Talking Education

In Obama's State of the Union Address earlier this year he emphasized practical education in addition to academic achievement. He proposed an expansion in early childhood education which hold a very high importance. The idea if this proposal is to provide high quality pre-k for 4 year olds from families whose incomes are at or below 200% of the poverty line, at or below $47,000 for a family of 4. Studies have shown what early stimulation and education can be highly effective for your children. The program aims to create a greater equality of opportunity for youths to succeed and go far with their education, starting in pre-k. The organisation of Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) concluded in their 2012 report that early childhood education "improves children's cognitive abilities, helps to create a foundation for life long learning, makes learning out comes more equitable, reduces poverty and improves social mobility from generation to generation." Americas poor children suffer more than Europe's from malnutrition which affects the ability to learn. Malnutrition is a product of poverty. The US is far behind other countries in terms of educational performance. Pre school really can give children significantly better lives but only if the teachers are well trained and held to rigorous performance standards, ensuring that children receive the proper education and the level of education they rightly deserve. When pre school programs are well designed and staffed by trained teachers they can be the single best intervention to breaking the cycle of chronic poverty which affects a number of families and children across the nation.

College drinking

I think it's amazing how someone could want to drink so much on a regular basis that they can't remember half the thing that try do most weekends. I don't understand why drinking such excessive amounts of alcohol is viewed as a fun thing to do with friends or other people and why people in college and high school drink and drink as much as they do weekend after weekend. There's nothing wrong with having a couple of drinks but people need to know when enough is enough but no one ever learns from others mistakes.

Rape on College Campuses

Lately I have heard more and more stories of women being rapped and drugged and taken advantage of in college. And I am and have always been very aware of the danger that vulnerability can put a person in. I know never to leave my drink unattended or accept a drink from a stranger or walk around at night all alone, sober or not on a college campus and just in general. I've always been taught and thought that bad things rarely happen when you're doing the right thing and when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Talking to my cousin, who is a freshman and Mizzou, he told me multiple different story's of times when girls were found laying in the bushes half naked and passed out and his frat brothers attempted to help this girl who they didn't know and they had no idea what happened to her. Different story but even more frightening is that his friend was in the library one night studying for a test and got up to go to the bathroom and left her stuff where she was sitting. During this time that she was away from her studying someone put something in her water bottle and she didn't know that when she returned from the bathroom and drank from her water bottle. The next thing she remembered was waking up in an unfamiliar place not being able to remember how she got from the library to where she now was. She went right to the hospital, had a rape kit done and found out that she had been rapped. This is a girl who was doing the right thing, studying in the library. It sickens me to think that there are so many people out there who are capable of drugging people just to take advantage of them.