Log #7

·     Yours Turly, Shirley (Chapter 1 ~3)
- A book about Dyslexia (which is why the title spells "Truly" as "Turly")

    Before I start to share the details about the book, I would like to give a brief introduction of dyslexia.

    Dyslexia, is also known as reading disorder, is characterized by trouble with reading despite normal intelligence. Different people are affected to varying degrees. To be more specific, problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. The difficulties are involuntary and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn.

This book’s main character is Shirley Basini who is in fourth grade. Her scholastic performance is poor because she is suffering from dyslexia, reading order. Her disability makes reading difficult for her. She ends up struggling with feelings of inferiority and fears of disappointing her parents, especially since her older brother, Joe, is intellectually gifted. He always gets straights “As”. In the very beginning of the book, the author indicates that if Shirley does not do well in school this year, she will probably be held back.

For me, I think Shirley is not the rare case when we were in the elementary school, but due to the conservative learning ambience, a lot of parents and teachers just ignore their “SOS” crying. Moreover, a lot of teachers don’t know how to deal with this kind of students, for example, in the story, one of the teacher, Mr. Bradley said “If you like, you could even get some extra help in the Resource Room.” “The Resource Room! But that’s for RETARDS!” said Shirley. (Loc. 130 of 1509) From this plot, It’s not easy to interact with dyslexic students properly, as a result, in my study, I’m eager to study how to help these people study!

Concept Map

Log #5

Brief intro of the movie – Money Monster:

    Lee Gates (George Clooney) is a bombastic TV personality. He is a complete lack of sincerity as the showboating host of a financial TV show titled Money Monster.

    The story begins with an irate investor, Kyle Budwell, who has lost 60 grands due to mistakenly believing what Lee Gates has said. Thus, he manages to sneak into the television studio during a live broadcast with a loaded gun, an explosive vest and a determined mind – to get some answers from the people he blames for the loss of his life’s savings. He takes Gates, his crew, and his ace producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) hostage live on air.

Personal reflection:

    For me, I conclude that Lee represents a foolish and fancy host, and Kyle represents a little guy who has normal live, making 14$ per hour by driving taxi. The characters’ sets have offered us audience a real sample around us in the reality. Thus, I consider the movie as the most inspired and ironic movie in 2016 because the way that how the director produced this movie is making us audience to rethink of the stockholders’ situations in the real context.

First, the unreasonable “glitch” of the company has happened. Dramatically, overnight, the company has lost 800$ million dollars. The investor, Kyle, who has devoted all his money to the market, sharing the risks has become a nutcase. Kyle is not satisfied when both Lee and IBIS chief communications officer Diane Lester offer to compensate him for his financial loss and refused to take “glitch” as an answer to the problem. He wants Camby to “admit” his fault -- He is a fraud.

Second, as the moving going, with the help of longtime director Patty Fenn, Lee tries to calm Kyle and find Camby for him. When I am watching the final confrontation, I exhaled. When Camby says, “You only came after me because you lost your money. As long as everyone’s making money, no one cares.” He declares the point so frankly that I think it is the core which the director intends to express to the audience. (I don't want to spoil the details if you are interested in the movie, you can see it online.)

Third, the most ironic part is after Kyle is shot by the cop, everyone in front of their TV just go back to your life, ignoring what has happened on TV. NO BODY CARES ABOUT LOSING A LIFE. Everyone views the incident as a ridiculous joke without the awareness of what it is really happening in the real life. This scenario alarms me to think about the real financial situation in the reality. What if there are lots of people like Kyle but they fail at the end, how do they keep their life going? The whole sick society is filled with plausible words and deceived factors, the only way to reveal the truth is to keep your mind clear and read the situation carefully.

Log #4

What type of bully you are?

In this week’s research, I’ve searched some information about what type of bully in the society. Specifically, there are the Actor, the Wincer and the Sybil.

    First, the Actor, this type of person isn't always a bully, perhaps they're only a bully behind the boss's back, and when you're in the room they're sweet as pie (Janine Popick CMO). It’s the not as obvious as you can observe in the real context, however, this kind of person is the most common. For example, in the university, there are a lot of people who smile at you in person, but they stab you in the back. Sometimes, this kind of bullies are formed in a group, cursing others secretly. Second, the Wincer, this bully walks the halls with a mean-face, doesn't smile and says more without words than if they opened their mouths(Janine Popick CMO).For instance, some classmates always act like that, without considering others’ feeling at all. Especially, some so-called “Queen Bees” at school. Just like some mean girls in the classic movie – Mean Girl, which was led by Lindsay Lohan. Those bullies would gather together, performing mean face toward others in pursuit of looing down their classmates. Third, the Sybil, when Sybil is happy and not stressed there's not a bully in sight! Say something they don't want to hear or deal with? The bully comes out and comes out big time pie (Janine Popick CMO). I assert that many people were suffered from this kind of bullies or even being a part of them.

For me, I was once the Sybil, but I was not aware of that them. As I was in the elementary school, I was a popular and characteristically charming leader in the class, always ordering my classmates to do things I didn't like to do at all. Frankly, I remembered so vividly that I had forced one of my classmates to commit a trouble which was not made by him. Since I was a talented student, and a talented student was not allowed to make mistakes! After oppressing a scapegoat to do so, I didn’t know I caused great harm to that classmate, still, I remained arrogant and wore my perfect mask for a while. After that, I had become worse and worse until I met another bully who did some terrible things to me in the senior high school. (the same play as in the movie, Mean Girls)

    From the video, I AM HOLLY, I found that there were a lot of people like Holly, feeling hopeless and depressed, but us adults are giving nothing to assist the kids to get rid of these problems. Bully is a serious issue which is raging with the upcoming social medias.

Unfortunately, if the kid is not as fortunate as possible, he/she might get into the deepest hole just like the character in the video, Anyone Can Be a Bully. Every minor detail might cause attrition to kids, if teachers/parents aren’t aware of kids’ mental condition, they might lose them for good. This is not what I’m willing to witness! Thus, in the further research, I will explore more solution and helpful ways to help the victims and also come up with more ideas on how to stop bullies from harming others.

 Reference:

Got Bullies? Here's How to Deal with Them
By Janine Popick CMO, Dasheroo; founder, VerticalResponse

http://www.inc.com/janine-popick/got-bullies-heres-how-to-deal-with-them.html

I AM HOLLY - An Anti-Bullying Film by Bedford High School

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFknG5heyPA

Anyone Can Be a Bully

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LCB6qhMlgk