20091010
I don't like my part-time job!
High school junior Edward Clark performed "Les" from Roger Karshner's monologues. Les is a student who is not enjoying his part-time job. He is venting and complaining about everything from his family to his present employment (Courtesy of VCAT).
Change voting behavior as an Asian American
Christine Hana Kim, 7th Grade
San Jose CA
Chaboya Middle School
Little Angels Singing
The African Children Choir sings "Walking in the Light" in front of a cheering and adoring crowd in the US. Teachers, students, and millions of admirers adored their songs of hope, peace, and love . US President Obama, billionaire Bill Gates, and television host Oprah Winfrey are one of the many admirers of these angels.
Empowering Social Change
Sejal Hathi, 12th Grade | |
I am a peacemaker, and it is my mission to democratize the quest for peace worldwide, by creating a sisterhood of changemakers making their vision for the world a reality.
If my experiences have revealed to me one reality, it is that the most formidable problem plaguing our world today is not poverty or violence or environmental destruction or disease, but Ignorance: the lack of a cosmopolitan cultivation that emboldens all people to realize their own voice, their common humanity, and their power to pioneer a new global order. So many of us are unable to peer beyond preconceptions and prejudices, even small ones, and thus we shackle ourselves to an insular worldview and thwart not only our own self-realization, but the fulfillment of the dreams and hopes and full potential of the millions of people who are even less equipped to articulate their voice and seize their destiny. Because girls are so often the most affected by this problem, yet those most equipped to empower their communities, I strive to expunge this ignorance by transforming the way not only society views girls, but also how girls themselves view their potential for building global peace. And I am already taking action to share this vision.
Galvanized by the poverty and oppression I witnessed against girls worldwide, at age 15, I founded the international nonprofit organization Girls Helping Girls to empower all girls to discover their rights and create collaborative and innovative social change. In less than two years, Girls Helping Girls has mobilized over 5,000 girls in nearly 20 countries to change their communities, training even the most destitute to create their own businesses and nonprofits, establish holistic education and income-generation programs for trafficking victims, launch microfinance programs for struggling entrepreneurs, become public speakers, build schools, and learn about global issues. As the CEO of Girls Helping Girls, I have additionally raised $30,000 to fund girls’ education, healthcare, scholarships, food and water, and other basic needs, and will continue to invest in girls’ initiative by amplifying the scope and impact of our programs and our philanthropy while I am in college. I believe that in order to change the world, we must first understand it, and this is a core principle behind my efforts to connect girls from different backgrounds to learn about each other and then transmute their knowledge to tangible, collaborative action.
As a first-generation Asian American, my dream to empower girls was most fervently fueled by my desire to eradicate the inequalities that were plaguing girls in my home country of India: my counterparts and my sisters, who were just as intelligent and just as capable as I, I saw were suffering—and still are—under the yoke of child marriage, prostitution, trafficking, entrenched discrimination and lack of access to educational opportunities in a blind country and culture. It is for this reason that I established Girls Helping Girls’ first site, after the Bay Area, in India, in a rural community in Jaipur. And this is why, just this past summer, I took three other girls with me for Girls Helping Girls’ first travel-abroad immersion program to Kolkata, India, to build a library and to organize two Peacebuilding Summits—providing business and vocational training, English-language, leadership, and self-esteem skills— for women and girls victimized by prostitution and sex trafficking in the red-light districts and slums of the city. It is precisely my rich heritage, and my roots in a country halfway across the globe, that has spurred me to seed and nurture an international community of girls empowering each other to make their world a better place.
I believe that all youth are a movement: a united and unstoppable force that can eradicate poverty, increase access to healthcare, reverse environmental degradation, and solve the world’s most pressing problems— if only they are given the tools and the opportunity. I strive to empower this movement, by effacing the ignorance that smothers our hope and energizing and equipping potential. We are all a mosaic of gifts, and all of us have the rich power to shape our globe and assert ourselves as ambassadors for change; if I could do one thing to change the world, it would be to awaken this active consciousness in every individual.
Cooking Lumpia and Adobo
Bethel High School students cooks Adobo and Lumpia in a cooking laboratory for their project in their Filipino and Tagalog Classes. While the students are learning another language, they are also learning the culture and heritage of the Philippines at the same time. Bethel High School is just one of the few schools in California that offers these classes. UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford University leads a bunch of top rank universities that offers the language course in college.
ENGLISH SUBJECT
This year I learned a lot in my English honors class at
Siocoro Isadore, Grade 11
Vallejo CA
20091009
I want to be a solar engineer to change the world
by Jerry Guo, Grade 3, Palo Alto CA, Challenger School
Change your Assumption
by Claire Dworsky
Grade School, San Francisco CA
Lycee Francaise La Perouse
To me, growin up Asian is the same as any kid most of the time. I go to school, gymnastics, soccer, play with my dog, play outside – normal stuff.
But sometimes other people say things that make me feel sad or different. They make fun of my eyes and call me Chinese. The yell, “Hey Chinois!” They ask questions that aren’t really questions, like “Are you really adopted?” I say “Yes I was adopted from Kayakhstan, a country between Rusia and China. I can show you on a map if you want.” But they’re really using this questions to make fun of me. And it’s even worse. When Asian girls pick on me by saying “Oh, you have blue eyes you think you are all that.” Racism is hurtfull, no matter who says it.
But I’m hoping that we can change this.
It made me feel so great to see our new president, Barack Obama elected, because he’s mixed like me. He knows what it’s like. And he talks about all people coming together to make change. He says we should focus on the things we have in common and finding new ways to solve problems.
One of the things I would change in my community is to honor prisoners on their birthdays. I have written to the wardon at San Quentin prison, which I can see from my school, to see if I could send cards for people who don’t get to celebrate their birthdays. Every person, even a person who made alot of mistakes, should get to feel a bit special on their birthday. If each person can act kindly towad others and create change, all of our community will be more open to each other.
When you know how it feels to be discriminated against you should use that feeling to imagine how others feel, and change yourself so you can help others.
Grade School, San Francisco CA
Lycee Francaise La Perouse
To me, growin up Asian is the same as any kid most of the time. I go to school, gymnastics, soccer, play with my dog, play outside – normal stuff.
But sometimes other people say things that make me feel sad or different. They make fun of my eyes and call me Chinese. The yell, “Hey Chinois!” They ask questions that aren’t really questions, like “Are you really adopted?” I say “Yes I was adopted from Kayakhstan, a country between Rusia and China. I can show you on a map if you want.” But they’re really using this questions to make fun of me. And it’s even worse. When Asian girls pick on me by saying “Oh, you have blue eyes you think you are all that.” Racism is hurtfull, no matter who says it.
But I’m hoping that we can change this.
It made me feel so great to see our new president, Barack Obama elected, because he’s mixed like me. He knows what it’s like. And he talks about all people coming together to make change. He says we should focus on the things we have in common and finding new ways to solve problems.
One of the things I would change in my community is to honor prisoners on their birthdays. I have written to the wardon at San Quentin prison, which I can see from my school, to see if I could send cards for people who don’t get to celebrate their birthdays. Every person, even a person who made alot of mistakes, should get to feel a bit special on their birthday. If each person can act kindly towad others and create change, all of our community will be more open to each other.
When you know how it feels to be discriminated against you should use that feeling to imagine how others feel, and change yourself so you can help others.
20091008
Speed in Math!
Precision, speed, and accuracy are the definitions of math learning in Tokyo, Japan. Children have the discipline to excel in Mathematics by way of an ancient tradition known in many countries in Asia as the Abacus. The Abacus, also known as the counting frame, is an old ancient tool used primarily in performing arithmetic and computation processes.
Incredible Piano Prodigy
Grade school student and 6-year old Emily Bear is a piano genius. Because of her extraordinary talent in playing the masterpieces of Mozart, she was invited to play in front of the President in the White House. Her gift of music is currently being nurtured by professors and musicians of the world renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York (Courtesy of WGN9).
Tahitian dancing
A group of Hogan High School students performed the Tahitian Dance at the University of California- Davis last March as part of their multicultural activities to share the wonderful tradition of the Asia-Pacific before a large audience of college bound kids from various high schools in Northern California.
20091007
A Respite
|
While I haphazardly put on a sweater (failing to align its buttons properly) and stuff my damp swimsuit into a half-zipped sports bag, my mother finishes applying her moisturizer. Glancing at the kitchen clock, we breathlessly slam the front door and trot briskly to the car, my undone shoelaces still skimming the ground behind us.
“7:46,” she groans, “a new record.” Indeed, it does appear as though every morning we thrust our reluctant bodies into the car a little later than the previous day. I attribute it to exhaustion—two hours of struggling to propel my gelatinous body through the thickly churning waters of the swimming pool; several more spent slumped over my littered desk, while my mother credits workplace stress—fear of unemployment; irritation with similarly hassled coworkers.
The week progresses in a flurry of activity, leaving in its wake remnants of cardboard take-out containers and eraser shavings. By the time Friday arrives, we have been reduced to limp caricatures of the energetic figures that we were at the beginning of the week. Essays, tests, meetings, conference calls have taken their toll on us, and we collapse with a sigh of relief.
However, the weekend has arrived, and in our household, the frantic reality of the outside world dissolves. On Saturday morning, as we drift slowly from a thick dreamland into lighter sleep, we barely discern the soft slide and click of a key, the muffled clamp of a door closing.
My grandmother has arrived to spend the day. A quietly intransigent woman who spent half her life in rural China, she possesses a rare blend of caring devotion and stubborn goodwill. Slipping past our bedrooms, she noiselessly enters the kitchen. Before I have completely left the swirling mist of slumber, my olfactory glands are already suffused with the appealing scent of a bubbling pot of rice balls, saturated in the unctuous aroma of sizzling egg enveloped in thin green onion pancakes.
The sun has drifted over the horizon before I rise to find my family clustered around our white Formica kitchen table. My grandmother is talking (she is quite effusive), first about her daily life. However, tales of English classes and senior center events inevitably segue into those with cultural roots; she eagerly relays the happenings of family in China.
“Your grandfather is playing in a retired person’s ping-pong tournament this weekend,” she informs me. Almost unconsciously, my speech melts from English to Mandarin as I laughingly reply that he’s still the same grandpa I remember.
We discuss her beloved houseplants (the red tulips have sprouted, the coriander herbs are shooting up at incredible speeds). She has me examine a worksheet with English grammar on it; I try to explain the difference between adverbs and adjectives. She presents to my mother a recipe for roasted eggplant; this was a dish she ate as a girl. My grandmother lives at a slower tempo than the rest of our family.
Steam erupts furiously from the kettle on the stove; a piercing whistle punctures our ears. With the consummate skill of an experienced cook, my grandmother snatches the kettle away and with a rapid flick of the wrist steeps a pinch of dried tealeaves. They appear suspiciously clumpy, but as soon as I lift the scorching mug I am convinced by the sweetly fragrant odor.
“This is the highest grade tea leaf,” she proclaims proudly, “well, perhaps next to the Pu’er.” I learn that Pu’er is an aged tea in extremely high demand in China before recently suffering deflationary values. She bombards us with more tidbits of information gleaned from the Chinese World Journal: wearing contact lenses tires out the eyes; housing prices have plummeted; President Obama is actually quite the shuai ge (handsome brother).
For the relatively short time she spends at our house before returning to the company of her pomegranate bush, my grandmother has an incredible effect on our home atmosphere. She diffuses warmth and practicality, advice and anecdotes. I count weeks not by outside commitments, but by what I learn from her each Saturday. What she imparts to us is trivial, yet deeply essential in its core. Our normally tense, clock-bound lives ease into the smoothness of green tea and the rustle of a newspaper.
Perhaps the world is inevitably destined to be a turbulent vortex of work and responsibility. However, I harbor the hope that each person can take some time—the way I have been lucky enough to—to reconnect with his or her roots, to treasure the slower things in life, to appreciate the people that contributed to his or her development. Because sometimes, it’s what matters most.
2009 US Spelling Champion
Grade school student Kavya Shivashankar from Kansas won the recently concluded 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion. She bested more than 1,500 spellers in the United States (Courtesy of ABC).
A revolutionary way of learning
Teachers using Investigations in Number, Data and Space from Scott Foresman, not only let their students talk in class, they encourage them to do so. With Investigations, developed by TERC, a non-profit Technical Education Research Centers in Cambridge, MA and funded by the National Science foundation, there is more than one way to get the answer. Students collaborate to explore math problems and come up with strategies to solve them. Pueblo Gardens School in Tucson, AZ is one of the many success stories in which students are learning to become mathematical thinkers, setting them on the path to continuous achievement (Courtesy of Pearson).
A kid smarter than Einstein
Whiz kid grade school student Pranav Veera has a 176 IQ, sixteen more than genius Albert Einstein who has 160. With a super photographic memory, Pranav can answer every question hurled at him by a Today Show reporter from History, Mathematics to Science. Child specialists say that Pranav is one in a million. (Courtesy of Today Show)
Cheers from Columbus High School
The champion Cheerleaders of Columbus High School in the State of Ohio was awesome in this 2008 clip where they performed with awesome energy and precision in front of a large audience. (Courtesy of ESPN)
Learning World War 2 from the eyes of a soldier
90 year-old Marnie Yasay shares his harrowing experience from the Japanese during the war in the Philippines in 1942 with students of Bethel High School in California. After the fall of Bataan and the surrender of the American and Filipino forces, Mr. Yasay was incarcerated and brutally tortured by the Japanese.
The desperate eyes of children
 Tiffany On , 8th Grade | |
Vietnam’s humid weather made me feel like I was stuck in a sauna. My clothes clung to my clammy skin and my mouth felt like cotton. I trekked along with Dad, Mom, and my older sister through the busy, polluted streets of Saigon toward a restaurant. I rushed ahead, eager for some decent air conditioning.
Abruptly, we stopped in our tracks. In front of us stood a little girl with darkly-tanned skin that framed a frail figure. Her physique did not match those of the Vietnamese people who bustled in the nearby markets. Her filthy clothes barely fit and her feet were bare, but what caught my attention were her eyes—dark, desperate eyes that cried for help. She cupped her hands and let out a dead groan, begging for money. For a good minute, I stared at her; after all, I had never seen a young beggar before. I recalled the bums in my neighborhood, the old men that held cardboard signs near stoplights, who seemed perfectly capable of getting a job. The idea of helpless children didn’t seem to fit in my perception of a society.
She groaned again. My family pitied her. Dad dropped several coins into her hand—it would probably buy her a small loaf of bread. As the coins fell with a clink into her hands, her face illuminated and her desperate eyes twinkled. I smiled. Then suddenly, the little girl turned and called out to somebody. I noticed a similar girl turn around. She was gently pulling on another tourist’s shirt. The other girl smiled and ran toward us, but she was not alone. A throng of about fifteen equally starving young girls followed her. Our mouths agape, my family pulled away across the street, carefully avoiding the cluster of speeding motorcycles. We ran away, because we hoped the stampede of hungry girls would give up and ask others for money. As we made it to the other side of the road, we turned and saw the consequence of our actions: the girls chased after us. I watched in chock as a girl, about four years old, ran across the street, ignorant of the speeding motorcycles.
Luckily, she safely joined the group of beggars that surrounded us. They pushed and pulled at our clothes. Their lifeless moans rang I my ears. The putrid smell of grimy, dirty bodies filled my nostrils. I scanned each individual. They were emaciated, and most seemed no older than eight years old. They all had the same lifeless, desperate eyes.
My heart ached. One five-year-old girl was holding an infant, whom looked too famished to have the energy to cry. As a girl myself, I knew that the city streets were not a safe place for children. I wanted to burst into tears, but the girl’s increasingly tightened grip suffocated and scared me. Dad gave a few of the younger children some coins and ordered them to leave through assertive tones and hand gestures. Their faces were all delighted, even though my family knew the money could only buy a decent meal for three children. My family continued to our destination, leaving the girls behind. I stared at the ground all the way to the restaurant, deep in thought, picturing myself in their shoes. I imagined myself leaving my family who could not afford my necessities. Like an unwanted alien, I would spend my days begging for food and money, weak from long periods of starvation. I would have no place to sleep, stay warm, and feel safe.
When I returned to my comfortable home in California, I couldn’t help feeling grateful that I am growing up Asian in America. I can go to school, be whatever I want to be in the future, and live in a society that will help keep me off the streets. Every time I see children who are less fortunate, I recall those girls. I make sure I spare a thought for them, so I am constantly reminded of my goal to help the millions I poverty, whether they are the starving children in Asia, or the dehydrating children in Africa. When I grow older, I will accomplish this goal by volunteering to provide public services in third-world countries, by donating a portion of my income, and by encouraging others to do the same.
If I could make the world a better place, I would eliminate poverty. Poverty encompasses the live of almost half the children in the world. Every day, at least 20,000 of those children die—that’s approximately one death every four seconds. The young girl’s desperate eyes were etched in my memory. It shattered my heart, but it awakened my need to help the people in poverty.
20091006
A child with a big voice!
A grade school student from the Philippines by the name of Charice Pempengco sings her own version of a Whitney Houston song.
A monologue on teen pregnancy
A monologue performed by a student about teenage pregnancy. Half the pregnancies in the United States (US) are unplanned. About three million a year. Almost half of those were teenagers and students. One-third of the girls in the US get pregnant at least at the age of 20. Six of ten teenagers who have had sex say they wish they had waited.
MUSICAL CHANGES
Music training improves concentration. And with better concentration, we could not only find out new answers to old questions, but also new questions that await new answers. In my violin class I have to focus very hard. If I don’t concentrate, I can lose the whole flow. Each time I practice I find a new problem to solve. When one learns music, concentration becomes a normal part of your life. Just think if all of us had the opportunities to learn to focus the way that I have had through music. If we all did this, we could start the journey that awaits us of remaking earth by concentrating to help solve tough problems that we never even thought about. We could understand the true beauty of other countries and avoid wasted wars. We would appreciate the melodies of Iraq, the elegant melodic pentatonic scales of China, the rich spiritual heritage of India, and the great rhythms of Africa. When I went to China about two years ago, I heard a certain five-note scale. I realized we South Indians call that scale “Mohana” Raga. We might be friends or enemies with certain countries, but really we are all the same like the Chinese scale and “Mohana” Raga. But best of all music education brings me inner peace and inspiration. I sing South Indian Carnatic music, and the lyrics praise God. The meanings are usually something like, “Oh lord, you are the embodiment of good” or “you are the noblest of all.” When I sing this music with understanding, it adds to my pleasure and gives me ideas to improve myself. Although the lyrics were written many centuries ago they can still help us today. People need this. When I sing a song with feeling, I reap much happiness and excitement. I wish that everyone could have this experience. If they did then people would be happier and it would give people the power to do what needed to be done. As an Asian-American living in the bay area, I have had the privilege to learn not only the music of this land but also my ancestor’s land. From this experience, I feel that music from here and all over the world can help us in making the world a better place. |
Reading a Filipino Poetry
Bethel High School Class reads a tagalog poem entitled "Ako ang Daigdig" (I am the World) outside the classroom to practice their speaking and listening skills in the Tagalog Language. Bethel High School is one of the many few schools in the Vallejo City Unified School District and the State of California that offers Filipino Classes to its populace. Students learns poetry surrounded by nature.20091005
My parents won't allow me to go to Harvard!
I really would like to go to Harvard! But my parents won't allow me. Perhaps, Harvard is very expensive and we cannot afford it. According to them, if I go there, I would be paying so much for all the loans incurred during college. In spite of this, I still would like to pursue this dream. I want to be with the world's best. But they won't allow me. They told me to just go to a community college and take up a double A course. I think this is unfair!
Regina Dukes, Grade 12 CA USA
We want to go to college!!!
Having dysfunctional families won't stop these kids to aim high and reach their dreams. According to them, going to college and finding a good career in the future are the only solutions to fight poverty and hardships in life.
Looking for Financial Aid in College
Vallejo, Benicia, and some other bay area students in Northern California visited University of California-Davis to check college opportunities last summer. Most of the students were from poor income families looking for any financial grant or aid from any educational institutions in the state to fulfill their college dreams.
I WANT TO BE SMART IN THIS WORLD
If I were to be granted one wish, I would wish to know everything in the world. If I am smart and knows everything in the world, I would not stress and worry about my future. I can go to college without worrying tuition and be able to become anything I wanted in life. I can create cure for any diseases and create a new machine to save the world from a big natural disaster. In addition, I would be able to understand the hardest problem that no one can solve. Also, in the near future, I would be able to help my child with any homework they have and teach them. You can be anything and sky is the limit.
--- Angelika Ebert-Stallworth, Grade 10, CA USA
20091004
California Dreamin' interpreted by Sungha Jung
An 11 year old Korean amateur protege stunned Asia and the world with
his tremendous musical skills and expression.
"I dreamed a dream" interpreted by a student from New Zealand
Hayley Westenra, a student from New Zealand, sings "I dreamed a dream" from the musical Les Miserables. Before the famous Susan Boyle's rendition, she beautifully intrepreted the song back in 2002. Behold and enjoy her expression.
Energy Conservation
The Importance of Energy Conservation
In today's society, the use of renewable energy is becoming more and more apparent. With an increasing global average temperature, it has become more important to conserve energy because it is considered to be a rather finite source. As a result, many people in today's society need to use the minimum amounts of energy , that is necessary, to make the resources that we have today, last for the longest period possible.Regarding, “energy conservation,” I personally feel that the leadership of my country needs to realize that they need to take drastic steps towards becoming independent from foreign energy resources (i.e.: oil from the Middle East, etc). In addition, I feel that the US, as a whole, needs to move towards using more renewables such as nuclear, wind, and solar power. By doing so, I feel that we can make society a much cleaner place.
Steven Biasca
Grade 11, CA USA
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