Guest Blogger: DeAngelo

Today's guest blogger, DeAngelo, an eleventh grader, will be sharing two poems with all of you. In his third year at the Academy, DeAngelo is conscientious and disciplined, always impeccably dressed for school and polite. He is always ready to volunteer in any capacity. His talent for poetry became apparent during his sophomore year and already we know him as a prolific and powerful writer. He's quite a big deal in wrestling. And quite a big deal when it comes to scholarship, leadership, and service. Thank you for visiting our blog today!

Troubled!

The mom screams SHUT-UP! You gettin' on my nerves!

The baby keeps crying and the mom gets disturbed

Most people love kids, not this woman she's cruel

The baby is only six months not understanding any rules

He gets beat, smacked, and even burned up with a lighter

If she didn't want the child why lay down with that firefighter

He's a married man and didn't want anything to do with you

Now I understand why your black dress is all covered in soup

Because you hit him one last time and all his pain went away

Now he's an angel in Heaven waiting for the golden gates

But soon you will join him but only with death

And now Hell's Satan is going to put you to rest

So next time please try to cry at your baby's passing

Oh wait she has life with a death sentence passion!

Eight Colors of the Day

The day starts off with a nice yellow shine

The thoughts of yesterday's red anger in the back of my mind

Blue is in the sky when I wake up

And I run downstairs "Look at that orange juice cup"

And drink as I think about what happened yesterday

She slapped me I didn't hit her but um that's okay

Today is better than yesterday, it's not so gray

And I would like to get past it because it's a new day

But...

Bang! He shot the paint can with a small black gun

Didn't harm nobody but hey he better start to run

A white car pulls up he hears "Freeze I'll shoot"

Now the mom is at home crying the tar off the roof

Ugh! Looked in the paper and that boy didn't stop

No wonder why blood is all over that light brown mop

Guest Blogger: Zacchaeus

Hello and thanks for checking in with The Ginn Academy this week! As we explained in the last post, we have some guest bloggers filling in for me until my broken ankle is healed. And we love what they're doing so much that we're going to continue this on a regular basis.

Today we're going to hear from 9th grader, Zacchaeus, whose essay about behavior provides some keen insight into his mind and what he's being taught at home. Zacchaeus's English teacher, Ms. Bollar, shared this with us.

The Importance of Appropriate Behavior

by Zacchaeus K.

When in a classroom, everyone knows, somewhere in their mind, the appropriate way to behave. And each student also can give you reasons why they should behave properly. Since preschool, good behavior rules have been enforced. And for those students who didn't attend preschool, Kindergarten taught you the same rules.

Every day when parents send their children to school, they expect for their child to behave in a manner in which the parent would proudly say, "That's my son or daughter." Every day when parents send us to school we are representing our parents; we are demonstrating the behavior they expect from us. If I came to school in wrinkled clothes, hair uncombed, and an easily recognizable odor coming from my body, wouldn't you as a teacher expect that I am not the wealthiest person, but my parents dress in a similar manner. The way we as students act gives every teacher another detail and thought on how our home life is. One of the last things I want to do is embarrass my family. Make it look as if my family isn't strong, caring, and loving.

In life, there are rewards and consequences for almost everything. Your behavior in school goes a long way. Last year, I received a letter for me to go to Washington, D.C. I was nominated for this opportunity by my English teacher, In the letter it gave me short requirements for a student to be nominated: good attendance, exceptional scholar, well behaved, and respectful. I, who had those qualities, received a blessing. Another example could be when you are applying for a summer job in high school. Sometimes you are required to get a recommendation letter from a teacher. If you act out in class what makes you think that a teacher will lie for you.

Your behavior in one class can completely determine whether or not you go to college. Maybe in order for you to go to college you must get at least a 3.0 GPA. Then in math you have a C. All you need is one more percent and you will have a full ride to college because you already have a B in your other classes. Now if you don't show this teacher any respect, more than likely he won't give you a B so you can go to college, for free.

I have identified plenty of circumstances in which you would think it is your best bet to be on your best behavior. But all these reasons were surface, easily identifiable reasons. I want to open your eyes to the deep outside-the-box reasons; reasons that affect more than just yourself and peers. It affects your family, community, and most important the country.

Every day that a student comes to school to learn, a teacher comes to school to teach. One student will be a classroom disruption and that teacher will lose time that could be used to teach a student who wants to learn. For every second that these kind of things happen, we are just letting a foreign country like China or Japan to educate their youth a little bit more. Then their youth become even smarter than the U.S.'s youth.

My personal opinion is that we as a country allow immigrants into our country for one major reason. Our government presents us with many opportunities to become educated and successful. We, as a country, disregard them, students act in an unfavorable way and teachers reach their limit and give up on that student, which opens up one more job for an immigrant to come and take from us. They learn the same material in three quarters of the time we take to learn it. Then they ask for half of the money we ask for to do the same job. These people have children and their children have children. They dedicate themselves and the country wonders why there aren't any jobs available.

Now when you're in class and you think about being a disruption in another student's learning, I hope you know if you do you will just hurt yourself, your family, and your country. It seems amazing how one mistake can have a domino effect on thousands or millions of people.