Glimpse of My Research Paper on Recess

Current mainstream society has focused its attention towards the present, thus placing less attention on our future. It seems as though our nation has been hypnotized by the aftermath of the war in Iraq. Everyday our eyes are tuned into the news and sent into a trance as we watch gas prices slowly increase a little more each day. I believe that knowing about current events is important, but I also believe that we must also build a stable foundation for our future. As a Communication Science and Disorders major at Saint Louis University, I support speech language pathologists and audiologists' role in helping people, especially children with speech, language, and communication. A conflict that exists between my belief in building a foundation for our children and my support for the CSD department is the ongoing situation in certain school when a child would be taken out of recess in order to get developmental speech treatment. In addition to conflicts like this, physical problems such as obesity, present another problem. I believe recess should be kept in school schedules because its pros outweigh its cons.

First let's start by understanding the history of recess. It initially began as a result of the need for human mentality to take a break after a long period of work. After many schools began to take breaks that allowed a half hour of freedom for both teachers and students, other schools also began to adopt recess into their daily schedules. According to Anthony Pellegrini, "recess is defined as a temporary withdrawal from work or activity." Therefore, this break that was taken in the middle of the day was eventually referred to as recess. Written records exist that explain how the name recess was formulated, but I find it amazing "to find virtually nothing written about the historical origins of recess in American schools (Pellegrini pg 23)."

Recess has been known as the break taken in the school day that allows students to get away from structure. On a more political perspective, "the role of recess will probably be judged, for better or worse, on its influence on children's academic achievement ( Pellegrini pg 140)." Recess may either interfere with learning or it may facilitate learning and achievement. Depending on the student's tests scores, the Education Board will respond accordingly to counter tests score results. If students score higher when having recess, then recess will be kept in that school. If students score lower when having recess, then recess will most likely be shortened to allow more time for academics. Schools are able to understand how their students cope with recess by subtly lowering the amount of time for it and then observing attention spans and most importantly grades. This long awaited break by most students also allows the children to experience life lesson and develop skills that could not be learned in the classroom. Development in social skills such as cooperation and resolving conflict can be learned through a game of basketball. For example, if there are two many people for two teams, children can develop a simple system, in which, losers of the first game are substituted with a new set of players and then this process is repeated.

JFK Assassination Controversy

John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 while traveling down Elm St. in Dallas, TX on an open car in a motor arcade. I find this interesting because I am from Texas and I have driven to the roads that the motorcade traveled. At the John F. Kennedy museum in Dallas, TX I remember learning so much about the well respected and honored president. After the first couple levels, the museum is all about 100% reliable facts, but nearing the end of the museum many controversial sections exists.

Controversy exists concerning John F. Kennedy that deals with where the shots were fired?, How many shots were fired? Why Kennedy’s head jerked back and to the left? and What was Lee Harvey Oswald’s role in the assassination?. These questions were triggered by people who saw Zapruder’s JFK assassination film hoax. Zapruder’s film shows John F. Kennedy’s head first jerking forward and then a bullet is shown going through the front left portion of his head. There existed three possible explanations for the film which are: JFK was hit by two bullets at almost the same time; one from behind and then one from the front, JFK was only hit from behind and brain matter exploding from the front caused his head to recoil backwards, lastly, JFK was hit from behind and some sort of muscle reaction caused his head to fly backwards.

Despite the fact that Zapruder’s film only lasted 27 seconds, it caused people to question the JFK assassination for many decades. Other statements that were thrown in the air, were ideas such as finding out why shots were heard from the grassy knoll if JFK’s head initially seemed to jerk forwards and then backwards. Despite the controversy that exists with JFK’s assassination I still find comfort in reading information regarding John F. Kennedy that noted him as the most respected and honored president in United States history. The controversy may cause his name to be known for many years to come. At John F. Kennedy’s gravestone exists an ‘eternal flame’ that commemorates the man as forever having an affect on our lives.


http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
http://www.assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/

Gateway Into a College Student's Mind; 'Oh SLU, You've Been So Good to Me'

I find myself sitting in my dorm room with the lights out. Roommate number 1 is already sleeping and roommate number two went out for a smoke. I am here typing away as I have seemed to have found myself in a adrenaline rush for writing. I have just written 2 essays for my communication science and disorders class and I recently finished my 'Good and Bad Source' blog. My mindset is currently carefree right now. I remember the times when I would bring back a good paper to my parents to feel how proud they are for me. Now it seems like the best is what I'm always striving for. No more parents around to run off to show my outstanding work on a class project, presentation, or paper. Life right now is currently taken for granted and almost robotic. College students are hindered by the immense load of homework that we need to finish. We never have enough time to really appreciate our work because we find ourselves worrying about the next huge assignment that is coming up. These ideas are all a representation of my paradigm as a hard working college student. I have come to know other people out there who don't have to try as hard, but still get the A's and are able to go out on weekends.

I find that I need to suffer so much now, because in the end I will find out that it was all worth it. The late night on my computer not playing computer games, rather writing essays and crossing off my 'to-do' list on my planner. I find myself exhausted already, but I find energy and hope that summer is 3 months. I mean this semester has not been a very long 3 months, but I feel that the last couple of weeks will feel like a glimpse of hell. Studying for finals, cleaning, fixing the room, storing everything I own into cardboard boxes; so that I can somehow find a truck to move it all to storage, all of this while I try not to print off my intinery and somehow pack correctly so that I don't go over the 50 pound weight limited and force my parents to indirectly pay an extra $25. Overall I have enjoyed college, the slight seconds of glory as I turn in a paper and finish taking a test/quiz with a feeling of delight. But these moments never last forever, suddenly I find that the 5 hours spent on research and another 5 hours spent on preparing the presentaion was not enough, plus that test/quiz that I thought I did well on was actually all a fluke, and I find myself questioning if I was studying or was that 3 hours of my life for 4 days in a row all a dream.

Yes, this all exist within my mind.
Thanks for reading and sorry for the sentence errors; it's getting late. I have a pre-cal quiz at 10. Goodnite.

Good and Bad Source for Recess

I am writing my research paper on recess, and I will be making the argument that recess should be kept in the school schedule. People on both sides of the argument bring about ideas concerning recess and how it has pros and cons that make an impact on how our children in the 21st century are being raised. I found a reliable website that I will use in my paper. Certain aspects about the page allow me to figure out whether or not a certain internet source is reliable.

The website: http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8312(199524)32%3A4%3C845%3ATEORTO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F&cookieSet=1 is reliable because it is published by the American Education Research Association. It is an organization based website that is also supported by J Stor, which is the 'trusted archives for scholarship' that St. Louis University also supports. This article is also a part of the American Educational Research Journal. The site clearly cites sources by informing us Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1995), pp 845-864. Another factor that I found interesting was that three names are written that represents the authors of the article. They also all have universities under their names, which allows readers to find out where they have worked or done research at. By merely reading the first entry to this article, the authors Pellegrini, Huberty, and Jones have done their research via three field experiments. This article is also definitely reliable because they give a brief overview of the three authors and what their main area of focus is on.

An article that I came by which does not seem very trustworthy is http://nochildleft.com/2005/sum05recess.html. This web page is clearly biased because they refer to their page as ‘a site advocating a sound approach to school improvement’. A side article on the web page is titled No More Recess: The New American Sweatshop. This page definitely shows anger towards those that believe that recess should be abolished. I don’t plan on using this webpage because it is biased, it is a ‘.com’ site, they only reference two cites, and the page contains side links with cartoons, a bookstore, and a free subscription. Unreliable sources such as this give students a hard time to piece their essays together because bad roots should be weeded out. This page, for example, makes a good point and connects it with a fairly known organization, but the webpage fails to express the views of the other side.