SOAPST for "A Talk to Teachers"

Subject - Educational Segregation

Occasion - 1963 New York City, the height of the movement for equality for African Americans

Audience - Schoolteachers, readers and listeners of the speech

Purpose - To inform, to persuade

Speaker - James Baldwin

Tone - Argumentative, persuasive, informative, confident, resentful

            This given speech is effective as Baldwin grasps his audience by not stating his thesis too early on in the speech; instead he provides a sense of ethos on the subject. He provides facts to back up his given points and opinions. Baldwin also had the capability to connect to his audience emotionally, whether it would be that the audience is being treated unfairly or do not like the idea of others being treated unfairly.

            The SOAPST is important in understanding the given speech, because it gives general background of the speech and a general view of what the speech is about. Understanding the purpose of the SOAPST can help the audience connect to the speech emotionally. In this speech, Baldwin tries to state that "by this time the Negro child has had, effectively, almost all the doors of opportunity slammed in his face, and there are very few things he can do about it."

            

“Everyone thinks when you go to a hospital, life stops. But it’s just the opposite: Life starts!”

"Living life from a hospital room"

By: Claire Wineland

Source: CNN News

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/health/cystic-fibrosis-clairity-project/index.html?hpt=he_c1

            Claire Wineland is a seventeen-year-old senior in high school. She, like thousands of other people is living on this planet, sick. She spends a lot of time in the hospital, receiving treatments to stay alive. ­­She was born with cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder that causes severe damage to the lungs and digestive system. She writes this article, not to make it a sob story or to make people feel bad for her, but to accomplish the complete opposite. She wants to "share a story about finding joy and beauty in places that others see pain and suffering. I am sick, yes. But I am so much more" (Wineland, 1).  The people who came to visit Claire always stated that they were sorry for her and the kind of life she lived, but Claire would argue with them, tenaciously. She tried to show these people that although the hospital life was different from their own, it was anything but depressing. Sure, there were the endless treatments, procedures, tests, and doctors finding something else wrong with Claire's body, but there were also bliss moments of happiness and laughter, those moments where she saw how wrong the world had been: "A short life CAN be as rich as a long one" (Wineland, 1). When Claire was thirteen, her and her parents started a foundation to support others living with cystic fibrosis, called the Claire's Place Foundation. When she was fourteen, she became a public speaker, and now she creates a video series called "The Clarity Project." Her video series "shines a light" on the hospital life and breaks down the barriers around people who are sick. Claire says, "Some things in life are ours to choose, while other things choose us. I never chose to live this crazy bizarre life with cystic fibrosis, and I didn't wake up from the coma with a plan to move my life down a totally different path. Yet that seems to be exactly what happened. And, of course, I wouldn't want it any other way."

            This article is important, as it makes its audience realize that they should be grateful for the healthy life they live. It shows people that life does not give them what they want; it gives them what they need, to make them into the person they are meant to be.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

To what extent do our schools serve the goals of a true education?

The dictionary definition for education is the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university, or an enlightening experience. I believe that education is the general knowledge we obtain and the knowledge we gather through experience. I believe that true knowledge is powerful. True knowledge is not the one where we fill our young minds with random facts or the perceptions of the world we receive that has been decided by society, but rather our own philosophical perceptions of the world. Every individual should have their own ideas and beliefs, but I feel as if education nowadays has demolished the idea of various views and beliefs, and has made life this complicated route of twists, turns, steps, and processes. Schools do not serve the goals of a 'true education,' instead they make it appear as if they are. Public education merely destroys the ambitious spirit. Students need to be instilled with the belief that "the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." An Italian philosopher by the name of Galileo Galilei believed that “we cannot teach  people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” Galileo states that knowledge cannot be thought, therefore how can the modern education system, with inculcated teachers and an already set curriculum, encourage and advance the growth of knowledge and the birth of consciousness? Our knowledge cannot be rushed or be put into some system, instead it needs time, and it needs to be learned. Don't get me wrong, schools are doing an exceptional job trying to educate students everywhere, but maybe if the school boards and the government gave the school and the teachers an opportunity to express their own personal feelings, beliefs, and experiences, then the school system would not be in this difficult situation of  predestined learning. Schools simply cannot serve the goals of a true education. It is difficult to learn in school, because these schools continually organize harsh regulations and put too much stress on students and furthermore cause them to have psychotic breakdowns. Education takes real world experiences. One needs to take in their own perceptions, be well tuned with their emotions, and have the desire to attain and augment their knowledge. Without true education, the number of intellectuals and philosophers will decrease, and “poetry, beauty, romance, love” will stand no longer.

"Dogs are Miracles with Paws"

"Sick Man Makes 'Complete Turnaround' After Hospital Reunites Him With Cherished Dog"

By: Ryan Grenoble

Source: The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/17/dying-man-reunited-dog-bubba-turnaround_n_6003486.html?utm_hp_ref=health-news&ir=Health+News

            Seventy-three year-old, James Wathen was hospitalized in Kentucky over a month ago. His condition had suddenly worsened and he had quit eating. That is when the realization hit, that the old man was only missing his one-eyed Chihuahua, Bubba. Bubba had been turned over to Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter. Bubba had also missed James, as he had also quit eating. It was strange as both the dog and James had stopped eating at about the same time. The hospital's staff, realizing that the separation was harmful to both the man and the dog, disregarded the 'no animal rule,' tracked down Bubba, and reunited him with James. When the two were finally reunited, both made "a complete turnaround" (Grenoble, 1). Bubba was extremely sad at first. He was wrapped up in a baby blanket and was shivering and the moment he was twenty steps from James's room, his little head went up. "His eyes got real bright and he was like a different dog" (Grenoble, 1). James started to cry as Bubba was handed to him and then Bubba snuggled by James.

            This article is considered to be important as it makes people realize that animals are not only pets, but loved ones. These loved ones, somehow, have this tendency to keep your heart whole. They enter your life and change your entire perspective. They choose to love their owners more than themselves, and therefore pass on the idea of unconditional love.  

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

           Community service is work which benefits the community. There are individuals that believe community service is punishment, since it is often offered to small-time criminals as an alternative to fines or time in jail. However, community service can be altruistic as in it can be unselfish concerns for the benefit of others, and its role plays a vital part in communities. Majority of high schools require a set of community service hours for a student to graduate and colleges require a similar set of hours in order for the application for admission to be accepted. Although the rates of community service may seem healthy, a study suggests that "resume padding" may be the driving force. "Resume padding is a symptom of the extraordinary pressure put on young people to achieve a college education, and the very explicit understanding that a college education is a means to a decent life in the middle class" (Source 4). Countless young adults have said that the main reason as to why they do community service is to "make a stronger case to please college admission officers" (Source 4). This statement proves that young people do not volunteer for the well-being of others rather for themselves to look like exceptional students.

            Few  people might seek and understand that the problem is not what students are required to do for community service. The question at hand for them, that needs to be answered is why teachers and members of college admissions committees have the qualifications to define what is good for the society as a whole, or even for the students whom they press and force their illogical and irrational beliefs on? What "expertise" do they have on deciding other people's freedom and what lessons do students gain from this, except acceptance to illogical power? Hypothetically speaking, let people believe that students do get a sense of compassion and generosity from serving others, but who defines the compassion?

You're Faking It

"11 Children Have Mystery Illness in Colorado"
By: Jacque Wilson
Source: CNN News
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/health/colorado-partial-paralysis/index.html?hpt=he_c2

            Children's Hospital Colorado announced that there had been another child who had been hospitalized with partial paralysis. The doctors are not yet aware on what is causing these mysterious neurological illnesses. Ten other children at the hospital were identified with similar symptoms which include limb weakness, cranial nerve dysfunction, and abnormalities in the spinal gray matter. A mother of one of the Colorado children describes the alarming experience. She explained how it started with a cough, but then her daughter became apathetic and her fever rose. The mom took her daughter to the hospital, but the blood work looked "fine," (Wilson, 1) so the doctor sent her home to rest. The next day, the daughter complained of feeling weakness in her arm, but the mom thought her own daughter was being "dramatic and faking it" (Wilson, 1). The girl's muscle weakness got worse and two weeks later, she was admitted back to the hospital. Some children have tested positive for enterovirus D68, a virus that has been sending children from numerous countries to the hospitals with respiratory illness, but others have shown no signs of a virus ever being in their system. Doctors are trying to understand what is happening. 
             I think this article passes on various messages. One massive message that this article provides is that there are numerous diseases in the world and ones that yet need to be discovered. The article makes the reader wonder and exit this state of oblivion. It portrays to its audience the various mysteries that yet need to be discovered. Another crucial message that this article provides is the ignorance of people. Society nowadays thinks that people who are suffering from a serious medical condition or are in a constant state of pain are "faking" their condition. The thought of this bothers me to an unbearable degree. What is it that people can gain from "faking it"? Because being unable to move, being in continual pain, being under constant medication, being bedridden, and experiencing all these different emotional symptoms is not what you call "fun."