The book I read was “Is it Night or Day?” which was centered around the topic of the Holocaust. The book ends in a way some people may predict or it could be very shocking. Edith is living with her aunt and uncle in Chicago. Her parents and grandmother have been placed in a concentration camp in Germany. Edith is trying very hard to send money to get her parents and grandmother over to America where they can escape the Nazi’s. By the end of the book it is just too late and Edith’s parents and grandmother die in a concentration camp in Germany. Edith found out about her family through a letter her friend from Germany sent her. “With great sadness, I must tell you that both of your parents and grandmother have died in concentration camps,”(Chapman 184). This event made Edith question how life was really is supposed to be lived. This matters because it changes the perspective of how the book ends. She begins to feel more comfortable in Chicago and has made herself at home. The book matters because this story is historical fiction about an event that actually happened in our world's history. We need to learn about these events to try and prevent them from happening again. The most valuable idea from the book was to treat others the way you want to be treated because you never know what they are going through. If everyone in the world was like this, the world would be a much better place and we would hopefully not have conflicts like this anymore. This book is still valuable today because there are still many things that we are unsure that happened. By hearing different peoples stories and perspectives we can put the pieces of the puzzle together to build the story of the horrific event of the Holocaust.
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This is a map of Germany today. As you can see Germany has changed between the Holocaust and today. This is a map of Germany during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a horrible time that lasted from 1933-1945 and during this time Germany was trying to take over all of Europe. To do this Hitler was killing all the Jews. The book I am reading “Is it Night or Day?” is centered around this topic. A twelve year old Jewish girl named Edith is living with her parents and her friend that her family is taking care of in Stockstadt am Rhein, Germany. Their whole family is Jewish. Things start to get bad for Jews when Hitler becomes the leader and wants to abolish all the Jews in Germany. Edith’s parents decide to send her to America to live in Chicago with her uncle and aunt. Edith gets on a ship with no one she knows and leaves her family behind to live in a world that will accept Jews. She has to adapt to this different lifestyle and country. The topic of the Holocaust was a terrible event that happened in the world’s history. This has changed how Germany is today because after the Holocaust many Jews feared to return to their homes in Germany. This left many of the Jews finding new homes in different countries. This is how the Jewish population is spread out in many different nations. Before the Holocaust and World War II the Jews were mostly in Germany, but things changed after the Holocaust. With many Jews coming from Germany many immigration problems arose in the United States. Because of the Holocaust today the international protection of human rights expanded. In the historical fiction novel “Is it Night or Day?” Edith is in the immigration process because she is coming from Germany to live in a better life for a Jew in America with her aunt and uncle. This was established by the United Nations. This is how the Holocaust impacted today’s society.
Source: https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/aftermath The book I am reading is “Is it Night or Day?” The conflict going on is the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a period from 1933-1945 when Hitler was the leader of German and killed all the Jews in Germany. The main character lives in Stockstadt am Rhein, Germany and her name is Edith. Back then during World War II, Germany was lead by Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the reason the Holocaust began. He did not like Jewish people so he banned them from public places in Germany. Edith could not do things with her friends because she was banned for being a Jew. In the book Edith says “Many of our friends spoke of Brownshirts-the Nazi police-blocking the entrances of their shops and preventing customers from entering, posting big signs that warned-’Germans don’t buy from Jews,” (Campman 16). This is when things really took a turn for the worse. Edith (the main character) says “Their descendants, my mother’s cousins, had fled to America a few years ago, when things started to get bad for jews,” (Chapman 6). This relates to the conflict of the Holocaust in the 1930’s and 1940’s because the Jews were not treated right by Hitler in Germany. These events in the book compare to the real-life historical event because Hitler was actually trying to kill the Jews and they were not treated very well. This is why so many Jews left Germany to find another home in a different country and this is exactly what Edith did in the book. The people of Germany have different perspectives based on their religion. If they are Jews, during the Holocaust they are not going to like their country or their society because Hitler is trying to kill the Jewish people. If they are German citizens that are not Jews, during the Holocaust they are going to like their country and their leader (Hitler) because he is going to bring the economy back up and running and try to take over all of Europe. Edith has the perspective of being a little girl during the Holocaust and her parents are sending her to live with her aunt and uncle in America. She is scared to leave her parents behind but it was the best thing to do until Hitler finds Edith and kills her. This also happens in the book “Is it Night or Day?”Although, this book is historical fiction, Edith’s story is similar to what really happened to many Jewish children during this time. These events are how the book “Is it Night or Day?” connects to Historical Events in the Holocaust. Introduction Our issue is the lack of mentors in our community, specifically for low-income children in Wake County. There are 46 Title One schools in Wake County. In Title One schools, 40% of the population are low income kids. “The Title I program in Wake County provides supplementary instructional support in the areas of reading and math. Schools qualify for Title I funding by demonstrating economic need among its population”. (Wake County, 2016) We are interested in this topic because we want all kids to meet the high academic standards, after all it is not fair for the low income kids. We are also interested in this issue because we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities. We want everyone to be successful for the greater good. With mentoring, everyone can have the same chance. That is, as long as mentors are accessible and affordable for the families who need it most. We are recommending that other people in our community should help the kids that need help to meet the school standards. It is helpful that all kids in the school can meet the school standards because it will be part of developing the school and the learning skills of the students. Having mentors would also help the children become more prepared for life. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2017) You should care about this issue because what if, one day, your kid is the one that is falling behind, or if you see a classmate struggling because they have no mentor or no tutor. What if in university, you need a tutor, and there are none available to help you. This is a problem. We don’t want to leave others behind just because of the lack of resources which they cannot do anything about it. Discussion of the Issue Every day students in Wake County fall behind on schoolwork due to a lack of role models in their life. We believe that it is important for every child to have an important adult or mentor in their life to look up to. This issue affects parents, students and the community around us. Students lacking a role model has been an issue in Wake County for a very long time. Students are being valued less and less each year (Beller, 2016). According to the Public Schools First North Carolina Organization students in Wake County Public Schools are not getting full attention through education. This leaves them falling behind and needing tutoring and help with school work.“In 2016, 31% of third graders in Wake County were not reading at grade-level,” (WakeEd Partnership, 2017). This statistic quote shows that students (especially third graders) are below grade level in reading. This mentor issue could be struggling with school therefore falling behind in schoolwork or it could be struggling with family problems and at home problems also affecting their schoolwork.With our plan of reading to third graders at Stough Elementary we are hoping to decrease this percentage. Students without a role model or a mentor is a problem in Wake County because it affects the way our community reflects on other communities or counties. This can affect how our community grows and becomes a better society. As you can see the lack of mentors is causing many different problems in Wake County. These problems are affecting our community to react in such ways. For instance when a student does not have a good role model who influences them they fall behind in schoolwork. This causes the school board to decrease in education levels. This then causes the county to look bad in comparison to other school boards in communities. If this issue is not taken care of in an efficient way it could cause our community to not be successful. With our school system being the largest school district in the state, (Hui, 2016), it is important that the students are successful as they will play a big part in the future of our state. Discussion of Solutions There are many different programs in Wake County that help children with lack of mentorship, or with tutoring. One organization has two programs, the YMCA. They have Y-Learning for tutoring and Community HOPE for mentoring. Community HOPE is targeted towards the children that live in affordable housing. They meet throughout the school year. Community HOPE is for kids K-12. (YMCA, 2018) Y-Learning, the other YMCA program, wants to “bridge the educational gap”. Y-Learning is for elementary-aged children. Unlike Community HOPE, the focus of Y-Learning is tutoring, rather than mentoring. It is one teacher for every six kids. (YMCA, 2018) Another program is WakeEd Partners Read, which puts mentors in 1st and 2nd grade classes to help kids read on grade level by third grade, because, according to their website, “can change a child’s life”. They also want to help fill the home libraries of many kids. (WakeEd Partnership, 2018) One that you might know is Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle. An organization that pairs people 18 and up with kids. The “Bigs” are regular people, and so are the “Littles”. According to a study done by Public/Private Ventures, after 18 months with their “Bigs”, “Littles” were 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs, 27% less likely to begin using alcohol, 52% less likely to skip school, 37% less likely to skip a class, and 33% less likely to hit someone in comparison to those not in the program. It was also found that “Littles” were more confident in school work, and got along better with their families. (Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle, 2017) There is still a need for mentoring in our community because in 2015 49% of North Carolina children lived in low income families. If these organizations and our day of service do something, hopefully we can decrease this percentage, if it has already hopefully fallen over 3 years. (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2017 It isn’t good that almost half of the children in North Carolina live in low income families, the number needs to drop and we can be apart of the change. For comparison, the national average is 43%. The average of one state should not be bigger than the 49 other states combined. If we don’t do anything the average will begin to climb. A lot of these organizations have volunteers who do the majority of the helping, so if you fit the target age, then you can be apart of the solution. But the main way people are helping are through these organizations, by volunteering and directly helping the kids. If you want to help indirectly, you can donate to these organizations as well. Conclusion Our plan to help this issue in Wake County is to go to Stough Elementary to read to 2nd and 3rd graders, and to give fifth graders advice about 8th grade. There will be about twenty students volunteering and two chaperones. We will meet at Martin around 9:00 AM in the lobby. Everyone will get on one bus and leave at about 9:10, we will arrive around 9:20. When we get to Stough Elementary school we will split into two groups. We will transition and set up from 9:30-9:40. The first group will be talking to fifth graders about social problems in middle school such as, making new friends, lunch, school events etc. We will also be playing a few games and icebreakers with the students at the beginning to get to know everyone and to make the students feel comfortable with the volunteers. The second group will be reading to 2nd graders. They will ask the students questions such as, “Who are the characters?” “What is the setting?” and more questions based on the book. After we read the book we will give the students an option of retelling the story in their own way by either acting it out, drawing it out, or telling the story in their own words. At 10:45 the groups will switch tasks. The second group will talk to the fifth graders about academic work such as electives, homework, grading, etc. The first group will be doing the same thing the second group did when they read to the 2nd graders but will ask them more advanced questions about the book, and they will be reading to 3rd graders. We will leave around 12:30. Some requirements that the volunteers need to keep in mind is to be good role models for the students you are working with, be responsible and have a good behavior. We need to make sure the volunteers are energetic and positive when working, especially with children. The volunteers need to work well with children and enjoy being around them. Another requirement is to make sure the volunteers know the information they are giving to the fifth graders and be prepared to answer questions. Our goal for this project is to provide more understanding to the children so that they feel more prepared about eighth grade and reading. This project should be picked because many children do not have mentors/role models at home. Usually kids are scared to go to middle school, because all they’ve known is elementary school. Middle school can be a very big change for a lot of them, especially if they aren’t well prepared for the stress and responsibilities that come with it. Middle school can be very different than elementary school and there can be changes that students might not be used to in their new schools. Many students don't have a role model to look up to so therefore students are falling behind in their school work and are struggling to get an education. Works Cited Beller, Kristin. “Schools Our Students Deserve: Per Pupil Spending is Everything.” Public Schools First NC Supporting Public Schools through information, education, and engagement. 24 January, 2018. <https://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org/ red4ed-teacher-forum/schools-our-students -deserve-per-p upil-spending-iseverything> Hui, T. Keung. “Wake County school system seeing fewer new students than expected.” The News & Observer. 09 December, 2015. 24 January, 2018 <http://www.newsobserver.com/news/ local/education/. article48670670.html> Hui, T.Keung.”Wake County is now the 15th largest school district in the country.”News & Observer. 2016.24 Jan 2018<http://www.newsobserver.com /news/local/education/article122995664.html> Moziru.”Puzzle Clip Art Hand”.PinArt.2018. 31 Jan 2018.<http://moziru.com/explore/Puzzle%20clipart%20hand/> Stephens, Henry.”How to Deal with Students Frustrated at their Slow Progress.”The Teachers Handbook.2008. 31 Jan 2018.<https://www.listenandlearn.org/the-teachers-handbook /how-to-deal-with-students-frustrated-at-their-slow-progress/> University of Nebraska-Lincoln.”Why mentoring is important.” University of Nebraska-Lincoln.2017.24 Jan 2018<https://.www.unl.edu/mentoring/ why-mentoring-important> Wake County Public School System.”Title I.”Wake County Public School.2018.24 Jan 2018<https://www.wcpss .net/domain/110> WakeEd Partnership. “Partners Read”. WakeEd Partnership. 2018.24 January 2018. <http://www.wakeed.org/programs/early-literacy/> YMCA. ”Community HOPE.”YMCA of the Triangle. 2018. 24 Jan 2018.<https://www.ymcatriangle .org/programs-services/tutoring/community-hope> YMCA.”Y- Learning.” YMCA of the Triangle. 2018. 24 January 2018. <https://www.ymcatriangle.org/ programs-services/tutoring/y-learning> Homelessness is a problem all around the world but I see it daily in Wake County, from people on the streets to people asking for money at the grocery store.The issue I have chosen is about homelessness in Wake County. This relates to our community because I see it every day from kids at school not coming home to a house to people on the streets.The biggest problem is housing, this is also the biggest factor of homelessness. So far our community has been trying to solve this problem by creating more resources for people to get jobs to be able to afford a house. Some people even live in shelters that Wake County provides but they can't live there forever. I am personally interested in this issue because I love helping others and it makes me happy. I also see this issue a problem in my community and everyday in school and public places. Myself and others in my community are affected by this issue because we see these problems everyday such as people living in tents and people begging for money at intersections. Others should care about this problem because it affects the way our community and county is reflected over the other communities in the world. To help with this issue an idea that I had was to volunteer at an organization such as Habitat for Humanity. Also we could make more resources for the homeless to get jobs to be able to afford a house in Wake County. This is an issue that I see in my community everyday. This I Believe, that when people care about others it makes the world more connected and a better place to live. My family and I were on the road to Indiana to visit my extended family for Thanksgiving in 2012. We were a family of five, with 3 car seats traveling 12 plus hours for Thanksgiving. Along the ride we learned many valuable lessons about life. We had just left the smelly, crowded and loud, in fact extremely loud Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky, Ohio to head towards our cousins house in Syracuse, IN. Within fifteen minutes of the ride I slid to the side of my seat to find out that we were stopping at a gas station. My dad dashed into the building. Little did we all know that he had food poisoning from our breakfast at the Great Wolf Lodge. At this point we were stopping every five minutes as my mom was driving now. I quietly, in a whispered voice said “we are never going to have Thanksgiving!” About an hour into the road the sky began to turn darker. Heavier gray clouds rolled in and they had cast a shadow onto our car. Bam! The buckets fell! This was the most rain Ohio had seen in years. It was a monsoon! Due to the massive amount of rain we had to slow down to avoid collision. Our car was filled with anxiousness to get to Syracuse. I was just waiting for the rain to stop and ready to pull into the driveway of my cousins house. Next thing I know the wheels of our car decide to pull off on the side of the road. I think to myself, what is going on, now what can be happening? UGH! I am just worried that we are never going to get to have Thanksgiving. Our car has broken down and now we have to get a tow truck to take us to the dealership. The highway patrol was quick to respond in the still pouring rain and they blocked a major interstate to keep us safe. They also called a courtesy van to take my mom, brothers, and I to the dealership. The buckets were still falling. The van driver and policemen helped move three kids and car seats into the van, which didn’t have a working side door at the time. Ugh! I had to ride with the door open up the interstate! Finally, after what had felt like a million years the wet car pulls into the parking lot and we all frantically pile out into the building. I mosied in next to my mom and brothers and slumped down into my chair. The place smelled disgusting like a rotten tomato. I felt like we were never going to leave this place. Minutes turned into hours and it just kept going. Finally the men that were working on our car had come out to talk to my tired sick and miserable dad. I just knew that we were going to need to get a new car. Which I would love but my dad would not. They had told us that because we were in such a terrible situation they would stay late into their Thanksgiving break to help my family out. These men and women stayed several hours to repair our car, while their families were enjoying the start of Thanksgiving. We were so grateful and blessed by what was happening. We even ordered pizza for the whole staff because they were so nice to us. Eventually we get to my cousins house for Thanksgiving…a day late. Throughout the trip I learned that being caring, kind, and generous to others will pay off and help you to be a better person in life. The people who were working in the dealership were such nice people and made my family really happy while we were on this super long trip. You never know what people are going through so it is always a good idea to be caring to others. |
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