Having My Say

I saw a commercial for this movie about the American education system. I haven't been able to see it yet because it is not available yet on my Netflix, but it seems really interesting. Especially in Rockford, we have been hearing a lot about how bad the public school system is. Even though I am blessed to be able to get an amazing education, I cannot turn away from smart kids just like me that do not have the chance to get the right education. Something needs to be done. Every child deserves an education. It makes me so angry to see kids that are not able to reach their full academic potential because there is no money left in the economy. This is an expense that needs to be paid for. There has to be a better way to let every child get an education. This is the first generation where the children will have a worse education than the generation before them and it is so heartbreaking. I haven't done much research into the possible solutions to this problem, but somebody needs to think of one, and fast.

Walt Whitman's Connection to Children

I connect with this poem that Whitman wrote, and it made sense to me. When children are young, they do not have any worldly problems to worry about such as money, jobs, and raising a family. All they do is live life the way they see it. When I was a young kid, nothing really worried me. When I saw something I wanted to do, I did it with no hesitation. What I think Whitman is trying to say in this poem is that kids have a very simple mind, which makes them into whatever they see.

Emily Dickinson's Garden of Poetry

Death is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed may be.

Bait it with the balsam,
Seek it with the saw,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything you are.

Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill—
Wring the tree and leave it,
'Tis the vermin's will.


Many poems that Dickinson wrote were about death because it was such a major part of her life. She saw a lot of death in her life and she was also unsure of what death would be like for her. This poem might be one opinion that she has about death. Because Dickinson has no faith, she does not believe that people die because it is God's will. She believes that it is just a part of nature. An insect will destroy a tree, not because the insect has anything against the tree, but because that is what the bug has to do to survive. Death will come like a bug comes to the tree, that is just the way it is.