Some further background

Let me first thank those who have taken time to look into “our project” we do appreciate your interest. Please understand that this project was created to allow these young people a way to voice their opinions, share their thoughts, or express what is important to them.

Let me give you, our readers/followers/occasions strollers/passer-byes, some further insight and so you can understand who some of our contributors are; these are young people from different walks of life. They do not fall into one demographic, or one particular social group. Some of these students come from troubled past, some are students with special needs and disabilities, and others are your hard working over-achievers. That is what makes this”project” so meaningful: different minds, different perspectives, and different outlooks. THE SOCIAL MINDSET

Video Games are my outlet

žI’m a sixteen year old male, I live in Round Rock, Texas and I go to Cedar Ridge High School and am in 9TH grade. I like playing video games, basketball, rapping, hip hop music, anime shows, comedy movies/TV. Some things I don’t like are opera music, spinach, fighting with other people, foreign movies.

I like video and pc games because you play and chat with other people and make new friends online.
It’s online entertainment worldwide.

What is the point of so much education?

School is supposed to be a place to learn skills that will you in life. So tell me: what will learning about how to calculate the angles of a polygon help me, because unless I become a mathematician (which I guarantee no one in this school will be) that is a useless skill that will be quickly forgotten. 50% of all the classes in this school will only benefit only an extremely small demographic of jobs. Knowing the biology of animals would be extremely useful… If I were a biologist. The only possible explanation for all this useless education being shoved down our throats is that they are trying to prepare us for EVERYTHING possible carrier in existence, which is incredibly stupid. The worst part is that if we don’t understand these subjects, we get punished for it. I once heard in another country, that after kids graduate their equivalent of grade school, you then choose a specialty school based on what job you plan on getting. We need something like that so we can actually get life skills, instead of wasting our time on meaningless classes.

Back in elementary school we had just generalized learning too, but there what we were learning was useful: how to read and write, basic education, stuff like that. In high school we have such useless classes as geometry, biology, chemistry, geography and so forth.

16 and frustrated

yo boy from Austin TX

I am a 15 year old child from Austin TX.

I have a cousin named David King, he was put in prison for life because the cops said he shot a guy multiple times in the chest and he shot another guy in the ear and it was all because of a drug deal that went bad. Me personally I don’t think my cousin would do anything like that. Me and him were raised together so I know how my cousin is and how he reacts to things, he is a real chill person and doesn’t like to hurt people or see other people get hurt. The way the cops got him was they told him they wanted to talk about house brake-ins and when he showed up they arrested him for capital murder the first murder of 2010. He was in jail for 2 years before they took him to trial and they convicted him. He has been in jail for 2 years 2 and a half months, the state of Texas convicted a innocent man and I am doing a report on false convictions and there is a lot of people that has been false convicted I think it was 85 in the last couple of years not really sure thou. My cousin taught me a lot of things I use now. He taught me to not let anybody disrespect you, always show people respect until they disrespect you, don’t trust nobody, always protect your family cause its family over everything, think about the things you do or say before you do or say something, fight for what you think is right, and always do what you want and not what everybody else is doing and don’t let people peer pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do. When he was out of jail I was gang bangin, smokin weed, sellin drug, fighting, getting in trouble and I didn’t care about the consequences at all. I saw what my cousins were and other people were doing and thought it was cool so I decided I was going to do it to I was easily influenced and I was raised around that kinda stuff so that how I wanted to be. Ever since my cousin got locked up I have been staying out of trouble I haven’t been fighting and I don’t gang bang anymore. After I saw what happened to him I didn’t want that to happen to me so I decided to clean up my act. I read a book call ‘’the war of the bloods in my veins’’ and it taught me some life skills. The one that stood out the most is when he said “life is like a chess game, you have think make a smart move and win the game if you don’t think before you move in a chess game you are going to lose the game, life is the same exact way you have to think before you make a decision and if you make that right decision you are going to go somewhere in life and amount to something, if you don’t think before you make a decision you are going to end up just like my cousin in jail cause you didn’t want to be smart and think about the decisions you make. Ever since I saw that in that book my life is a lot better.

p.s yo boy from Austin TX.

Track is my Passion

Hi my name is Twylonda and my passion is track. Track is my passion because this is something I feel confident in and I’m good at but some time it gets difficult because I have asthma. Asthma is a lung disease that causes me to have shortness of breath and my chest tightens up when I run. I remember when I had my first track meet in 7^th grade  I was really nervous and scared because I was thinking in my head what if I have a asthma attack and the ambulance has  to come and  pick me up. Then coach would think I can’t handle being in track and participating in the track meets because of my medical problem. Then I prayed with my team and when I got to the start line to get ready to run I felt confident and exited. When the ref said go I ran like the wind. It was kind of hard to breath but I kept on running and as I was running I heard my family in the crowd screaming my name. This made me run faster and faster and finally I got to the finished line. I was so relieved to catch my breath and calm down to see what I placed. As I was waiting to see what I placed in the 100meter dash the intercom comes on and it said in first place in the 100meter dash Twylonda M. I was so happy because I got to show my team mates ,my parents and my coach that I can handle having asthma and being in track .

Lacrosse saved me...

I am a 14 old and male, from Texas. I go to Cedar Ridge High School and am in 9 grades. I like lacrosse. I don’t like are: bullies, math, Tosh.0 (it is gay!).

 I have anger problems and I get bullied a lot at school and it’s hurtful. It makes me sad and it seems that they do not care that it is mean; so I fight back!  I would always get into trouble and I couldn’t stop, so my mom said I should try lacrosse and it might help me with my anger. In fact it did stop me from fighting at school, but it did not stop the bulling but it calmed me down. Lacrosse is fun it is the best thing that happened to me. My coach is nice to me.  Lacrosse also helps me to keep my grades up so I can play. So that is my story!

The Project

I work with an amazing group of students, each who have so much to share and say. Some understand this concept and are more willing to share and let their voice be heard but others are more timid and muffle/ mute their words. So when thinking how can I get these wonderful young adults to let themselves be heard and express; “What’s important to them” I thought… BOOM!!! A blog.

The beauty of this “project” is that they are not tied or confine to a certain topic, which would normally obstruct their creative juices from flowing, but they can write about what is important to them. This provides an incredible forum so that these topics of interest can be disclosed through the eyes of young people who have a special outlook on life.

My class consists of a wide variety of characters; from a large intimidating looking guy who can be better described as a gentle giant; to my silent assassin, dubbed this title by his peers, because he does not talk but he will thrash them in any trivia style games and then giggle about it. From my gentlemen from the mean streets of Detroit: who will stay and open the door for his peers as they enter D Wing after lunch; to my class’ first lady: who has the look of a superstar but the heart of an angel. Or my novice athlete:  who has never played sports before but has found the beauty of lacrosse and uses it to vent his frustrations and anger. Or my self-proclaimed ladies man who is always willing to provide a hug whenever it is needed. …And then there is my future News Caster/Meteorologist, he is always on top of the time, weather and sports reports to the “T”.

Each one of these young adults have lived through experiences that have made them who they are today. Some have had it tougher than others and some have a fascinating outlook on things that you and I may see as trivial and ordinary. In our stereo-typical society we send our young people to school to learn, be taught and socialize all while making sure certain TEKS are being utilized. But as an educator, and a once troubled teen, I love the beauty of education and how it works in favor of the “adult” leading the classroom, because while we are educating the “masses”, we are secretly learning from our students.

This is their story!