In the podcast episode My Little Hundred Million, the Revisionist Podcast continues its dive into the deeply flawed American education system. In this episode, they focus on donations of over a hundred million dollars and how a vast majority of those donations go to schools that do not need the money. The podcast starts by describing how a successful engineer gifted a rural technical university in New Jersey a hundred million dollars and how unusual that this was. What was unusual was that the school being gifted the large sum of money wasn’t Harvard, MIT, or Princeton. The podcast then reads off a list of colleges that have received gifts above a hundred million dollars and almost all of them are top tier colleges that have endowments of several billion dollars. An example of how these gifts to these top universities aren’t needed is of when hedge fund manager Ken Griffin donated over a hundred million dollars to Harvard University to further open the gates of Harvard allowing more students have an opportunity to attend the prestigious institution. What this means is that Griffin wanted to make it easier for students from low income households to be able to receive financial aid and attend Harvard. However, Griffin’s hundred million barely nudges the gates of Harvard open an inch as Harvard is worth over 40 billion dollars. The fact that instead of spreading the wealth to universities across the country who desperately need money in order to remain open, wealthy people and organizations give large donations to schools that swim in money like Scrooge McDuck. Prestigious universities have plenty of resources to make sure that a qualified poor students will have the opportunity to attend the school yet they still receive almost all substantial gifts. The schools that need these hundred million dollar gifts are schools that face a serious prospect of closing down because of how much money they have lost by bending over backwards to provide financial aid to students who need it. These schools are not the ultra tier Ivy League schools who have the resources to help poor students, they are schools that have taken a hit in attendance from students who are able to pay the full tuition because they have cut spending on frivolous things. These are schools like Vassar who have reduced spending on their cafeteria food in order to be able to support low income students. People or organizations who are able to give these gifts need to realize that the Harvards or Columbias of the U.S. do not need any more money but rather the Vassars of the country, who have cut spending in order to support financial aid, need the help.

This podcast had an incredibly captivating introduction. It started with a chef in the cafeteria at the prestigious private Bowdoin College in Maine. The chef went through what dishes he makes on a normal day and it sounds like a 5 star restaurant’s menu rather than a college. Next, several students are interviewed about the food in the cafeteria and have a lot to say about it. They marvel about the incredible dishes that they have on a regular basis. The podcast then transitions to Vasser College in New York which is also private and prestigious but the students when interviewed about the cafeteria in the college have much different things to say. The students interviewed complain that the food served at the cafeteria is disgusting. One student even recalled finding a staple in their salad. The podcast then reveals why these seemingly similar private colleges have very different quality cafeteria foods. The reason given is that Vassar, the college with the gross food, has limited spending into programs such as the cafeteria in order to accommodate lower income students who are unable to pay the full tuition. Bowdoin, the college with a cafeteria that could be a successful restaurant, does very little to accommodate low income students attending the school and thus have more money to spend on luxuries than Vassar does. Since implementing the financial aid to poor students program, Vassar has taken a hit in funding since they have less students who are paying full tuition. Because of these financial issues, the school has to cut spending on luxury programs to compensate for the students who attend the college with financial aid. Vassar has a dilemma in which their first priority is low income students but because their is less money coming from tuition of the student body. When Vassar limits spending on things such as the cafeteria or dorms, it becomes far less attractive to the students looking at colleges that can afford to pay Vassar’s tuition. The Vice President of Vassar says that cutting faculty and making classes bigger will cause the high academic standards of the college to diminish. For a student looking into colleges to attend who comes from and upper middle class or upper class family, the incredible food at Bowdoin is very attractive to them. They don’t care about the extraordinary financial aid programs at Vassar because they don’t qualify for the programs as they come from a high income household. Bowdoin is one of many colleges in the country who seem to close their doors to low income students in order to cater to high income students with luxury amenities. It is an example of how much the odds are stacked against low income students in America where colleges will cease to give them financial aid since they are unable to pay full tuition in order to satisfy the defined tastes of high income students through useless programs like restaurant quality food and luxury dorms.

I found the topic of this podcast very interesting and important. The idea of students’ intelligence and accomplishments being ignored as a result of their social class is mind-boggling. The phenomenon of students with the proper credentials to get into universities because they are poor is an example of the failure of the educational system in the U.S. This failure comes from a lack of funding for public schools which is the primary form of education that impoverished children attend. The lack of funding keeps poor students away from the resources they need and colleges from noticing those students’ accomplishments. The only logical solution for fixing this problem is to increase funding into schools with students from low-income households. Lack of funding is what causes the problem and increased funding is what will fix the problem. The failure also comes from prestigious colleges that are not willing to really look of poor students who have to talent to get into their school. The podcast elaborates on the fact that the top universities in the country have put forth programs that will seek out to give low-income students full scholarships to attend their college yet do not find nearly as many students that are capable of attending the university. The podcast says that a university like Harvard or Princeton only bring in 15 students a year that will have their entire college paid for when there are an estimated 35,000 kids in every graduating class that qualify for the opportunity. Universities also fail to find these talented students before it is too late. In many cases, 8th grade boys that in elementary schools caught the eye of their teachers through their academic success become gang-affiliated. In other words, by 8th grade these boys keep themselves from being successful in school and getting a ticket out of the rough neighborhoods that they grew up in. The fact that poor students are disadvantaged so much more than middle or upper class students is sickening. A very interesting reason given in the podcast for this disadvantage is that middle and upper class kids get second chances if they drop out of school, get addicted to drugs, or get into a serious car accident but lower class students do not get these second chances. An example of this is when Carlos’s mother wouldn’t let him leave for boarding school, he ended up back where he started, a public school in a bad part of town. Going to a boarding school on the opposite side of the country was an opportunity for Carlos to leave the gang-infested area that he had lived all his life. When this opportunity was taken from him, he had nowhere else to go but back where he started. This problem shows how powerful people and companies are willing lobby for tax cuts or other spending bills at the expense of the education of low-income students.

1. The creator of this image is the Polish photographer and artist Pawel Kuczynski. Kuczynski’s background heavily impacts the image as most of his work is political and goes against the idea of dictatorships and tyranny that the image represents.
2. The intended message of the image is that dictators or those with the complete control of a group of people who are seen as superior to their followers are in fact the same as everyone else. The dictator is seen in the image as a square root of four being worshiped by twos. Because the square root of four is equal to two, the image suggests that the one being worshiped is just the same as their worshipers. It also shows that those who pronounce that the worshiped is equal to their worshipers by saying the square root of four equals two and is taken away by other twos.
3. The message is persuasive in showing how corrupt the leaders who make themselves seem superior to their followers are. It appeals using logos because the observer sees that it doesn’t make sense that the square root of four is in fact equal to two but the twos still worship the square root of four.
4. The intended audience seems to be those who are followers of leaders who claim that they are superior to their followers in someway to tell them that the leader is the same as their followers.
5. The context of the image is that dictatorships conceptually do not make sense and that those who gain a following by claiming to be superior are frauds. The square root of four in the image seems to have ordered their police to detain any of those who state that he is their equal in order to maintain their power and influence.

Semiotic Elements

1. SYMBOLIC

The only color in this image is the color of the numbers which implies, with the color red’s negative connotation, that the words being said by the leader and their followers are false or evil or something to that tune. In the image, the square root of four is seen standing above a group of twos bowing towards them implies that the square root of four is superior. The character being worshiped can be seen holding a square root of four in front of them while the other characters have a two on them and are not holding the number. This implies that the character holding the square root of two may be a two that holds a square root of four in front of their two to deceive their followers. In the image, their are two characters wearing police hats dragging away the character who is saying that the square root of four equals two or that the leader is equal to their followers. This implies that the leader is willing to use force in subjecting their followers to their rule.

2. WRITTEN

The choice of words is very basic math to express how simple it is to see that a dictatorship is flawed because nobody is truly superior. The fact that most people know that the square root of four is two but the twos in the image are still worshiping the square root of four makes Kuczynski’s message clear.

Trent Schwartz

The article’s claim that companies advertise towards men through displaying masculinity or putting down femininity is supported by sound evidence most of the time. There are a few examples in the article in which the evidence to support the claim makes the claim seem like a stretch. The article does make a very good point that the fact that advertising is primarily directed towards men is an example of what society is like, a majority things are made to cater to men’s needs. A common advertising technique that is used heavily in advertising is associating products with masculinity in order to appeal to men. This is seen in an ad for Hummer in which a man who is buying tofu is checking out at a grocery store next to a man buying meat. The man buying tofu starts to seem uncomfortable and sees an ad for Hummer SUV behind the cash registrar. The next scene cuts to the man buying tofu driving in to a Hummer dealership and buying a Hummer. The ad was intended to reflect the image of masculinity onto Hummers by using it in the commercial as something that is very masculine to balance out something feminine which in this case was the tofu. Because of certain foods being labeled to genders, meat is seen as masculine and tofu, along with other healthy foods, is seen as feminine in the commercial. The use of masculinity in commercials to influence consumers is used heavily in the fast-food industry because of these gender associations with certain food groups. These associations can be traced back to the times in which all humans were hunter-gatherers where the men were the hunters and women were the gatherers. As a result, men produced meat and women produced plant-based foods. Because fast-food companies use far more meat products than plant-based products(which tend to be healthier), they lean heavily on advertising in ways that make meat appealing to consumers. A great example of the use of making meat appealing is in a Burger King ad in which “A man inspires a crowd of men to march in the streets to reclaim their right to eat meat instead of ‘chick food'”(Freeman and Merskin 282). The “chick food” that is referenced in the ad refers to foods like vegetables which are far more healthy food options than items at a fast-food restaurant. In order to appeal to its male target audience, Burger King attempts to make healthier options like vegetables seem unappealing by associating them with femininity. For most males growing up in the United States, the worst things that a boy’s friend’s could call him is a girl and this ad plays to that. Most men do not want to seem feminine and fast-food companies use that to their advantage. In order to advertise as efficiently as possible, companies will make ads that appeal most to the group that primarily buys their products. In the case of fast-food, the companies know that a majority of their customers are men and in order to appeal to them as much as possible, they associate their products with masculinity and their competitors products with femininity.

Trent Schwartz

“As A Result”: Connecting the Parts

This chapter focuses on connecting sentences when writing to make the flow of the essay more natural. It pointed out that many students’ essays make the reader lose interest because of how the sentences don’t seem connected. The use of transitions can assist in making sentences link together and maintain the flow of the essay. Many times, when students are writing, they don’t use transitions between their sentences which makes their essay much harder to read than if they did attach the sentences together with transition words. If the flow between sentences seems off the reader has a harder time acquiring the information in the essay.

What I Learned:

In this chapter I learned yet another method to use to maintain a reader’s interest. With the use of transition words, the writer is able to connect their ideas in an appealing way and maintain the reader’s attention.

“Ain’t So/Is Not”: Academic Writing doesn’t Always Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

This chapter expressed the need for students to add a little bit of their own view on something in their writing. Many students writing uses language that is bland and bores the reader. It is important for the writer to be able to add certain things into their writing that might not seem to have the appropriate language or way of saying something that is appropriate for the essay. The common misconception of academic writing is that it should present the facts in a clear and straight-forward manner. This is the opposite however, if the writer elaborates on topics and delivers their thesis and its supporting evidence in an unconventional yet effective manner, it will deliver its information to the reader in a better way.

What I Learned

In this chapter I learned that academic writing doesn’t have to be boring and down-to-earth, but fun and interesting. Delivering the thesis in a creative and efficient way can better draw the attention of the reader.

“But Don’t Get Me Wrong”: The Art of Metacommentary

Metacommentary is mostly used to make an audience react a certain way to a claim that a speaker or writer has made. Instead of letting the audience react naturally to the claim, metacommentary is used to direct their reaction in a certain direction. It is used as a filter for information reaching an audience and gets in the way of authentic response to an assertion. The most frequent intention of the use of metacommentary is to prevent the audience from being offended. Metacommentary can also be used to clarify a certain claim or argument.

What I Learned:

In this chapter I learned that using precursors before making a statement can keep the audience from authentically reacting to it. Not all metacommentary is bad since it can be effectively used to make your stance on an issue clear after announcing your position.

“He Talks About Deplores”: Using the Templates to Revise

This chapter focuses in on the revision of essays. Revising is a vital component in the essay writing process and is often overlooked by writers. Revision allows writers to try different material and see how it can affect the intended message of the essay. It is important for a writer who is revising their writing to see if certain metacommentary is effective in clarifying their view on an issue. It is also important for the writer to make sure that the essay’s content is streamlined towards a single thesis and that their claim is clear and supported by evidence.

What I Learned:

In this chapter I learned that the proper way to revise an essay is to properly observe its central message or thesis and if evidence is supportive of that claim. This method makes the essay more straightforward and easier for the audience to read and comprehend.

Trent Schwartz

The main argument of the video from PragerU was that contrary to popular belief, socialism makes people more selfish than capitalism does. The idea expressed in the video was that when people are given free things such as free healthcare or free college tuition, they gain the mindset that they are entitled to everything. It is proposed that as people start receiving more and more things from the government, they will become lazy and greedy. The video proposed that capitalism teaches people how to work for their own money and not rely on the government for assistance. The video did not bring forth any evidence to support its claim.

The speaker in the video does not use a single piece of evidence to support his claims. The logical fallacies used in the video were slippery slope and straw man. The slippery slope example is when the speaker says that if people receive free healthcare, they will eventually never leave home because they get welfare and not have to work. The straw man example is that the speakers says that when President Obama spoke at a University and said that now people will be able to be on their parent’s health insurance plan until the age of 26. The speaker then says that the reply from the audience was thunderous and enthusiastic and that if the President had instead said that there was a cure for cancer that there would be much less applause. The speaker does not attempt to establish himself as a reliable and trustworthy source in the video. Instead, the video is intended to anger its audience about young people by saying that they want free stuff and will not work for their own things.

PragerU “Why Socialism Never Works”

Some people are just stuck in their ways and it seems that nothing can even slightly sway their view on something. As the saying goes, history tends to repeat itself. Throughout recorded time, instances in which a person or group of people are presented the facts and evidence and their stance on an issue is unchanged are very common.

The Salem Witch trials are an example in which a party of people turned their eyes from evidence and followed the path of what they wanted to believe. The Salem Witch Trials were an instance in 17th century Massachusetts in which several hundred people, most of whom were women, were accused of witchcraft. This is an example in which judges and lawmakers ignored the evidence and science and chose to side with their beliefs in the witchcraft possessing women in Salem.

The Salem Witch Trials may be an exception to my point since it happened so long ago at a point in time when the church was up to all sorts of no good. A much better and more recent example of people believing what they want to believe with no regard to facts or evidence are O.J. Simpson’s lawyers.

The trial that was the spotlight of the nation was of the murder trial of a man in which almost everybody was sure was guilty. However, his all-star legal team and himself thought or chose to think otherwise. In the end, O.J. Simpson was deemed innocent thanks to an astounding upset led by his lawyers. While watching the clip of the final session when Simpson is deemed non-guilty, you can see one of his lawyers put his face in his hands as if he could not believe the outcome that he helped create. The watcher can infer that he doesn’t seem happy with himself because he helped a guilty man be ruled innocent and went against his morals. Simpson’s lawyers obviously new that he was guilty but ignored the evidence proving that he was and somehow pulled off the feat of having him ruled innocent.

Especially nowadays, it is vital to have the evidence and facts before creating a stance on an issue. Today there are more opportunities to receive information and many people have been exposed to false information and believed it. People on both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of ignoring facts and evidence to make what they believe seem true. The ignoring of evidence is a plague of society and it keeps it from moving forward.

Trent Schwartz

Over the last few years, one of the most controversial topics has been 49ers player Colin Kapernick kneeling before the national anthem to protest police brutality towards people of color. After the first game in which Colin Kapernick kneeled during the national anthem, Kapernick told reporters that: “I am not going to stand up and show pride for a flag of a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” The action led to Kapernick being released by his team the following season and not landing an NFL job since even though he is talented and could be a valuable asset for a team. In a league where teams will sign players who have beaten their partners and children, stolen, and been charged with assault, the only thing(besides murder of course) that has given cause to NFL teams to ignore a talented player has been protesting during the national anthem. For example, directly after NFL Quarterback Michael Vick was released from prison on accounts of animal abuse, he was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles. NFL franchises have displayed that they find protesting during the national anthem as worse than sanctioning dog fights.

Colin Kaepernick protesting police brutality has drawn fierce debate from the right and left. The right found that Kapernick’s protest was disrespectful to those who fought for the United States and was unpatriotic. Media outlets like Fox News with views to the right heavily criticized Kapernick in his kneeling during the national anthem. Fox News journalist Scott G. Erickson showed disdain for Kapernick in his article by writing that: “Kaepernick’s comments weren’t just an insult to over one million americans-many thousands of whom were African-American-who have given their lives in defense of the United States from wars as far back as the American Revolution to the more recent conflicts in the Middle East.” The left found that Kapernick’s actions were indeed patriotic and pointed out that critics of the Civil Rights Movement felt that powerful figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X were unpatriotic. Throughout the season, several other athletes across the league took after Kapernick by kneeling during the National Anthem. Like Kapernick, these players lost countless sponsors and were put in hot water with their team’s organization. As the topic grew, it caught the eye of President Trump. While at a rally of his, he said that he wished that the NFL would be like him and say:”Get that son of a bitch off the field YOU’RE FIRED. YOU’RE FIRED.” This hostile commentary from the president caused even more players to kneel during the National Anthem not as much out of protest of police brutality but more out of protest of the president.

The meaning of patriotism changes with social and political beliefs. It is one of the words in the English language in which people disagree on its true definition. The people who now hate Colin Kaepernick because he kneeled during the national anthem most likely believe that being patriotic means to support the troops and stand up straight, take off your hat, and place your hand above your heart when the national anthem plays. The people who have supported Colin Kaepernick’s protests most likely feel that being patriotic means to be willing to protest and make your country a better place. The NFL’s protests has been one of the several topics of the last few years that have further increased the divide within the United States.

Chapter 4

This chapter elaborates on the struggle that students transitioning from high school to college have when writing argument based assignments. The struggle that many students exhibit is being unable to clearly state their stance on a point of discussion because of an inability to respond to other people’s arguments properly. When referencing scholarly articles, these students often do not build a solid statement on their stance in their assignment because they are not able to find the author’s stance on the issue and are reluctant to take their position in the argument. Students often are not confident with themselves when they are either agreeing or disagreeing when writing an argument based essay. The students struggle with making their agreement or disagreement their own and not the exact same or opposite argument seen in a scholarly article.

What I learned: While reading this chapter I realized that I am an example of a student that has problems with taking a stance on an issue in a n assignment. I learned that a lot of research is required to take an educated stance and present a new idea regarding the topic.

Chapter 5

An issue that many students writing arguments in essays is that their analysis of an issue often sounds exactly like that of their sources. Students struggle in finding a new way of looking at an issue because their intention having to do with the assignment is to finish it and not to create a definitive argument. Students’ minds often blend information that they research into an assortment of arguments and present it as their own. This tactic of taking numerous sources and condensing the information into a seemingly new argument is often seen through by those grading the assignment and often result in heavy deductions because of unoriginal analysis.

What I learned: Students being unable to create their own argument often comes from the intention of completing an assignment as quickly and easily as possible and is very common. I have learned that to create your own personal argument that you must take information of multiple sources into account and then make an informed stance on the issue after researching the topic.

Chapter 6

Students often write argumentative essays with the intention to silence the opposite side and not receive criticism of their stance. This common habit that students have makes their essay seem very one-sided and against intellectual discussion. Students grow up doing everything that they can to avoid criticism like in school where criticism almost always also entails grade reductions. Because of this, when students are writing essays they have the same mindset of avoiding all criticism at all costs. Argumentative essays are intended to start a discussion between its students and the mindset of silencing critics is in opposition to that.

What I learned: Throughout my academic career, I have done everything I could to avoid criticisms of my work. After reading this chapter that this idea of avoiding criticism is anti-intellectual as it goes against discussion.

Chapter 7

When writing essays, students often do not relate the topic that they are writing about to the real world. They see it as an assignment and not an opportunity to lengthen their intellectual horizons and learn more. Modern day students act like robots in the sense that they do not do anything that is more than required by an assignment. This idea that the subject only exists within the limits of the assignment is against the student’s academic growth. Without relating their topic to the world and everyday people, they essentially learned nothing while completing the assignment.

What I learned: In this chapter I learned how I have stopped my intellectual growth my not furthering my knowledge of a topic beyond the assignment. Without drawing the assignment topic to the real world makes the assignment useless as I don’t learn anything by doing the bare minimum of the assignment.