No control

First, a note to my fellow students, I know this is old news, but it applies to the question - my apologies

The question posed is, "Describe a time in which you have been in a frightening situation that required immediate attention (such as a fight or a bad injury requiring emergency room attention). How did you respond and feel?"

Well, this is not a situation that happened to me, however I was involved, therefore I feel it is relevant.


When I was nine years old, my father was in a diving accident. My family owned a cottage at a lake. It wasn't much - pretty typical: the cottage was green with the paint chipping, exterior and interior; the furniture was all floral, the beds were hard mattresses on rod iron bases, the fridge was stocked with sodas and beer with general food necessities like eggs and bread. There was a nice side yard, a huge backyard, and a decent sized front yard. The front sloped down into this steep hill that had a metal staircase leading to the dock and the lake. We had rebuilt the dock's foundation, putting new boards along the sides to make it sturdier and putting cinder-blocks against some of the boards to ensure that they'd stay straight.

My father and I were on the dock, while other family members lounged and some played in the water. Two were in inflatable rowboats, planning to have a race. My father was going to jump in and tip one of them over. He was that fun type of person, a beer in one hand and the other ready to do whatever was needed: flip a burger, turn a wrench, tip a boat. He was a good guy, you know?

He dove into the water. It was shallow, maybe up to my waist at the time - probably two, three feet deep. I was standing on the dock next to him - the boards buckled slightly when he bent his knees before propelling himself toward the water. His head and shoulders were covered, but from halfway down his abdomen and down he was above the water. For a moment it seemed like he just froze, his legs straight up. And there was a big splash when the rest of his body collided with the water, spraying everyone in the water and on the dock.

I think it was about a twenty seconds before any of us noticed the blood. We saw it right before his body floated to the surface. His head was just visible, an inch of water covering it to the top of his spine. The curve of his spine was above the water, and then the top of his swim trunks and the rest of his legs disappearing beneath the surface.

People began screaming. It was that noiseless scream that TV shows try to replicate whenever there's a traumatic scene. Everyone's running and you can tell their screaming, but there's silence. Except in reality, you hear everything. It's like your senses are suddenly upped 100 times and you can hear everyone individually even though everyone is screaming at once. Someone in the water was yelling his name, someone shouted to call 911, someone called 911, someone called my name, someone was just crying.

And then I was pushed up the stairs to the cottage. It felt as if I was the one in the water, my legs seemed to move like jello. I was so calm as I walked to the phone, called my mother. I was alone in the house except for a few other kids who had been rushed back inside too. From inside, I couldn't hear the screaming and the static in the phone was too loud.

The next time I saw my father was when the ambulance arrived. He was probably in the water for a good five minutes with his head barely head up, so as not to damage it further. It took everyone to get him on the dock, where someone performed CPR until the ambulance pulled up in front of the cottage. And with everyone working together, he was carried up the stairs and across the yard. That's another thing that seems to be upped 100 times when a traumatic event occurs - strength.

He was put into the ambulance and people got in their cars to follow it to the hospital. He was unconscious and it wasn't thought that he'd live the ride. The blood had been from a cut on his head that started at the top of his skull and went all the way to the base. He had a cut in his spinal cord, causing paralysis from the neck down. He couldn't breathe on his own.

The ambulance met a helicopter which flew him the rest of the way to the hospital. I stayed the night at the cottage with the family who had stayed behind. We all slept in one room with the telephone. We didn't talk, we didn't watch TV, we didn't eat. I don't remember getting off the couch at all. The phone rang once, maybe twice during the night. It didn't matter what the person on the other line said, as long as he was alive.

I went to the hospital the next day. I remember standing at the emergency doors and meeting up with a friend of the family. I was going back to their house because she was the mother of my best friend. But I didn't have my Pooh Bear that my dad had given me when I was born. So my uncle had to drive back to the cottage and get it. I think that was the first time it really hit me. Spending the night without sleeping and not knowing what was going to happen was scary. But not having my Pooh Bear was terrifying.


I never went in to the hospital room where my dad stayed for twenty-two days. He celebrated his 39th birthday there. The nurses in the Intensive Care Unit were so nice to my family. They gave me a teddy bear and knew us all by name - I have a huge family, so this was an achievement.

I got as far as the doorway once. My brother, my mother and I went to my dad's room. I thought I was ready. But there were so many tubes and beeping machines. It's not like when someone has a baby or someone breaks a leg. The room itself seemed lifeless. I had made him a picture in school and it was hanging on his wall. The TV was on, but it was muted. My father had been in a medical coma, meaning he could come in and out of the coma, rather than not waking up. My mother had taken pictures a few days before to show me what he looked like so that I'd be prepared. I was fine all the way until the door. After that it was as if my shoes were cemented to the floor. And no one pressured me to go any farther. My brother held my hand and my mom told my dad I was there. I waved.

That was the last time I saw him.

He passed away while I was at a barbeque on July 4th. When I came home, I slept in my mom's bed because my grandparents were in town and were staying in my room. She told me that night before I went to sleep. I cried, of course, and she cried and it seemed for the next couple days, all we could do was cry.

But I think the most frightening part was the one time I tried to see my father in the hospital. Because when you see someone like that, you realize how powerless you are. In a way, death gives you closer because you can believe they're in a better place and they're no longer suffering. And when they're alive and healthy, you don't have to worry. But seeing my father like that, with the tubes and the machines - he couldn't even wave; he couldn't say hi because of the breathing tube down his throat. His way of communication was through blinking with his eyes, a code that we had made. When you see someone like that, you realize that you're a very small person with no control.

A photojournalist or war correspondent has to be selfless. If they bring their ego to the scene, they'll never get out there because they'll fear everything. They have to have compassion because of the images they see every day. But at the same time, they have to build a wall so that they can approach the scenes and photo them or get video footage so that it can be shared.

A photojournalist also needs a sense of adventure and the ability to not just step out their comfort zone, but leap out of it. A war correspondent isn't going to be able to capture the story unless they take risks.

For most teenagers growing up in the United States, we do not realize how lucky we are for the lives that are fortunate enough to live. By which I mean, both the opportunities we have and the gift of life that we receive. There is, of course, violence in our country - there are shootings and there are people who act out of unjust rage. But there are countries where kids have to labor on plantations in order to keep their lives because if they don't, they'll be shot. There are countries where hundreds are shot a day for no reason but the fact that they were there. And every single one of those people had a mother and a father, friends, a community.

How can people be so cruel? I want to study the human mind, but I don't understand how one can live after gunning down an innocent life. Even in America, one of the said most fortunate countries, there are people who are killed in our own cities. I just don't understand.

What is courage? By definition, courage is the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear. But in terms of photojournalism, I think courage is knowing when you pursue and risk it all and when to let the story tell itself. Because courage and foolery are only separated by a thin line of sanity. Photojournalists put their lives on the line in order to get a story and give people a voice. There are so many events that are so one-sided and photojournalists provide a rounded story. And courage is also the bravery to cover stories that will cause controversy and for some, hatred toward the reporter.

We all have an outer shell...

1. What makes a person beautiful on the outside? Is it a comparison to celebrities or a comparison to family? Do individual features "cause" a person to be beautiful, or is it how everything "works" as a whole?

2. Why did the chicken really cross the road?

3. Who is the blame for the recent occurrence of low expectations at school - the parents, the teachers, or the students?

4. If you had to choose between killing yourself or killing another person - a person who's identity was not revealed to you, but could be someone you know (or not) - which would you choose?

5. If you had to choose between all you can eat food for the rest of your life with limited music or all the music you want with just enough food to survive, which would you choose?

6. In this age, is it better for a language to be more slang oriented in classrooms, or is that only appropriate among friends in social places.

7. If you could travel to France or Italy, which would you choose?

8. Is there such thing as being 'too' honest?

9. Can you really tell someone that their acting like a racial group ("Stop being so black" "You sound so white")? Who determines those stereotypes?

10. Is it better to make sex a secret and teach only abstinence and the negative side, or is that a contributor factor to generations of kids having sex at younger ages?

Where do you really focus?

"Just 5 percent of Rochester School District students leave high school prepared for college or careers"
- D&C

Is being prepared for college solely about work ethic and academics? College readiness is being a huge focus all across the nation, and particularly in the Rochester City School District under the supervision of Jean-Claude Brizard. Brizard wants to "reinforce the push for college-preparatory programs he started when he came to the city three years ago." (Democrat & Chronicle) I agree that curriculum's should be change in order to challenge students and better prepare them academically for later courses throughout high school, as well as college.

I also wonder if Rochester in particular is focusing too much on poverty and race, or not paying enough attention to the issue. Minorities are out numbered in the City School District, and it may be statistically true that their performance level is not as high as Caucasian students; however, are their achievements recognized? School of the Arts has the highest graduation rate of African American male students in the district, but this fact is not acknowledged when racial academic statistics are mentioned. Suburban schools are typically better funded than city schools; this means that they have more supplies, or more updated supplies. Thus, isn't poverty a variable in academic success rate? If curriculum is part of the equation, the latest resources should be as well, shouldn't they? At the meeting when Brizard spoke at School of the Arts earlier in the month, he mentioned that he didn't believe that location and poverty were an excuse. However, I beg to differ; I went to Gates Chili schools until the end of my sixth grade year. I feel that when I came to School of the Arts, I was just as challenged academically, despite the lack of resources.

Furthermore, I was fueled by the arts programs at School of the Arts, something that I didn't feel was as important at the suburban school. Schools are appealing to students for different reasons; I need to be around the arts - theater, voice, creative writing. Researchers are beginning to look into statistics to prove that arts influence a student's academic success.

For example:

"Interpretation Skills
During art appreciation classes, students are made to interpret and draw conclusions from various pieces of art. This strengthens their interpretation skills and they can use the same in other subjects as well as in all other aspects of life.

Creativity
During art programs, students are often given materials and asked to draw whatever they feel like. Such free flowing art activities foster creativity in children and help in developing their imagination as well as decision making skills."

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importance-of-art-education.html


Brizard is closing poor-performing high schools and replacing them with smaller schools that focus on college readiness. Personally, I'm not positive that creating new schools helps raise the graduation rate? To me, this only causes schools to have to start over, students are taken out of their element and thrust into something totally new. Shouldn't college readiness be added to currently well-standing schools? If School of the Arts has the highest graduation rate, shouldn't it have the same college readiness programs installed that are being installed in newly established schools?


In order to receive more funding for the Rochester City School District, special education programs must receive a cut of that funding. In schools such as School of the Arts that is program based, this takes funding away from the arts; in Wilson, it takes away from the IB problem. Is it fair to have a focal point on special education and how those who require aids and special attention because of a mental disability? The arts serve as an aid to students who lack interest in academics - having an arts major and attending arts classes daily aid students in being attentive in classes.

Social Media

"Social media has become a way for us to connect, to keep this issue at the forefront of our day, to talk about what is happening. Social media makes it impossible to just shut off the rest of the world and focus on our own lives. Social media reminds us that our problems are small and our reach is far. When we feel like we can’t do anything, as is the case for many of us right now in regards to the unrest in Egypt, social media gives us a voice. And an ear."
(http://www.blogworld.com/2011/01/28/social-medias-role-in-the-egyptian-protests/)

Social media has connected everyone in more ways than one. It makes it impossible to ignore the latest news because we're surrounded by it. News is in ads on Facebook and blogging sites, in clips on emails: it's everywhere. Donations can be made online, petitions can be "signed", and people can unite against a common cause without knowing anything about each other.


"Twenty-first–century civil society relies upon the Internet and other communication devices for its infrastructure, and for a digital “safe harbor” in which civic conversations can incubate. This is especially true in countries where the national print and broadcast media are heavily censored." (Philip N. Howard)

Thus, the Internet also provides can outlet for individuals to express their ideas in countries that censor other news mediums. Fortunately the United States is not as censored and there are all types of mediums and opinions that can be expressed. The Internet is one medium to exercise the First Amendment.

"Civil society groups use the Internet as a logistical tool for organization and communication." (Phillip N. Howard)

This is similar to the current conflict in Egypt. Would it have been such a big event had the social media not helped these rebels connect?