Assignment 16 - 3D printing organs - andrei zivkovic

So as most of you know I broke my leg last summer and was on crutches for a while and i did this by falling off a bike. I fractured my femoral neck and has to get surgery and now I have 4 screws in my leg long story short I basically broke my hip because I don't have the basic skills to ride a bike. But anyways my doctor told me that in the next 7-8 years there is always a chance that the blood supply in my hip could stop and i would have to get surgery again, This uncertainty has always given me a bit of anxiety and whenever I go to get my leg looked at I'm always worried that soemthings wrong with it again. When it comes to people getting any medical procedure specifically in this case organ transplants there's always an uncertainty that occurs among people but this can be diminished through the process of 3D printing organs for transplants which also increases the amount of transplants that can be done among patients. 

“Modern medicine has made major advances in treatment for organ failure and organ related diseases, but an organ’s function is very complex and hard to duplicate.” “So although healthcare has taken progressive steps, those steps can only help so much before even more problems arise.” Today with all the new technology in the medical field an advancement is occurring that will revolutionize the medical field by combining the innovation of mechanical engineering and bioengineering. 3D printing organs is a proposal that could end up replacing the process of organ donations and speed up the process overall. 

“Researchers have developed techniques to produce artificial structures via printing to replace damaged or obsolete parts of the body, such as prosthetics and kidneys. The beginning of printing in medicine started with simple structures of the body: arteries, blood vessels, skin, muscles, etc. The process by which these parts are made involves taking the cells of the patient receiving the transplant, printing a biodegradable mold, then coating the mold in the duplicated cells, and last incubating the structure allowing the cells to develop around the mold and which eventually “dissolves” and only the biological structure from the mold remains. Because these biological structures are completely developed out of the patients’ cells, there is no threat of rejection and virtually fully functional.”

 The reason that this option is proposed can be attributed to the problems that occur among organ donations and transplants. A drawback that comes with organ donations is that it can lead to medical problems and it is usually due to medicines needed to suppress the immune system so it doesn't fight the donor organ. Some of these medical problems being diabetes, depression, high blood pressure etc. There can also be risks for the donor some of those include “reactions to anesthesia, blood clots, the need for blood transfusion, post operative infections and surgical complications.” 

A major issue facing the healthcare community deals with patients on the transplant list having to wait a long time to receive an organ. For them to receive an organ one must become available through the death of someone else and there are still risks of the organs being rejected by the body. In a Ted Talk done by Anthony Atala  He covers the issue of how as we live longer our organs tend to fail and how there are not enough organs to go around for transplants and a solution to this is the start of 3D printing organs. And how in the last 10 years the number of patients needing transplants nearly doubled and has been steadily increasing. 

“However, 3D printing offers a solution to this problem: through printing the organs. A major success story that provides light in the future of printing is the development of a functional kidney at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine by Dr. Anthony Atala in 2002. The produced kidney was given to Dr. Atala’s patient, Luke Massella, who suffered from complete kidney failure. Luke was destined to be on dialysis for the rest of his life until receiving the artificial kidney. Now, Luke has grown up to live a happy life ever since the procedure.”

Knowing that there is a solution that can offer less implications can help ease people who have to go through this process . Knowing that something could go wrong with my leg at any time always freaked me out but for people that have to go through the process of getting transplants knowing that there is now an option that can benefit them better in the long run helps diminish that sense of anxiety that people have when it comes to the whole process.

Post #16 Final Speech: Kelly Landry

A majority of people have heard of the Nike worker abuse and unfair wages or of H&M’s sweatshops scandals. Morals are an often overlooked aspect of apparel. However, it would be extremely hypocritical of me to stand up here and ridicule you about the ethicality and sustainability of what you are wearing. So, this speech is as much for me as it hopefully will be for you. In recent years, the idea of sustainability has become coveted and somewhat romanticized by thrifting “VSCO Girls” and Americano-sipping hipsters alike. But what is “sustainability”? Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “sustainable” as a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. This concept should play a key role in the clothing industry because it affects humans, the planet, and animals. However, compelling counter arguments consist of cost, culture and complacency. What steps would we need to take in order to promote sustainability?

Transparency is an important aspect of accountability. Brands like Urban Outfitters and Adidas tend to withhold details regarding ethical initiatives and data to back up their claims of such actions. Included in this is the trend of animals too often being treated unethically for the sake of cheap clothing. A common method of obtaining wool is the excuse of necessary mulesing, the removal of wool-bearing skin off of a living sheep. Additionally, human lives are greatly affected by the clothing industry. Wages of living are left unmet by brands like H&M, workers not making enough to sustain themselves. Chemicals commonly used in clothes include petroleum, heavy metals, flame retardants, ammonia, and formaldehyde, which have been linked to negative physiological symptoms and the development of cancers and respiratory diseases. The clothing industry also affects the planet. Instead of recycling or donating unwanted clothes, consumers throw away shoes and clothing an average of 70 pounds per person, annually. Up to 95% of the textiles that are thrown away could be recycled. A cause of this is the short life cycles and poor quality of the clothing. Additionally, sustainable brands such as Patagonia and Reformation, some of the most recognized in the category, are relatively expensive for the average person- coats and jackets mostly costing over $100-thus, most people are unlikely to accumulate a wardrobe full of “sustainable” clothes because they can’t afford to spend that much on a single piece of clothing.

Not to burst the bubbles of any aforementioned “VSCO Girls” but truly “cco-friendly” clothing is a myth. All clothing industry actions taken to make products have a detractive consequence. Textiles expert Lexie Sachs, who has a Bachelor of Science in Fiber Science, says “[...] while there’s no such thing as “eco-friendly clothing” — i.e. all garments have at least some negative impact on the environment — there are brands working diligently to help make a difference.” According to “Social Experiments in Sustainable Consumption: an Evidence-Based Approach with Potential for Engaging Low-Income Communities” culture and the rise of consumerism demonstrate that people aren’t willing to make drastic changes to their consumption and lifestyles nor are they willing to spend extra for the sake of sustainability. Why buy a $130 jacket when you could get essentially the same thing for $20?

Possible solutions and alternatives to this issue include the implementation of mindful materials such as recycled polyester, wool, and cotton as used by Patagonia. As of now, about 69% of materials used by Patagonia are made completely from recycled materials and their goal is to, by 2025, use solely recycled materials. If this practice became the standard in the clothing industry, the prices of this quality of textiles would decrease. With higher quality clothing, waste production would be significantly decreased because there would be less resources ending up in landfills, benefitting not only the planet but animals too. Still, even higher quality clothing becomes old or damaged. A way to combat this is repairing or reusing materials instead of just throwing them away. Through this, materials can be used for longer. Though labor abuse is practically inevitable, encouraging changes is the best way to help. Certifications such as the Fair Trade Certification protect workers from abusive conditions and unfair wages. Creating a strong demand for these types of policies and practices will change the way companies actually carry out their claims of ethicality. Another way of integrating sustainability into your everyday life is intentionality. To truly know where your clothes come from takes work and time. While conscious consumption is critical to sustainability, many people are simply not willing to look into such details whether out of laziness, apathy, or passivity. However, there are sources that do this research for consumers and categorize their findings. An example of this is “Good On You” an app and website dedicated to “Making ethical fashion more accessible through a global fashion guide profiling how ethical (or not) brands are.” They rank brands based on human ethics such as policies and practices includng child labor, forced labor, worker safety, freedom of association which is the right to join a labor union and payment of a living wage, additionally environmental impacts are measured such as resource use and disposal including that of chemicals, water, energy and carbon as well as animal impacts including ethical treatment and prevention of abuse. The analysis of brand transparency and certifications of Fair Trade are also included in ranking.

The biggest barrier to long-lasting sustainability efforts is consumer culture. Trends will not make a true impact. And I am not here to say buying products you want is a terrible transaction, I am also guilty of feeding the demand for “fast fashion” but starting to make more conscious efforts is the best way to spark initiative. Sudden, drastic lifestyle changes will not last. With one clothing item at a time donating, recycling, buying second hand or from Fair Trade brands, we can start to change our culture.

Assignment 16 - Landon d'Angelo

Deforestation and Forest Degradation

Oxygen, vital to life on Earth, is provided through natural processes in plants and phytoplankton in the ocean. Phytoplankton creates around half of the world's oxygen supply and plants create the other half. Forests account for around a third of total oxygen production. While ocean life creates a larger percentage of the oxygen, forests must be seen as the key to future climate change mitigation because they are significantly easier to control. These forests absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and convert it to oxygen which is then expelled. The average forest is going to have a net carbon emission around zero because while vegetation expels oxygen it also gives off carbon dioxide through things such as forest fires. The balance between these gasses is thrown out of sync when forests are cut down or burned in excess. Deforestation is a leading cause of high carbon emissions. Deforestation does not simply refer to cutting trees down, its when a piece of land is permanently converted from forest into another use such as an agricultural field. This produces two problems. Not only will the trees give off carbon dioxide when burned, but there will also be less vegetation to counteract the rising emissions. A lesser-known issue, forest degradation, also creates massive complications. Forest degradation is when a forest is unable to hold as much carbon or support life as a result of human interaction. This can come from pollution, climate change, forest fires, or woodfuel collection, which is the process of gathering wood from forests for the use of fuel, typically for heating.

According to the World Wildlife Fund around half of all forests around the globe are at risk for becoming degraded or deforested by the year 2030, now just 10 years away (2019). This is the opposite of what needs to happen. Forests need to be regrown and replanted in order to close the widening gap in emissions. Releasing this carbon into the atmosphere will only accelerate and escalate the effects of climate change. A report from Dr. Gregory Asner, a PhD holder in both biology and geography, says “tropical deforestation contributes about 20% of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.” This is a significant part of global emissions and as deforestation progresses this figure will only increase more rapidly because of less gas absorption. Since 1880, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has estimated that a rise in global temperatures of around 0.8 degrees Celsius has occurred, although a new estimate in 2017 by the United Nations puts it at around 1 degree. The UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report of Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees states “This [...] analysis already implied that there would be a significant reduction in risks to unique and threatened systems if warming were limited to 1.5°C compared with 2°C (2018).” This report explains that global temperatures must be contained to a 1.5 degree increase since pre-industrial revolution levels or the ramifications will be irreversible. An increase of 2 degrees will create problems in economies, crop harvests, dangerous weather, and more. Once this mark is reached it will be almost impossible to reverse the effects.

We can no longer idly sit and watch as the world burns. Time has passed and global temperatures continue to rise with no sign of stopping. We can no longer think with the mentality that these immense issues will solve themselves or be solved by someone else in the future. Catastrophic consequences will occur if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. Massive flooding, fires, and an increase in health issues will be a direct result of climate change, something that could be prevented, but likely won’t because people do not want to change their way of life. We’re already seeing the effects in Venice with flooding and fires in the Amazon and Australia. Often seen is the argument that climate change is a natural process that the earth goes through on its own and this is true, denied by no one. The difference is that these changes occurred in the time span of millions of years and not in slightly over 100 years as is now happening. We cannot continue like this. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD+, is a United Nations ran initiative that gives countries an incentive to keep their forests healthy and active. If a nation meets a certain benchmark for forest growth and carbon emissions then the United Nations financially rewards that nation. The UN also created the UN-REDD Programme that helps these countries obtain the ability to meet these benchmarks. Actions like REDD+ are helping but, illegal logging and burning of forests continue to pose a threat to global advancement. Great progress has been made, especially in the Amazon since the 1980s and 90s, but over a thousand square miles were deforested in Brazil alone in 2019. Six hundred of these were also burned. Stricter policy, as well as harsher enforcement of these laws, must be taken. Once this occurs, we’ll have a chance to keep the world thriving.

Assignment 16 - Elizabeth Moore - KY Foster Care Speech

I vividly remember as a 5-year-old throwing obnoxious tantrums each time my parents left for work… I’m sure each of you have similar memories of that sinking feeling you got as a kid when you thought your parents were abandoning you. But with loving, stable families, all of us had the assurance that we would be reunited with our parents mere hours after our loud displays of emotion. Every day, maltreated children in Kentucky are torn from their families and everything they once called home with no promise of reunification. As a result, Kentucky social services currently has custody of 11,500 abused and neglected children and teenagers in need of the same love and support that all of us have received.

According to Fonda Walker, a Social Services clinician in Kentucky, children usually enter foster care following some kind of parental abuse: physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual; or following a parent’s arrest, which often occurs due to substance abuse. The primary goal of Kentucky’s Foster program is to provide children safe homes and positive relationships in the hopes of ultimately reuniting them safely with their birth family. And positive experiences with foster families and family preservation services dramatically improve children’s emotional health and future success, so it’s important that these programs are sufficiently funded and staffed with empathetic foster parents from around the state.

Most children removed by social services feel neglected, unloved, and may have been abused. They oftentimes have social, psychological, and behavioral issues because of this maltreatment. But, according to a study published in the Journal of Social Work, foster children who develop a secure relationship with attentive foster parents gain a capacity for introspection and empathy, are more equipped to handle emotional distress, and develop psychosocial resilience. These skills improve the flow of children’s reunification with their birth parents and prepare foster children for future hardship and adulthood. Clearly, the supportive and loving relationships built through the foster care program have lifelong impacts on children, even those who return to their birth families.

But regardless of inadequate parenting, children who enter the foster system are still emotionally attached to their biological family. And many biological parents make bad choices, face the consequences, and decide to work towards a second chance: regaining custody of their children. For this reason, reunification of children with birth families is the priority for social services programs. In fact, with the support of foster families, 35 percent of children are released back to parents or primary caregivers, reconstructing broken families. This would not be possible without the help of family preservation services offered by the government, which include parenting programs, reunification counseling, respite care, follow-up-services to support families in the process of reunification and healing, and even programs that help prevent situations from escalating to child removal. All of these programs attempt to ensure that children who return to their biological parents will continue to experience the same love and support at home that they found in their foster families.

The positive impacts of the foster system and supporting programs on children and their families is immeasurable. But the Kentucky Foster Adoptive Caregiver Exchange System, or KY FACES is extremely underfunded. According to the national Children’s Bureau, Kentucky social services has custody of 23% MORE foster children than the national average. And yet, we spend 21% LESS on foster care than the national average. That means we’re spending less money … on more children. Kentucky’s current programs are proving relatively effective, but with increased funding, they could touch the lives of more families on a more intimate level and improve child wellbeing across the state.

But for foster care and any of these currently underfunded supporting programs to make a difference in children’s lives, there must be a large pool of dedicated foster parents. The stereotypical image of a self-serving foster parent clandestinely embezzling government grants intended for their foster child is just that: a stereotype. In fact, most foster parents rely on their personal funds to supplement the meager $24 daily government allowance for childcare. Raising a child costs around $38 per day. Increasing the government stipend to $38 would eliminate the financial constraints preventing potential parents with low incomes from fostering. Enlarging the pool of available parents through a stipend increase is an important step towards improving the parent to foster child ratio in Kentucky. Most fosters are like Melanie Watts, a former police captain who wanted a single child, but who ultimately took in four foster children because no one else would. But the few generous parents are stretched too thin. With around 8,000 children still in need of safe and loving foster homes in Kentucky alone, there just aren’t enough foster parents to go around. There’s a global demand for willing parents, but don’t think adopting a child from another country is the only noble way to help. There are children yearning for love and attention right here in Lexington. And because they’re in the foster system in the hopes of reunification with a Kentucky birth family, they can’t be moved to homes outside of the state, meaning Kentucky foster families are there only hope. That’s why it’s incredibly important to foster and adopt locally.

Ultimately, the foster system at it’s finest is an incredible resource for child development, biological family reunification, and potential adoptive families. But in order to function properly in Kentucky, the foster system needs better funding and local foster parents. And that’s something that we can achieve. We are the next generation of leaders and foster parents. So whether you go into government, can afford to donate, or better yet, take in a foster child yourself, make a difference in the lives of these needy children.

Assignment 16- Jasir Rahman- Speech

The landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling was seen by many as a triumph for America, desegregating our schools and seemingly ensuring equality of education.  The reality couldn’t be farther from the truth. Indeed, the Civil Rights Project found that desegregation efforts have lost all of the additional progress made after 1967.  The root of the festering, inherently unequal system of education under which millions of underrepresented students attend, is that of housing. 

Integrated housing is key to creating diverse student bodies.  Districts in which people live determine who attends what school.  These districts, however, became racially homogenous because of 2 key reasons.  

First, is inherently racist housing policies.  African-American veterans of World War II were systematically denied the benefits of the GI Bill by the government, which would have provided a monthly housing allowance for veterans.  African-Americans were dishonorably discharged at much higher rates than their white counterparts, meaning they could not benefit. Many veterans who had faithfully fought for their country overseas returned home not to praise for their service, but to rocks, derogatory names, and lynchings, as they tried to access the benefits they had earned when they set foot on the battlefield.  

This trend of a lack of government support for African-Americans attempting to purchase housing is perpetuated today through the increasing trend of market-rate housing.  Leshnower explains that market-rate housing is housing that is an apartment that has no rent restrictions and is not affected by typical housing laws. Promoting market-rate housing comes at the expense of government subsidized, rent-controlled housing.  This is because American cities are running out of room to build new housing units, and so in order to build less regulated market-rate housing, public housing units have to be torn down. Indeed, Austen of the New York Times finds that since the 1990s, over 250,000 public housing units have been demolished and replaced with market-rate housing.  The issue is that market-rate housing doesn’t replace 1 for 1 the rent-controlled units. In Chicago, 15,000 public housing units were torn down and replaced with 1,000 market-rate units, thus displacing those who inhabited those 14,000 units that went unreplaced. Furthermore, because market-rate housing is geared towards higher socioeconomic brackets, rents increase as wealthier people move in, pushing predominantly black and brown communities to the periphery of society, further cementing segregation.

The second key issue is social segregation.  Throughout the country African-Americans were excluded from suburban communities and segregated into urban areas by those white residents who were already established in the area.  Douglas Massey, professor of Sociology at Princeton University, in no uncertain terms, found that as soon as African-Americans moved into the fringe of a white neighborhood, white residents would sell and move to the suburbs, thus further exacerbating spatial, social, and economic isolation of the African American population.  Urban riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led to President Lyndon Johnson’s expedient creation of the Kerner Commission, to identify the root cause of the violence. What they found was that the US was, “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal,” and this finding fast-tracked the passage of the Fair Housing Act, allowing African-Americans to sue on the basis of racial discrimination in housing.  While this was a step in the right direction, it did little to solve the actual problem. A 2009 study from the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that African-Americans faced discrimination 20% of the time they attempted to rent a home.

The result is inequitable education for minority students.  The amount of apartheid schools, schools where the student body is 99% minority status, has more than doubled since the height of desegregation efforts, 1988.  Unfortunately, Latino and Black students are more likely to attend schools that have inexperienced teachers and fewer resources like college prep programs that enable students to excel and attain post-secondary education that is vital to making a living in the United States.  Indeed, Black and Latino students are 5 times more likely to attend high poverty schools. Furthermore, the psychological impacts of segregation in schools has remained constant over the course of 70 years. The famous “Doll Tests” in which psychologists Mamie and Kenneth Clark used different colored dolls to study the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children, ultimately lead to the conclusion that segregation in schools led to a feeling of inferiority among black students.  In 2010, CNN commissioned a similar study, and the result is constant. Both white and black children are biased towards positive attributes being associated with whiteness, and negative attributes being associated with darkness.  

Integration is key to solving both of these problems.  A study that compared the outcomes of black siblings where one went to an integrated school and the other didn’t, found that those who went to an integrated school were more likely to graduate, and 22% less likely to be incarcerated.  It also found that these benefits spilled over and impacted their children as well. Furthermore, multiple studies have found that attending diverse schools lead to a dramatic decrease in discriminatory attitudes and prejudices.  

So, how do we integrate?  We first must tackle the housing issue.  Rent-controlled housing, which caps the amount a landlord can demand of a tenant, or housing vouchers, such as the Section 8 program, which partially pay for the housing costs of lower socioeconomic groups are a simple fix.  They allow for predominantly black and Latino communities to integrate into white affluent communities, in turn integrating the school system. However, landlords generally see rent-control as a poor investment, as they fear that tenants won’t be able to pay.  

A much more comprehensive and targeted solution is that of desegregated bussing systems.  Busing systems send children outside of their districts to other schools to directly combat segregation in schools.  The results speak for themselves. Remember the study I mentioned earlier about the siblings who went to different schools?  Those benefits were made possible by the busing system. However, the benefits of busing have been overshadowed by the political discourse shaped by the rhetoric of white parents and politicians who thought that exposure to minority students would mean exposure to illicit activities.  While they may have had the best of intentions, the end result was a systematic denial of better education to African-Americans and the segregation we see today.

In order to change the inequitable education system, we must examine the root cause of segregation itself.  Acknowledging and confronting the racist housing system that continues to plague the nation is vital to understanding the current system of segregation in our schools.

Bibliography

Austen, Ben. “The Towers Came Down, and With Them the Promise of Public Housing.” The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/magazine/the-towers-came-down-and-with-them-the-promise-of-public-housing.html.

Azoff, Rachel. “Is Mixed-Income Housing Really the Saving Grace of the Failed Public Housing Movement?” Multifamily Executive, 10 Aug. 2009, https://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/design-development/is-mixed-income-housing-really-the-saving-grace-of-the-failed-public-housing-movement_o.

Billante, Jill, and Chuck Hadad. “Study: White and Black Children Biased toward Lighter Skin.” CNN, CNN, 14 May 2010, https://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html.

Blakemore, Erin. “How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans.” A&E Television Networks, 21 June 2019, https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits.

Leshnower, Ron. “Learn About Market-Rate Housing and Finding An Affordable Apartment.” The Spruce, 19 Feb. 2019, https://www.thespruce.com/market-rate-apartment-155986.

Office for Civil Rights.  “KEY DATA HIGHLIGHTS ON EQUITY AND OPPORTUNITY GAPS IN OUR NATION’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS.”  US Department of Education, 28 October 2016, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/2013-14-first-look.pdf.

Orfield, Gary, and Erica Frankenburg. “Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future.” UCLA, 14 May 2014, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/brown-at-60-great-progress-a-long-retreat-and-an-uncertain-future.

Potter, Halley, et al. “The Benefits of Socioeconomically and Racially Integrated Schools and Classrooms.” The Century Foundation, 29 Apr. 2019, https://tcf.org/content/facts/the-benefits-of-socioeconomically-and-racially-integrated-schools-and-classrooms/?session=1.

The Atlas. “The Atlas: National Equity Atlas.” National Equity Atlas, 2016, https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/School_poverty.

“The Race Gap in High School Honors Classes.” National Journal, 11 Dec. 2014, https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/619333.

Trifun, Natasha. “Residential Segregation after the Fair Housing Act.” American Bar Association, 1 Oct. 2009, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol36_2009/fall2009/residential_segregation_after_the_fair_housing_act/.

Zamora, Amanda. “Discussion: School Resegregation 60 Years After Brown v. Board.” ProPublica, 13 May 2014, https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/revisitingbrown-resegregating-u.s.-schools-60-years-after-brown-v.-board.

Assignment 16 - Tahsen Hossain - Finals Speech

Speech

Raise your hands and keep them up if you recognise any of the following statements: “Ight imma head out.” “Send in the Naruto Runners and see dem aliens.” “The all-powerful Shaggy” “Pepe” “Stonks!”

All of you know what I’m talking about. Not only did your minds immediately recognise the statements but to accompany them many of you also conjured an image into your mind. And that image is likely the same as your fellow classmates’. For those that do not know, take a moment to look at the images littering the screen. The image you’re thinking of or looking at is a shitpost.

Shitposting has overtaken our social space, revealing itself to be a ubiquitous form of expression throughout the millennial and Gen Z populations. Shitposting has various meanings based on who you ask but for this case, we will be using reporter and design-expert Gustavo Turner’s working definition. “And what is a shitpost if not a pointless, carnivalesque attack against meaning itself? Like every aesthetic that draws from the absurd, shitposting is ultimately a cry of despair against impending disaster.” That is a complex definition but according to Jared Bauer’s analysis, it can be broken down into 4 intrinsic characteristics of shitpost culture.

The first is inaction. It is understood among the regular viewership and the author that motivation behind the post is not a true call to action but rather to highlight specific feelings. It is an understanding that the images are not defined by their message but rather the feelings of despair, failure, and hopeless paralysis that they portray.

The second is “trolling”, meaning that they exist as a counter-culture to the regular social media standards, to “normies” if you will. While the existing standard of social media is to share powerful or semi-boasting updates of your life in a positive connotation like pictures of your family on vacation or your recent achievements in sports; shitposting, in contrast, is meant to reveal the things we hold in a negative connotation, most popularly mental illnesses like depression, as a sardonic response. 

Thirdly, pessimism is also a common characteristic. Many shitposts are inspired by or are a direct response to post- Cold War optimism and the false promises of a better world, recognising these as common overarching causes for feelings of despair and hopeless paralysis in the face of an uncertain future.

And finally, shitposting is inherently paradoxical. It is both a cry for help and a “resignation to hopelessness.'' A rejection of optimism but a wish for happiness. This inherent quality of paradox catalyses absurdist design structures in pieces aimed at making sense of the world, revealing grief and trauma in its wake but also inciting laughter and camaraderie.

All of these characteristics combined with the massive scale of the shitposting cultures’ influence make for an unusually nuanced mechanism. And this mechanism of shitposting consequently has a multitude of diverse and similarly nuanced effects in our society.

Consider mental illness. Shitposting has become the custodian of mental illness awareness spawning its own sub-genre of shitposting called “depression memes”. In the Teenage Brain, Frances Jensen postulates that as society becomes more aware of mental illness, the interactions and reactions concerning it diversify. And the data supports this hypothesis. 

Spring 2019 saw the Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research publish “A Content and Thematic Analysis of Tumblr Posts Related to Non-Suicidal Self-Injury” or NSSI incidents. It found that “Results from the present study suggest that users searching for NSSI related posts on Tumblr risk being met with negative and triggering posts possibly designed to generate additional self-harm episodes”. And it went on to explain the difficulty they had in determining whether or not the posts were harmful based on context. Context is often essential to an understanding of shitposts and when exposed to persons without context, posts that are meant to be cathartic can seem insensitive, provoke outrage, or worse present an incentive for harmful behaviour in exchange for attention or perceived respect.

However, in the same study, it was found that large networks and support systems have been created around the exchange and viewership of these posts. Through the dissemination of shitposts, people’s cries for help have been answered and those participating feel as though they are part of a community. And though this simple and absurd acknowledgement of despair and hopelessness they have sent the message that the “fucking burden of being alive” need not be lifted alone, making shitposting a mass coping mechanism on the global scale.

So what is there for us to do? We seem to have created a mechanism that perpetuates the issues that it addresses but allows us to find comfort and laughter in those them. How do we deal with that?

I don’t actually know. I would be lying if I said there is an easy and clear solution, in fact, I’m not it can be so clearly defined as a problem. But, I have identified a few paths towards the answers.

The first is changing public education standards, either by introducing digital literacy and social skills into schools between the ages of 10 and 14 or somehow training parents to effectively teach appropriate online behaviours to their children. However, both of these are only band-aids.

The most effective path is with us. The internet is still very new and based entirely on the precedents we and the generation before us created. Every single one of you whether it be on the internet or in the real world are consciously or unconsciously accepting or denying these precedents with your actions. Therefore YOU MATTER. It seems odd that something so subtle and byzantine as shitposting can change how we see the world but now that you know I hope that you continue to enjoy them if you did before but understand that how you interact with them is relevant and very real.

To reference the Great Gatsby, it is no secret that we have been living in the “foul dust” of other people's dreams but what we do in the arenose climate will eventually define us, even something as small as posting a meme. 

Works Cited

Jensen, Frances E., and Amy Ellis Nutt. The Teenage Brain: a Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. Harper Collins Publishers, 2016, pp. 170 - 204.

Eliseo-Arras, Rebecca K., et al. “A Content and Thematic Analysis of Tumblr Posts Related to Non-Suicidal Self-Injury.” Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research, vol. 13, no. 3, 2019, pp. 198 - 211, https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.kyvl.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=a9h&AN=138783814. 

Bauer, Jared. “Storm Area 51 and the Rise of Depression Memes – Wisecrack Vlog.” Edited by Andrew Nishimura and Drew Levin, YouTube, Wisecrack, 10 Aug. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SBuh8oNxv0. 

“r/depression_memes - Just Facts.” Reddit, 2019, www.reddit.com/r/depression_memes/comments/dbadpt/just_facts/

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Assignment 16 - Delaney Staley - Speech

In an article published in The Atlantic, it details a family’s story of struggling to find support for their 21 year old son with autism, Andrew. The family had been able to rely on government funded support for the entirety of his life, enrolling him in some of the best programs to aid him. However, after high school, in most cases, this support ends. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), most recently revised in 2004, mandates that the state “...makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children.” This encompasses various disabilities, including autism. The law defines autism as “...a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.” In Andrew’s case, he was diagnosed at 2 and a half years old. He is unable to speak and his parents are aware that he will need assistance for the remainder of his life. Due to the increasing awareness of autism and the overwhelming research, the number of children diagnosed with autism has gone from 1 in every 150 in the year 2000 to 1 in every 59 children in 2014, according to the CDC. 

According to the National Autism Indicators Report, almost half a million youth diagnosed with autism will become adults over the next decade. Once past age 21, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act states that young adults with autism are no longer entitled to the services provided and mandated under the law. This is known as the services cliff -- which many youth experience after high school, when they lose access to the services they had through special education provided for them by the government. This leaves the individual and their families, in most cases, to fend for themselves and delve through the other government services provided for those with disabilities including autism. These services include Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and various state disability agencies. The complicated process that one must endure simply to apply for these services and the strict criteria often leave families still struggling to make ends meet. According to the 2015 National Autism Indicators Support, while half of families reported needing some or a great deal of effort to find and access services when the youth was 17 years old, after high school this number jumped to more than 70%. Furthermore, During high school, 97% of youth received at least one of these services, including speech-language therapy, personal assistant services, social work, case management, transportation and occupational therapy. In their transition from adolescence to adulthood, approximately 26% of young adults on the autism spectrum received no services. In a study of 242 teens, researchers found that young people’s autism symptoms and behaviors often improved during adolescence but after they exited high school, progress slowed and in some cases, stopped. This could be attributed to the lack of services provided to those young adults with autism as many cannot afford the same degree of support they were receiving before and this makes it even harder to be able to secure and maintain a job.

In a report to Congress regarding Young Adults and Transitioning Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder, it was found that only 2 percent of research funding on ASD has been dedicated to the needs of adults living with ASD and less than 2 percent has been pledged to transition-related issues. Leann Smith, a developmental psychologist says “When you look at early intervention for autism, there are lots of different models, and we have a pretty good sense of evidence-based practices for young children with autism, there isn’t anything analogous to that for adults.” Though those living with autism spend a greater majority of their life as adults, still the research into how to better serve this population is meager and insufficient. As more and more adolescents transition into young adults, this lack of research into how to improve the lives of those adults with autism will continue to fuel the unavailability of good and modestly-priced programs to serve those adults.

In order for our society to improve as a whole, we need to start making more services available to adults diagnosed with autism by lowering qualifications to make them more accessible. Further, we need to simplify the process through which families are to apply for aid for developmental disabilities such as autism, such as to facilitate a faster means of delivering that aid and eliminating the wait. Lastly, we need to dedicate a larger amount of money towards researching the efficacy of already-existing programs intended to help adults with autism and towards developing new ones. Once these changes have been made, adults with autism will be able to have a stable place in our society.

Assignment 16- Mary Huffman- College Board should be scared

Mary Huffman

Mr. Matthew Logsdon

AP English Language & Composition

17 December 2019

The College Board Conspiracy

What I plan to do here today in less than eight minutes is not to abase an entire education system. Nor do I intend to admonish the actions of anyone in this room - more on that later. But the issue I will be discussing is centered around a massive, monopoly-holding corporation each of you- including Mr. Logsdon- have an integral connection to. At this point, if you’re still listening, you may be trying to figure out what company this speech will be about. Here it is: the College Board.

College Board is the company that brought you the increasingly irrelevant SAT, the unattainable National Merit Scholarship, and the almighty, all-encompassing Advanced Placement courses. In this speech I will discuss several benefits and flaws of the AP program and College Board as a whole, and offer a few possible solutions to help extinguish the flames of an imperfect organization.

You are quite familiar with the possible benefits of AP classes. Upon passing an AP exam, students can earn credit for college courses at a fraction of the cost of an actual university credit. AP classes boost students’ grade point averages as these courses are weighted more heavily than general or advanced classes. According to a longitudinal study published in the Roeper Review, “advanced classes helped provide students with the opportunity to develop their potential abilities and promote personal growth, as well as provide the challenge needed by academically talented individuals.” 

However, the Advanced Placement system is not without its flaws. The success of AP students is obviously heavily dependent on the effectiveness of their teachers’ methods. Significant disparities in AP achievement between races are even more concerning. In 2017, 64 percent of exam taken by white students received passing scores. When compared to the same statistics for other races, black students had a 30% pass rate, and 42% of Hispanic students passed the AP exams they took.

Author Bryan Caplan was interviewed about a book he wrote, entitled “The Case Against Education,” in which he argues that much of one’s education is spent “showing off,” attempting to impress college admissions officers and potential employers. In my personal experience, the most common way of flaunting one’s accomplishments is to tack an AP exam score onto a resume, despite its actual worth to me or my plans for the future. The baseline for high school students at this point is to take several AP classes, preferably with passing scores on their exams.

For this and many other reasons, AP classes are unavoidable, especially with the largely predetermined schedule for rigorous programs like the Academy. In no way am I suggesting students are responsible for the shortcomings of the College Board’s prodigal child. But it’s imperative that you- the students- understand the positive and negative aspects of the organization which influences so much of your academic life.

If you’re like me, you raised an inquisitive eyebrow when it came time to register for AP exams this year. Why was College Board forcing us, its loyal customers, to commit and pay so many months in advance? If you didn’t pay by the October deadline, exorbitant late fees awaited. I felt like I was being forced into buying a car- but the only dealership around was trying to snatch as much money as they could, trying to pressure me into buying a car I’d been told would be great to have, just in case I needed it. And don’t forget that this was a deal that couldn’t be passed up. The sleazy College Board salesman said, “I’m sure you’ll need this car...eventually…” One of the four cars I bought this year, each for the non-negotiable price of $100 plus processing fees, was...AP Calculus. There is not a single other corporation in the United States that can offer me this car, with all the same dials and promises that the seatbelt will work properly when and if I choose to use the car. 

This is a rather simplified explanation of a monopoly, something the College Board would know a lot about. The only other corporation that offers similar services to high school students is the lesser known International Baccalaureate, whose reputation is less solidified thanks to its fewer years and limited popularity in American public schools. Even if there existed more third parties to grant high school students college credit, would these companies find such success as College Board has? Say I don’t like the idea of only one car dealership being made available to me. I may find another car lot a few towns away, but their cars won’t be guaranteed to be accepted by most colleges. And their cars will most certainly be more expensive. This dealership isn’t as well-established in its sketchy sales, so it is trying to make the most profit it can, just to keep the lights on.

Again, the College Board dealership demonstrates its monstrous monopoly. Being the sole provider of college-level classes in high school means it can charge whatever price it wants for exams, AP-approved teaching materials, review books. Have we solved the mystery of College Board’s money-hungry new policies?! Not yet. 

As of 2018, when Total Registration published a report on the College Board’s financial standings, the “non-profit” held over $1.1 billion in Cash and Investments. In 2017, College Board made nearly $140 million. 140 million. That is the profit margin for a non-profit organization whose mission is to connect “students to college success and opportunity.” 

“College success and opportunity” certainly don’t cost $140 million a year. Where is all this money going, if not to lower the cost of exams, student and teacher resources, or even late fees? It goes into the oversized wallets of College Board’s 23 executives, who make an average of over $355,000 per year. If nothing more, this so-called “not-for-profit” company is guilty of immoral conduct as it increases costs for students while its executives’ salaries only grow.

The issues of transparency and accessibility is not one that can be solved immediately. But the first step in democratizing the College Board is to remove its status as a non-profit. Publicly strip the company of its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and the education-focused students and parents of this country may come to realize the financial value of their own investments in their future. The position of the Advanced Placement program is not one that will disappear from American education anytime soon. But it is an institution with a great need for reform and reorganization to once again emphasize the student as the basis of the nation’s complex educational system.

Works Cited

Digby, Joan. “Got AP?” Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, vol. 17 no. 2,  Fall-Winter 2016, pp. 31-35, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1132011.pdf. Accessed 30 Sep. 2019.

Donald, Brooke. “Are AP courses worth the effort? An interview with Stanford education expert Denise Pope.” Stanford News, 22 Apr. 2013. 

 “Follow the Money.” Follow the Money - College Board Finances, Total Registration. https://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Service/Follow-The-Money-History-of-College-Board-Finances.php. Accessed 17 Dec. 2019.

Illing, Sean. “Why this economist thinks public education is mostly pointless.” Vox, 20 September 2018. www.vox.com/conversations/2018/2/16/16870408/public-education-libertarianism-democracy-bryan-caplan. Accessed 30 Sep. 2019.

Perrone, Kristin M., et al. “Looking Back on Lessons Learned: Gifted Adults Reflect on Their Experiences in Advanced Classes.” Roeper Review, vol. 32, pp. 127–139, 2010. search-ebscohost-com.proxy.kyvl.org/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=a9h&AN=49142591. Accessed 30 Sep. 2019.

Weissmann, Elena. “The College Board: A Very Profitable ‘Nonprofit.’” New Brunswick, NJ Patch, Patch, 14 June 2013. https://patch.com/new-jersey/newbrunswick/bp--the-college-board-a-very-profitable-nonprofit. Accessed 17 Dec. 2019.

Zhou, Amanda. “More students are taking AP exams, but researchers don’t know if that helps them.” Chalkbeat, 3 Aug. 2018. chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/08/03/more-students-are-taking-ap-exams-but-researchers-dont-know-if-that-helps-them/. Accessed 30 Sep. 2019.