Ashley, the student who wrote "Stop Deporting Dreams" has a strong stance on immigration and believes we should not be deporting people just because they are different and come from somewhere else. She pleads, "please make peace with illegal immigrants and let us work together to keep America great, and not separate families. It’s not a lot to ask ,so don’t make it a lot to understand."

The article I read about deportation highlighted the fact that those immigrating to this country are the ones taking on the low paying, labor intensive jobs that most Americans are not willing to take. They are doing it for next to nothing because society assumes that is all they are worth. People argue they are taking all the job opportunities, so they are forced to take whatever they can get.

I was interested to see if immigration was a topic that was common amongst all regions, or if it was more prevalent among the boarder states as they are more likely to see it play out. Even though I did see more articles about immigration in places like California, where it is extremely common, it was a topic highlighted in non-boarder states like Iowa as well. This just shows that students interests do not have to be a reflection about what is directly happening in their communities and they are very attuned to injustices happening in all parts of the world.

I found this when looking through the different topics. Even the 3 I ended up examining further which were on deportation, standardized testing, and Pokemon Go show that there was such a wide variety of topics and that no one topic was more important than the other. Every voice could be heard and was valued.

Even though it is not related to a political issue, advocating for change is what Isaiah, the author of "Does Pokemon Go have exercise involved", tries to do in his letter. He stressed the need for more Pokestops as Poekstops are what get people up and moving when playing the game. Adding this additional stops will allow these users to get exercise from playing the game, which can combat obesity and other health problems that arise from inactivity. He is looking out for other members of the Pokemon Go community and trying to bring forth positive change for them through his writing.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that most are always told what to do in school, so they lose the ability to think on their own? This reminds me of the Sir Ken Robinson video I watched previously that said students enter school with divergent thinking and it slowly disappears the more years they spend in school.

At first I was surprised to see only 6 teachers for 11 grade levels, but it makes sense in the context of connected learning. What a perfect way to utilize the older learners in support of the younger ones. Many years ago some of the districts in San Diego used to have "multi-grade" classes, which was 2-3 grade levels together. I used to find strange, but now see how that could actually be a benefit to all sudents.

It is amazing to see that schools are being developed based upon ideas like self-directed learning. Even though they are much smaller than public schools, I believe the more schools that emerge based on more innovative ideals, the more the traditional school systems will be forced to follow suit and adopt more student centered practices.