English

1. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
2. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.
3. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found

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1. I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that. I was about seven years old when I got my first big lesson. I was in love with a little girl named Helene Tucker, a light-complexioned little girl with pigtails and nice manners.
2. Everybody’s got a Helene Tucker, a symbol of everything you want. I loved her for her goodness, her cleanness, her popularity.
3. If I knew my place and didn’t come too close, she’d wink at me and say hello.

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1. I knew then they were bigoted, but the culture spoke to me more powerfully than my mind and I felt ashamed for being different- a nonstandard person.
2. Whereas my other teachers approached the problem of easing in their new black pupil by ignoring him for the first few weeks, Miss Bean went right at me. (Para 4)
3. They weren’t brilliant answers, but they did establish the facts that I had read the assignment and that I could speak English. (Para 5)
4. Thus, the teacher began to give me human dimensions, though not perfect ones for an eighth-grader. It was somewhat better to be an incipient teacher’s pet than merely a dark presence in the back of the room onto whose silent form my classmates could fit all the stereotypes they carried in their heads. (para 6)
5. I was for Roosevelt because my parents were, and I was for the Yankees because my older buddy from Harlem was a Yankee fan. Besides, we didn’t have opinions about historical figures like Jefferson. Like our high school building or old Mayor Welch, he just was. (para 7)

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“Afraid? Of what?”my dad asked, giving me a kind of funny look.
“Well, you know,”I said awkwardly,“afraid of the kind of white people who hate blacks. What if they had found out that we were at that service that night? Weren’t you afraid of what they might think or do?”
My dad stared at me for a long moment before he answered.“Your mother and I have never been afraid of what bigots think of us. And we certainly weren’t going to be bullied into hiding the way we felt just because some racists thought we were wrong.”
“Yeah, but when everyone found out, you lost a lot of friends. Even Aunt Jo still doesn’t speak to you,”I pointed out.
“Not a lot of friends—a few. But that’s a small price to pay to be true to yourself. I’m sorry to lose some friends, but I’d be sorrier to be living my life accord-ing to how other people think I should live it.”

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The love of reading that her grandfather installed in Lupe is still alive. She  thinks of him every year when she introduces to her students one of his favorite  poets, Amado Nervo. She requires them to memorize these lines from one of Nervo’s poems:“When I got to the end of my long journey in life, I realized that I was  the architect of my own destiny.”Of these lines, Lupe says,“That is something  that I deeply believe, and I want my students to learn it before the end of their  long journey. We create our own destiny.”

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Originally, the term self-made man referred to an individual who arises from a poor or otherwise disadvantaged background to eminence in financial, political or other areas by nurturing qualities, such as perseverance and hard work , as opposed to achieving these goals through inherited fortune, family connections, or other privileges.
“They are the men who, in a world of schools, academies, colleges andother institutions of learning, are often compelled by unfriendlycircumstances to acquire their education elsewhere and, amidst unfavorable conditions, to hew out for themselves a way to success, andthus to become the architects of their own good fortunes. … From thedepths of poverty such as these have often come. … From hunger, ragsand destitution, they have come …”
— Frederick Douglass. 1872. Self-Made Men

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She found a way out and confided: “I considered my options: Confess openly to the teacher, copy someone else’s sheet, or make up an excuse.” Glanz chose the third option—the one most widely used—and told the teacher that the pages needed to complete the assignment had been ripped from the book. The teacher accepted the story, never checking the book. In class, nobody else did the homework; and student after student mumbled responses when called on.

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“Finally,” Glanz said, “the teacher, thinking that the assignment must have been difficult, went over each question at the board while students copied the problems at their seats. The teacher had ‘covered’ the material and the students had listened to the explanation. But had anything been learned? I don’t think so.”
Glanz found this kind of thing common. “In many cases,” she said, “people simply didn’t do the work assignment, but copied from someone else or manipulated the teacher into doing the work for them.”

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“The system encourages incredible passivity,” Glanz said. “In most classes one sits and listens. A teacher, whose role is activity, simply cannot understand the passivity of the student’s role,” she said. “When I taught,” Glanz recalled, “my mind was going constantly—figuring out how to best present an idea, thinking about whom to call on, whom to draw out, whom to shut up; how to get students involved, how to make my point clearer, how to respond; when to be funny, when serious. As a student, I experienced little of this. Everything was done to me.”

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Class methods promote the feeling that students have little control over or responsibility for their own education because the agenda is the teacher’s, Glanz said. The teacher is convinced the subject matter is worth knowing, but the student may not agree. Many students, Glanz said, are not convinced they need to know what teachers teach; but they believe good grades are needed to get into college.

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Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”Franklin might have added,“and fears.”Every stage of life brings them; while we may say goodbye to childish fears, there are always others in thewings, waiting to take their place. By being aware of them, we can keep their dark shadows from adversely affecting our lives.

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Americans, adults and children alike, are being seduced. They are being brain- washed. And few of us protest. Why? Because the seducers and the brainwashers are the advertisers we willingly invite into our homes. We are victims, content—even  eager—to be victimized. We read advertisers’ propaganda messages in newspapers  and magazines; we watch their alluring images on television. We absorb their messages and images into our subconscious. We all do it—even those of us who claim to see through advertisers’ tricks and therefore feel immune to advertising’s charm. Advertisers lean heavily on propaganda to sell products, whether the“products”are  a brand of toothpaste, a candidate for office, or a particular political viewpoint.

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Because propaganda is so effective, it is important to detect it and understand how it is used. We may conclude, after close examination, that some propaganda  sends a truthful, worthwhile message. Some advertising, for instance, urges us not  to drive drunk, to become volunteers, to contribute to charity. Even so, we must  be aware that propaganda is being used. Otherwise, we have consented to handing  over to others our independence of thought and action.

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As the only freshman on his high school’s varsity wrestling team, Tod was anxious to fit in with his older teammates. One night after a match, he was offered a  tequila bottle on the ride home. Tod felt he had to accept, or he would seem like a sissy. He took a swallow, and every time the bottle was passed back to him, he  took another swallow. After seven swallows, he passed out. His terrified team-mates carried him into his home, and his mother then rushed him to the hospital.  After his stomach was pumped, Tod learned that his blood alcohol level had been  so high that he was lucky not to be in a coma or dead.

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Unfortunately, drinking is not unusual among high-school students or, for  that matter, in any other segment of our society. And that’s no accident. There are  numerous influences in our society urging people to drink, not the least of which  is advertising. Who can recall a televised baseball or basketball game without a beer commercial? Furthermore, alcohol ads appear with pounding frequency in  magazines, on billboards, and in college newspapers. According to industry esti- mates, brewers spend more than $600 million a year on radio and TV commercials  and another $90 million on print ads. In addition, the liquor industry spends about  $230 million a year on print advertising, and since 1966 it has greatly expanded its presence on cable and independent broadcast stations. Just recently, NBC became  the first network station to accept hard liquor ads for broadcast.

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Part of the myth is that liquor signals professional success. In a slick men’s  magazine, one full-page ad for Scotch whiskey shows two men seated in an  elegant restaurant. Both are in their thirties, perfectly groomed, and wearing  expensive-looking gray suits. The windows are draped with velvet, the table with spotless white linen. Each place-setting consists of a long-stemmed water goblet, silver utensils, and thick silver plates. On each plate is a half-empty cocktail  glass. The two men are grinning and shaking hands, as if they’ve just concluded a  business deal. The ca ption reads,“The taste of success.”

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Contrary to what the liquor company would have us believe, drinking is more closely related to lack of success than to achievement. Amon g students, the heaviest  drinkers have the lowest grades. In the work force, alcoholics are frequently late or  absent, tend to perform poorly, and often get fired. Although alcohol abuse occurs  in all economic classes, it remains most prevalent among the poor.

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Relationships based on alcohol are unlikely to lead to social success and true  friendships. Indeed, studies show that when alcohol becomes the center of a social  gathering, it may lead to public drunkenness and violence. The ad’s image of the  man’s new friends ignores an undeniable reality: that alcohol ruins—not creates— relationships. In addition to fighting and simple assault, drinking is linked to  two-thirds of domestic violence incidents. Rather than leading to healthy social  connections, alcohol leads to lonelinẻss, despair, and men tal illness. Over a fourth of the patients in state and county mental hospitals have alcohol problems; more  than half of all violent crimes are alcohol-related; the rate of suicide among alco- holics is fifteen times higher than among the general population.

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2. Study Schedule. Sit down during the first few days of this semester and make up a sheet listing the days and hours of the week. Fill in your work and class  hours first. Then try to block out some study hours. It’s better to study a little every  day than to create a huge once-or-twice-a-week marathon session. Schedule study  hours for your hardest classes for the times when you feel most energetic. For  example, I battled my tax law textbook in the mornings; when I looked at it after  7:00 p. m., I might as well have been reading Chinesel. The usual proportion, by the  way, is one hour of study time for every class hour.

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3.“To Do”List. This is the secret that, more than any other, got me through college. Once a week(or every day if you want to), write a list of what you have  to do. Write down everything from“write English paper”to “buy cold cuts for  lunch.”The best thing about a“to do”list is that it seems to tame all those stray  “I have to”thoughts that nag at your mind. Just making the list seems to make the tasks“double.”After you fi nish something on the list, cross it off. Don’t be  compulsive about finishing everything; you’re not Superman or Wonder Woman.  Get the important things done first. The secondary things you don’t finish can  simply be moved to your next“to do”list.

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Having a positive attitude goes deeper than this, though. It means being ma-  ture about college as an institution. Too many students approach college classes  like six-year-olds who expect first grade to be as much fun as Sesame Street. First  grade, as we all know, isn’t as much fun as Sesame Street. And college classes can  sometimes be downright dull. If you let a boring class discourage you so much  that you want to leave school, you’ll lose in the long run. Look at your priorities. You want a degree, or a certificate, or a career. If you have to, you can make it  through a less-than-interesting class in order to achieve what you want. Get what- ever you can out of every class. But if you simply can’t stand a certain class, be  determined to fulfill its requirements and be done with it once and for all.