challengeandchangeinsociet-blog1

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Lesson 15 task 4 Who am I

It is much easier to to harshly discipline children rather than come up with a plan to bring out the best residing within them. What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you think of discipline within schools? Is it detentions? Weekend detentions? Writing lines on the white/ chalk board? Staying in the Office for recess? Or the mighty daunting word, suspensions. I pose a question to you. When do you think it is appropriate to eliminate the wall between discipline, and harboring children from exceeding within an academic institution? The dictionary stated definition of discipline is “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.” I feel like that definition should be altered dramatically. You do not train children to be obedient, humans are not animals. Disobedience is a word you use when you are describing your dog that that has not been trained. I have made my own definition of discipline, and this definition is stated as using non strenuous but reinforcing measures to get a person to voluntarily cooperate. Within this definition, the rule of suspensions would 100% be completely ruled out. A school is supposed to be a positive environment that allows children to enhance mental capacity and enforce life skills. When you are suspending a child from school you are teaching a difficulty gets excused motto. When suspending children you are also making it difficult for them to further their education to the highest level possible, and preventing them from retaining certain jobs. A suspension makes a teachers job less work, and this is the reason why so many educational systems continue to use them. Suspensions must be eliminated from schools, the process of a teacher is to help a child succeed, not hold them back to the point they can’t.

What is one of the many jobs of an academic institution? You cannot list all of them because there is a wide variety of jobs meant to be enforced. The most important job of an academic institution in my opinion is teaching children not to quit. Teaching them no matter how hard things get, never give up, because life will challenge you with so many different curve balls. When a teacher/ principal takes it upon themselves to suspend a child, immediately, they are quitting on that child. They are enforcing a “difficulty gets excused motto.” When you quit on a kid, being an adult, a kid is going to believe it is okay to quit, they are going to believe “there is no problem giving up.” Children are much smarter than what many perceive them to be, they no when somebody is quitting on them. If you quit on a child, they will repeatedly quit on you. Teachers and principals may believe a suspension is a decent option for difficult behavior but it only makes a child’s life harder. People have to remember, being suspended goes on your educational record, just as your grades do. When a child is suspended it makes opportunities harder for them to seek. When that child gets older and a job asks to see all form of their records, and that job sees the big bold words “SUSPENDED” with a date beside it, they are going to have the preconceived notion that person is going to cause problems at the work force. When that child goes and applies to university with decent grades and the school seeks out again the big fat words “SUSPENDED,” they may not get into the program they were wishing to precede in. Suspending a child limits them from reaching their maximum potential.I believe the education system to be very corrupt a large amount of the time, and the fact that suspensions are still in full fling to this day validates my point. It is extremely easy for a children to cause a few slight problems and a teacher reports it to a principal and insists on them being suspended. That makes a teachers job extremely easy. It is easy when something is hard and you pass it up stating “I’m not doing this.” When a teacher sees a student causing more than one problem they rather dismiss them rather than sit down and create a constructive plan to enforce positive behavior. Gaining a child’s trust and working with them rather than against them can go a very far way.

Overall, suspensions need to be abolished immediately. This is a form of discipline that was sistered with beatings multiple years ago. Teachers would believe beating their students so unacceptably wrong, yet constantly giving up on them and making them not your priority anymore to be so acceptably right. Suspensions wither this emotional pain upon students. There is shame and such a high amount of disappointment when a child gets suspended. Emotional pain will always be more significant than physical pain. If teachers believe this to be okay, they may as well bring the strap back into play.

By: Elijah Blake

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Lesson 15 task 3 Who am I

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Task 2: What has influenced me?

What different things are comprised to form myself? I would not say I am a complicated person, but I am a person of many different aspects. I am not a person that you could put under a certain category or label. Everybody is unique, and everybody is different. Everybody has different inspirations, and everybody has different motivations. Usually when you think of something that inspires you, you think of a certain person that may have helped guided your life, creating your likes and dislikes. When I explore the different things that make the flesh I live within, I think of Culture. I think of certain traditions and norms that have been started before I had ever entered this world as well as significant people. I look into the mirror and I see a mosaic of different things. I see a poet, I see an artist, I see an activist, I see a hip hop lover, I see an avid film seeker, I see someone who is religious, I see someone who admires his surroundings and explores them in greater detail. When I look in the mirror, I see a puzzle, created with different colored pieces.  

First I am going to initialize my base. Something that started the beginning of my life. My christening. I am a Christian protestant male. I have remained this status a few months after I came out of the womb. Ever since I have prayed, went to Church, and have taken different opportunities to confess my sins (a way of asking for forgiveness from God). Now lets explore the base of christianity. Christianity started about 2000 years ago in present day Israel with Jesus Christ and his group of disciples. Jesus was a Jew, he would continue to preach and spread the Jewish way of life, the beautiful religion throughout Israel. Jesus continued to help people practice the faith while healing people and making miracles whither from his finger tips. Eventually the Jewish leader and the Romans felt threatened by Jesus strong faith and power. Therefore they captured him and crucified him. Three days later Jesus resurrected allaboutreligion.org states this evidence about the start of Christianity “Three days later, He would rise to life, having conquered death, to give hope to a hopeless world. Well, it happened just as Jesus taught, and His disciples were witnesses to an amazing miracle. Their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, died and three days later rose again to become their Messiah. Compelled by a great commission to share the love that the God of this universe had imparted upon them, the disciples began to proclaim this gospel of hope throughout the territory. Thus, from a small group of ordinary men that lived in a small province in Judea about 2000 years ago, the history of the Christian Church began, and the Christian Faith has since spread to the rest of the world. Their gospel message was simple: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).” Eventually the religion spread to great britain. Being west Indian, the British came to the west Indies to claim many of the Islands and brought the faith of Christianity with them. Thus creating Christianity within my family. Other than creating tradition, I believe what Jesus did to be art “the expression or application of human creative skill to be appreciated primarily for emotional power.” Yet that is not the only art that has influenced my life.

I am a poet. Poetry was a very early form of art, learning to express emotion and care through words. Personally I explored poetry through the famous poet, William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was a writer, but most importantly a poet, who would write plays for many famous people in 16th century Britain. The first piece from Shakespeare I had ever explored was the play most famous today, Romeo And Juliet. The reason I fell in love with shakespeare’s writing was majorly the emotion that he would profess through his words from character to character. After hearing the story of Romeo And Juliet I began to write poems, instead of creating a scene for my poetry, I would connect the words to myself, Creating deep pieces that resinated with myself. Interestingly Shakespeare was not the first form of poetry. Yet he did receive his motivation from the first form of it. bookstellyouwhy.com stated “The Epic of Gilgamesh often is cited as one of the earliest works of epic poetry, dating back to the 18th century B.C. Consisting of Sumerian poems, it's a text that was discovered through many different Babylonian tablet versions during archaeological excavations.” Yet shakespeare inspired me to write, I have to thank the Sumerian for creating it. The Sumerian created something beautiful for me, but there are many other cultures that  have created something I love.  

Food!!! Everybody has a favorite food, a favorite dish, a favorite something that gets digested. Many people have favorite foods that resonate within their own culture, yet me, I abroad far out of my culture when it comes to my favorite food. Chicken Parm (a breaded chicken cutlet topped with parmesan cheese and tomato sauce with a  side of pasta)! Chicken parm is my all time favorite dish to be served. Living in Toronto where we have a street nicknamed “little Italy” you will get the closest to authentic Italian food you could ever dream to imagine. Food inhibits lots of culture. Food is the basis of what is needed to survive, so when you eat just one meal outside of your culture, you are immediately adapting traits of another culture. When you indulge in a beautiful meal of chicken farm you are actually eating a dish created by two different cultures. wikipedia states “Parmigiana (parmesan and tomato sauce) made with a filling of eggplant is the earliest and still unique Italian version. The origin of the dish is claimed by both the Southern regions of Campania and Sicily. Other variations found outside Italy may include chicken, veal, or another type of meat cutlet or vegetable filling.” Yet the English were actually the ones who started making the dish with Chicken instead of eggplant. Some parts of me as you can see have a very foreign flavor, but others are more  Americanized.

I am a hipster. Well at least my fashion sense is very “hip.” I have a different sense of fashion. You know, the ripped jeans, with the patterned button up shirt tied around my waist, with a distinctive T-shirt and stand out shoes. Yet the hipster style is growing and can be said to be somewhat popular today. The term “hipster” was actually derived from the year 1902. In 1902 the word un-hip was used to describe people who were unaware of their surroundings. As life progressed and fashion progressed people around the year 1940 began to have a very different sense of fashion. These people were then called hipsters as they would try to configure their fashion after their mindset which was the opposite of the word un-hip, being aware of your surroundings. This word was heavily used to describe a 1940’s American jazz group “Hot Jazz.” Who saw themselves on a higher mental level than the average person and dictated their fashion after it. Being a hipster, taking part in American culture, I also have a couple other aspects of myself that are Americanized.  

There are two huge puzzle pieces of myself that have North American written all over them. That is hip hop, an entertainment platform, that is also football, a leisure activity that I more consider to be competitive than leisure. Talking about entertainment, there are many different aspects of it, there are plays, movies, TV shows, but my absolute favorite form of entertainment is music. I enjoy listening to music on the highest of pedestals. Music brings to me so many different emotions, shows me so many different aspects of life. When I listen to music I feel the words to my heart as deeply as if I were singing them. The music genre that has caught my attention heavily for 18 years of life would be hip hop. I love everything about hip hop, the lyrics, the flow and sound of the instrumental and voice on perfect rhythm. I find it beautiful, the perfect unison of self created beats with self created poetry is gorgeous. Just like everything else, hip hop was not created within thin air. There is a story behind it. www.britanica.com states hip hop to be stated as “Although widely considered a synonym for rap music, the term hip-hop refers to a complex culture comprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as “MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,” which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language that philosopher Cornel West described as “postural semantics.” (A fifth element, “knowledge of self/consciousness,” is sometimes added to the list of hip-hop elements, particularly by socially conscious hip-hop artists and scholars.) Hip-hop originated in the predominantly African American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s. As the hip-hop movement began at society’s margins, its origins are shrouded in myth, enigma, and obfuscation.” The first DJ that kicked off Hip Hop music was a DJ named DJ Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell. Kool Herc was born April 16th, 1955 in Kingston Jamaica. In 1967 he moved to the bronx and helped to engineer  the first hip hop instrumental.  

Exploring the rest of my North American lifestyle, is the grind hard game of football. Football has been a part of my life for a long time and will continue to be a pivotal part of my life. I have been playing football competitively for approximately 10 years. I started playing football at the age of eight, and now I am happy to say I have signed for a scholarship to continue my football career. Playing in America and also Canada, I always thought the game to be created in the U.S, as it is such a loved and passionate game to many of its residence. Doing research i found out that it was actually created in the great north, Canada. The rules and style most like the game of football we play today were created at McGill University in Quebec Canada. www.McGill.ca states the first game of football like this, “The very first modern football games were played in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 13 and 14, 1874, between McGill University and a squad from Harvard. This “foot-ball” diversion, as  Harvard’s Magenta newspaper called it, was still in its infancy, and the rules evolved even as the match progressed. In fact, the Harvard squad so enjoyed the Canadian innovations (running with the ball, downs and tackling) that they introduced them into a match with Yale the following year—and thus, college football took root in America. Although the Redmen and the Crimson no longer butt helmets on the gridiron, the McGill/Harvard rivalry lives on in an annual rugby match for the Peter Covo Memorial Cup, founded in 1974 in honour of the legendary McGill rugby coach and professor. Harvard may have won that first football game (3-0) back in 1874, but McGill leads the Covo series, having won 17 of 30 games.” Ever since the first games of football have been played, it has been one of the most popular sports throughout North America and  continues to spread today. Even though this game is known as a leisure activity, to me it is far more, it is a game of heart, discipline, and values.

The concluding root of culture that is a major part of myself is Architecture. Yet it is not just architecture, it is a form of cleansing, relaxant, and exercise. The swimming pool. I am practically a fish when it comes to swimming, I could stay in the pool all day and have absolutely zero desire to get out. The swimming pool is a very interesting idea, i mean, who digs a hole in the ground puts water in it and decides to jump in. Not a very intriguing idea until it came to life a very very long time ago. Wikipedia explains the first pool to be built as “Roman emperors had private swimming pools in which fish were also kept, hence one of the Latin words for a pool was piscina. The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the 1st century BC.” Swimming pools were a sign of riches, but also a form for relaxing and refreshment after difficult days. These pools were built using hundreds and thousands of bricks creating a base and a wall, the water would then fill up the pool by man made pipes being attached to natural springs. It is quite interesting seeing the evolution of the first pool. The architecture of the pool has been such an inspiration to myself and my family that we decided to invest in one. For approximately 8 years, Roman culture has also been adapted by myself.  

In a broad view, everybody has multiple counterparts of different cultures, it is not until you deeply invest time into figuring out the roots of culture in different parts of your life that you will realize how cultured you truly are. If I was to label myself with one word, the word I would use is Mosaic. The reason I would use this word is because I am a subject of my environment, I currently live in Canada and my interests seem to be somewhat of a cultural Mosaic.

All comprised to make me…

By: Elijah Blake

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Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

Toronto… Toronto is known for more than just it’s sky line and views. Everybody enduring in an Ontario lifestyle refers to this beautiful city as the centre of everything. The centre of entertainment, the centre of culture, the centre of multi-culture, the centre of amazing food, yet most importantly in this case, the centre of population.Toronto is the largest city in Canada, where 5,928,040 people reside. Toronto is also the fourth largest city in North America. Toronto is a large city that is still growing absolutely tremendously. Toronto is known to be a safe haven, and this is why such a high amount of residents live within the city. Toronto does not limit anybody from living within it. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world, Toronto is home to a large amount of refugees, a large amount of people from all around the world in search of a better life, and a plethora of immigrants just searching for larger opportunities in life. Toronto is very different in the fact that population is not distributed by age, ethnicity, or sex. It is unique in the fact that all throughout the large city different samples of population are mixed to create one large community. Over time Toronto has experienced some monumental changes that will be looked at into further detail. Even though there has been changes, it is not believed that cultural conflicts reside within the community. Toronto is a place that adapts and molds to it’s demographics, Toronto is the centre of  the cultural mosaic theory.  

Toronto has a very mixed distribution of population. The population in Toronto is not truly concentrated in certain areas based on age and sex. Yet, there is some areas of the city which holds a higher population of a certain ethnicity than others. For example, within Toronto there are certain streets that are referred to “little” and then a country name. For example, there is a street called Ellington West which is referred to as little Jamaica. Little Jamaica has a high caribbean ethnic background population. Another example would be little Greece. Referring to the street of Danforth where there is a high greek population percentage. You also have others, such as china town, little Italy, and the list continues. Other than these well known streets, Toronto is known to be very mixed based on it’s ethnic population. Nearly everywhere you go in Toronto you are sure to see a wide range of different ethnic groups. A chart released by statistics Canada shows the different ethnic groups residing within Toronto based on population and percentage. 12.7 percent Canadian, 12.5 percent English, 12 percent Chinese, 11 percent East Indian, 9.3 percent Irish, 9.3 percent Scottish, 8.3 percent Italian, 4.7 percent Filipino, 4.6 percent German, 4.2 percent French, 4 percent Polish, 3.6 percent Portuguese, 3.4 percent Jamaican, 2.4 percent Ukrainian, 2.4 percent Russian, 2.1 percent Pakistani, 2 percent Sri’Lankan, 1.8 percent other, 1.8 percent Spanish, 1.7 percent Greek. As you can see the city has quite the variation of ethnicities, unlike anywhere else in the world. There are cities that can compare when it comes to amount of ethnicities, but none that can compare when it comes to the balance of all these ethnicities. Another aspect of the mesmerizing city that is mixed is its gender and age. There are 2,876,755 males, and 3,051,290 females that reside in Toronto today. This is quite balanced compared to many of the cities that make up this world. Now looking into the age side of things, 16 percent of the total population ranges from 0-14 years old, 68.9 percent of the population  ranges from 15-64 years old, 14.5 percent of the population ranges from 65-84 years old, and 1.9 percent of the population is 85 years and over. The Median population is 39.4 years old and the average population is 39.7 years old. This shows a middle age, this does not mean most of the population is middle aged, but it means the population is very balanced throughout the city. If you come to Toronto thinking you can make a one word description, it is not possible, this place is home to many, of all ages, all diversities, and all sexes. Yet Toronto has had to work to gain this status.  

From the year of 2011, to the year of 2016 the population of Toronto has grown at a whopping 6.2 percent. When you are talking about millions, that is a lot of growth for one city to endure. In the year of 2011 the population of Toronto was 5,583,064, The population in 2016 when the last census was done, Toronto stood at 5,928,040 residents. This is an actual change of 344,976 people in 5 years. The community and culture within Toronto has not changed at all. What has changed is the work Toronto is doing to invite more people into the city. The main reason for change in the city is the migration rate, and the immigration rate. Many people from smaller towns around the GTA (greater Toronto area) are now beginning to move into Toronto. This reason is mainly because many people work within the city, but commuting has turned into a problem as population continues to rise. Toronto star stated “The Toronto “census metropolitan area,” which includes the city itself and part of the surrounding region, remains the destination of choice for the largest number of immigrants to Canada. Between 2011 and 2016, almost 30 per cent of immigrants — 356,930 people — made Toronto their new home, almost double the total that moved to the Montreal area.” In my opinion, the main reason immigrants want to engorge themselves within the Toronto lifestyle is because there is no Toronto lifestyle. Living in Toronto you can keep the same beliefs, values, and cultural identities you have always had. This city is a safe haven, Toronto star stated “Since Justin Trudeau and the Liberals came to power in October 2015, Canada has opened its doors to almost 50,000 Syrian refugees through sponsorships by the federal government and private community groups.” Many of these refugees made their home in the great city of Toronto. Many Torontonians decided to host and sponsor Syrian refugees when they had fled their home country. This is a prime example of this great sitting deciding not to stoop to the level of the country south of the border that is titled the melting pot. Overall the city has not changed, it has for a long time been diverse, what it has done, is continued to hold the residents of Toronto accountable for keeping the cultural mosaic status; but Toronto isn't just the sunshines and butterflies it is portrayed to be.

Toronto consists of many disappointing features as well. In June 2018 a study came out that released the unemployment rate in the “great” city of Toronto. There was a 6 percent unemployment rate, which equals to 367,538.48 people who remain unemployed in the city. Now you may be thinking, “people need to try harder to find jobs” yet it is the opposite. Jobs need to try harder to find employees. This year the minimum wage in Ontario increased from $11.60 to $14.00. Ever since this has occurred people are getting laid off, left, right, and centre. Companies within Toronto feel that their pocket will be much affected if they continued to hold and hire employees at the rate the government insisted on. Ontario as a whole tried to raise the minimum wage so that people will become more avid job seekers, yet it worked in the complete opposite fashion. Toronto being an extremely large city was affected very heavily by this change that was supposed to be for the better. Ever since this change came into obligation, the unemployment rate in Ontario has been increasing on average 0.2 percent a month. As of right now Toronto has not been able to come up with any broad schemes to get the employment rate back to an all time high. Therefore no change has yet been restored.  

Every large city has its downs, unemployment, poverty, violence, discrimination. It is the cities that keep those stats at a small rate that continue to prevail and power through these negativities. Toronto is a community of love. Even though it is a massive place with millions of people, it feels so small to me. Toronto is a place that welcomes everybody with open arms. Many Torontonians see humans as humans, people as people. Not as shades and cultures. A plethora of different cultures is our culture here in Toronto.  A plethora of different incomes, and living status, is our culture.

By: Elijah Blake