revolution?...why not?

The term “revolution” can change and has changed the world. This specific word encompasses the determination, power, struggle, passion, and beliefs of men who wanted to change the way their world turned. This term means only that there is a “radical change” in something, and can be applied to basically any situation ().A revolution happens when a group of many people voice the same opinion in order to change something around them. Revolutions, big and small, are going on all around us. According to Thomas Jefferson “Every generation needs a new revolution.”(). Revolutions are not for the faint of heart, or people who sit on the side lines and watch it take place; they require active and involved people with real desire and passion in their heart to see a change in something. The idea of a Revolution has specific characteristics that set it apart from any other term in its class, it is used to strongly describe change, and although it is very different than any other term in its class it has many similar characteristics with them as well.
A revolution has multiple characteristics, but in whole it can be related to a movement of some sort. Revolutions are usually major events that would be nationally or globally recognized. Revolutions require a large group of people to carry out the movement. People involved in a revolution often use persuasion to create change, and can become violent if the people involved are determined to see the change. All of these characteristics create a change in beliefs and ideas, and become a movement of sorts.

A revolution does not occur if there is no real desire for change; every revolution has a specific purpose in mind. Whether it’s a change in the economy, or change in minimum wage, a revolution can have basically any belief at the root of it, as long as there are a large number of participants, and they all have a strong desire for that specific change. In America there is free speech, we have the privilege to have a revolution any time, any day. But all people do is talk about, and wish for, change without putting forth any effort or action. A revolution requires action. If America really wanted change they would start a revolution, instead of only talking about it.

Revolution has similar characteristics to others in its class. Some words that are similar to revolution are: mutiny, rebellion, revolt, and outbreak. These words all fit into the idea of a revolution. A revolution can be a mutiny, if the oppressors refuse to cave in to the desires of the revolutionaries. A revolution can also be considered a rebellion because it is a cross current idea. It takes a person with strong beliefs to stand out of the crowd and become a revolutionary. In order to be a part of a revolution you have to revolt, in some way you are revolting against a belief or idea you do not believe in or agree with. A revolution causes in outbreak of more and more revolutionaries, once one person is brave enough to stand up for what they believe in, others who were previously too afraid to say anything, will join, and become confident enough to speak out as well.
The idea of a revolution has become a lesser deal than it used to be. Revolutions are not for weak minded people who sit the fence, but rather for the bravest of men who are not afraid to be themselves and speak their minds. This term can be related to other terms that fit into the idea of a movement, and it affects and challenges nations and their authority. Don’t underestimate the power of a revolution, and don’t be afraid to stand up and speak out.

DO HARD THINGS!...Expecting Expectations

this is a paper i wrote that was inspired by this book...enjoy...ps...it may seem long, but i think it has some verry good infromation..

When you think of teenagers, I’m sure the idea of high expectations isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, those words might be considered oxymoronic. Why do we think that way? Is it because 70 percent of all teens drink alcohol on a regular basis? (SSTDD) Is it possibly because each year over 750,000 teenage women become pregnant, because over half of our nations teenage population is sexually active? (FATSRH) The term “Teenager” could also be slandered by the fact that 42.3 percent of all high school seniors have used marijuana on a regular basis (BJSDCF). Maybe teenagers are considered trouble makers because 40 percent of all youth in America belong to a gang (VPI).Why are these statistics so high? What possesses teenagers to indulge in fruitless activities that can lead to lifelong consequences and permanent damage? It’s simple: society. This list of statistics is what society expects from teenagers. Our media lives and breathes our nation’s youth and will do anything to appeal to young adults and teenagers. So, they emphasize these topics more than others. Our schools set low expectations so we, as teenagers, can feel good about ourselves. Our home life is the epitome of low expectations because mom and dad are never around enough to encourage us to do more than we think we are capable of. Society expects nothing from teenagers except trouble, so that’s the expectation we’ve arrived at: trouble. Teenagers, in history, have changed our world by rising to higher expectations. Since the creation of the word “teenager” society has taught students to be lazy and unproductive, but it’s not hard for teenagers to raise their expectations and go cross-current.
You might think that the stages of life always went like this: we were born and grew from infant to toddler, toddler to child, child to teenager, teenager to young adult, and young adult to a grown up. The truth is that the word “teenager” never even existed 70 years ago. The word was conjured up in the late 1920’s to describe risqué fashion trends or bad behavior, but the word itself wasn’t even published until 1941. It showed up for this first time in a Readers Digest article (Harris 29) So what were “teenagers” called before that? They were called adults. Fredric Heer, a history professor, wrote about the transition we undertake after childhood. “Around 1800 young people of both sexes could reckon on being considered adults as soon as the outward signs of puberty made their appearance…a profession was possible at the age of fifteen or sixteen” (Harris 30). Teenagers in the past were considered adults.
George Washington was not known for his brains as a child. He was no good at anything that was school related. His friends noticed this and didn’t think he was the sharpest tool in the shed. Despite the loss of his father, and the difficulty of learning, he strove for higher expectations than even his own mother had for him. George Washington worked so hard that by age seventeen he was flawless at geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and calculus. At age seventeen he became a surveyor of unmapped territories, and charted new lands (Harris 31).
Most of you have probably never heard of David Farragut, but his story is equally inspirational. David was born in 1801 and at only ten years old, he was serving on a warship. By the time he was twelve he had command of his own ship that he helped capture in battle! David grew up to be in the US Navy, not a big surprise (Harris 31).
Have you ever heard of the Salvation Army? The founder of this organization was a teenager.

Clara Barton was such a shy little girl, and would scarcely talk to anyone. When she was only eleven years old her brother fell off their barns’ roof. He was in bad shape, but she watched every move of the doctor, and asked to help with his care. She ended up taking over his care for the next two years! By the time she was seventeen she was a schoolteacher, and later, went onto found the Salvation Army (Harris 32). Throughout history many teenagers have impacted out country in a big way because they rose to higher expectations.
America in so Many Words is a book that dedicates itself to word origins wrote a little bit about the word teenager, and what it means to our society: “In the first part of the twentieth century, we made a startling discovery. There were teenagers among us! Until then, we had thought of people in just two stages: children and adults” (Barnhart 233). isn’t it interesting that before 1941 teenagers were expected to act like adults, but after we created a term that allows some leeway, all of sudden the expectations have slowly been declining, further and further. “Society doesn’t expect much of anything from young people during their teen years-except trouble (Harris 36).”
At a San Francisco elementary school, an experiment was conducted by a Harvard University professor, Robert Rosenthal, and an elementary school principal Leonore Jacobson:
“In the experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobson gave an intelligence test to all of the students at an elementary school at the beginning of the school year…they randomly selected 20 percent of the students - without any relation to their test results - and reported to the teachers that these 20% of students were showing "unusual potential for intellectual growth" and could be expected to "bloom" in their academic performance by the end of the year. Eight months later…they came back and re-tested all the students. Those labeled as "intelligent" children showed significantly greater increase in the new tests than the other children who were not singled out for the teachers' attention.” (HESM)

These results clearly show that students are capable to rise to whatever expectation that is set before them. At the end of the experiment they wrote a book about it called Pygmalion in the Classroom. It touches on the topics of students expectations, and how teachers play a big role in how well these students succeed. After the experiment they concluded that: “the change in the teachers' expectations regarding the intellectual performance of these allegedly 'special' children had led to an actual change in the intellectual performance of these randomly selected children.”(Rosenthal 47) They did the same test at a college in Portland, Oregon, and got the same results (Harris 40). Teenagers can have more expected from them than most would assume. An article on About.com talks about teens and their level of expectations.

The author, Denise D. Witmer has a major in child and social psychology, and is the author of two books. The first few lines of her article can be summed up like this: as a pre-teen you are expected to clean your room (with a little help from your mom or dad) correctly take phone messages, and be able to manage your allowance. As an actual teen you are expected to do ALL the things on the pre-teen list plus: keep gas in your car, a daily and weekly chore, and teens should also be responsible enough to be “Marking special dates and plans on the family calendar or planner.”(Witmer) Wow! What a list of hard jobs. Teenagers have such a hard life, how do they live up to such high expectations? Really? This is what society expects of a teenager! And the author also says “Please do not feel that your teenager should be doing all of them.” When we hear the level of expectations that our younger generation is striving for,and how low they are, it’s very disappointing. And it gets even worse. In 2005 Time Magazine wrote an article on “kidults” (Harris 50) A kidult is someone in their twenties. How far are we going to stretch the age of immaturity. When were taught to be immature and not grow up, it doesn’t really help us become mature adults.
There is hope for the “teenage” condition. When students hear the word teenager, they can get wrapped up in the idea that a passive and apathetic lifestyle is acceptable. There are some youth among us who are choosing to have a more industrious life for themselves. Zach Hunter was only fifteen years old when he started a “loose change to loosen chains” at his school. This school project collected money to essentially free modern-day-slaves in foreign countries (Hunter). The project got bigger than he expected, and eventually went nationally. He has spoken at conventions, and concerts, and even at the white house. It’s even more amazing because he has an anxiety disorder (Harris 188)!
Meet Alex and Brett Harris. They are seventeen year old twin brothers, and have launched the largest blog on blogspot.com. the blog focused on “a teenage rebellion of low expectations” It was so big that they had to put in on a website. This website was started by teens for teens, even the website designer was a teenager (Harris 22). Their promotion manager, Heidi, was the only adult, at the age of twenty-four. At the end of the new website launch they actually met Heidi face to face and found out the she was only a seventeen year old girl. They wrote this:
“Our first reaction was this, Oh man, I can’t believe we asked so much of her! Then we caught ourselves. Wait a second! We thought she was twenty-fur, so we had expected her to be responsible as if she were twenty-four, and she rose to meet those expectations and acted like she was twenty-four.”(Harris 20)

It’s true, students can achieve a more successful and productive way of life. Many student s have read the book Do Hard Things, written by Alex and Brett Harris, and have come to realize that they are able to do more than society has come to expect. Brittany is a seventeen year old, who has learned that the word expectation is not a synonym for boring: “Who ever said that doing hard things isn’t fun?! On the contrary. I feel I missed out by not aiming toward more hard things. You’ll find more joy in doing [hard things] …than a trip to the mall or a night at the movies will ever bring.”
There are simple things a teenager can do in order to raise their expectations.. In the book Do Hard Things, Alex and Brett give teenagers a few pointers about how to go about doing so:
“Three strategies for stepping higher:1. Do what is hard for you.2. Be known for what you do (more than for what you don’t).3. Pursue excellence, not excuses. (Harris 92)”
This advice is easier said than done when the world is telling you to do something different. When the authors, Alex and Brett, say to “do what is hard for you” they mean to do something that you would never usually find yourself doing. If you’re shy, jump out of your comfort t zone and talk to someone you’ve never talked to before. If you know of a bully, and are too scared to step into a fight, do it, step in. They explain that doing hard things, though, doesn’t always have a positive outcome. If you step into a fight, the bully will just start beating you up too. And if you talk to someone you’ve never talked to before, they might not be welcoming to conversation.
Their second point is just saying that you should do something! Too often we are recognized for what we are not doing. Joe’s the guy who doesn’t do his homework. Sara’s the girl who doesn’t respect her parents. Frank doesn’t talk to people below his “social status.” Alex and Brett say to flip those around. So, Joe will now be the guy who spends hours on his homework until he knows he has done his best. Sara will be the girl who treats her parents like they’re the most important thing in the world. And Frank will be known as the friendliest guy in school.
Their third and final point that they make is that we should “pursue excellence, not excuses.” Too often, in our culture, we become comfortable with the way things are. An example Alex and Brett use in the book is the story of a high school girl. She did nothing in class but the bare minimum, but because she didn’t fool around in class and turned in her homework, she got the “celebration of excellence for leadership award” (Harris 101) this is a good example of our school’s low expectations. Just because you get rewarded for what you do always challenge yourself. Don’t be okay with the way things are, always push to be better.
Teenagers can be world-changers if they would step out of the mold society has built for them, and pursue the best they can be. There are teens all over the nation who have already started to change their level of expectations. And it’s about time we jump on board with them. It’s quite humorous to me that many professionals tell parents of teenagers that their kids are not responsible or capable or dependable, so just deal with them the best you can while you have them, and when they become adults, that’s when they will change the world. The stories of David, Clara, and George are good lessons that we should be learning from. Professionals may be educated, but they don’t seem to know what they are talking about. Teenagers are capable of achieving adult goals and raise their expectations. It’s been done in the past and it’s even going on today.

If you’re someone who wants to get involved try out these organizations:
Compassion international
Habitat for Humanity
World Vision
National center for Family Literacy
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America


Bibliography:
Barnhart, David K., and Allan A. Metcalf. America in So Many Words: Words That Have Shaped America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

"Bureau of Justice Statistics Drugs and Crime Facts: Drug use in the general population." Office of Justice Programs. 2009. US Department of Justice. 06 Mar. 2009 .
(BJSDCF)

"Facts on American Teens' Sexual and Reproductive Health." Guttmacher Institute:Facts on American Teens' Sexual and Reproductive Health. 2009. Guttmacher Institute. 06 Mar. 2009 .
(FATSRH)

Harris, Alex, and Brett Harris. Do Hard Things A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations. New York: Multnomah Books, 2008.

"History of Education: Selected Moments." Selected Moment of the 20th Century. 2002. OISE :: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. 06 Mar. 2009 .
(HESM)

Hunter, Zach. Be the Change Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World (Invert). Boston: Zondervan Company, 2007.

Nolte, Dorothy Law, and Rachel Harris. Teenagers Learn What They Live Parenting to Inspire Integrity & Independence. Boston: Workman Company, 2002.

Rosenthal, Robert, and Lenore Jacobson. Pygmalion in the Classroom Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development. New York: Crown House, 2003.
Shipman, Brian. Burn. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001.

"A Staggering Statistics of Teenage Drunk Driving." Free Articles Directory Submit Articles - ArticlesBase.com. 2008. 06 Mar. 2009 .
(SSTDD)

Violence Prevention Institute. VIOLENCE PREVENTION INSTITUTE, Inc. 06 Mar. 2009 .
(VPI)

Witmer, Denise. "Teach Teens Responsiblity by Setting Expectations." Parenting Teens - Parents of Teenagers Find Help Raising Teens. 06 Mar. 2009 .