Summary of "Do Schools Kill Creativity" Presented by Ken Robinson

     In the video "Do Schools Kill Creativity" presented by Ken Robinson at a TED conference, he argues that schools are only teaching education and not creativity which the school system should be focusing on.  During school kids are taught to be educated in academics and not so much on the arts and music.  If a child likes those two subjects, then they are told at a young age that art and music will never get them a job in the future.  When a child is growing up they don't care that they are wrong.  Now, when a child is told that they are doing something wrong they don't ever want to make another mistake ever again.  That is when they lose their creativity.  If a child loses their creativity, then they may never find what they really like to do in life or even what they are good at.  The education system right now is made for academic integrity only, nothing else.  Academic inflation is happening in this country; this means in order to be the best that you can be a student goes to college and gets their AS.  If an AS is not good enough then they have to go get their BS.  Then if that is not good then they have to go on and get their MD, and then their PhD.  That is all because jobs want to see how much schooling a person has and to be highly educated.  In school kids should be taught about everything even creativity because the adults today do not know what the future holds.  Adults have to show the kids what the right thing to do and to do what they do best, not just math and science.
     I agree with the thought that Mr. Robinson proposes.  I think that schools do kill kids creativity.  In my own experience I feel like I have lost all creativity while I was in school.  During elementary school it was easier for me to sit down in art class and start drawing anything.  Then once school got a little harder and started to focus more on academics I felt like my creativity was fading away.  Middle school and high school projects and art classes were extremly hard for me because I felt like I did not have a good imagenation anymore.  Even now when I have to make up a creative writing peice for english I have a really hard time with that.  If school did not push math, english, science, and social studies so much in school then I think I would still have a creative mind and do thing things that I liked to do as a child.  When I was growing up I only had half a hour for art and music class the rest of the school day was focused on academics.  If schools start to focused on art and music a little bit more when kids are growing up and in the future, then I think that it would make a whole generation of people who will be very productive in the world and love what they do. 

Work Cited

Talks, TED. "Do Schools Kill Creativity." YouTube. YouTube, Feb. 2006. Web. 23 Oct. 2012

The Summary of "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Student in Digital Age"

     In the article "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Student in Digital Age" by Trip Gabriel, he states that students this day in age do not realize that using other peoples words that they did not write are wrong. Using the internet makes it easier to copy and paste a piece of writing into an essay. There is information on the internet that anyone could use these days.
     In many surveys between the years 2006 to 2010 by Donald L. McCabe; a co-founder of the Center for Academic Integrity and who also is a business professor at Rutgers University, he found that 40% of 14,000 students confessed to plagiarizing. Today only 29% of students think that plagiarizing is serious; earlier it was 34% of student who thought that.
     Gabriel included information from many people and their thoughts on plagiarizing.  Susan D. Blum; an anthropologist from University of Notre Dame. She said that students do not care about creating their own pieces of work. Students rather put down an idea of someone else’s work and hand it in to get it graded. Helene Hegemann a German teenager wrote a best-selling book. Ms. Hegemann said that originality doesn't exist anymore only authenticity. Sarah Wilensky, a student from Indiana University, said that plagiarism creates laziness. There is no creativity with forming your own thoughts. A person is just taking pieces here and there and making them make since. On the other hand, most students, artists, and authors do create their own original work. The real reason why students plagiarize is because high school does not prepare students for college. She says that if you can read and make since of a piece of writing them you will not plagiarize.
     Many students have plagiarized. Some did not know that they were doing so. Other students knew that they were plagiarizing. Those who knew that they were plagiarizing knew it was wrong and did not want to follow the writing process. In one case a student was called down to the disciplines office because of plagiarizing. The parents came to the meeting along with the students. The father said it was his fault that his daughter plagiarized.

Why Am I Here At SCCC?

    

     I will tell you why I am currently attending Schenectady County Community College.  I am going to college because I want to further my education.  I already accomplished my dream of becoming a nurse but I would love to be an RN.  So at the moment I am taking the classes that the nursing school that I want to go into requires students to take.  I am mostly taking science classes.  After this semester I will apply to the nursing school for fall 2013.  Next semester I will take the rest of the classes I need to take.  Then hopefully I will be in nursing school in the fall!

     I am going to a community college because it is close to home, and cheaper than other colleges.  Although I would have liked to go to a college farther away from home, I also needed to save money.  To be honest I like being at home with my family, most of the time.  It would have been nice to have the full college experience.  Meeting new people and living on my own in a dorm seems pretty cool, but staying home is fine with me.