Felicia Rupert Portfolio

Thank You,

Felicia Rupert

For my persuasive paper, I would like to propose reform to the foster care system regarding those who age out of the program and are left to fend for themselves with little resources and education on how to succeed in society. There are at least half a million children in the foster care system each year. As they age out of the system, they enter society on their own unprepared to fend for themselves. The rate of homelessness for foster care youth is excessively high and many don’t have the resources to strive for a higher education.

From the general research I have done, I know that I want the policy to involve the ability of health care and the ability to enter into a form of higher education. My policy paper will discuss the social and constitutional rights of young adults that have spent time in the foster care system. Think Tanks such as the American Academy of Pediatrics work toward better health care for children both in the foster care system and those who have aged out and The Heritage Foundation works toward the educational opportunities that children in and out of foster care should be entitled to. One of their ideas that I think I will consider adding to my policy is the idea of scholarships tailored specifically  to foster children who after aging out would have a better chance of getting through a period of college.

I believe that the topic of helping those who age out of the foster care system is appropriate for this persuasive policy paper because every one of our half a million children that go through the system will eventually become too old for it and be sent into society to live and work with everyone else. If there existed a policy that would give them equal opportunities to health and educational rights, the lives of these children would be forever changed and they can contribute to the overall productivity of society. Having already faced the hardships that the foster care system brought, most are already disadvantaged right out of the gate. 

This I Believe

It is a high pitched screech, like someone dragging chalk across the blackboard and a classroom full of children groaning in distress. An ear piercing and jaw clenching sound that would make any normal person’s skin crawl. But they can’t hear it. To them it is just a natural humming, a sound that they have habituated over the years. This sound, is the sound of a 10 year old knowing how obnoxious she is being and yet is completely entertained by the concept. Her eyes wide and fixated on this thing. This prop. There is nothing spectacular about the model, in fact it is just a bunch of wood and wire. But through her eyes, it is magic. It is an opportunity, a path, a future full of passion, hard work, and possibly a hint of insanity.

When I was in third grade I began playing an instrument, the violin to be specific. I remember people coming into our classroom one day, with one of each of the string instruments, and letting us try them out. So we went around the classroom, at each one attempting to create as much noise as possible, after all when you have no idea what you are doing, louder outdoes skill any day. I only really remember one. I remember encountering the violin. I remember placing it on my shoulder, feeling the rest dig into my skin, feeling the vibration of the strings underneath a bow which only my hand could control, and seeing rosin flow through the air and quite possibly into my lungs.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. One that many young students may never have the resources to experience. There are many studies that prove that playing an instrument can make a child smarter, more engaged, and more passionate about learning, but this is only one perspective of music education, and having been one of those students, I can say that back then, I didn’t play for the learning abilities it gave me. I played because it made me confident and made me feel like an individual, because I felt pretty special knowing that I was attempting something that many wouldn’t dare try, or be able to understand.

I believe in music education. I believe in giving a child the gift of creativity, intelligence and confidence. That every school should have the ability to put an instrument in the hands of every single child that is willing to take on the responsibility. Whether a child continues with his or her music education is a personal choice, but they still deserve the opportunity to make that decision, having been given the tools to learn the extent of their capabilities. And who knows, the next Beethoven could be sitting, at this very moment, in a school that does not have the materials or funding for a music program.

TIB ideas:

Music in Education: discussing the lack of support for music programs and the lost opportunities of developing children’s creativity

A relationship is a two way street: discussing that in order to stay positively connected with other individuals, both parties must adapt and contribute.

CI ideas:

A few of my civic issues topic ideas consist of:

Reprimanding Students: a lack of structure in the system of punishment in schools leading to a lack of integrity and respect toward authority figures

Curriculum standards: An increase in social techniques used to keep the attention of students while degrading the academic integrity of actually learning informative material.

Passion ideas:

Though I may continue with last semester’s blog of Interpreting the meanings behind various quotes, my other ideas consist of:

What makes real music – values lost throughout the decades of a changing industry: Discussing how the music industry has adapted to a money driven society and lost an understanding in the true ideals behind what makes music great.

And a returning idea from last semester that I decided to pass on: The historical and social meanings/ associations of colors.

While blogging last semester I found that my entries were not really inviting conversation and I received very few comments besides “I agree” or  ” that is interesting”. This semester I hope to change the structure or feel of my blog in order to make people think about the topic in other ways besides how I have expressed it. I hope to add more visuals this semester and insert more breaks in my ideas instead of producing a few lengthy paragraphs at a time. At the beginning of last semester I was unable to come up with a catchy blog name and “Felicia Rupert’s Passion Blog” was uploaded into the student list, which I believe caused people to look past my “boring looking” blog. Thus, this semester I hope to come up with a more creative title that will catch their attention as they browse.

When assessing our video based on the Vimeo tutorial, it is important to note that we will not be taking any video ourselves, but clipping together portions of already produced work, thus the first 2 tutorials do not have that much association with our project; however, the portion on audio may come in handy when deciding the proper technique for recording, such as the decision to record from a laptop compared to traveling to one of the school’s media centers.

The second video on Vimeo was not applicable to our presentation; however, it is interesting to critique the technique of those who taped the clips we plan on using. The movie King Corn was well recorded and the camera men certainly knew how to produce a professional piece. In portions of the clips where the recorder was in motion, he makes sure to keep a steady hand. The attention to lighting also helped the camera men, as they were working with many bright colors and nature that could be visually harmed by inaccurate lighting techniques.

Because we are not recording anyone for our project, the editing basics portion of the Vimeo video assignment will prove to be the most helpful in our presentation. Chopping clips will be important when making transitions between video and photographs. Transitions will also be important in keeping the presentation moving. The timeline will be helpful in deciding the order of the clips we place into our presentation, as there are many scenes that could be placed in many locations and we will most likely be rearranging them as we continue along. The fact that you can also undo the edits that have been creative is also extremely useful, as I am sure that any of the groups will have different points of view on how to interpret a piece and may go back and forth on whether to add or take something away.

Now we all know how supportive PSU students are of their football team, but there are so many other sports on campus that aren’t as noticed. One of these teams, is the Men’s Basketball team. And to get more students involved in their sport, the school invited all freshman to attend the game last week for… wait for it… FREE. Now granted, basketball tickets aren’t as expensive as say, football tickets, but everyone knows that students are much more likely to go to events and meetings if they are free or can receive a free product by attending.

This is an example of a civic engagement opportunity not just because they are providing a platform for freshman to become more involved in the athletic programs and meet new people, but because many people who do not consider themselves basketball enthusiasts took the opportunity to give it a shot. And who knows, they might actually have enjoyed the experience and plan on returning to watch another game, which gives the opportunity for a long line of civic engagement attendance.

Though I can’t find an attachment, the actual flier was simplistically rhetorical. It consisted of the usual athlete in action, the event information (in PSU colors of course) and at the bottom it stated, “The event is free to all freshman, the ticket is prepaid to your PSU Id card” with a giant FREE across the bottom in PSU bold blue. Quite simply: This is what it is —-> This is what you will see –> and its FREE… “So go”.

In my opinion, these tactics were quite successful, as I watched people that I didn’t even think were sports fans get pumped up and gather their friends for the event. Although if you think about it, this is PSU, and if you aren’t a part of the crowd, you could probably use a little help with your civic engagement attendance.

Going in the first group made the preparation process a bit more cut and dry than most presentation preparations I have done in the past. TED talks also require a different approach to preparation than normal powerpoint driven presentations. Time constraints made it necessary to write the speech portion of the talk as I researched the topic. This was both helpful and harmful in that while there were many details of community policing present, I didn’t use as wide a variety of sources as I normally contribute to a project.

Part 1:

The principals from the course readings that I was able to incorporate were those such as pathos in the imaging of the visual portion of the presentation, a discussion of civic engagement, and a wide variety of commonplace examples, as my topic was overall about communication.  I think that my preparation process went well overall, but as a personal critic find that the execution was not as well done as I would have liked; however, I must consider the time frame as well and after doing so am content with how it turned out. Writing the material was not very hard and I think that the execution went well because I was speaking from a more personal point of view and not trying to quote the legislation to which I was referring.

I know from previous experience that I am not a very well spoken presenter, thus I find memorizing a script to be the easiest way to ensure I am staying on task; however, as the project was a TED Talk, this method was not very useful and my presentation was less fluid. It is because of this that I would say practice would be the most useful tool for future talks and just becoming more comfortable with not having a script memorized or in front of me. I think that being aware of my body movements and facial expressions would also help in the future, as I found myself to be doing a lot of useless swaying and head bobbing.

Part 2:

I consider myself to have a pretty strong voice when it comes to presenting and I think this carried me through the presentation. I think the use of slides for just category names and a few pictures made the presentation simplistic yet effective. At various points, I went off script, mostly because I forgot what came next, and talked about information that I have learned over the years about the police force and criminology. I think this prior knowledge helped me appear more confident in my delivery. As a crim major and someone who is extremely interested in ideas such as how to refine the police force methods, I am extremely happy that I was able to chose such a topic.

As previously stated, I think my physical presentation could be improved. From the video I find that I do a lot of unnecessary movements, mostly out of nerves but still, that took away from what I was saying. While I think that I gave a relatively detailed report of the aspects of community policing, I only got to touch on the overall usage and would have liked to give more real life examples that would really display how important and accurate the process is. I think that it would not necessarily be a longer presentation that could do this, but better management of time, such as finding a different pace. Lastly, I would say that I just needed to practice more.

http://vimeo.com/79310871 (can’t get it to work any other way)

As of this moment my TED talk topic will be on Community Policing. My thesis will be based around the idea that community policing is the method of the future in law enforcement as it is less violent and creates a stronger bond between law enforcement and the communities to which they police.

I may start off by asking the audience to think of a situation in which they viewed a police officer at work and ask them to define to themselves what a police officer’s duties are.

I may begin my own speech with a short segment on the evolution of crime fighting and then move on to the ways of the future, thus the beginning my discussion on how community policing is the logical choice and method to keep the peace.

I may give an example of my own that is a situation in which police officers did not do the right thing, and connect with the audiences pathos. Describing how the situation would have ended differently if the methods of community policing were used instead.

The adaption to ethos of this TED talk would be describing how the use of Community Policing will better the public’s beliefs in the police force and help to assess how trustworthy and caring law enforcement is striving to be.

Well ladies and gents, tomorrow (aka today) is Halloween. Like every holiday, Halloween opens the door for not only civic engagements, but commonplaces that would both take ages to discuss, so I’ll just throw a few at you.

I would be surprised if you all didn’t have plans for tonight, or this weekend, as Halloween is one of those holidays where spending more time with your friends than family is actually “allowed.” Although that conflict is usually only a problem when your parents aren’t hours away, but you get my point I hope. In college we can assume that most people will spend less time going from door to door asking for candy, but hey if that’s still your thing let me know how it goes, and more time partying.

The great thing about Halloween is that you can dress however you want and be who you want to be for a weekend, a eerie mascaraed ball if you will.  Thus, a great opportunity to meet new people and go places that you wouldn’t really travel to during the regular school week. Not only that, but a lot of parties, I don’t know so much about in college, have costume contests that invite people to dress their best. Most people, especially teenagers, tend to put a little more effort into things when there is a prize involved. And even if you know partying is not your thing, don’t be afraid to invite people over to watch scary movies or something.

For little kids, Halloween is just as much of a civic engagement opportunity. It gives them the opportunity to travel around the neighborhood, with adult accompaniment of course, and interact with the people that live closest to them. This brings the community together and, depending on the costume, gives them something to talk about for years to come. Thus introducing many more civic engagement opportunities that might otherwise never occur.

The PSU 5k is just around the corner ladies and gents, and while there may not be people shooting color powder at you or giving them to you to throw at your buddies, there will be something extra special for some of the clubs that participate: Their THON child. With this PSU 5k, I can think of numerous civic engagement opportunities.

One in fact that started a while back and leads me to ask the ever so frequent question,  “Have you gotten involved?” The biggest difference I see from the Color Run and the 5K is that while anyone can participate, clubs tend to run/walk together. I know at least the club that I am in is pretty excited about participating as a group and allowing the new members to see what participating means to the group dynamic as a whole. I wouldn’t have believed it at the beginning of the semester, but joining a club really is as simple as all of the RAs made it sound.

The second, and possibly most exciting, civic engagement of the 5K involves the very people that PSU has worked so hard to inspire and contribute to: The THON child. Ours happens to be a 7 year old boy named Mario (part of THON since age 3) who is always excited to spend time with his THON sponsors. As a civic engagement opportunity, this run isn’t just about meeting a THON child, but being a part of the bigger picture that is the road to THON, more than just going canning that is. There is an opportunity to interact with the children that have become a part of the groups that sponsor them.

Last but certainly not least, can you guess it yourselves? THON. In fact, you know what, I don’t even think this one needs any explaining what-so-ever. Just make sure you do what Penn State has always done around THON time: Get pumped, get fundraising, get some sleep the day before, and be ready for the biggest civic engagement opportunity of the school year.