iMedia: Pachelbel Canon in D Major

Song

This is a rather famous piece, and if you haven't hear of it then I would be shocked. It is the traditional wedding song that is played by a string quartet at some point be it at the reception or as the bride walks down the aisle. But no matter how forward thinking some people are or revolutionary, this piece is a must have. It is comforting to me at least to know that no matter how far we move ahead, we still maintain solid traditions from our past. It is sad thought that most of what we remember of the past is song. Ask anyone questions about history and my guess is that few will answer correctly. History is our warning. If we don't heed it, then it is bound to repeat.
Pachelbel Canon has always been one of my favorite pieces of music. I had this old cassette tape that I would fall asleep to each night that had soothing ocean waves breaking on the shore in the background. It was a part of my childhood, and it's one of my top favorite songs right up there next to The Gambler, the artist is escaping me. To me Pachelbel Canon always cleared my mind and help me relax. It is too bad that I ended up playing the tape one too many times, and now you can't hear the middle section of the composition, and I have misplaced it. The soft, placid notes will always resonate in my head when I want them to.

Connection: King Lear to the Erosion of a Mountain

King Lear starts off as a mountain in the beginning of the play and as the play progresses, the mountain slowly begins to erode and become one of the Appalachians, which in my opinion shouldn't be considered mountains. His daughters are the constant force of the elements that batters the cliffs and courses through the cracks in the rocks during Spring. Goneril is the wind howling in her wrath. Regan is the water that passively pushes itself through any obstacle, but sometimes turns to ice and snow and becomes a blizzard. And Cordelia, well, she is the animals that migrate elsewhere when the sides of the mountain become too harsh, but return when the snow melts the grass begins to appear. Seeing the four "major" characters in the way really helps me to characterize and understand who each of them is. Since I find Shakespeare difficult to understand, I find that I make sense of his works best when I can identify what type of person each of the characters is, and that helps me decipher there responses to the different situations and predict with more accuracy what I believe will occur. But, my analogies of the characters will change as situations that I couldn't explain with the existing ones are explained to me.

360 Degree: Grades

One of the first things that comes to mind when you think of school is grades. But, are grades important? Are they necessary?
School should be about learning, not about how well you do on a test. Why must we quantify learning? In doing so, learning no longer becomes enjoyable. It becomes a chore, a drudgery. You study to pass a test, not for yourself. Education becomes a game of survival where those who are most successful have the most opportunity. How high you climb in social ladder is determined by your grades in high school or even junior high. Should the weight of that all be placed upon the shoulders of adolescents who at that period in their life want nothing to do with school, unless, in my personal opinion, something has gone haywire in their head.
Without grades, where would the world be? Some people have to succeed and others have to fail in order for the world to function. Grades are a way of determining who those people are. Also, how would be know if a child needed help in an aspect of their learning if grades didn't show that to us? And, is there another option other than grades and test scores to determine those most in need? Without the competition in schools, how can we get students to achieve their full potential if there is no incentive? What I see when this happens though, is that there are some students who attempt to reach the incentive, and then there are others who decide that it is impossible to achieve and stop trying. Is is possible to find a middle ground or an alternative measurement for success?