Schindler's List

Oskar Schindler addressing his workers at his factory.

Schindler's List, is a film that came out in 1993 and won seven Oscar Awards. The movie is about a man named Oskar Schindler and the story of the movie takes place during World War II during the Holocaust when Hitler was in power. Schindler is a struggling business man and thinking about nothing more than wealth, decides that this would be his perfect opportunity to try and flourish his career. Schindler joins the Nazi party in order to gain access to what he saw as beneficial rights at the time. These rights would allow him to create his factory and use the Jewish people that were being put in the Ghettos as slave labors. Through out the movie Schindler slowly begins to realize that even though the people working in his factory may be Jewish, they are people just like him and religion is the only thing that really differentiated them. As he begins to realize this, he starts to fight to keep them at his factory where he knows they will be safe from being killed. To do this, he had to bribe many people and pay a lot of money. He comes up with reasons for why every single worker at his factory is "essential" to keep them from being sent away. Originally, Schindler's factory produced mess-kits, including items such as pots and pans but later in the movie it turns into an artillery factory. Schinlder alters the machines at his factory to make sure that any ammunition produced would not fire correctly, this was one of the ways that he helped stop the mass killing of Jews, besides from keeping them at the factory. Over the next few years, not a single person is killed at his factory. When World War II ends, Schindler sets his factory workers free and is left to escape town because legally he took a part in slave labor. Schindler realized the wrong doing of the Nazi party before much of the world caught on and in total was able to save over 1,000 Jews even though doing so put his own life in major risk.

Power is a theme that is explored a lot in this movie. Power makes some corrupt while in other cases it brings out the best in people. To me, power is a huge responsibility and I don't think many individuals today are capable of having full power over anything. For example, Goeth related his life back to his power and attempted to be in control of everything at every second, obviously he misused the power that he had. Schindler, on the other hand changes how he uses his power through out the plot of the movie. At the beginning, he uses his power as a business tool to make as much profit as possible, but slowly as he begins to realize what is actually happening uses it for good. Although he did bribe other officials, it was to save lives of innocent people and I would consider this a good use of power.

I think that many events that took place through out the movie led Schindler from being an "anti-hero" to a hero. I think that seeing so many innocent people killed had a large affect on this. I think another factor of this was that he began making friends with the Jewish people who worked at his factory, and started to realize they were no different than him and did not deserve to be treated how they were being treated.

The film expresses many ideas and gives a great insight into this time period. I think that the way the movie was put together and the plot line made it an effective film, and something I don't think I will soon forget. Relating this to our project currently being done in class I wrote a poem about one person being able to change something, but people joining together being able to change more. I think the movie effectively portrayed the classic line of you can do anything if you try, and really showed that you can make change happen. It also led to me to wonder what would have happened if Schindler had more accomplices, what would have been able to be achieved then?

Pigment and Tempra Paint Article Sources

1. http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/
2. http://studiochalkboard.evansville.edu/p-pigment.html
3. http://www.eggtempera.com/index.htm
4. http://www.danielsmith.com/Learn/Articles/Making-Egg-Tempera.asp
5. http://www.learn-to-draw-and-paint.com/casein.html
6. http://homerepair.about.com/od/termsor/g/Pigment.htm
pigment paint info
7. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/460189/pigment
encyclopedia entry on paint
8. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem99/chem99050.htm
chemistry of paint

No Child Left Behind? What it means to us.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/issues273.shtml

From this article I expanded my knowledge on the actual content of the No Child Left Behind Act. It is a twelve hundred page document that President Bush implemented to call for more standardized testing of third through eighth grade students and increase the accountability of teachers and principals in public schools nationwide. This act was modeled after the Elementary/Secondary School Education Act of 1965. President Bush significantly increased public school funding to those schools that had high test scores and proved themselves accountable. He also gave money to Title 1, to reading programs, and for professional development of the educators. With this act come pros and cons. On the pro side, educators are given professional development opportunities they otherwise may not have had the chance to experience. It also increased public school funding by 27%, totaling 22.5billion in the year 2001. On the con side, educators are now forced to "teach to the standardized test." This means that educators now spend the majority of their time worrying about standardized test scores rather than making the classroom a fun and enjoyable learning environment in order to receive the much needed classroom funding. The teachers simply are not able to use creativity and ingenuity when developing curriculum and lesson plans. In my opinion test scores do not show how much one child has learned, or prove anything about how well the teacher taught over the course of the school year. I think most students, especially in the younger grades learn more under less pressure with no testing.

Questions from this article:

1. Have the test scores improved since the NCLB program began?

2. How has the act been changed and improved since its debut in 2002?

3. What is the percentage of teachers for/against NCLB?

How No Child Left Behind affects Charter Schools

http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Children/NCLB_Charter_Schools

From reading this article I already have found the answers to the questions that I had from my previous blog. This article was particularly interesting to me because it directly affected me seeing as I attend a charter school. I found out that although charter schools are still affected by this law, they are given flexibility and do not have to comply with all the standards that public schools have to follow. Although they are given much more flexibility, if they do not show improvement they then become at risk of being closed down. The basis of a charter school is that they follow a charter, they work under there own system going by what they feel is best for the students. While charter schools are still affected by this, if the acts such as the NCLB confilct with the schools charter then they override the government act. Since President Bush has taken office he has invested over $600 million dollars into the charter school system. Money of course is an issue in this argument due to the lack of funding, as the No Child Left Behind board has several goals for the future of the program, I wonder how they plan on paying for the extensive network of teachers they plan on having and other necessary resources for the classroom with the continously dwindeling school budgets. The No Child Left Behind act sometimes even creates a larger problem for the schools to recieve funding if they can not improve their test scores. Is the No Child Left Behind act the way to go in trying to solve this nationwide issue?

Questions I still have about this issue are:

1. I am still unclear of what benifts the NCLB act gives schools, and I wonder if I can find a website that will better explain this topic to me?

2. Is it fair for the NCLB act to give more flexibility to charter schools rather than keeping charter schools and public schools at the same standards?

3. How do our test scores affect us and how the NCLB act relates to schools in the San Diego county?

What is the No Child Left Behind Act?

http://usliberals.about.com/od/education/i/NCLBProsCons.htm

From this article, I learnd that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law in 2002, by President George Bush. This law affects schools that recieve what is called the, "Title I Funding" which is granted to school districts around the nation that have students at the poverty level and also to schools who are most at risk for low academic achievement. I wonder if private schools or charter schools such as the one I attend are affected by this? According to statistics, 90 percent of secondary and elementary schools around the nation currently recieve funding from this grant. To make this act have a greater affect on students nationwide they currently have a list of goals that they are trying to achieve. A couple of these goals are, for all students to be profient in reading by the end of third grade. They hope to have this goal accomplished by the end of the 2013-14 school year. One of there other goals is to obtain highly qualified teacher for every core academic class.

As this is my first article I have read so far about the No Child Left Behind Act, I still have several questions about this concept.

1. Why are goverment officials and teachers around the nation against this act?

2. Does this act affect charter schools and private schools?

3. Is this act still in motion?