After the Rwandan Genocide many things were WAY different than they were before it, especially the schools. over three thousand teachers were killed and 1,836 schools were damaged or destroyed. Even the Ministry of Education was destroyed. Bombs were thrown on it, furniture, doors, and windows were ruined. over a million children were orphaned and many killed. since then the US gave over one billion dollars to Rwanda's education system, which helped fix damaged schools. But even though more Rwandans are getting an education, there are fears that the education system is starting to create more ethnic divisions and more violence might start. In my book the Rwandan Genocide started because of ethnic divisions. The main character in the book, Immaculee talks about how the ethnic divides sort of started at school. The teacher would make each student stand up when they called out an ethnic group for role call. A teacher yelled and screamed at her because she was confused and didn't know what ethnic group she was. So i do believe that violence could start if there is an ethnic division in schools because that's how the violence started in Left To Tell. Summary; Left To Tell
Left to Tell is a book about a young women trying to survive the Rwandan Genocide. The author, Immaculee Ilibagiza tells the story from her point of view. Immaculee is a very smart, courageous, and young Tutsi women, who is forced to go into hiding in a tiny bathroom with seven other women. During her time hiding in the bathroom she has to stay very still and quite so that no one besides the owner of the house knows she is hiding their, so she doesn't have much to do. She ends up spending most of her time praying, reading the bible, and learning to speak english using an english dictionary. Many Tutsi people were murdered and tortured by Hutu soldiers, planning to kill every Tutsi. I highly recommend reading this book, it is a very inspiring book, but extremely sad at the same time. Fun fact, my aunt who was born in Rwanda, went to school with the author and went threw the Genocide as well. I am currently reading a book called "Left To Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza. This is a true story about Immaculee's journey surviving the Rwandan Genocide. Immaculee goes threw some REALLY hard events, she ends up being the only member of her family to survive the Genocide. In this book the author talks about mostly her story and how she survived the genocide but also a little bit about what was happening with the government and historic events, and what led up to the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide first started because there were three groups that made up Rwanda, Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. Tutsi's were mostly cattle farmers. They were the most recognizable out of the groups, they were tall, slender and had longer, defined noses. Hutu were shorter and had small noses. There were very few Twa compared to the rest of the population. In Left To Tell Immaculee explains how growing up there was never really talk about the different groups and she didn't even know what group she was in, everyone got along. When Rwanda became independent from Belgium, the Hutus took control. In the book when this happened Tutsis were looked upon differently. Hutus had strict orders not to interact with Tutsis, be friends with them, or have any relationships with Tutis. Immaculee's best friend, who was a Hutu started to ignore her and be mean to her. The events in this book are pretty accurate because this is a true story and is talking about her going threw the event. The perspective of Immaculee in this book is of a Tutsi, the ones who were being hunted and killed, so her perspective shows how it was like to hide and be a survivor in this event. the perspective of the event are either the Tutsi's or the Hutu's. 1/31/2018 0 Comments Mentors In Wake CountyIntroduction
Our issue is the lack of mentors in our community, specifically for low-income children in Wake County. There are 46 Title One schools in Wake County. In Title One schools, 40% of the population are low income kids. “The Title I program in Wake County provides supplementary instructional support in the areas of reading and math. Schools qualify for Title I funding by demonstrating economic need among its population”. (Wake County, 2016) We are interested in this topic because we want all kids to meet the high academic standards, after all it is not fair for the low income kids. We are also interested in this issue because we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities. We want everyone to be successful for the greater good. With mentoring, everyone can have the same chance. That is, as long as mentors are accessible and affordable for the families who need it most. We are recommending that other people in our community should help the kids that need help to meet the school standards. It is helpful that all kids in the school can meet the school standards because it will be part of developing the school and the learning skills of the students. Having mentors would also help the children become more prepared for life. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2017) You should care about this issue because what if, one day, your kid is the one that is falling behind, or if you see a classmate struggling because they have no mentor or no tutor. What if in university, you need a tutor, and there are none available to help you. This is a problem. We don’t want to leave others behind just because of the lack of resources which they cannot do anything about it. Discussion of the Issue Every day students in Wake County fall behind on schoolwork due to a lack of role models in their life. We believe that it is important for every child to have an important adult or mentor in their life to look up to. This issue affects parents, students and the community around us. Students lacking a role model has been an issue in Wake County for a very long time. Students are being valued less and less each year (Beller, 2016). According to the Public Schools First North Carolina Organization students in Wake County Public Schools are not getting full attention through education. This leaves them falling behind and needing tutoring and help with school work.“In 2016, 31% of third graders in Wake County were not reading at grade-level,” (WakeEd Partnership, 2017). This statistic quote shows that students (especially third graders) are below grade level in reading. This mentor issue could be struggling with school therefore falling behind in schoolwork or it could be struggling with family problems and at home problems also affecting their schoolwork.With our plan of reading to third graders at Stough Elementary we are hoping to decrease this percentage. Students without a role model or a mentor is a problem in Wake County because it affects the way our community reflects on other communities or counties. This can affect how our community grows and becomes a better society. As you can see the lack of mentors is causing many different problems in Wake County. These problems are affecting our community to react in such ways. For instance when a student does not have a good role model who influences them they fall behind in schoolwork. This causes the school board to decrease in education levels. This then causes the county to look bad in comparison to other school boards in communities. If this issue is not taken care of in an efficient way it could cause our community to not be successful. With our school system being the largest school district in the state, (Hui, 2016), it is important that the students are successful as they will play a big part in the future of our state. Discussion of Solutions There are many different programs in Wake County that help children with lack of mentorship, or with tutoring. One organization has two programs, the YMCA. They have Y-Learning for tutoring and Community HOPE for mentoring. Community HOPE is targeted towards the children that live in affordable housing. They meet throughout the school year. Community HOPE is for kids K-12. (YMCA, 2018) Y-Learning, the other YMCA program, wants to “bridge the educational gap”. Y-Learning is for elementary-aged children. Unlike Community HOPE, the focus of Y-Learning is tutoring, rather than mentoring. It is one teacher for every six kids. (YMCA, 2018) Another program is WakeEd Partners Read, which puts mentors in 1st and 2nd grade classes to help kids read on grade level by third grade, because, according to their website, “can change a child’s life”. They also want to help fill the home libraries of many kids. (WakeEd Partnership, 2018) One that you might know is Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle. An organization that pairs people 18 and up with kids. The “Bigs” are regular people, and so are the “Littles”. According to a study done by Public/Private Ventures, after 18 months with their “Bigs”, “Littles” were 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs, 27% less likely to begin using alcohol, 52% less likely to skip school, 37% less likely to skip a class, and 33% less likely to hit someone in comparison to those not in the program. It was also found that “Littles” were more confident in school work, and got along better with their families. (Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle, 2017) There is still a need for mentoring in our community because in 2015 49% of North Carolina children lived in low income families. If these organizations and our day of service do something, hopefully we can decrease this percentage, if it has already hopefully fallen over 3 years. (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2017 It isn’t good that almost half of the children in North Carolina live in low income families, the number needs to drop and we can be apart of the change. For comparison, the national average is 43%. The average of one state should not be bigger than the 49 other states combined. If we don’t do anything the average will begin to climb. A lot of these organizations have volunteers who do the majority of the helping, so if you fit the target age, then you can be apart of the solution. But the main way people are helping are through these organizations, by volunteering and directly helping the kids. If you want to help indirectly, you can donate to these organizations as well. Conclusion Our plan to help this issue in Wake County is to go to Stough Elementary to read to 2nd and 3rd graders, and to give fifth graders advice about 8th grade. There will be about twenty students volunteering and two chaperones. We will meet at Martin around 9:00 AM in the lobby. Everyone will get on one bus and leave at about 9:10, we will arrive around 9:20. When we get to Stough Elementary school we will split into two groups. We will transition and set up from 9:30-9:40. The first group will be talking to fifth graders about social problems in middle school such as, making new friends, lunch, school events etc. We will also be playing a few games and icebreakers with the students at the beginning to get to know everyone and to make the students feel comfortable with the volunteers. The second group will be reading to 2nd graders. They will ask the students questions such as, “Who are the characters?” “What is the setting?” and more questions based on the book. After we read the book we will give the students an option of retelling the story in their own way by either acting it out, drawing it out, or telling the story in their own words. At 10:45 the groups will switch tasks. The second group will talk to the fifth graders about academic work such as electives, homework, grading, etc. The first group will be doing the same thing the second group did when they read to the 2nd graders but will ask them more advanced questions about the book, and they will be reading to 3rd graders. We will leave around 12:30. Some requirements that the volunteers need to keep in mind is to be good role models for the students you are working with, be responsible and have a good behavior. We need to make sure the volunteers are energetic and positive when working, especially with children. The volunteers need to work well with children and enjoy being around them. Another requirement is to make sure the volunteers know the information they are giving to the fifth graders and be prepared to answer questions. Our goal for this project is to provide more understanding to the children so that they feel more prepared about eighth grade and reading. This project should be picked because many children do not have mentors/role models at home. Usually kids are scared to go to middle school, because all they’ve known is elementary school. Middle school can be a very big change for a lot of them, especially if they aren’t well prepared for the stress and responsibilities that come with it. Middle school can be very different than elementary school and there can be changes that students might not be used to in their new schools. Many students don't have a role model to look up to so therefore students are falling behind in their school work and are struggling to get an education. Works Cited Beller, Kristin. “Schools Our Students Deserve: Per Pupil Spending is Everything.” Public Schools First NC Supporting Public Schools through information, education, and engagement. 24 January, 2018. <https://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org/ red4ed-teacher-forum/schools-our-students -deserve-per-p upil-spending-iseverything> Hui, T. Keung. “Wake County school system seeing fewer new students than expected.” The News & Observer. 09 December, 2015. 24 January, 2018 <http://www.newsobserver.com/news/ local/education/. article48670670.html> Hui, T.Keung.”Wake County is now the 15th largest school district in the country.”News & Observer. 2016.24 Jan 2018<http://www.newsobserver.com /news/local/education/article122995664.html> Moziru.”Puzzle Clip Art Hand”.PinArt.2018. 31 Jan 2018.<http://moziru.com/explore/Puzzle%20clipart%20hand/> Stephens, Henry.”How to Deal with Students Frustrated at their Slow Progress.”The Teachers Handbook.2008. 31 Jan 2018.<https://www.listenandlearn.org/the-teachers-handbook /how-to-deal-with-students-frustrated-at-their-slow-progress/> University of Nebraska-Lincoln.”Why mentoring is important.” University of Nebraska-Lincoln.2017.24 Jan 2018<https://.www.unl.edu/mentoring/ why-mentoring-important> Wake County Public School System.”Title I.”Wake County Public School.2018.24 Jan 2018<https://www.wcpss .net/domain/110> WakeEd Partnership. “Partners Read”. WakeEd Partnership. 2018.24 January 2018. <http://www.wakeed.org/programs/early-literacy/> YMCA. ”Community HOPE.”YMCA of the Triangle. 2018. 24 Jan 2018.<https://www.ymcatriangle .org/programs-services/tutoring/community-hope> YMCA.”Y- Learning.” YMCA of the Triangle. 2018. 24 January 2018. <https://www.ymcatriangle.org/ programs-services/tutoring/y-learning> 11/7/2017 0 Comments This I Believe....I believe that having hope can get you through hard times. I have always found it hard to stay positive when life is at its worst. Bad news can come out of nowhere sometimes. One day everything will be fine and then the next day you're hit with bad news that you would have never expected.
Over the summer of 2017 i had a great time spending time with my friends and family, going to away camps, and best of all sleeping in! My family always goes to the beach with my cousins and grandparents. We brought my two dogs, Lily and Jackson. We all had a fun and relaxing week at the beach. A couple days after we got home my puppy Lily, who is about one and a half, was acting really different. Lily is a schnauzer mix, and she is really spunky and unique. She likes to play with Jackson, my other dog who I have had my whole life. Lily is probably one of the most energetic dogs I have ever met. Right away we could tell something was wrong with her. She wasn't walking, we had to pick her up to move her, and she refused to eat. We took her to the vet but the vet that we normally see was on a mission trip, so we had to see a new vet that we have never had before.He said that she might have broken a bone in her back or something. The next week or two, early in the morning around six AM, me and my dad woke my dogs up to go outside. Lily completely collapsed on the floor and couldn't move.At this point I didn't know what to do. I layed on the floor next to her holding her while yelling at my mom to call the vet. My parents took her to the vet and I went to a friends house to take my mind off of it. I got a text from my dad later saying that they were at the NC state vet and Lily was being checked out. It turned out that she had fluid in her lungs which was causing her to have trouble breathing. Looking at my phone I just thought that it wouldn't be a huge deal and it would be easy to fix. We had two choices, she could stay at the vet over night and they could do a bunch of tests on her and it would cost thousands of dollars, or we could take her home and see how she's doing.My parents decided to take her home, due to how expensive it would be and there still could have been a chance that they didn't find anything. She was on tons of meds and was very sleepy. A few days later we found out that she wasn't going to make it and there is nothing to fix it. This was a shock to everyone in my family, because Lily was very young, she was a playful and healthy puppy and so we were very surprised. Even though Lily is just a dog and we had only had her for about two years, it affected my whole family. It was hard for me because my best friend, who is also my neighbor almost lost her mom around the same time that all of this was going on. She would come to my house everyday, in hopes that I might cheer her up, but my house was very quiet and gloomy. It effected my mom big time. She was incredibly stressed out and every night my mom would sleep on the floor next to Lily for about two weeks. My sister and I went to go to my grandparents house in Wilson, North Carolina to see my cousin. We stayed there for about three days. When me and my sister were leaving to go there we knew that that would probably be the last time we see Lily, but i still had hope. I had fun with my cousin because I never really get to see her. My dad called me and my sister giving us good news. The fluid had disappeared and they have no idea where it had gone. We went home and my parents told me the story. Lily had collapsed again while we were at my grandparents house. They knew that she was just getting worse so they took her to the vet to put her down. When they got their they found out that the vet that we usually saw was there. Right before she was about to put her down she said that she wanted to check up on her really quickly. When she came back she said that she did a scan and didn't find any fluid. Everyone was so shocked. Because of this experience i have learned many things. I know to always be hopeful because anything can happen. Having hope may be hard at times but you never know how things may turn out in the end. 11/7/2017 0 Comments Hello there! How did you find out about my weebly? Take this survey so I can learn about the people that visit my weebly |
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