My two cent clarification: In defense of Carlynton High School and Small Education

Hang on, this is going to be a long one.

A warning: the following is an opinion. As a journalist, I don’t like having those. Understand that opinions change and evolve as time does, and please respect the place I was coming from whilst writing this. Also I use Oxford commas, don’t judge me. I do not advocate for any candidate or particular legislation or anything beyond dialogue. Want that to be clear before I proceed.

So last week I shared a post from a Carlynton alum that I attached some comments to. I was under the impression that the commentary was an assessment of the district I graduated from in the aim of opening a dialogue on the faults in the education system as a whole.

Boy was I wrong.

I completely own up to sharing it, and further to misrepresenting a blanket approval from me of this statement with added commentary. I thought it was (and, full disclosure, I didn’t read the whole thing that late at night) an attempt to open dialogue and I shared to push further the reach of that dialogue. I also did it as a way to promote someone I felt at the time should be heard by my reach. I recognize that the alum can stand behind what was said as an opinion, but I want to make it clear: that opinion expressed in the piece isn’t mine.

The fact of the matter is when you share across your stage or your platforms, the assumption is that anything you further share you agree with. I need to add the whole “RTs do not equal endorsements” bit to my Twitter for this reason, but I’m not here to preach about social media, I’m here to preach about what my views are on the education system and what I meant to say originally.

I graduated two years ago from the Carlynton School District. If you’re fairly new to my adventures, the Carlynton School District is a tiny (and I mean tiny – my graduating class was 92 strong) school district five miles outside Downtown Pittsburgh. I’m currently pursuing a B.A. Journalism degree at Point Park University, a subject I consider a passion and a school I consider the best decision I’ve made.

The original alum commented on apathy at my alma mater and said quite bluntly (and quoting an unnamed source) that “this place is a disease.” I won’t argue that apathy exists within the education system but I have to argue that the source misidentified the problem. This place – being Carlynton High School – is not the disease. It has the disease that comes along with being (against its own will) a part of a governmental system that puts numbers ahead of people and tests ahead of education.

I’ve said for years privately that the strength of the Carlynton School District lies in its faculty and students. Teachers (and I’m dear friends with some education majors, I count them here also) don’t get into such a cutthroat business without a passion or a drive to accomplish something greater. It’s a drive to change what they experienced, or to provide something greater than themselves to their students. If you don’t have a drive to change it or to affect some sort of change, you’re not going to last in education long. You. Burn. Out.

I want to challenge the original poster to think about what honestly was said: was the lack of challenge you described you had experienced your senior year a result of climbing an academic pinnacle as I had, or was it because of a chosen apathy on the part of the participant? You said you chose against taking Advanced Placement yet expected the same level challenge at a general level class, what did you expect? I am genuinely curious.

I’m not going to lie, by my senior year I wanted to get out of Carlynton but that was because by that point I felt I had outgrown it and I had a taste of the real world and college life and wanted to move forward beyond the K-12 system. It’s a system that I strongly believe is designed that way for a reason so you can make a clean cut when you walk across that stage and be ready mentally to take on the next step, whatever you determined that to be.

If I didn’t feel challenged in the classroom, I did this potentially self-destructive thing I do in college where I get CRAZY involved with stuff to challenge me further in a way outside the classroom and to challenge the ways I think and the means by which I communicate. I’m not saying it’s the best way of doing things, but I will say that the challenges I didn’t find in a classroom I found elsewhere through in-class resources.

I want to step back for a moment and talk about resources. Carlynton doesn’t have many because, well, it’s tiny and is not the wealthiest district. But isn’t that a shame to say? I mean, seriously. Should size even matter when you talk about resources for students? Why does the per-student cost to educate vary from district to district and why should resources be tied to standardized testing?

Further, why are we allocating resources with preference to certain groups? It’s a television trope to have schools buy new equipment every year for a football team while the band uses decades-old instruments. I’m not saying that is true within Carlynton, but I have heard stories along these lines at other schools.

Also, why is the education system still structured in the way it was during the Enlightenment where local government meant something? It makes NO sense to penalize a district’s funding because of standardized test results, frankly those that struggle should be given MORE resources to bring them up to speed in my humble opinion.

Single A designation should not be a death sentence, nor should it inspire any sort of victim situation. It doesn’t at Carlynton (with the only exception I can think of being an oddly specific school board meeting in 2013 or 2014 where the justification by the superintendent for class scheduling problems was “well, we’re a single-A school, you’re lucky you get to have electives) but I know it’s true in some other districts. Being small means more individualized and community-based education.

Parents pick a school for its resources, and I’m proud to say my family found a district whose nonphysical resources (teachers, programs, etc.) are incredibly abundant. We have fall plays and spring musicals and 19 sports. How could a school of less than a thousand do it except by having people who care and others who can stretch a dollar?

Am I saying Carlynton fell behind? No.

What I am saying is that as a whole the education system has fallen behind. Money that could have gone towards offering unique electives and challenging students’ ways of thinking is instead going toward mandated remediation on testing, diagnostic programs, and compliance with further regulated yet seemingly innumerable and indistinguishable revenue-sucking mandates. It’s not the Carlynton School Board or the principal deciding this, it’s someone at the federal and state level telling these people they have to.

Do you know how often I was given diagnostic testing ahead of the Keystone or PSSA exams? Nearly monthly. Imagine, that’s at least 10 days outside of the classroom every year. Don’t forget, several of these tests were multi-day, and you had to do some sort of buildup prep to the diagnostics, and then the build up to those tests...

This testing obsession is classroom time spent chasing your tail in an effort to save the school that you’re being set aside from. It’s circular and so, so wrong. And let’s not forget those diagnostic tests are expensive to use, and could go to, I don’t know, journalism books, or psychology books?

So where am I going with this? It’s no myth that the education system is broken (at least by my assessment) but it is a myth that the individual district is to blame. Do you feel trapped? Good, it’s the system that got you to the point where you can realize it. Challenge that system.

I was reminded recently that the successes I’ve had and the career I’ve chosen didn’t come from the classroom. I never once took a journalism class, and it wasn’t for lack of trying either. The teacher of the journalism course did pull me aside at one point and told me I wouldn’t have benefitted from the curriculum. Why? In part, it was out of date books and a lack of resources to do real journalism. But at the end of the day, it’s important to remember this positive: my love of radio stemmed from a gifted education teacher passing along the information for a program at WYEP.

Yeah, Carlynton didn’t teach me a lede from a nut graph but can you seriously blame the high school for that? There should be no reasonable expectation that every profession should have an offered elective that prepares you for that individual, specialized profession. It’s unreasonable.

What Carlynton did offer me was the access to that gifted teacher who shared the WYEP project, or to that band director who let me try my hand at announcing, or that English teacher who (and I still don’t understand how this happened) let me run a newspaper as a high school senior or the drama teacher who rescued me from hating theater after a bad experience and let me anchor the TV morning announcements after being a technical director there, and I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Was I saying to myself junior year “dang I wish I could drop out and move on to college”? Of course. What teenager wants to be a cog in a politicized state-level machine that hasn’t been working well?

But why do you stick around? Two key reasons in my case: because your end goal is a diploma so you can keep moving on to that liberal arts school in the city, and you stay out of respect for how you came to that conclusion.

The reason you want to leave high school in the first place is because you discovered the ‘real world’ a teacher on the inside helped share with you. In other words, you can’t realistically wish to be a part of a different world if you had never heard of that other world in the first place.

So what was draining about Carlynton? The public school system. The helplessness you feel on a daily basis where the decisions are made for you in either a board meeting or some faraway marble castle in Harrisburg. It’s not some sort of deeply engrained lackadaisical work ethic in the teachers or administrative support staff, it’s an apathy at the extreme top that trickles its way down to resources at the feet of those who truly care.

If Carlynton didn’t challenge you, it’s you that failed. Not because it was supposed to consistently hit you with ridiculous workloads or whatever effort you expected of it but because you didn’t seek more. In the real world, people don’t work with you or for you. You have to seek out your own challenges or support for what it is you’re trying to do.

It’s a lesson I feel this alum missed. By choosing to enter and remain in this supposedly toxic environment (read: it isn’t) then complaining afterwards it didn’t help you, apparently you hadn’t sought those challenges out through the system? I don’t know, I can only guess your position, but from mine I feel like there is some action on the participant’s part that is missing here.

I know this much, however: the reason I got where I am is I sought out and sucked up every opportunity I could inside and outside the classroom. There isn’t any professor who asks you to become Editor-in-Chief of your campus newspaper your freshman year. It’s Josh Croup and your friends who you’ve surrounded yourself with who convince you to take that leap. It’s the professor who tells you you shouldn’t be doing it.

This is probably the longest post I’ve written in a long while but I wanted to make this incredibly clear: I can’t endorse the notion that Carlynton is some sort of wretched wasteland where dreams go to die or whatever yarn that you want to spin. It’s a wonderful place where teachers do the best they can with what they have. It’s a place where you have to find your own path because that’s how the real world works. It’s a place where you have to seek a challenge, you can’t expect it to be served to you because that’s not how the world works.

If there’s a problem, it’s the lack of resources allotted to these base-level programs because of a flawed administrative/governmental system. I’m not endorsing anarchy, I just want to start a responsible dialogue. Comment if you’d like, I only delete straight profanity.

Angry Roads Pricked With People Rolling Forward Like Onions

The post title comes from a song we played on our radio show, Don't Let Me Die At Coco's, an obscure song that I have no idea where it came from.

We're almost halfway through the semester. So that means it's almost midterm season. And time flies by like crazy.

So last time I posted on here, it was part of an English paper. I try to avoid discussing things that I'm assigned to in class, but I felt it would work well as a crossover. We got back the grades on these things earlier this week (or maybe last week, I can't tell anymore how time passes because down here the sun don't shine and the lights always flicker with a 1 a.m. overworked glow) and as is usual the professor made some comments on the whole to all of us.

She said she liked the blog posts better than the academic papers. So I want to attempt to explain why that is. In a phrase, blog posts are more free form. They're our own. That's what our teacher said, and I tend to agree. But to digress a bit, I want to talk about how the education system strips us of our personality and then tries to force it back.

I always had a bit of an issue with writing English papers. We were told for years that we aren't qualified enough to have opinions on subjects, thus everything we had needed to be cited within papers. Once I figured out that bit, my papers let my sources sing. I used their collective voices to prove points I myself felt but was unqualified to have.

This year, our English professor is saying that our essays don't properly reflect our own voices in the same way our blog posts do. Duh. Here I am, freely expressing myself without worry about form or elevated language or making sure I used academically approved sources to prove points. In other words, it was my work as a confluence, but not truly my own working opinions, And she wants us to change that within an academic sense.

Cool. So how do I do that when I've been trained I'm unqualified for any opinions, and all academic papers must be on the shoulders of these untouchable scholars? And why? What relevance does writing an academically cited and categorized paper have for me? It doesn't. I create content that at some point may be put in an academic journal, and then your force the next group to use your paper for their papers. It's a perpetual fight to stay relevant: a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me just write a newspaper article already.

Speaking of, I'm now the Assistant News Section editor for The Globe, Point Park's Campus newspaper. So that's kinda crazy and I'm really excited about it!

On Education and the Wealth Gap

If this seems a bit different than my average post, it's because it's for a class... Sorry for breaking the fourth wall (then again, I usually do that. I just never talk about why I blog. Semi-related: I don't think I've ever blogged specifically for a class.).

Anyway, I recently read an article by John Marsh in my English book about access to higher education and its relation to poverty. Interesting topic, in my opinion, but that's perhaps because I'm directly impacted by the whole higher education discussion, and I've thought a lot about income inequality.

Basically the argument is that access to programs to help boost enrollment/education don't do anything in the grand scheme of fighting poverty and income inequality. He argues that programs like his, the Odyssey Project, which are aimed at getting gen eds out of the way and giving people who wouldn't otherwise have access to higher education get a jump start, are ineffective.

I have no personal experience with such projects, so I researched the link between education levels in general with income inequality. The goal was to settle it, because frankly I thought Marsh's argument was pretty solid - education guarantees nothing except education. We'd like to think that the fairy tale of keep-up-with-education-go-fight-win is true. Unfortunately the data shows that just isn't true. Education, per the studies I researched [side note: if you're really curious, I found three studies that I used for these conclusions: one by Andreas Bergh, and Günther Fink, one by Ronald H. Carlson, and Christopher S. McChesney, and then one by the amazingly named duo of  Péter Földvári, and Bas van Leeuwen.] doesn't guarantee income increases beyond the standard of living/average wage earning. In other words, that bachelor's diploma is a life raft in the world of wages and anything below that is just bobbing in the open water.

The researchers found that the higher the education, the higher the wage (duh) but what it proved wasn't the case was that education causes any real upward mobility, just a promise of stability.

I point that out for two reasons: 1) it's important for the argument and 2) I'll be able to sleep tonight knowing that this expensive college adventure is worth something more income wise than the Carlynton High School diploma collecting dust on my mantle at home.

The research is solid, and found that the wage gap is a thing (duh), it's widening (duh, just ask the Occupy people circa 2012), and education cannot be considered a cure for income inequality. The one study concerned itself mainly with enrollment figures and public funding. In other words, aid programs not unlike Marsh's Odyssey Project but more tax based, did not boost enrollment. In other words, these programs are ineffective at getting people in the door, let alone having them succeed in their bachelor's, which as previously established, doesn't guarantee much of anything past an education.

Education is important, and knowledge (especially applicable knowledge) is extremely important but it isn't the cure for the financial social ills of the world. I want to say this much though, it could be used as an aid in combating a major social ill of the world: mass ignorance and stupidity. 

I didn't want to depress you entirely, but I wanted to impress this much: education shouldn't be used as a mass cure for poverty. It's a fairy tale that someone somewhere started to get policies changed to force people into education without questioning it. I say we need to question education, and the education system in general, but I've said that for years. I just ask that you not consider it a cure for poverty, because it isn't.

Graduation: Go Pick Up Your Diploma

I am neither the valedictorian nor salutatorian, in fact I think I'm like 10th or 11th in the class, so I don't get to give any speeches at graduation. Frankly, if you read my Eagle speech, it's not that much of a loss. Nevertheless, since this is my house and my soapbox, I'm going to say some stuff about graduation and the sort.

The way I see it, it's poetic that the commencement diploma distribution is a lie. We're called up one by one, shake hands, and receive a "diploma" that in reality is just a holder. In order to get the diploma that goes in that holder, you have to go back to the gym to pick it up. So why is this poetic?

Education, or at least public education, is often looked at as a free ride, something that's handed to you. It really isn't. Well, success isn't at least. See, the only thing they hand to you are the bare bones - the four required English classes, the three maths, the very basic classes. And even then, you just have to pass.

The poetry is this - in order to succeed, you have to take another step - you have to go to the gym, or like go and do stuff above and beyond - to actually accomplish something. That's been my experience at Carlynton these past 13 years. The school will support you in whatever you do, but in the end your success depends upon the opportunities that you take advantage of. If you take no action, in the end you just have a diploma holder.

I don't have any deep and profound wisdom for anyone - after all, I'm only a recent high school graduate - but I do have this one quote I found a few years back. It's a quote from the autobiography of Walter Cronkite that I read in the 10th grade, and I've used it as my email signature ever since.

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got

That's it, you just have to give this crazy game of life all you've got. Take opportunities, meet awesome people, and just keep doing things. It's cliche to say that this is just a beginning or whatever sunshine rainbow quote you usually hear at these things, but I guess it's true. In a less abstract sense, it's the beginning of your own choosing. The last thing you do as a high school student is to walk out of here and pick up your diploma to put in that holder. But that's also the first choice you make as a high school graduate.

So don't forget to go pick that up, you earned it.

And I'll Tell You All About it When I See You Again

It's been a long time since I last posted, life has been moving at a ridiculous pace and I haven't really had the time to write much outside of AP English and Gov work.

Last week I finished high school, and tomorrow I graduate. WHAT?!

Last time I posted was in April, so here's a whirlwind update, the next post should be a reflection on graduation and all that.

At the end of April I was on a panel at WESA about the future of education and its relevance from the point of view of a student. It played May 6, and you can check it out here: http://wesa.fm/post/life-learning-panel-relevance-classroom-key. It was interesting being behind a mic talking about a subject that I felt passionate about but also being EXTREMELY LIMITED in how much I was allowed to talk so I had to make what little I said count. You can listen for yourself. It was overall a really enjoyable experience.

A week after the forum (May 5th) I took the AP Calculus Exam. It was, in a word, INTENSE. The reason I took AP Calc was that my teacher said I could do it. I was, and am, pretty skeptical, but I took the test, and in about 25 days I'll see if I actually could. The next day brought AP English. Again, intense, but I took it because I was essentially told to. We'll see. AP Gov was the most manageable, and that took place a week after AP Calc.

Standardized tests are less a true test of knowledge as they are a test of endurance and stamina. How long can you concentrate on this task you've worked all year (and in some cases several years) towards. It's intense, there's a lot of pressure but you do it and it's done with and at the end you might just have college credit for it.

The weekend following that brought the band trip to Washington DC. I made the t-shirt design for it, which was a project I somehow completed in the midst of AP madness, and the rest of it. But yeah! DC was okay. I'd rename it the King's Dominion and oh, yeah, there goes DC trip. We were in DC for about five hours total. The Saturday was spent at the Kings Dominion amusement park. I'm not really a fan of amusement parks, but whatever.The following day I did get into DC and saw Arlington, the National Mall (which I really want to visit again because WOW AMERICA), the Air and Space Museum, and several other things. If you want to see what all I was able to capture in like 5 hours, check out my flickr: https://www.flickr.com/gp/alexanderpopichak/774TQs.

L-R: Cassie, Jarod, Makayla, Natalie, Mikaela, Dan, Clay, and Half of My Face

L-R: Dan, Me, and Clay

The following Friday brought Prom (yes, this list keeps going....). I had gone back and forth about going to prom, and I did actually ask Becca (long story behind that, but for both our sakes I'm glad it worked out the way it did), and I did end up going solo, and I had a blast. It was a LONG night though.

 The following Wednesday brought the Gettysburg 2015 Trip. I've been to Gettysburg 4 times now, so I have a good grasp of what went on there, but I went anyway with my class, to see the (actually pretty great) pictures from then, check out the flickr album here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexanderpopichak/sets/72157653666956380

Somewhere in there was a chorus concert, the band banquet, and the last Court of Honor for Troop 831 ever, and like a whole mess of other stuff, but that's the shortened version.

I took my finals June 3rd and 4th. June 3rd also brought the senior recognition assembly in which we get our caps and gowns, and several (okay, like 30) awards are given out. It was long, and painful, but I have my cap and gown now, and I received recognition for several things (morning announcements, AP courses, I was awarded a Carlynton Federation of Teachers Textbook Grant, the OYC thing). But above all else I was privileged to be awarded one of the inaugural Maggie Scholarships. The amount? $5,000. After grants, and federal loans, and all that jazz, MY FIRST SEMESTER OF POINT PARK IS PAID FOR!!!!!!!!!!

Guys, I can actually go to college and for the first half of the year I don't have to worry about it. I'm still stunned.

Up next? Graduation reflection.

Blue Canary in the Outlet By the Lightswitch

Hello there! I'm alive! Senior year is one of those things that just seem to speed by and take all of your time. That isn't much of an excuse, but again I've been living my life.

I turned 18 on April 15th, and got to thinking about what that actually means. It doesn't mean much fun things, but here's a list if you're keeping track:

• Register To Vote (check)
• Sign up for Selective Service (check)
• Buy a Lottery Ticket (check, and no it didn't win :P)
• Sign for medical/legal stuff (check, unfortunately)
• Drive past 11 (which honestly I'm rarely awake past 11 so....)

I'm sure there are other things (before you say tobacco and strip clubs, just stop) but that's what I made the list of. So family came over (it was weird not having my grandmother there, but I have a feeling she was... I'm not into that whole supernatural stuff, but I'm aware it exists) and we had cake and spaghetti and went our merry way. 

April 16th brought the They Might Be Giants Concert with Clay and my Aunt Marie. Well, Aunt Marie drove us there, but Clay had wanted me to come since they announced the concert. TMBG is a band that has been both quite largely followed and quite obscure. They've been around since the late 80s/early 90s and have a rather unique, quirky alternative sound I love. It was "an evening with" so they were their own opener. All in all, it was a great concert and they played for nearly 2 hours. Many thanks to both Clay and Aunt Marie for making that happen.

April 18th brought High School Musical. I can't say too much really (partially because I was partially deaf that day, and the other because I'm a cynic) except there were two main reasons I was there: Dan Doyle (The Actuary Gigabass), and Becca. I wanted to support my friends (mainly those two) and so I did. 

April 23rd brought a mock senate (which was fantastic!) and the Trib Total Media Dinner Thingy. I was named one of Trib Total Media's Top 50 Outstanding Young Citizens for the South and West Region. I don't talk about these sorts of things much, but this is an exception. Those who were selected were invited to a (really fancy) banquet out past the Airport. It is extremely rare that I feel REALLY out of place at social functions. I was surrounded by AAA and AAAA schools, and the tops of those schools, so it was intimidating and strange to say the least. They stuck us in the back corner of the room (and I think that's a good thing, because we were with a family from Chartiers-Valley who spent the whole night feeling like the riff-raff) and gave a lovely dinner that due to my illness I couldn't really taste. All in all, it was a pretty okay night, and I have a neat little certificate to go with it.

April 24th brought the Senior Project. As a graduation requirement, students in our district are required to complete a project detailing their profession of choice. It involves completing research on the career, doing a job shadow, and it culminates in a presentation and interview on a selected day. That day was the 24th, and my panel consisted of an elementary teacher I didn't know, my kindergarten teacher (yep, he got to start and end my high school career), and one of the high school computer teachers (I wrote a story about his sports marketing class for The Cougar Times). I passed, I think, but the kicker was I had lost my voice. I have been sick effectively for the past week (it's finally been diagnosed as a sinus infection and is being treated) and lost my voice entirely the day of the presentation. So I was lucky enough to whisper the entirety of my presentation to my panel....

This coming Tuesday I am going to be on a student panel about education at (WYEP-owned) WESA. As I said, we'll be talking education: the past, the present, and the future. They will record our little panel and then broadcast it at a later date (you better believe I'll be posting a link when I get it!). The panel itself will start at 7PM, and if you'd like to join us just register here: http://wesa.fm/post/905-wesa-present-life-learning-forum-april-28.

Upcoming events include: the last Court of Honor for troop 831 (ever) is tomorrow, the doom and gloom church meeting is tomorrow, and no doubt fun stuff awaits us next week. 

Until next time, I'll see you on the radio 

(I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT!!!)

And It Was A Great Feeling

So today I went to an application workshop at Point Park. Basically, you drop off you transcript, fill out their application online, attend a Q and A session with students, and then take a tour. The goal? By the end of three hours, they have an academic decision (based on your transcript and that sort) for you.

We began in Lawrence Hall's lobby, proceeded to the ballroom, and I ate a chocolate muffin. This has no bearing on anything, but yeah, I ate a chocolate muffin. Filling out the application was quite simple, even if it was on a Mac (turns out I can actually use those if I try...). It's now submitted and floating on a server somewhere downtown.

After the application, we made our way through the campus tour. I was there with my father (who hasn't been to Point Park for any reason) and mother (who accompanied me in October when I went the first time).

There's something to be said about the feel of a campus. There are campuses where you feel that you're being immersed in the grand tradition of academia, and there are campuses where you feel like you're a part of some other grand tradition (go sportsball!) or that you're surrounded by just your major. There are campuses where you feel isolated and others immersed. I decided early on that I didn't want to go to a university simply for the sake of going to a post-secondary institution. With High School, you don't get much choice in the matter and more or less just participate enough to get by or accomplish whatever multi-tiered goal you established at some point.

I want to go to a university that felt like I was going to be a part of something - a part of the real world with the bonus of being educated and being essentially weened into that real world.

I've visited RMU, CMU, Pitt, and Point Park. At CMU and Pitt I felt the grand academia, and at RMU I felt just a bit too isolated. Point Park, being in the middle of the city and simultaneously being an actual campus just seemed to fit. So I went back again just to check, and I felt so welcomed, like I was wanted. As a person that is rarely 'wanted' for much of anything, feeling like you belong is an amazing feeling.

So then we went back to the Lawrence Hall lobby where they had letters waiting for us with the results of our academic acceptance or whatever. I went up to the table (last name P-Z) and asked the nice gentleman for my letter. I gave him my name and started to spell it when he stopped me and said, "I remember your name. Not a weird one, but not generic. It was fun looking over your transcript". I didn't know what to say honestly, so I said thanks, asked if I could open it (which was the whole point) and then, well:

I AM ACCEPTED WITH A SCHOLARSHIP OF SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR! So in that moment, all the ACT nonsense, scholars classes, AP credits, SAT Prep Classes, SAT taking, all of it suddenly materialized into something amazing and tangible and so worth it. And in that moment, I felt comfort, genuine joy, and for once it just clicked, and it was a great feeling.

Am I committed? I can't, really, yet. Am I applying elsewhere? Probably. Is this my first choice though? What do you think...

You May Select This Title, or Select One of Similar Literary Quality

I've been trying to start less often with the standard "So [insert start of post]" because honestly, it's not necessary. I first started thinking about this when Greg Joseph of the Clarks brought it up at the selection meeting of Reimagination CD, how he was trying to start less spoken sentences with "So." From there I started analyzing it, and it turns out that I do that a LOT, and it's really hard not to.

And yes, I realize this is a Sunday. I write when I can and how I can.

I want to talk about two things: the first being my research project, and the second being the adventure at the station. I'm doing a research project for English on the concept of 'literary merit'. Specifically, my paper is going to try and argue that YA fiction, specifically the case of John Green, has literary merit. In researching this, I've found a lot of differing viewpoints but mainly the question by these 'scholarly sources' is this: is literary merit and thus are merited to be required reading limited to the classics? This has been something I've been ranting about for years: who sets up what we read? why do we read what we read? and of course, what is the point of it all?

The answers aren't simple. <rant>* The education system in America as it exists today is a broken and crazy system. People who argue otherwise have not seen NCLB implemented, and have probably not talked to a teacher lately. The question I have is this: is society able to adapt to a group of strange people standing on the backs of giants, or do we have to all be of a certain classical mindset on the backs of certain giants? </rant>

Yesterday we met at the station with the ten acts that will be contributing to the Reimagination CD. The thing I love about working with Reimagine is that we start really small - meetings with four or five people -  but when it comes to the projects we work on, we do huge things.

Here is what a ten artist/ten track compilation looks like sitting in a room:

May not seem like much, but it seems pretty impressive to me. We enlisted five or six producers, the GM of WYEP, and we're having it all recorded/mastered at a professional facility, Church Studio in Carrick. But the thing I am continually amazed by is how something goes from talk to reality, it's an amazing process, and I'm so glad to be able to be a part of it.

I won't go into much detail because everything is just starting at this point, plus I don't have much detail at this point. Nevertheless, it is looking like the next few months are going to be good.

*This is a nod to HTML tags. Before anything can begin, it must have an opening tag, and then when whatever code or style or whatever is done, it must be closed. Thus, the rant has an opening and closing. I don't even know what I was saying there...

Summer Reading Adventure 2013 Part I: The Awakening

So one of the things that I'm required to do to keep in my honors level courses is read a book. Well, actually for English I need to read two books, write two rhetorical precis, two outlines, and two personal responses (one in each category due by July 15). For Social Studies I need to read a book, then read the first four chapters in my textbook and answer some questions.

So I test-drove the idea of book reviews last year with Withering Away Heights and I think I'm going to do it again. This contains plot spoilers, and may very well ruin the book for you. Sorry, but I am warning you now.

The first book I've read this summer was The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Where the heck do I start with this plot? It's about this woman who decides she is unhappy with her life as a married woman with children, and didn't marry for love, and wah.

It's set 19th century New Orleans and the whole aim of the piece is to highlight the lack of choices women had in the way of self expression, and what happens when they bow to social conventions and have to follow strict class expectations et cetera. 

The plotline follows Edna Pontellier experiencing a personal awakening that she didn't marry for love, and falls in love with a lovely younger gentleman named Robert. But, again: She is married to a guy already, and has two children. He loves her back, so he moves away to remove himself out of the equation.

I want to take a moment to appreciate the fact that her sons names are Étienne and Raoul. 

Anyway, she decides that she also wants to be an artist. Her husband is the breadwinner and she is expected by social conventions to serve as homemaker and loyal wife and downright dull stock character. So she sends her kids to her homeland of Kentucky, her husband off to make money in New York. And she moves out. And Robert comes back. 

And what Robert essentially tells her is: Lady, I love you, but I can't be with you because, you know, adultery and stuff. So what is the logical thing to do at this point. You guessed it - she commits suicide. The end. Because that 

Okay, so I get that class culture is something important here. So are gender roles, because together they essentially drive this Edna chick insane and she kills herself. But these are social constructs of the 1890s. 

I understand that gender gaps are still a thing. In fact, a much better (and expanded) argument can be viewed here: http://tiltingsilver.tumblr.com/post/51872916055. So we have a long way to go, but I am not sure I am getting out of this what I should. 

I saw gender roles, and Edna's struggle to be an artist to a world not kind to women wanting to be artists, not some tragic love story of a woman wanting what she cannot have. 

I think we've come a bit further than having to resort to suicide because your on the side lover wants to preserve the sacrament of the existing marriage. And I'm also trying to figure out its relevance to me personally. I guess it's cultural awareness of gender roles, but in the context of a 1890s tragedy. 

Honestly, I didn't like the book. I liked what I interpreted as the message, which really was only made clear through reading criticism. It was quite Dickens-y with the whole 'let's describe every detail of the dresses at parties' thing, but it's a short (200ish page) read. Wouldn't recommend it, but I would recommend this criticism on it. Which, I guess requires reading the book: http://www.gvsd.org/cms/lib02/PA01001045/Centricity/ModuleInstance/3232/Critical_Essay-The_Awakening-A_Refusal_to_Compromise.pdf

</rant>

So this week I celebrated four years since the first post in 2009. I got bored and played with my image editor, and this happened (left)

But seriously, Thanks. No matter how long you've been reading, or if this is like the future and I'm in year like five or whatever, thanks for reading my nonsense week after week, despite how rambly these things get. 

Thanks for reading, because honestly, without people reading this, I would've stopped a long while back. 

Stay tuned for more (slightly comical, I hope) book reviews. Meh.

My Uke Needs Tuned and Other Adventures

Okay, so this week was sort of rough... yet at the same time very unproductive. I lost a friend from church sort of suddenly, and I don't think that's hit me yet...

The title was a suggestion from a friend... I don't have a ukulele...

So this past weekend I spent up at CAMP! doing various miscellaneous things. My mother and grandfather trusted me enough to drive them to errands and the sort, like to the KMart in Clarion to buy a wheelbarrow.

One of my more productive ventures was to re-do the fire ring there. My grandmother decided she didn't like the rocks surrounding it... so we found some patio bricks. The idea was fairly simple, build a square around the existing circular ring. My grandmother didn't want to have the rocks that were there at all, but I had a (better-ish) idea to re-purpose them.

So the end product looks a bit like this:

Excuse the shovel... this is what it looks like though!

We used some of the rocks to level out the ring down under it, and around the ring for decoration. It looked pretty awesome... until it dawned on me. The rocks could be sandstone. To those of you who aren't familiar with the fun sandstone is around fire, it explodes. And it's usually not too good when that happens.

There was one real way to test it, which was to build a fire and see if it explodes. Unfortunately, or probably fortunately, there is no story here. It was probably some other sedimentary rock (I'm no geologist!) but it DID NOT EXPLODE. But it did rain that night... which made me sad.

However I did make a mountain pie in it. Yes, a mountain pie in the rain and storm, because I can.

That was really the highlight of my week... other than being kicked out of the high school. I can't say much for fear of libel, lawsuits, and other scary stuff from the school district, but bottom line I was working with a group of friends rearranging and updating our high school's video studio and we were informed that we needed to leave. Those are all the details I feel comfortable giving... and we were essentially stranded outside of the building walking the track until our one friend's aunt came to rescue us. Mind you, I'm a volunteer. Thanks.

Wasted on Fixing all the Problems that you Made in Your Own Head

So yeah. This week. Oy. So much to say, but I don't think that it would do me or anyone else good to talk about it. Though I will say this much: Friday's post was written in a study hall prior to the beginning of a very bizarre, yet very satisfying day.

I think one of the things about people today is that they believe creativity doesn't exist in our generation (or, rather, mine. I don't know how old you personally are or whatever...). To those people, I respectfully say: SHUT UP!


Saturday May 4th was the second annual Re(imagiNATION) event.

The Re(imagine) Media Crew
Photo: Me

This year we added art to the music festival, making this (unofficially) Pittsburgh's premier music and arts festival, and it was a blast.

Four bands performed, and 12 or so artists displayed everything from pencil sketches to panoramas to paintings along a stretch of sidewalk in Schenley Plaza.

I felt pretty much the same way I did during last year's, yet I was a tad more distant in choosing the individual bands/artists due to, well, musical eating my life. Yet I like what I wrote then:

The only way we were able to do this was through the generosity of WYEP, its listeners, and the amazing staff we have worked with since October-ish. I can't wait to see what's next from this group of people.

The Options

There's a side story that hasn't been told about this competition. Before we held the event last year, we asked for submissions, and we got submissions from two bands: The Actions and the Options.

Honestly, their submissions weren't that great, and neither one made it to the top 5 last year. We sent them notes saying how we thought it was awesome and all, and try again next year.

They did.

The Actions and The Options re-submitted after a bunch of separate gigs and both bands completely re-worked their sound and everything. It was quite impressive, and as a result, they were chosen to compete this year.

The Actions

The Options, as I said, completely reinvented themselves, and won the second Re(imagiNATION). This is an awesome side story that is what Re(imagiNATION) and Re(imagine) are about: creativity, and finding a passion. We give them a stage, having a passion for sharing stories and creating things, and they bring their passion of music, and the artists their own works. It's an amazing thing to see side by side, and it was all created by high school students.

So next week, I am taking my third and final Keystone Exam. The Keystones are Pennsylvania's NEW answer to the No Child Left Behind requirement for standardized testing.

I say new because originally we had these magic PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessments) tests, which apparently were rendered obsolete so the criteria we were once held responsible for knowing is apparently irrelevant. I've ranted before about standardized testing, but my point is this: tests do NOT define how good education is. What should define how good an education from a school should be a measure of how much that school exposes you to the outside world.

What I propose (because I'm a crazy guy at the end of sophomore year) is a system where high schoolers are required to do an internship in at least two different fields of available interest, then present something about it: an essay, presentation, whatever. This would open the door to *gasp* relevance, as well as exposing the students to the world they'll be plunged into after school.

And maybe, just maybe, we can find more awesome artists, musicians, and Re(imagine)rs if they can find themselves. Just a thought.

If you want to see more pictures from the event, click here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.566875386686161.1073741826.336695676370801&type=1&l=773360ba17
For the event page (until it gets deleted): http://www.wyep.org/reimagination2013

You Can't Carry it with You if You Want to Survive

So this week has been crazy, and eventful. Thursday I ventured to Bishop Canevin high school's (Which has a fantastic website, if you're interested) production of In the Heights which is this musical about life in Washington Heights, and the tight knit Latino community there. I liked it a lot, because it wasn't your traditional "musical". This isn't in the sense of Drowsy, but it was all rapping instead of the traditional, well, 9 to 5.

Friday morning I woke up early and my mother took me to the DMV place and I took my permit test. Let me preface this with saying that in the state of Pennsylvania one must take a knowledge test consisting of random questions from a book before getting a permit. Then after getting that permit and X amount of driving hours, you take the driving exam. The permit test was an adventure involving touch screen tests and it telling me that I passed with an 83% (I'm sorry PennDOT, I wanted an A. Oh well. At least I passed).

Friday night I ran sound for the annual Mr. Carlynton Pageant. I'm bad at sound. I rock the lighting boards like no one's business, but sound... Oh my. But it went well nevertheless.

So this morning I again ran the Carnegie Volunteer Fire Dept. 5K with Carlynton. I am bad at running, so I ended up speed walking and jogging the whole thing, getting a time of like 40 Minutes... It's pretty good for no prep.

Afterwards I attended the 100th anniversary celebration thingy for Crafton Elementary. I don't know what to say here.... I'm just glad we didn't have to sing Happy Birthday to the building...

All in all it's been an insane week with everything from tech to running to singing to driving. Oh my. Driving. That's a scary thought. Oh well, I knew it'd come eventually and I like driving, it's just nerve-wracking with other people about. I want to write more on it but I'm about to pass out from all of it, so until next time.

On Picking Songs and the Sort Apart

I came to the realization that if I wanted to quote a song I was listening to, its an instrumental so the title would be "*soft strings* *building strings with piano noises* *horns*" or something... and it wouldn't exactly describe anything pointing out the song as opposed to other ones. Nevertheless, if you want to listen to that instrumental, it's from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" which I haven't seen yet, but I've heard the soundtrack to.



Anyway, music has become a pretty big part of my life, ever since I first needed it as an inlet back during the Viva La Vida days. What I've learned is that there are three basic elements to a song: the music, lyrics, and  key its written in.

The Music and Key
This is the part that gets stuck in your head and you remember. A melody sticks in your head like your shirt to leather interior in a car. Whether or not you realize it, the song's key and melody is how the majority* of us interpret happy/sad songs. There's this really interesting article from NPR (National Public Radio)'s All Things Considered if you're interested how it all works, and a quirky experiment with an REM song right here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173832177/can-you-make-sad-songs-sound-happy-and-vice-versa

The Lyrics
This is the actual 'content' of the song... and it seems to me like this is comparable to a webpage where the content is what is actually pretty important, but everyone bases the mood of it off of the CSS or 'fancy stuff'.

SO where am I going with all of this? We did lyric analyses in English class as a sort of 'poetry analysis.' Now let me put this with all of the formatting I can put on here:

I Am Bad At Poetry

But I am pretty good with music. So I used my WYEP recording of Mark Dignam and the House of Song's performance at the Hootenanny... I was able to get through it, but here's what I learned about analyzing poetry. A note to any English majors or teachers... I'm not too qualified to say this. Remember that I'm a high school sophomore, and take my thoughts as you will.

• When searching for a deeper meaning, if it seems too hard, you're thinking too hard. 
• Frost poems usually have a deeper meaning, you're not trying hard enough.
• When writing poetry, keep to the rubric and then add flair afterwards.
• Finally, if you're a blogger attempting to do poetry, keep the poetry to a need-to basis, because I'm not good at this.

But the first point makes sense for a lot of things. Don't try searching for deeper meanings all of the time. Search a bit, look at something from a different perspective, but much like a game of Jenga, pull something too too much and the whole bloody tower may fall down.

Just some thoughts.

The Title Should Come To Me Eventually

So this week has been about "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" for me. I'll tell you what I mean. It seems a tad bizarre that at a young age we are asked to decide on what we want to do for essentially the rest of it.

I mean, at this point I don't yet know if I have the skillset to do just about anything. My mentality right now is that college would teach me the things, but until I am released from there into the real world after spending my four years I don't know if I can do said thing.

This is exactly why I made resolution back in 2007 or whatever it was to try as many different things as possible, and to jump at pretty much every opportunity, which has left my schedule, well, here's last April:

Yeah, I dont put everything on my calendars... this is April 2012 though

So what I've noticed is that I'm doing a bunch of things, but not exactly with an aim. I recently came to the realization that I have only two years left in high school before I need to decide on what major to go to, and ultimately what career I have... AAH!

So I sat down with my mother and guidance counselor this week and basically talk about that. The fact I do too much stuff for my own health, and the whole "AAH" part. Here's what I learned:

1) Doing stuff is actually REALLY GOOD. It lets you know your likes and dislikes; my stress and the sort is a GOOD thing.

2) I can now start hammering out what stuff I really need to be doing.  

So that's reassuring.  I also talked to a possible Journalism teacher in our building about the possibility of taking such a course in high school. Bottom line, things are looking up, I just am in a place where I am not sure what is supposed to happen.

But I enjoy living in the present. I enjoy the idea of not having the future written out ahead of me in pen but rather me having a pencil for a memory and a pen for action.

I guess my life is a tad like my handwriting - messy and not too pretty, but legible. And the stuff that I do bolder is even more legible.

Side note: The reason I currently have the whole "Rock Salt" branding is a) it's free and b) it sort of resembles my handwriting.

-Alexander Popichak

Is This the End or Something Really, Really Beautiful?

Tumblr Is Awesome

Those are lyrics to a Voxtrot song called "The Start of Something." I like this song for a few reasons... It's really mellow yet upbeat song that a friend showed me a while back. It's all about relationships and the sort, but I like that some of the lyrics are just about "the start of something really really beautiful" and that something could be literally anything.

This week has certainly been an interesting one. It's been one of new beginnings, and sometimes just a freshening of stuff. Monday brought the second inauguration of Barack Obama, and MLK day. It was an interesting combination, and one that the commentators on the major media networks (I'm sorry, only saw NBC and CBS Monday) took note of.

SOURCE: Telegraph.co.uk (Inauguration 2013)

The question they were asking was What is the Civil Rights Movement of Today? And they meant it in the sense of asking, what should we be focusing on as a nation that will define this generation.

Now if this were a year ago, I'd probably say the Occupy Movement, because it seemed like a movement towards something. Ultimately the issue was that "something" not being solidly defined. However, I like what Condoleezza Rice said. What it should be is education.

I emphasize "should" because at least to me it seems that pop culture leaning more towards Gay Rights and Gun Control. And yes, I think in the coming years these issues will be looked at and action will probably taken. I can't see into a crystal ball and tell you when in the eyes of the law the LGBT community will be considered equals with those outside of it, and minorities getting their equal rights, but I hope within the next decade that happens. I'm not going to touch gun control because, well, politics.

I think that Condoleezza Rice has a point, and in a nation that is considered the most wealthy, where we possess in our pockets a machine capable of summoning all of human knowledge that we should be capable of adding to that knowledge.

So why do I rant about this week after week? Because I'm trying to prove that I care, and that this generation is genuinely concerned with the quality of the world that we're inheriting.

I think the way of the future is collaboration via schools, communities, the internet, phones, everything. It's by combining two minds that you come up with something really beautiful, but you have to start it.

Triumphant in Your Mind of the Logic that You Hold

Those are lyrics from Mumford & Sons' "Where are you now?". And I kind of apologize for not posting on Friday... I had a severe case of writers block mixed with post-midterm brain fried-ness. I'd say it's real, but I haven't consulted my doctor yet on that.

So what I want to talk about is one of my fears. I'm afraid that my generation here doesn't think. Now, this may strike in one of a few ways. Considering you are reading my website, it might strike you as an "okay, what do you mean by this". But to the majority of people who don't read this site, that sentence would strike you as, "and what? Why do I need to think?"

And what scares me more than anything is that that is the majority of my generation, the ones that ask "why do we need to think?". When I pitched the idea of this post, as I occasionally do, to my father he brought up a song that had a line of lyrics that went something to the tune of "thinking is the best way to travel".

It is my thought that an emphasis from society and popular culture that 'someone else will always do the thinking for us' has poisoned into our lack of the need to think.

So I guess another question is, what is thinking? Dictionary.com defines it as "to have a conscious mind, to some extent of reasoning, remembering experiences, making rational decisions, etc."

My mind then wanders to that Sir Ken Robinson video about the current education system, and how the rise in standardized testing is parallel to the rise in medication for ADHD med prescription. He brings up the conclusion that the education system is not only not stimulating enough for its subjects, but the system itself does not work.

Being on the inside, I concur that the system doesn't particularly work for me. Since I'm 'gifted' I'm taking five honors-level classes, but in my personal opinion, I've learned more with my experiences at WYEP on random Saturdays than I have anyplace there.

Again, I recommend his video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U and John Green's TEDxIndy talk on thinking outside of the box called the Paper Town Phenomenon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mUDw0sRZV0. He says it much better. Draw conclusions as you will, Rant Over.

It Seems Everything Has Been Found

What I want to talk about is a combination of two things: Education and the Espy Post.

I grew up in a world where it seems pretty much everything has already been invented, and the only frontier is cyberspace, which is a virtual and endless space. Essentially meaning do whatever, all is already done. I say "seems" because this is a LIE.

Gavel Block Thingy in the Post

Same applies to the GAR Post ("Civil War Room" to most locals) in the Andrew Carnegie Free Library. Back two years ago, I signed up to become the youngest docent for the Espy Post. There are a lot of things in this post, and it's a lot to give a tour on, but it seemed everything was known. Boy, was I wrong.

So I've added another project to my list of projects to do, this time something commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Post's memorial out in Chartiers Cemetery off of Noblestown Road in East Carnegie. Ideally, we're going to do something on Memorial Day weekend.

I've decided to do some research into the original dedication day, and I didn't have to look too far to find some interesting things. There is a little explanation of it in the 1911 catalogue:

... The monument was dedicated July 21, 1888, at three o’clock P.M. The following program was carried out at the services: Prayer by Rev. Wm. Lynch; music, “Mustered Out,” Allegheny Quartette Club; original poem, Miss Josie S. Sholes; unveiling of monument; music, “Unreturning Braves,” Allegheny Quartette Club; dirge, St. Luke’s Brass Band; oration, Col. John A. Danks; music, “America,” Allegheny Quartette Club; doxology; benediction, Rev. Beasom. The day was fine, over three thousand persons were present in the cemetery. ...

as well as it running two weeks straight in the local paper. I'm trying to imagine how three thousand people fit into the cemetery, and what it was like on that 'fine' July day in 1888.

It's called 're'search for a reason: things aren't lost, they just aren't together. It's the job of the person looking through those things to mesh them together into some semblance of sense. Being that person who tries to mesh it together is an interesting yet nerve-wracking feeling. Considering that every single person that contributed the $1500 to build the monument have passed and many are buried in the GAR plot surrounding this monument.


They present education to us as a definitive thing. "This is all the math you will need" "Read the classics" and those sort of things define a "curriculum." The senior project in the Carlynton school district is basically a presentation answering the question "what do you wanna be when you grow up?". It's very much a system based on filling in the box and moving on.

Inside of the Espy Post

But I think a true education is much more than that. It's looking at microfilm of newspapers from 1888 to try and understand why something in existence now matters. To be totally honest, before I had started becoming a docent, I had no clue what the Grand Army of the Republic was, that there even was a veterans organization after the Civil War.

I'm very much opposed to this notion that High School teaches you everything you need to know. Yes, it may fill your 'need's in some respect, but I feel it's a bare minimum, and if you want a full education, you need to look for that full education. This doesn't happen in a classroom but rather in a library or in a radio station on the South Side of Pittsburgh, or even at a monument in a cemetery.

I say think because I'm not sure if I'm right. Some people are able to just accept things, but I know I can't. I think that if you want to understand something, you have to try it or at least delve further than face value. You don't need to invent the wheel, but you can. All this going deeper with meanings and yet I still am bad at interpreting poetry.

The Test

I've been mulling this one over for a while. My original mission was to take a walk around my neigborhood, take some pictures, and do a 'Thoughts From Places'-esque travelblog, but the always dependable Pittsburgh weather had other plans.

My second thought was a rant on education, an open letter to the Education Dept of the US and Pa. But I don't want to just stand atop my blog soapbox and preach like the guy that is talking about the end of the world, only in the form of education.

It seems that the popular idea is that if you want to prove you learned or did something, you need to either have a grade or a test. This kind of reminds me of the opening to John Green's Crash Course:World History series. He talked about a test. It's a great quote, so I recommend listening to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsFa_MJ0gBs

So basically what he says is that life itself is a test. This in and of itself is an argument that tests matter. I mean, if you think life matters, and life itself is a test, then I guess it does matter.

So what am I getting at here? Don't get me wrong, tests are important because it shows progress, and they measure how much you ___ something. That blank could be filled with know, can do, anything you can think of.

But an undeniable truth is that the test itself can only measure as well as the person who devised it can gauge.

What am I talking about? Specifically, standardized testing. I'm personally opposed to it because instead of standardizing curriculum to useful things, we are standardizing benchmarks and as a result, we are teaching to the tests.

So if life is a test, wouldn't it be good to study? Well, yeah. But I think if you are studying, you should study what is on the test and what will matter in life. And I don't feel that the current education system does that.

Why do I say this? I think I've seen more of the 'real world' in WYEP, the scouting movement, and the other things I've done outside of this education bubble. Take for example, I take the scholars track in Math. I'm studying Algebra 2, yet I haven't learned any business math, like taxes and the sort, and I won't.

I may be wrong. After all, I'm only a high school sophomore. But say I'm on to something real here, I think it's time we take some time to study what will really be on the test.