Kalsea

I believe Anyone can do Anything. I believe no one should ever give up on their dream. I believe music can help anyone get through their hardships. I believe people deserve a second chance. I believe in living everyday to the fullest. I believe teenagers are the future... Some of them. I believe everyone has the ability to be successful but only the ones that put in the effort will amount to something. I believe in miracles. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe in fate. I believe in listening to everyones story before judging. I believe everyone is different. I believe technology is the best but worst discovery ever. I believe in myself..

Tiger Mom In the publication “Battle Hymm of the Tiger mom” opened a lot of Americans eyes to Chinese mothers, calling it child abuse. Amy Chua says Americans “coddle” their children which makes failure acceptable. Amy Chua forced her daughters to play piano and violin starting at a young age; she didn’t accept failure and expected them to do their best. In this research paper, I have examined Chua’s parenting style and what her critics had to say about it.

In the article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, she didn’t allow her kids to do barely anything a regular kid enjoys. Chinese mothers are so strict they make their child practice their instruments for two or three hours a day when western parents just think just 30 minutes of practice makes them strict. “In one study of 50 western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% if the western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way, Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and parents ‘were not doing their job.” Amy Chua proves this with a success story about her own daughter, Lulu. After a long night of strict practice and yelling she finally got the song perfect.

Also, in the article “Amy Chua is a wimp” by David Brooks. He says “I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library.” Chua is a very strict mother, which she calls her style of parenting “extreme Chinese.” According to Brooks learning how to socialize and understand people is more important than getting straight A’s and win a series of musical competitions.

In another article “In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom” by Ayelet Waldman she says she is a good mom but she likes to make sure she’s good to herself as well. She is a Jewish mother that doesn’t care what her kids do as long as it’s not an inconvince to her. She says “roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the excuse to fail and other the chance to succeed.” She and Amy Chua are the same, neither notice how well their child is doing, instead they don’t acknowledge it. Sometimes you don’t have to push your kids like Chua, Waldman’s daughter pushed herself to go to reading classes to learn to read and her other daughter pushed herself to get straight A’s in school.

Then in yet another article, “Mother Inferior” by Hanna Rosin, she believes she is exactly like the type of western mother Amy Chua describes. She says how she just doesn’t have the demented drive to pull it off, why not wait for your children to show some small spark of talent or interest in an activity before you force them to work at it?” The answer is not to aim for more effective child-perfecting techniques; it is to give up altogether on trying to perfect our children.” In “An Asian Father’s Gift: Permissions to Fail” by llyon Woo, she explains how she was a high-scoring, piano-performing, Asian American by failure not success. As a child she struggled with algebra, with a mean teacher, she failed with a C plus. She insisted on taking algebra over the summer to prepare for pre-calculus that is when her father set her free but asking, “Why not try (failure)?” “And it’s with that failure, when I stopped trying so hard and caring too much, that my grades began to soar- all of them including math.” llyon Woo says as she expresses how she accepted failure. Many of her students were curious because they felt that she understood where they were coming from and the kinds of pressures they faced, especially parental ones. One student she set free by sharing the exact words her father told her.

Amy Chua has a lot of love for her children, clearly, she wants them to e successful at any cost. Amy Chua made her daughters scarifice things as a child so when they’re were older they wont have to sacrifice anything. Everything Chua did was out of love, one daughter played at Carnegie Hal and the other got into Harvard University. How? By hard, painful work.

On the other hand, Chua put a lot at risk when she was pushing her daughters so much, she could have injured them or, even though she says love isn’t what’s important, she could have made her kids resent her for life. Some children respond positively to verbal abuse but others don’t, if Chua’s kids weren’t mentally strong harsh words could have hurt them. I think Chua went to far with her harsh Chinese parenting style. If they have never been allowed to fail, what will the do when they fail (and mommy isn’t around)?

Amy Chua received a lot of bad comments and was viewed as a horrible mom by others. To many Americans she opened their eyes to something we didn’t know or expect. I think because I didn’t expect to hear how Chinese mothers are and from the shock of it I originally though she was a horrible mother but now I see what she sees and I understand she wanted the best for her children. Maybe she just took it to an extreme. Parenting is a hard job, but good parenting is making the best of what you have.

Do you learn from getting everything right all the time or from failing and seeing your imperfections? If you had success all the time then one day you fail how are you going to know how to fix whatever your doing? Failure is what teaches you how to be your best, it helps you learn from what’s wrong. People need failure because without it how would you get back up after you fall? In “The Medusa and The Snail” by Lewis Thomas he says that you learn from your mistakes but some people don’t, which is something all humans need to know and experience for themselves. One example of someone who learned from failure is myself. My sophomore year I lost all focus towards school, I was so distracted with being social and making friends, I never made time for school. Even in class I never paid attention. I failed half of my classes with Fs, my other classes I passed didn’t require much effort. But from the embarrassment of hearing my brother and dad laugh at me, I decided it was time to get my life together. In my second semester I tried so hard to pass all my classes. I had my doubts but I managed to keep focused, though I was faced with even more doubt from my family I didn’t give up. I learned failing my classes wasn’t worth it, I learned how to manage my social life and still have fun but also be smart and do my homework. Summer school isn’t very appealing. I’m proud to say I passed the second semester with nothing lower than a D+. Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929. How? By accident! He created an antibody by making an error, an error that has saved so many peoples’ lives since. Staphylococcus is what Fleming left in his dish and it created mold that had penicillin in it. That was the moment in a mistake that is about to create a victory, just like Lewis Thomas said in his prompt. Another very scary experience of how someone had learned from their mistakes is my friend. Earlier in my sophomore year my friend would come to class high or on pills. It never dawned on me something bad could happen, I thought he’d be fine. One day he came to school after he smoked a lot of weed and took at least 6 pills, he wasn’t feeling well at the end of class but I didn’t think he was serious. Later that day he was rushed away in an ambulance because he almost over dosed, for a couple of days. I wasn’t sure if I lost my friend because of my stupidity and ignorance. He is fine now but he’ll never touch drugs again, so me and him both gained something from this scary experience. Him? To stay away from drugs. Me? To not let someone I love that’s on drugs to not be taken to the nurse or tell an adult. So yes, I strongly believe people learn from their mistakes, maybe not scientifically like Lewis Thomas but in life threatening ways or just silly things. By failing you succeed by success not so much.

If enough kids fail that makes it alright to lower the standards so all cheaters pass? How is that fair to the kids that actually tried? I think it isn’t fair to those kids and it isn’t fair to the teacher who spent her time teaching her students what they need to know to pass. But those students choose to not listen so they need to take responsibility for their actions.
 * Dear Ventura County Star and readers,**

I think Christine Pelton did the right thing by quitting. If she didn’t she would have been forced to do something lower the standards for kids who don’t care. She had every right to fail those students, they knew what they were doing when they were copying and pasting from the internet.

Plagiarizing is an academic crime and should have punishments just like every other crime. The least the school board could have done was

let those students get the grade they deserve, a zero! They didn’t do the work and instead of their parents letting them get the zero they’re coddling them and not teaching them right from wrong.

Peltons students willingly and knowingly violated something they knew was wrong. They should be taught that isn’t acceptable and mommy and daddy can’t change all of their ignorant mistakes. Be an adult and take the punishment.

** 30 by 30 **
 * 1) Tour Europe
 * 2) Have a family
 * 3) Grow long hair
 * 4) Have a good career
 * 5) Bungy jump[[image:kalsea-ashley-summerschool-2011-outside-.jpg width="560" height="371" align="right" caption="Kalsea and Ashley share a moment during the summer 2011."]]
 * 6) Sky dive
 * 7) Actually finish a book
 * 8) See the Globe theatre
 * 9) Meet a super famous people
 * 10) Learn 3 different languages
 * 11) Go to every amusement park
 * 12) Learn to whistle
 * 13) Turn 29
 * 14) Pass all my classes, including college..
 * 15) Be on tv.. For good things!!!!
 * 16) Win the lottery
 * 17) Legalize weed
 * 18) Get a white iPhone
 * 19) Change my life style
 * 20) Cure all diseases
 * 21) Turn 21!
 * 22) Stare up at the stars for hours
 * 23) Play a video game
 * 24) Have a conversation with the president
 * 25) Get married and NOT divorce
 * 26) Have fun
 * 27) Not regret ANYTHING in life
 * 28) Win the quiet game for once
 * 29) Live until I’m 100
 * 30) Speed on an empty freeway


 * Change Essay**

Margaret Meade said, “Never doubt that a small group or thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” In this essay I will give examples of times it was true and when it wasn’t. I personally believe its only true sometimes for the good.

An example of how a small group of people made a change for the bad is the Al Qaeda terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden. They hijacked flight 93 and planned to crash it into the white house or the Capitol building. They made millions of people suffer, why? Because they don’t like our banking or just hate America? Mohamad Atta and 22 other terrorist attacked America which started two wars. Nothing good came out of the Al Qaeda group.

A good example of a small group of changing stuff for the good is the 40 or so Americans on flight 93, who worked together to stop the plane from hitting its designated location. This is an amazing example of how strangers came together and sacrificed their live for the better of their country. Because of that group the airplane wasn’t able to hit the white house or capitol building, which may have been a worst attack than hitting the twin towers.

The small group that went and killed Osama Bin Laden, that group are heros to the maximum. When they killed him they did America justice. By killing Bin Laden they stopped so many more attacks on America and maybe even more countries.

American hasn’t seen an attack like this since Pearl Harbor. All of America stood still when the twin towers got hit and started coming down, by attacking America it put a knife right through our hearts. Every plane that got hijacked made us realize there needs to be better security in airports and we needed to be more cautious. From all this pain America has suffered, we grew from it. All those little groups helped, whether it was originally supposed to be bad or good.America came out on top, and Margaret Meade stated. Its not simple but success came come from small groups.

**Medea essay**

Medea was blinded by hatred towards Jason; she thought that by killing her kids that would bring suffering to Jason. What Medea doesn’t realize is by killing her kids she is suffering too. By killing her kids she isn’t going to get Jason back instead she lost everything she had. Medea of “Medea” by Euripides is the villain of the script. Jason is a hero in his own way.

In Medeas argument she might defend herself by saying her husband betrayed her so she was heart-broken. Medea was so blinded by hate for Jason she decided the best revenge is to kill her kids and make him suffer the lost of everyone he loved. Medea did love her kids but she hated Jason more and Creon was going to excel her so in a way she saved her kids from dealing with her own problems.

But Jason believes only a horrible mother and terrible person would kill her kids for revenge, I agree. Jason was warring Glauce, daughter of Creon, for political reasons, he still loved Medea. Jason already agreed to support Medea in excel even though he doesn’t think he owes her anything because the God of love saved him not her.

In my opinion Medea had no reason to kill her children. No matter how much she hated Jason, no matter how much she thinks he betrayed her. It will never be right. I don’t doubt Medea loved her kids but having a broken heart doesn’t give her the right to do what she did. If she was angry at Jason she should have taken her anger out on him. Killing Glauce and Creon was unnecessary too, they did nothing wrong. This entire conflict was between Medea and Jason and shouldn’t have included anyone else.

In conclusion, Jason is, in odd ways, the hero of “Medea”. He was bad to Medea but Medea was way worse to Jason in the end, nothing can compare to seeing your own kids dead bodies, killed by their own mother. I think Medea succeed in making Jason suffer but shell suffer even more, alone.