As we wrap up a good 4 years of Comunidad with USD, I am putting together a new project that will hopefully encourage you as we capture our voices about our experiences, our hopes and dreams, and our encouragements to each other! Part 1 is about what we are looking forward to as we wrap up our senior year. We are so different in our interests and what we're looking forward to, but that doesn't take away from what we're all about. Check out the video below!
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Stoked for some more elections! This upcoming November 6th is the midterm elections that has many important issues that we are voting on. We know that as busy people that it would be difficult to research and find the information. So the 12th grade class is hosting a Proposition Party! This will be a short “party” where we will share with you the information on the various propositions that will be on the ballot. Please come by, invite friends, coworkers, and family and support our students! We have 3 different options across the city across various dates. October 29th – Imperial Beach Library – 4:00-6:00 p.m. November 1st – CVLCC Elementary School – 6:00-8:00 p.m. November 4th – Moniker Space – 4:00-6:00 p.m. Thank you! And Happy Voting! *Just a reminder the last day to register to vote is October 22nd
This past week on Wednesday there was a national walk out for 17 minutes that was aimed at honoring the lives of the Parkland students and staff as well as taking a stand against gun violence. I did not know how it would go, I actually knew very little, other than there were a few guidelines students were asked to follow, and that I would be walking out for 17 minutes because I too believe that something needs to change. But our Student Leadership team huddled for two days straight planning what they wanted to do, and expressing a desire for there to be a solemnity in the atmosphere as they attempted to bring to light what this heavy feeling was in our community.
There has been a constant battle raging back and forth, both trying to minimize the importance of this issue, a huge dialogue about the necessity of the 2nd amendment, and out of that I've seen far too many people speak up in trying to stifle the voices of our youth. All the while defending their constitutional rights, never taking the time to actually listen to the fears and the state of our schools and the people that fill them. These debates on arming teachers, amending the Constitution, fixing the laws of states, providing stricter gun laws, or blaming those who have mental issues take the attention from the actual issue that plague our world of education, students are hurting. Maybe not more or less so than generations past, but a much more clear display of hurting in a way that is felt in the atmosphere at school. When you have shows like 13 reasons why, prevalence of school shootings, and real applications that are aimed at bullying and gossip, there is a real problem. So I am thankful. This week, I realized what an opportunity I have as an educator to foster some change in our community and the future generations. In our school and in classrooms here, we can have the difficult discussions, the productive ones, the ones that ask our future leaders to challenge the status quo. I personally am still trying to figure out what my stance is behind all of the issues above, but grateful for the opportunity to see our students doing something about it. As a coach, it's really easy to get caught up with the wins and the losses- especially while pushing a team to pursue athletic excellence, where there has been a habit of falling into apathy. Or at least that's what I thought: until I realized that coaching a high school sports team is like anything else in life, it comes with all of the things in between the "successes" and "failures." We give merit to anything that makes us feel good, and tend to look down on things that make us feel bad... I've been guilty of that, guilty of the falling for that trap of defining how successful we are through the wins and the losses. But this season has been a trial of fire of sorts, where we have to realize that what makes us successful is the hardships endured, and the strengthening of the character- everything in between the wins and the losses, everything that happens to carry over from home and school into our practices, all of the sacrifice that has been made to get to where we are, and in the evaluation of these things we MUST see our roles as more significant and impactful than the wins and losses throughout the season.
7-7 - our win-loss record from this season. What this doesn't say about our team is the endurance and toughness of our players. This doesn't show how our players gave their best in every single minute- losing two of our starters to injuries. This doesn't show how our team is a family that pushed through every point no matter what, celebrating the shots scored, and demanding excellence from each other on and off the court. I can't say we achieved everything we sought out to do, but I can say that we were successful when you read in between the W-L column. I'm proud of our team but more so excited for what's yet to come. Students,
Spring break is upon us and yet with the workload it seems like spring break means more work. There is much to be done and there is really not that much time. I hope that as you enter into the break that it would be a good time of rest, but that it would also be productive! I hope that although you might be able to binge watch Netflix, that your mind would be working and that you would be learning something new each day. All of you athletes, take this time to hone in on your skills and develop some good habits. All of you musicians, use the time to learn a new song and get better at your instruments or singing. All of you taking AP tests, use this time to catch up on content and go through those review books! Make smart decisions this break - it's easy to get caught up in doing dumb things when everyone is doing it, but try your best to make the hard smart decisions. Do something nice for someone - Keep an eye out for ways to help people! Even if it is an inconvenience. Be safe! ~ Comment on this post with something you've done, you've learned, or something you're proud of! Through our talk of Social Darwinism and the Gospel of Wealth, lets take some time to understand that we have opportunities to help others who are less fortunate than us. Consider helping to tutor refugees that might need help!
http://sdrefugeetutoring.com/about-us/ They meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-6:30 p.m. @ Ibarra Elementary School Let me know if you are interested in going! Excerpt from The Jungle on Industrialization
. . . And then there was the condemned meat industry, with its endless horrors. The people of Chicago saw the government inspectors in Packingtown, and they all took that to mean that they were protected from diseased meat; they did not understand that these hundred and sixty-three inspectors had been appointed at the request of the packers, and that they were paid by the United States government to certify that all the diseased meat was kept in the state. They had no authority beyond that; for the inspection of meat to be sold in the city and state the whole force in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of the local political machine! . . . And then there was “potted game” and “potted grouse,” “potted ham,” and “deviled ham”—devyled [“deviled”], as the men called it. “De-vyled” ham was made out of the waste ends of smoked beef that were too small to be sliced by the machines; and also tripe, dyed with chemicals so that it would not show white, and trimmings of hams and corned beef, and potatoes, skins and all, and finally the hard cartilaginous gullets of beef, after the tongues had been cut out. All this ingenious mixture was ground up and flavored with spices to make it taste like something. Anybody who could invent a new imitation had been sure of a fortune from old Durham, said Jurgis’s informant, but it was hard to think of anything new in a place where so many sharp wits had been at work for so long; where men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding, because it made them fatten more quickly; and where they bought up all the old rancid butter left over in the grocery stores of a continent, and “oxidized” it by a forced-air process, to take away the odor, rechurned it with skim milk, and sold it in bricks in the cities! . . . There were the men in the pickle rooms, for instance, where old Antanas had gotten his death; scarce a one of these that had not some spot of horror on his person. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints of his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails,—they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator cars, a fearful kind of work, that began at four o’clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the tins for the canned meat, and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning. Some worked at the stamping machines, and it was very seldom that one could work long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himself, and have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the “hoisters,” as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp and the steam, and as old Durham’s architects had not built the killing room for the convenience of the hoisters, at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on, which got them into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking like chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor—for the odor of a fertilizer man would scare away any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard! . . . There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was mouldy and white—it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them, they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shovelled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one—there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water—and cart load after cart load of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public’s breakfast. Some of it they would make into “smoked” sausage—but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax and color it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it “special,” and for this they would charge two cents more a pound. . . . Take a second to think about what you think Thanksgiving is about, what is it to you, or when the holiday Thanksgiving is mentioned what is the first thing that pops into your mind?
A lot of us think of turkey, family feasts, the peaceful week long break, black Friday shopping, etc. but rarely do any of us think of the things we should be thankful for. So this little blog post is for us to challenge that, think about... and just for a few minutes, "what are you thankful for?" Many of you will respond with a post that says simply, "my parents, my friends, a good life" then the jokers will post something utterly ridiculous... but what about those things are you thankful for? And do those people know that you're thankful for them? With all of these challenges like the mannequin challenge, I thought I'd issue a little challenge myself: This is the challenge: post (as a reply) 5 people that you are thankful for, and if you'd like a short description as to why, and for the next 5 days, go up to them and appreciate them. If you want to take this challenge seriously, actually sit down with them and talk to them, don't do it in passing. So here goes my list: (1) My students, because I am constantly being reminded of why I teach, (2) my mother for teaching me discipline and patience, (3) my brother for being available for me when I need it, (4) my dad for showing me what it means to work hard, (5) my athletes, for pushing me to strive to be perfect in competition and to never slow down. Day 1: Students, thank you for reminding me the joys of teaching, through this post-election season we have had some good conversations where progress was made in our knowledge of the chaotic world that we live in. I am thankful for the strides that you are making in your role as citizens of this world that we live in. I could probably go on forever, but enjoy your break! Make smart decisions, and come back in one piece... After a crazy few months of preparing for the election, this week has been a whirlwind of chaos and mixed feelings throughout our school.
Teaching in Chula Vista where a majority of our students align themselves with Democrats, this week was a heartbreaker. As Trump was winning the night of November 8, I found myself thinking to myself what do I do tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that? A few friends of mine shared this post on the Huffington Post, and it gave me a little inspiration to write a letter to my students. Here's a transcript if reading the picture is difficult: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" - Declaration of Sentiments Dear Students, You must know that you are Safe, you are protected by the system of government that our forefathers put in place against tyranny and despotism. He cannot and will not singlehandedly destroy our country and values we hold dear. You must know that this is the choice voting America has made, he did not win by accident but rather has found his vote in the majority, and in that system we must honor his presidency. You don't have to like it, but you do have to respect it and honor it. You must know that YOU MATTER, Your vote matters, your decisions matter, and the result of this election reflects that. If anybody ever tells you that you don't matter DON'T LISTEN to them, do what you can do and show them that they are wrong. Finally, know that it is okay when things don't go your way, things won't always go the way that pleases you. Don't get angry, throw fits, or cry... rather, work hard and do what you can do to improve. When things get crappy... RELAX. Love, Mr. Liew P.S. Don't leave (my class) stupid It's a simple message with a couple points, but the main thing I want our students to take away these past two days was that they matter. It's so easy to get caught up in the "you don't matter, your vote doesn't matter" but if anything could be seen was that people do matter, and people can make a difference. We must move forward... the election is over, and as Thomas Jefferson said, "we are all Republicans, we are all federalists." At this point we can hope and pray that he will do a good job, but more importantly we need to create opportunities to impact our society politically year round, not just once every four years. By all means, mourn the loss for Hillary, but don't mourn for too long because soon enough it will turn to bitterness. Mourn, but not for too long because for every second you stay pissed at Donald you are wasting precious time that could be spent contributing to our society. I cannot say for that our system is perfect, these next few years will definitely test our government. But we must trust that our democracy is strong enough. One person cannot destroy our values of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, but if our nation is divided we can and very well might destroy this place we call home. |
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January 2022
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