class called crew and it is your "family" for you whole high school career, the students stay the same, but the teacher(s) change each year. We also have a class called CCS. It stands for College Career,and Skills, it helps us with college applications, FASFA, and real life lessons.
DeleteSince we live in a small town, there aren't many options when it comes to jobs. Your choices mainly involve fast food. I work at the only Walgreens in town. It's a lot easier to know everyone in town though, and the community is usually really close to everyone.
ReplyDeleteHey Katie, I'm Dierdra. Do you like living in such a close knit place? Do you think you would miss it if you moved from there?
DeleteHi Katie, what do you do for fun on your free time?
DeleteFor Dierdra: Living in a small town is nice because it can be very friendly and welcoming. However, I really enjoy the excitement of being in a larger city. If I moved away, I would miss the people more than the town itself.
DeleteFor Maria: I like to read books and watch movies/TV on my free time. My favorite TV shows include The Office, The Daily Show, and a lot others.
DeleteFor Maria: I like to read books and watch movies/TV on my free time. My favorite TV shows include The Office, The Daily Show, and a lot others.
DeleteKatie, do you think that because you live in a small town you have a lot of time for yourself? Are you alone often?
DeleteHey Katie,
DeleteIt seems like you have a strong relationship with the people in your community. How does this tie into safety and community participation?
One opportunity that I have gotten is to tutor elementary students after school. This includes helping with homework and directing students through games. I really enjoy this time. I have always wanted to be a teacher, but this opportunity has made me realize how much I want to be a teacher. I am unsure if I would have gotten this opportunity somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteHey Kaitlynn, it looks as though we have a lot in common scrapbooking, Packers, Fuller House and majoring in elementary education. This is cool!
DeleteWow! This is really cool!!! I love the fact that you are a Packer fan!!!!!
DeleteYeah, I'm not the biggest Bears fan.
DeleteAn opportunity that I have had is being in the Upward Bound program. Upward Bound is for students who's families are unable to help them pay for college. Upward bound has allowed me to be able to tour a lot of different colleges, take classes and stay at colleges in the summer, take fun trips, and overall learn a lot about college, as well as helping me apply for college, financial aid, and scholarships.
ReplyDeleteI'm a part of Upward Bound too. I find it helps me in some ways, they really try to show how college really is, and you can use the money they give you to help with college.
DeleteHey Megan, I'm not a part of Upper Bound but I have made a lot of college visits. What colleges have you visited?
DeleteAn opportunity that I have had is being in the Upward Bound program. Upward Bound is for students who's families are unable to help them pay for college. Upward bound has allowed me to be able to tour a lot of different colleges, take classes and stay at colleges in the summer, take fun trips, and overall learn a lot about college, as well as helping me apply for college, financial aid, and scholarships.
ReplyDeleteI had the opportunity to travel to Spain and Costa Rica through our high school. I went to Spain with some people from my Spanish class and then Costa Rica the following year with biology. They were both amazing trips that I would not trade for anything.
ReplyDeleteHello Gwinnmikala. My name is Rene. I was wondering what was you experience on both trips ? Do you know how to speak Spanish? What did you like the most of Costa Rica and Spain ? Would you like to go visit again ? For how did you stayed overthere?
DeleteHey Gwinnmikala, I'm Dierdra. I want to study abroad and go to Spain; can you tell what was the best part of you trip?
DeleteRene, I loved both trips! I do speak Spanish, I've taken Spanish class all 4 years of high school. In Costa Rica I loved the beans and rice the most, along with the beautiful weather. In Spain, it was the atmosphere. The people were always very welcoming and helped correct my Spanish if I said something incorrectly. I would absolutely visit again. I plan to study abroad in college to Spain. I was in Spain for 10 days and Costa Rica for 7 days.
Delete-Mikala
Dierdra,
DeleteThe best part of going to Spain was the people. It is so drastically different. They kiss everyone when they meet. My Spanish is not the best since I only use it in class at school but if I said something incorrectly to someone they would very politely correct me. This really advanced my speaking abilities. The hardest part was trying to explain things to the people in Spain. Especially if I did not know the Spanish word for it because then I tried to think of words that meant the same that I knew how to say. Overall it was an absolutely amazing trip and an amazing country to visit.
-Mikala
Hey Mikala, who funded this awesome trip?
DeleteMaria, it was through the high school and they organized fundraisers. However, I paid for it myself by working and saving as much money as I could.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi that is such an amazing opportunity our school takes the freshman to Wisconsin every year before school starts ,so that the students are able to collaborate though different tasks.
DeleteDelete
I bet it was worth all the saving. But yeah like Sapphire said our school takes the freshman to a camping recruit to get to know one another. Our school also takes all students to visit colleges like Augustana College, Lewis University and Western Illinois University.
DeleteI have had the oppurtunity to volunteer at Ruby's Pantry, which is our local food pantry.
ReplyDeleteHi, how was the experience?
DeleteHey Jade, did your enjoy this experience ?
DeleteIt was really fun! I didn't think I would like it but I really enjoyed helping everyone that was there.
DeleteIt was really fun! I didn't think I would like it but I really enjoyed helping everyone that was there.
DeleteHow long have you been volunteering ?
DeleteBecause it is such a small town, there aren't very many places that you can go to hangout with friends. Usually we drive to Appleton (40 minutes) or Shawano (20 minutes) to go to places that are actually fun and new. We also don't have many opportunities for jobs for high schoolers. There are a few fast food restaurants and bars, but if you don't want to work with food, there are only a few other places you can work. When it comes to school, it's pretty cool being in such a small school because you get to know almost everyone. We have a graduating class of about 127 seniors. You grow up with a lot of those kids, so it creates a pretty close class.
ReplyDeleteHey Alyson, it's also challenging finding a job here on the Southeast side of Chicago even for fast food places. Do you eat a lot of fast food?
DeleteWe don't really have that many fast food options in town here, but if we drive to other towns we can have many more options. My friends and I find ourselves at buffalo wild wings and taco bell a lot on the weekends when we go to the nearby cities.
DeleteI have had the oppurtunity to volunteer at Ruby's Pantry, which is our local food pantry.
ReplyDeleteOne opportunity I've really taken advantage of is the small class sizes. Music is a really big part of my life, so I can pretty much go into my choir teacher's classroom whenever I have free time, and usually she is open to work with me on anything I'd like. Our small size also gives all kids opportunities to participate in musicals and plays, and still get a decent part. It's also let me become very close with people who have the same interests as me.
ReplyDeleteClaire, what type of music do you like?
DeleteI had the opportunity to read books to kindergartners through National Honor Society. Every Saturday, I have been given the opportunity to teach younger kids the proper fundamentals to play basketball because I am on the basketball team.
ReplyDeleteHow did you get into volunteer work?
DeleteI got into volunteer work through my church and the various clubs that I am in at school.
DeleteI got into volunteer work through my church and the various clubs that I am in at school.
DeleteNoah, do you enjoy working with kindergartners?
DeleteThere are so many great opportunities to get involved in the community, but I feel like with the small community comes the gossip, the name game/favorites, and some negative effects.
ReplyDeleteThere also really are no big opportunities that I know of to effectively expose people to diversity because the town is so small. It is good and bad depending on how you look at it.
Our community is only made up of a little over 4000 people. Which means everybody pretty know everybody. There are disadvantages and advantages to that. With our town being so small, there isn't a whole lot to do, we have a bowling alley, and a few places to eat and one good place to get coffee, otherwise we have to drive to another town to do something else.
ReplyDeleteHow does living in a small town effect your social life?
DeleteI have also had multiple opportunities through our German program. I have hosted a German exchange student twice. Our school has a partnership with a small school in Germany that had been with us for over 20 years. I have also had the opportunity to stay at my first echange student's house for a few weeks in the summer. First, the German students stay at our houses for two weeks, then tour Chicago and another large city for one week. The following summer,we tour Germany for 1 week and then stay at our exchange student's house for 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteAt Epic Academy, you have the opportunity to visit many colleges individually, to be on the honor role, become an athletic sports master,you can receive merits for good behavior,become a epic legend and be apart of different activities that epic has provided. Being at epic has made me a better writer,learner, a non-stop problem solver, and a professional educator for the future that is not too far away.
ReplyDeleteSome opportunities here at Epic is that our after school department give the students a insight on what people careers are like. For myself I am involved in: Music Production ( Students who want a career with music, learn the life of a recording artist or a artist. To take on challenges and also successes at what they do best ) Dance Team ( To show people the skills that you developed on technique, and to perform for sports events, or events that need entertainment. The dance perform at our Epic Honor role Skate Jam! ) Year Book ( To have a chance to show their creative writing ). There a lot a Epic that's give the students a career path
ReplyDeleteI think that it is school how your school honors honor students. We just get our name in our town's newspaper and nothign else. Our after school activities are not so career focused. The activities are mainly sports. We do have clubs that operate during our all-school study hall, but nothign really that helps us develop career goals.
DeleteIn my community I have the opportunity to be a great role model and attend different volunteer events, because I do have a Pageant the "Pure American Teen National Sweetheart 2015". At my school I have opportunity to be involved in so many actives such as volleyball, cheer leading, and softball. My school has a something called intensive week where we visit different places based on the career you have for that week. One year I had sports management I went to visit the United Center where I got to see the world cup from hockey in the actual arena and I got to see the old bulls tickets, photos, gym shoes, and so much more. It was outstanding.
ReplyDeleteSapphire, how many different careers have you been exposed to through this? I wish we had the same thing.
DeleteHi Katie, during intensive I've experience so many careers, we get to choose them, so my freshman year I did video production dealing with cameras and how to edit them, I got to make a video acting as though I was news personality. My sophomore year I did rock climbling i enjoyed myself ,but it didn't go to well for me because I had on false nails, my junior years I did sports management where we got to visit the United Center, and this year last semester I signed up drama and we got a tour of a theater downtown Chicago.
DeleteThere is a velodrome right down the street from EPIC. I had only witnessed the high speed bike trail on television until I took a group of students there for a firsthand experience. The students had the opportunity to make their own velodrome bike for free, train and join the team.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure there’s many opportunities out here, where I live, on the Southeast side of Chicago, you just have to look past its negative outline. For example, there are many gangs here, unfortunately, and I feel as though many male teenagers let this influence them to believe that they have to be a part of this. Even if you’re not involved in a gang you're still, of course, affected by it. Since I walk to and from school, and have been doing so for a long time, I’ve always had an anxiety that something horrible was going to happen while I turned a corner. However, there are a lot of benefits and opportunities living near the city, you just have to look, like at the library they give calendars for when museums are going to have free days. I’ve, personally, experienced After School Matters, which is a program for Chicago high school students to get involved in something they enjoy doing while getting a paid check at the end of the day. I’ve met so many great people through this program and made a lot of memories.
ReplyDelete