My name is Toni and I’m a fifteen-year-old writer. My “aunt” Bridget has created a safe space for me to share my thoughts about music and sports while I work to become a more confident writer with my own platform.

Features Overview

American Symphony- a short review

America Symphony was wondrous. Jon Batiste has this creative mindset that I have never seen in any other musician. Not only does he talk about his creativity in music, but he also shares his ideas as if he's giving us tips on becoming a musician. In the movie, he also shows a lot of love and care for his family and wife. This is one of the most important things when being known as an artist is to also stay close to family, even during bad times. He and his wife have been through a lot together, and they have healed a lot. They had so much on their hands and a lot of stuff to do, but they always made sure to talk to each other and talk about their problems. One thing I loved that Suleika Jaouad said was" it's not champagne or beautiful things, but it's about the hard things."

Has Lamar Jackson won the hearts of MVP voters?

After NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson led in decisive wins over the San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins, teams many people described as more talented leading up to their matchups against the Ravens, people were starting to think that Lamar Jackson had stolen the hearts of Most Valuable Player (MVP) voters. Is this true? In this season alone, Jackson has led the Ravens in wins over teams that many described as unbeatable, including the 49ers, and he didn’t just beat them, he put those other teams on notice, and he left all those who had doubted and questioned his talents to almost unanimously predict Jackson’s odds of winning the coveted MVP race. 

Is Lamar carrying the Ravens on his back?

As the Baltimore Ravens keep knocking down their opponents, people are starting to notice that the Ravens rely on Lamar Jackson a little too much. On the Nightcap podcast, Hall of Fame and two-time Superbowl winning tight end (and former Baltimore Raven) Shannon Sharpe said, “No quarterback is asked to carry a load like Lamar Jackson; we all know he is the quarterback, and we also know that he is their passing game." But Shannon Sharpe also added a big point about how Lamar is always the wingman when the team gets hit down: “But Lamar is also the engine of running games." Is this a big thing to worry about? When you come to the looks of it, Lamar has been looked at as the golden child of the team.  As for the rest of them, they are mostly looked at as listeners and obedient players. If this were truly the situation, the team would be nowhere in the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens work together and make a plan on what to do and how to win the game. Lamar works with his team, not against his team.

Does Lamar Jackson really deserve the MVP award?

Now that we have seen Lamar Jackson improving and beating down the best players and teams, some people think that there might be a 50% chance he might win, but other people say there might be a 30% chance he might not win the MVP award. One of the analysts on Fox Sports recently said that the reason Lamar may not be this season’s MVP was because he isn’t “quarterback” enough while Superbowl winning player turned analyst Richard Sherman said that Lamar wasn’t his pick for MVP because his stats this season aren’t as good as they were when Jackson won the MVP in 2019.  On the other side, one ESPN analyst said, "Everybody's going to come at this and go, man, they beat the best team in football. Lamar had a great game last night. We're going to put the seal of approval on it and say Lamar Jackson is MVP.” In my opinion, Lamar does have the Ravens where they want to be: they’re the best team in the American Football Conference (AFC) and Lamar helped them get there.

This is not to put Lamar Jackson in his place based on how great he is doing, but based on how great he is doing and how he is helping his team be great too.  Based on that alone, Lamar's the Most Valuable Player of the NFL.  He is one of the best players I have ever seen. He has improved over the years and shown us what he can do and what talents he has. This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in American football.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. As a reminder, this is just my opinion on whether Lamar Jackson deserves the MVP award. Please let me know who you think deserves to win MVP.

Has the U.S. Failed its school system?

Why have the U.S. Department of Education and local school boards failed to give the teachers the respect they need, or when they need backup to handle a ruthless student? Has the U.S. Department of Education failed to provide for its school system and not take accountability for its actions and responsibilities?

When it comes to the Department of Education, they seem to only think of themselves when they get in deep trouble for their stuff or when someone who is not a part of the school system comes to them about another person's action that has been brought up to them.

When parents have a problem with the school system the local school board only makes the problem worse by laying teachers off, taking away their paycheck, or firing one of their workers because one of the parents and students assaulted them for speaking out on their child’s behavior.

This has led to serious problems because the local school board not taking any action or accountability when something has gone wrong in the schools, they make things worse by turning the other cheek by blaming the employees and scolding them for the other person's actions.

Teacher shortage

Since 2023-2024 there has been a teacher shortage over the U.S. for two years.

One possible reason for this is teacher burnout. The meaning and definition of Teacher burnout is when “the educator experiences occupational burnout, i.e. they are unable to complete their professional responsibilities and tasks effectively.”

Teacher burnout occurs after prolonged exposure to poorly managed emotional and interpersonal job stress.

The reason why there is teacher burnout is for one reason only: parenting style at home and in public.

Over the years parenting style has changed because of mental health. Parents have become lost with their kids to the point where the child doesn't even know how to act when they are around adults or the elderly, or even to have self-control when an adult tells them not to do that when they have repeatedly said this to the child the first time.

The reason for talking about this is that today's parents don’t know how to connect or discipline their children. As we know, in the U.S., Parents that are in their late 20s to early 30s are working 9 to 5 every day, meaning the time they get out of work, is the time they want to get some rest and be stress free, but before they can do that, they have to cook food for their child and give them their “iPad” so they won't get bored.

This shows that while the parents are doing whatever they need to do, the child is left by themselves, not being aware of anything around them at home or in public. But just imagine this was in public, but this time the parent isn’t paying attention to their child, this is even worse, and the reason for this is the child can be abducted any time and any place in public (most of the time it's in public).

I worry for the parents and the children, as the parents have to work daily to bring in needed supplies and make sure the family is comfortable. I also worry for the children that can’t connect to the real world without an iPad or tablet, that they rely so heavily on because they don’t know how to be themselves.

This is the reason why most teachers around the U.S. are leaving their teaching job, they can’t deal with this ruthlessness, as they have problems of their own they have to fix. Teachers have to watch the students like a hawk to make sure they don’t start anything that would traumatize a student or give a student PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder.)

When it comes time when the teacher does need help from the principal or anyone, they either fire them, give them a break for a week or they just turn the other cheek and not talk about it for a whole month (so they forget about the situation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmy9XhNdRmc

The internet exploiting children

The internet was created in 1983 for the future leader to become smart and intelligent like Albert Einstein. The internet was created to search for information and topics. But as for the U.S. they made it very difficult for their school system.

Over the years the world has not only made the internet just for knowledge but made it for people to enjoy.

In 1998 Nokia was the first phone to have a mobile game called snake, but September 5, 2007, was the day Apple made the first Multi-Touch interface, called mobile app.

2019 is the year the internet had its downfall. The internet became a big problem, as covid-19 made a big impact for the whole world. That is when TikTok came into the picture. in 2019 to now is when people started to post and communicate with people on the internet. But shortly after that in 2022 that's when it started to take a downfall when drama and insecurity and more so on came into play. TikTok was becoming more known in 2019.

This topic I wanted to touch on as children are being exploited on social media. children at the age of 5 to 10 can tell you at least 1 to 3 (or even more) songs that they should not be listening to. (when they are only 5 and 10 years old). Note that I said, ‘should not be listening to’ and not “knowing they should not.” Some of these children don’t even know the words to the songs they're listening to or the whole meaning of these songs.

TikTok and other social media platforms have become a big problem with young teens and young children as well. The problems that we are having with these social media platforms are people creating insecurities about their bodies, Identity crisis, peer pressure, and online bullying (keep in mind these kids are on the same content as adults are). Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat and the list keeps going on, but these platforms are for adults and older teens, not for young teens who are 14-17 or young children who are 4-13.

This has become a serious problem that needs to be fixed because if it isn't fixed soon, it's going to be more than just children getting on adult platforms or content. It's going to be horrific to see the children there doing the same thing to be famous or noticed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU6CuSMzNus&pp=ygUhVGhlIHJpc2UgYW5kIGZhbGwgb2YgdGhlIGludGVybmV0

U.S. School Safety

In the U.S., school safety has become a big problem. School security has still not become mandatory in some states, like metal detectors, security taking their job seriously, patting down or checking students to make sure they don’t have a knife on their body or book bag. Not only that but the safety of other students from not getting hurt by another student.

Some teachers break up the fight before it gets serious and ask questions on why and how this happened while the other teacher asks about the situation to be nosey and get all the drama that was going on before the fight.

In the United States, there have been over 1,453 school shootings, now yes this is a lot of school shootings, but can you guess how many in-person school fights there have been? A website called National Center for Education Statistics(.gov) said “About 857,500 Violent incidents and 479,500 nonviolent incidents have happened in American schools.

This is a lot.

An article that was made by, ***Jennifer Henderson,***talks about how “school shootings rose in frequency over the last 25 years and reached their highest recorded levels, data analyses showed. Across the 1997-1998 to 2021-2022 school years, there were 1,453 shootings, according to Luke Rapa, PhD, of Clemson University in South Carolina, and colleagues. The number of shootings ranged from a low of 15 in the 2009-2010 school year to a high of 328 in 2021-2022.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNowfV8if1o

Students Behavior

Students' behavior has gone out of control. The disrespect coming out from these students' mouths is also the reason why some teachers want to quit their jobs, this is also bad because there are students who want to learn, graduate, and become successful in life. But most of the students would rather throw away their education to become a rapper, gang member, or to do Only-Fans to become famous. And yes, this is the reality we are living in today as we speak.

Because kids want to be so grown up and do things themselves, they don’t even know the steps to becoming mature (mind you their front lobe isn't fully developed yet, meaning they don’t even know what the meaning of mature means). The only thing they know that’s so-called mature is having a job, a house, and a car (which is not mature, it's something you have to do so you can live a comfortable life).

When it comes to teachers calling the parents about their students, it is a whole other situation. When parents get a call from the teacher, some of them take this seriously as they want to make sure their child is not disturbing the whole class and to also get their child straight out to show them that things like this you can’t get away with, so the child will understand why this is not okay, while other just don’t care as long as they go to school and make the teachers babysit their ruthless child, who has no discipline or respect.

This is another reason why most children act out like this: they have no self-control or manners.

A website for Carnegie Mellon University addresses the problematic students and the problems that are causing these problematic student behaviors.

Those behaviors include:

·  lateness or leaving early

·  inappropriate cellphone and laptop usage in class

·  Side conversations

·  disregard for deadlines

·  grades grubbing

·  sniping remarks

·  cheating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAUkysWDKEg&pp=ygUQc3R1ZGVudCBiZWhhdmlvcg==

How can we fix the U.S. school system?

How we can change is first by having a limit on the phones. This will help students interact with other students more, and it will also help them learn how to disconnect from the internet. This will teach them how to have self-control and how to take time away from things they don’t need daily.

Second, teach kids how to have manners, respect, good behavior, and self-control. We can do this by teaching children how to play games or by allowing them to participate in activities. I will put the game and activities at the end of the article for you to look at. This will help students learn how to respect other peers, if a student acts out you have to take away what a student loves, so this lets them know that they can’t get what they want all the time.

And the final one is to give wisdom to the children and common sense. If we do this, it will teach the children what not and what to do in life but will also teach the children what is wrong and what's right. Today's children think that the good is bad and the bad is good. We need to fix this and how we do it is by protesting.

I hope you enjoy this article and find it amazing. Make sure to take the time to talk to your kids about how they feel about society.

Here are the game activities to help student improve their self:

Good Manners Printable

4 Games actives

Teach Behavior with Manners Games

Good behavior game

30 Activities to Teach about Respect

Respect Lesson and Activities

12 Games to Practice Self-control

10 Awesome Games to Teach Kid