My Senior Year I Made A Commitment

1309 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Introduction to an essay of why volunteering is good

In my junior year I made a commitment to participate in the IB Career Program and dedicate myself to receiving the certificate. This program entails learning in areas such as moral awareness, social awareness, social and moral responsibility, relationship management, and understanding empathy and compassion. With each day, I would learn more about these areas and apply them to my daily life in positive and reinforcing ways. In the past year I have begun to work with an organization called Uncommon Good, where I now work with Latino students, tutoring to help with homework and any other forms of school related material. In my senior year, applying to many colleges, I have realized that I have a massive amount of accessible resources at my disposal in terms of college councilors and tutors. With the knowledge I have amassed through the Approaches to Learning course at school, I soon was able to distinguish an underlying problem in our educational system today. There is a population of disadvantaged students who could thrive and excel, but lack financial or other external means of doing so.
Furthering my evidence to this, ive cited an article by Roslyn Arlin Mickelson on the cumulative disadvantages of minority students from first and second generations in the school system. “At the time the data were collected, the district had been operating under a mandatory desegregation plan since the early 1970s, which it continued to do for another five years. While the majority of students attended desegregated schools for most of their CMS education, a portion of youth also experienced school- and classroom-level segregation. Survey data collected from 1,812 students in randomly selected language arts classes stratified by track from the d...

... middle of paper ...

...ege promotes.
America has the potential to become the land of opportunity it has so long claimed to be. For that to happen, though, we must all make it our personal responsibility to engage in practices that can even the playing field, rather than working to widen the gaps of privilege and inequality.
Sadly I am on the opposite side of this spectrum, having these resources and advantages, but I have been able to identify this conflict and hope that earns me some merit. But identifying isn’t all that I plan to do, initially I believed that I was too small to make a difference myself, but as Dalai Lama put it “if you really think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” Volunteering at Uncommon Good has provided me with a new context and appreciation to my life, and I take with each day and try to make the world a better place.

Show More
Related

  • Unmasking America: A Deeper Look at Social and Economic Injustices

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    In light of the most recent election results I find myself worrying about the countless social and economic injustices that will perpetuate to occur in our country. I dwell on our history, of how our social welfare system created and continues to reinforce discrimination, privilege and oppression. How did we end up like this and where is that “American dream” promised to those within our boarders? Literary works $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer, Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill, and Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy: A story of justice and redemption, seek to describe how social injustices and economic issues manifest

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Class In America-2009, By Gregory Mantsios

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass and Martin Delaney

    6401 Words  | 13 Pages

    America has forever long been looked upon as the land of opportunity, yet for just as long struggled with the actual attainment of equal opportunity by all of its citizens. The lines of this inequality have b...

    Read More

  • Symbolic Interactionism: The American Dream

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although most Americans continue to believe working hard is the most important element for getting ahead, they no longer believe that it guarantees success (Hanson 2010: 570). "Lack of thrift, effort, ability, motivation, and self-control are the most popular explanations for poverty among Americans. Thus, inequality is justified and the Dream can stay alive in the context of one of the wealthiest nations with one of the greatest wealth divides" (Hanson 2010: 571). Instead of one undifferentiated American dream to collectively strive towards, there are several interpretations which pertain to differing social locations. This is because of the inequalities of advantages and disadvantages across generations produced by cumulative institutional processes and an unfair opportunity structure (Pallas 2008:

    Read More

  • Sklar and the Economist: Inequality in America

    1700 Words  | 4 Pages

    Both Sklar and the Economist offer suggestions to improve the inequality in America, but unfortunately the inequality continues to grow. Sklar’s use of detailed facts about the richest Americans, the poorest Americans and her discussion of the impact on society add clarity to the Economist’s argument that the American dream is broken due to the inequality in America. Until the American government starts to make changes, the problem of inequality will continue to grow.

    Read More

  • Gregory Mantsios: The American Dream

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American dream can be achieved by education, opportunity, and hard work, but is this is not a reality, but just merely a dream. Opportunity in American feels as if everyone has a fair chance of being successful. In America, it seems that the idea of everyone has a fair chance to opportunity. But this is not the case, in Gregory Mantsios essay “Class In America-2012” he talks about how there are many myths that are wide spread about the differing classes in America. Then he further goes on disproving the widely proclaim myths with stats that show in real world the gap between the wealthy one percent of the population owning 36 percent of the capital in comparison to the 99 percent of Americans in the U.S. For the purpose of this essay, the

    Read More

  • Role Of Education In A Lesson Before Dying

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The education gap between the north and the south has many roles in the African American community. The north has always been industrial while the south was agricultural, many of these children who was suppose to be attending school was helping on farms working and helping their parents throughout the day instead of getting an education. “The percentage of all schools with so called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%” Today students still experience or has been a victim to social and racial differences. When segregation was abolished it allowed students to be in the same classroom together, be able to eat and go to the same bathrooms, also being taught by the same teacher. However many teachers failed to realized or wanted to teach these students based on the color of their skin, causing many students to drop out of school because of not being heard. The black community has a low rate of graduation rates in the south than the white community “In the last four years more than 69 percent of white louisiana males graduated making for a 16 point difference, while 59 percent of black louisiana males graduated” These school systems doesn’t care that they’re not being taught or graduation. Based on race in louisiana it’s a 10 percent difference that causing them to less likely become successful. Still causing the social differences teachers refused to teach an African American student

    Read More

  • Benefit Of The Emancipation Proclamation

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    “This dream of equality and fairness has never come easily—but it has always been sustained by the belief that in America, change is possible. Today, because of that hope, coupled with the hard and painstaking labor of Americans sung and unsung, we live in a moment when the dream of e...

    Read More

  • Prejudice and Racism - A Fair and Just Society is Still Only a Dream

    3052 Words  | 7 Pages

    Martin Luther King Jr. made many claims about the American society in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963 that were all legitimate. Today, we have made many advances toward the racial equality that he sought. As a nation, however, we still have not "opened the door of opportunity to all God's children", as King so eloquently put it. In part, this is due to the fact that although our society has reached a degree of political nondiscrimination, this political nondiscrimination has not led to economic nondiscrimination. What it has led to, though, is affirmative action policy and awareness among the people of this country that justice is a complicated process that has yet to be realized. King made us aware that Blacks weren't receiving equal treatment under our laws, and this awareness led to equal rights policy. These equal rights policies have, in turn, led to affirmative action policies. Affirmative action policies of equal opportunity were necessary because political equality was not resulting in economic equality. Today's citizens are still not satisfied, however. This is because affirmative action policy, to date, has been based on egalitarian policy, which has not resulted in economic security nor a sense of balanced justice. In this paper, I will show how Martin Luther King Jr. initiated a growth process in our country by creating an awareness, and that this awareness is gradually evolving toward a justice that we have yet to realize. I will show that Americans are still in the midst of growing pains, and that equality, opportunity, and justice are complex issues that we are slowly working out over ti...

    Read More

  • The America Divided

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    One would expect that social equality would just be the norm in society today. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Three similar stories of how inequality and the hard reality of how America’s society and workforce is ran shows a bigger picture of the problems American’s have trying to make an honest living in today’s world. When someone thinks about the American dream, is this the way they pictured it? Is this what was envisioned for American’s when thinking about what the future held? The three authors in these articles don’t believe so, and they are pretty sure American’s didn’t either. Bob Herbert in his article “Hiding from Reality” probably makes the most honest and correct statement, “We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around” (564).

    Read More

  • Social Class

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    America is seen as the land of opportunity across the world, but many people wonder if it is true. The truth is America does have opportunities and with dedication anything is possible though the opportunities are limited. Usually limited for those who belong to a lower social class. The main reason the opportunities are limited are because of America’s social inequality. The social class of America is separated into multiple groups that struggle with each other due to the inequality of power and wealth on the daily basis within the country.

    Read More

  • Leslie Mccal's Five Tropes

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    Leslie McCall divides opportunity into five tropes, each corresponding with a way Americans conceptualize opportunity. Violations of each trope of opportunity correspond with a particular problem Americans might have with inequality. The first, the level playing field, requires equal access to the means by which one prepares for positions, usually by education. ‘Bootstraps’ opportunity holds that hard work and preference are sufficient

    Read More

  • Essay On Segregation In School

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    Once a school system drops their efforts to integrate schools, the schools in low-income neighborhood are left to suffer; not to mention that segregation in schools leads, not only to the neglect of schools, but the neglect of students as well. Resegregation quite literally divides the public schools into two groups “the good schools”, that are well funded, and “the bad schools”, that receive a fraction of the benefits-- more often than not the groups are alternatively labeled as “the white schools” and “the black schools” (and/or hispanic). Opportunities for the neglected students diminish significantly without certain career specific qualifications that quality education can provide-- they can’t rise above the forces that are keeping them in their situation.

    Read More

  • America Strengths And Weaknesses

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    America is truly a complex country. It is a country of immigrants, of thinkers and inventors, and of entrepreneurs. Yet it is also a place where many problems, such as those relating to health care, education, and equality, remain unresolved. However, America has met and dealt with many challenges before, and it is capable of doing so again. The infrastructure to facilitate necessary change is already in place.

    Read More

  • Essay On Income Inequality

    1524 Words  | 4 Pages

    Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.

    Read More

More about My Senior Year I Made A Commitment

Open Document