Triple Threat

What a surprise! I walked into class today noticing a familiar face... Ms. Timmes! She came to observe the rest of the girl's article presentations. Today's presenters that are involved in the ILC are me, Abby, and Molly. Just knowing that she'll be watching me made me even more nervous then before, which is strange; I'm so used to performing in front of her when I'm at school.

My article was about birth control and teenage pregnancies. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that there's been a decline of teen pregnancies from girls ages 15-19 in the year 2009-2010. This is due to the fact of increase consumption of contraceptives and the usage of condoms. From the year 2006-2008, 37% sexually active teens were using a form of birth control and condoms. From 2008-2010, that rose to 47%. Because of the usage, there's been a 9% drop of pregnancies among adolescents. I found this article interesting, not only are teens taking precautions of pregnancies, but they are preventing the spread of STD/STIs.

Once everyone finished, today's guest speaker, Angela Romans, walked in. She talked about her path towards studying engineering and how it changed to her new founded love, education. She became an educator and worked in Brown's admission office for eleven years. She's even read applications from De Anza High before! Much of our time spent together was focused on low performing schools and what would be cut when faced with financial crises. The first thing to be cut are teachers, which can dramatically change a school's performance. New educators mean new perspectives and ideas that will be plotted in students' minds. The new methods of teaching can confuse the learners if they are already adjusted to a set process, which can lower the academic results of test scores.

After lunch, class switched over to ethics and how it is related to leadership. Leaders often deal with situations where they have to decide what's right from wrong. Not only do their choices impact themselves, but also those who are affiliated as well. Kisa handed out questionnaires along with hypothetical story situations. We had to decide what would we do if we were faced with the same positions. I had a hard time choosing what I would do, the pros and cons didn't weigh each other out. Both had the same effect so I was stuck in the middle.

Three different topics were talked about today. All of them are rarely discussed in conversations, but learning about each has made my thoughts widen to a new perspective.