"I Have a Dream"

Martin Luther King Jr. lived a relatively short life, but what he did in that short life will live on forever. Everyone young or old knows who Martin Luther King Jr. is and what he stood for and what he accomplished. He is a mascot of America and helped shape our nation into what it is today. He helped get the ball rolling with civil rights in America, and in a time where it was very controversial to do so he questioned the government and our way of life as Americans. When I hear the words “I Have a Dream” I know that those words mean so much more than the actual words themselves.

  Being nineteen years old I don’t really have much of a perspective on segregation or civil rights, but I do know that this speech was a turning point for both of them, everyone I’ve talked to from this period remembers this speech and how important it was and how much it changed things. The speech is our modern day “Gettysburg Address” , not only do they relate in their significance or content but Abraham Lincoln who gave the Gettysburg Address is who’s statue Martin Luther King  is standing in front of when he gives his speech. This was a very wise decision of Martin Luther King Jr. picking this location added to the content of his speech it gave it something more. The statue of Abraham Lincoln served as a visual representation Of Martin Luther King’s speech. When people have a symbol or something to look at it heightens the impact of the speech and gives it more relevance. The people viewing the speech especially in the civil rights movement had their modern day “Idol” or symbol of hope and their past “idol” Abraham Lincoln, they were both powerful people each conveying a similar message.

No other place on Earth would have served for a better location then right where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech, no other place would have had the symbolism or impact that it had there. It also helped that they were in Washington D.C. it showed that they were neither afraid nor intimidated and were willing to show that. Abraham Lincoln is one of our most loved presidents, he is always considered to be one of the best presidents we’ve ever had. This speech connected Martin Luther King Jr. to one of our favorite presidents. Abraham Lincoln stood against slavery and oppression more than a century prior to this speech and he ended up being right, why wouldn’t we take into account what Martin Luther King Jr. was saying? I think this was a wakeup call for a lot of Americans, maybe not right away because it was so foreign to their way of life, but after it set in and they realized what was going on they began to agree that maybe people shouldn’t be treated this way, maybe we shouldn’t have separate schools. Maybe what we are doing is wrong and it needs to change for the better, after all “All Men are Created Equal” and should be treated as such.

Being Illiterate

Iv’e undoubtedly taken illiteracy for granted for the majority of my life, most of all in school. The lifestyle Americans live now calls for being able to read and write, and if I didn’t know how I wouldn’t be able to write emails to people, talk on Facebook, things like that. I can’t really even rap my mind about being illiterate, and not being able to read, write or communicate properly with my peers, teachers, family or even people trying to take my order at a restaurant. My Mom is a third grade teacher at an elementary school in Lake Los Angeles, she gets a lot of kids every year who’s first language is spanish and can’t speak or understand english very well, some of them can’t understand or speak english hardly at all. I know this gets frustrating for my Mom, not because she is mad at them for not knowing english, she just can’t communicate with them, therefore she can’t teach them and for a teacher that is disappointing. So if this is frustrating for my Mom then I can’t even imagine how frustrating it is for the students not being able to learn or ask questions. Sitting in a classroom hearing a teacher talk all day and not knowing how to process what she is saying, even though it’s not I would almost feel like that’s a waste of time. These students do learn eventually, and they catch up with their peers, but it takes time and is a tedious process, that calls for a lot of extra time and energy from the teacher and the student. When I was going into my junior year of high school, my Grandma took me and my family on a trip to Europe, we visited London England, Paris France, Rome Italy and Munchen Germany. Luckily for us english is the most spoken language in the world so it wasn’t to difficult to communicate in these countries because people like American money so they learn to communicate with tourists. There was however a definite language barrier when we were trying to read street signs or subway stops. Just not being able to read those things was very frustrating, also sitting down to eat and not being able to read the menu was also interesting. That gave me a little perspective on how it would be to not be able to read. If you don’t learn these things early in life it gets harder and harder to learn them the older you get because when you are an infant you soak up information at an incredible rate but it slows down over time. I took two years of spanish in high school and to this day i maybe know two words of the language. In those classes I hated how hard it was to understand and pick up on. I know people who grew up speaking spanish in their home and english in school, and they understood both languages perfectly, mainly because they were introduced to both of them at such a young age.

Critical Thinking

3) Create your your first blog/reading journal entry.  In it, I would like you to explore what critical thinking means to you.  What are your own personal habits when it comes to reading and thinking critically?  Do you apply these habits in all areas of your life or only in some?  Do you analyze politics? The media? Academic work? Professional endeavors?  End your blog by discussing how you expect this class to alter your analysis skills and how you might view the world differently by the end of the term.

For me Critical Thinking means that before I express my beliefs or opinions I do research on those certain subjects and I gather evidence do back up what I believe, that way if it comes up in conversion I can make valid points to support myself and back up those opinions or beliefs. Critical Thinking would also be used in decision making, say I wanted to buy a new car, I wouldn’t just find the first cool car I saw and buy it, I would research the car find out how reliable it is, the kind of gas mileage it gets, safety, things that like. This would narrow down my list of cars and I would make a decision based off of what I thought would fit me, and my needs the best.

Personally I don’t use critical thinking in my life as much as I would like to. I use it very well when it comes to sports and sports equipment, because that stuff is so important to me. I always test equipment and read reviews before I buy it. When it comes to beliefs, like religion or politics, I have strong opinions, but sometimes I don’t gather enough research or evidence to make an impact. My school work; calls for a lot of critical thinking and it is crucial if I want to fully complete the assignment, so I use it all the time in school. In my job working construction I always had to ask questions and read instructions otherwise I could make a mistake that would either cost a lot of time and money or make a mistake that could cause serious injury.

Hopefully by the end of this class I will learn how to properly think critically, and use all the resources given to me, so that way I can have a better understanding of everything in my academic, athletic, and economic world. At the end of this class I should be able to make more persuasive and valid arguments so I can have a greater impact on my peers. I expect to analyze things more thoroughly, even now I tend to not read things as I should like instructions and I always end up having to go back and read it over and over again because I missed something and did the assignment wrong.This is a skill I need to gain not only for this class but also for all of the classes I am enrolled in as well as my future classes a long with my future professions