Philadelphia's class divide is very noticeable. Its neighborhoods range from single home mansions, to townhouses, to some of the country's most dangerous communities. This capstone focuses on the life history behind the people living in these areas, their stories. People from these different communities have very different experiences and opinions of Philadelphia. Some think that the politicians are not doing enough to help strengthen the relationships between the police and the communities they serve. While others don’t believe that there is a problem at all.

Data collection involved a survey delivered in person. In an attempt  to assert some control of the survey the same 10 questions were asked by the same surveyor. The questions were asked at the same time of day on the same day of the week over a 5 week period.

The survey was created by giving the respondent yes or no questions. The result were compiled by taking the result of each neighborhood and tabulting the most recurring answers to give a percentage. For example: did you participate in the last presidential election? If No do you think that you vote counts?

What some of the result show is that people from the most dangerous communities are not voting because they don’t think that their vote counts or that it will make a difference. While people from wealthy neighborhoods believe in voting and that the system fair and just.

I interview someone named john, John was from north philadelphia and was downtown because of an internship at the comcast center as a salesman. He is 23 years old and he does not like catching the broad street line every morning to work and said he wishes there was a better way to get there  it seemed to me he didn’t like his job or the way he’s living right know.

Later I interviewed a young lady named Sarah, she worked downtown also as a government official and she takes regional rail every morning. Regional Rail in mostly a quiet train above ground for what it might seem like only privileged people take  because it takes 6 dollars way . Sarah is 25.

The Prison system is created to hold people who have been convicted of a crime. They house, feed, create jobs and even train inmates while they are incarcerated, however there the program for reintegration is non-existent. When prisoners are released from prison they often times lack the skill needed to fully integrate with family, friend and the work force and this leads them to commit the same crimes. Prisoners need a program that will give them the necessary skills needed to be successful after prison.

Elizabeth W. Mckune is a Psychologist whose ultimate goal is to help convicts re-establish themselves after prison. She has successfully incorporated integration skill into her mental health program, in an attempt to equip parolees with the tools needed to be successful. This program helps inmates find housing, employment, and health services. It also helps inmates to re-establish positive relationships with family and friends. This is important because if we had more programs similar to Dr. McKune, the level of recidivism would decrease significantly because parolees would have more to live for instead of repeating the same mistakes again that caused their incarceration in the first place. Dr. McKune says “We are already starting to have an impact, parole and probation officers are becoming less punitive and more about, ‘How can I help this person?”

According to Sentencing Law and Policy (2016) “more than 600,000 citizens return to neighborhoods across America after serving time in federal and state prisons,” 67% of those offenders get re-incarcerated within eight to twelve months after being released. A good friend of mine was locked up for burglary and armed robbery, he was incarcerated for about four years and when he was released he said that it took him a couple months to get back on his feet and adjust to being back in society. “Being in jail can change your whole perspective of life itself” he said, he wouldn’t recommend any one visit a place like that. He said “the only places that would employ him were fast food restaurants, because they were the only ones who would accept someone with a record. Until now, he currently works as a truck driver.

Outside source correction officer - One of the reasons people go back to prison is because of pressure. While in jail all the inmates every day needs are taken care of. They have a place to sleep, they are fed, bathed and clothed but when they are released they fail to fend for themselves. After prison is even harder because it is very difficult for them to get a job. Many feel as if they're not just going to be broke and sitting around, so more times than not they're going back to the things that landed them in prison the first place. In prison there are many different rules and guidelines that you wouldn’t follow on the outside. For instance: sexual activities, if you’re the one receiving and not getting than there’s nothing wrong that. The food the prison system is absolutely nasty to the point that people will kill over it.  Inmates will use that to their advantage, they sell things such as snacks just to get people set up to be killed.  When inmates get money put on their books other inmates watch who gets the most money or a significant amount and plot on them. For example: there was an inmate that had his grandma put money on his books and people noticed to they threatened to beat him up critically if she didn’t put money on their books too and sure enough when she didn’t they severely beat him and they had to send him to a different block. That is just one of the many horrific stories that occur in prison.

Interview questions

1. explain the crime you committed

2. Knowing that the things you were doing could potentially land you in jail why did you  

keep doing those things

3. How is the everyday life in prison explain the good times and bad times.

4. Does jail change your perspective on the outside world after being released

5.how did you adjust back to society

6. What are some restrictions that you have.

7.  What do you think should be done to help out people who have been released from

    prison  

People typically don’t care about how others end up in jail so when it occurs they don’t think twice about it so by detailing this story people can get a better understanding as to why inmates end up back in jail and maybe then we can try and fix the problem.

Interview employers

Research the different styles of imprisonment in different countries
             In norway citizens rarely go to jail and when they do the chances of being reincarnated are slim what keeps this country like this is a system they use. In Chinese Prinsion it is said that “inner cell was the same size but held 30 prisoners, all sleeping on the concrete floor. There were no blankets or pillows and the room was so crowded that most prisoners slept on their sides with arms draped over each other like embracing couples (Prison Legal news, 2014), and in Russia “For every 160 people there were maybe three or four working toilets, four or five taps in the washing facilities, no showers - and that's the very least of it, (Made for Minds, 2016).

Reference:

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/05/prison.aspx

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/reentry_and_community_supervision/page/2/

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chinese-prison-americans-perspective/

 In quarter four I tried to focus on reaching my full potential for this advanced art class and I think I did a pretty good job  of that by spending my time on these four hour projects and these little assignments trying to do my best. The pieces that I did didn’t have any real meaning they were just challenging for me so I wanted to attempt them.

My goal for this podcast was not sit down and get to know my great grandmother more and also receive some elderly knowledge. I think some of our youth could use some of this knowledge and use it throughout their life.

what went well with this podcast was my grandma responded to the questions I asked well and she also elaborated good too she made it somewhat easy to  interview her . what was challenging about this podcast was I used my phone so I  had to keep switching my phone from her mouth to mine and some times I would move the phone before she finished speaking and I got stuck in between questions so I would start stuttering too much.

  My goal for this paper was to try and explain that you don’t need a high education level to succeed in life or to achieve that american dream the way that society tries to tell you,  through my great grandmother. It’s taught the only way you will evey and or do anything important in life in must go to college and if you don’t you will automatically be a failure in life and i think that i explained pretty well that that’s not necessarily true all the time.

Success comes in many different shapes and forms, but success all depends on what you want it to be it could range from owning a big house to being able to buy yourself a pair of sneakers as long as you know your goal is obtainable there should be no doubt that you can achieve it , but  Society tries to tell you a lot of the time that the only way you can live a great life or try to achieve the american dream of becoming rich is by having a high education, that’s the only way that you will be rich and be happy in life but, I say other wise.  My great grandmother was a prime example that you do not need a high education to achieve that American Dream. She had no more than a fourth grade education and had her first of three kids when she was fourteen also getting married at sixteen years.  When you hear something like this you would think that her life would be HELL. People would automatically assume that she set her life up for failure, that there was no way she could succeed yet alone achieve the american dream most would  assume that, that is out of the question.

Let me tell you first off my great grandma  came a long way Richard Island in North Philly she is a short woman 5”2  and most would say she was a beautiful young lady but she says most people doubted her, that all she would be was a beautiful dummy flash forward  She now lives in condo in Plymouth Meeting that she owns, and lived in what I would say not a mansion but a very large house in Germantown , also was a property owner multiple properties  . She also owned a business a video store the store boomed and the the only reason for her closing the store was because that there was a another video store that opened up right across the street that took most of her customers called Block Busters. These are  some of my great grandma's achievements throughout her life still keep in  mind she never went to college and never graduated from high school.       

This situation is like a chapter ripped right out The Great Gatsby. The man Gatsby went to college for two week just two! He decided that college wasn’t something for him but instead of sitting on his butt waiting for something to happen good in his life he went out and was searching for that one great thing to happen to him and it eventually did. He went out and introduced himself to a man that would change his life forever. He was taught how to look and act like a business man even though he knew we was no such thing and eventually he would become one the most know wealthiest men around a town called East Egg. The moral of the story is that you can come from nothing and make something of yourself to achieve that American Dream. Not necessarily having an education defines your true potential all you really need is some determination in yourself, recognizing your true identity and not falling into society’s arms trying to be another somebody else to achieve your dream.

My grandma explained to me that she had to grow up fast. She had three kids by the age of 17 , her mom no longer wanted to deal with her and her father died so she had to fend for herself but had no money. she first worked at a candy so  from there she learned how to deal with money. working at a candy store wasn’t doing enough for her family. flash forward two years she is a case  worker making enough and know is married to a man she would spend the rest of his life with. Throughout her life she had a lot of  people talk to her about life things to give  her that right guidance because she needed it nobody who was a big father or mother figure was in her life. She told me Bill Cosby gave her some good advice on how to approach life and what the correct steps she should take to be successful in life, and she told be it was good advice and it looks like it was b

Because the way she is living right now looks like her life is great she never complains about anything. All of this success without a high education, just a little guidance, hard work, and dedication if you have those three things you can have your life any way you picture including achieving that american dream.

  At my old school in Wisconsin, I remember my social studies teacher yelling at me and my friend Keef for not paying attention in class, we would always play around in that class. Every day he would try to get either me or him to sit in the front of class, but it never worked. Every time he turned his head, we would make our way to the back of the classroom. It happened so much, he eventually gave up and just let us do what we wanted. He thought we would fail his class, and honestly, we probably would have failed. But he always made the same dumb move. Every test or quiz he put an answer sheet under his desk like we didn’t know he put it there. That’s how we passed the class, we would get the answer sheet before the tests or quizes started and  put them back before it was over. He knew we cheated too because he moved the answer sheet around sometimes we always found it though. After a certain amount of  good grades in his class, he eventually just put us in a different room for testing.  I believed he cared  for us because  he still gave us those good grades knowing what we were doing.

Having this past experience with my social studies teacher was helpful and harmful. It was helpful because I never failed his class that whole year I actually got straight A’s in that social studies class so it was a good short term experience. The bad long term experience is that, that whole year I honestly can’t remember anything I learned from that class. So I'm uneducated about  almost anything  that  has to pertain with social studies. From that class I learned something that helped me excel in school though. I learned that I can’t learn how I was being taught in that class and that may have something to do with the reason that I thought it was okay to cheat my whole sophomore year in social studies. Throughout my whole sophomore year in my social studies class he would do all of his work, lessons, test etc. out of a textbook and just hearing that makes me tired. I believe that made me lose a lot of focus because it's like the book is teaching me and not the teacher. Me, as a student really didn’t know why I didn't like school because how his class was, that was almost every  class,  I just thought that I would be a C student and that was good because that was what the school i went to made see okay. Until I moved back to Philadelphia. Now I go to a school called Science Leadership Academy  (SLA), and its like they so far showed me a whole different side to learning.

Attending SLA as a Junior they have showed me there is a different side to learning. A lot of their learning is based off of a computer it's usually just the classwork, and homework so the teachers are still very live in the classroom they go through lessons have classroom discussions about an assignment that you may have have not understood, your allowed to email them at a respectable time, anytime about question or concerns that you may have. My old school would just have had to call the school or tried to catch the teacher at sometime. They don't give  you so many test during the quarter it's maybe two but at the end of the quarter they give you a project which is not bad because they give you enough time to complete them. Lunch is extended an extra 30 min for any body who feel like they need extra help with their class work there is something called Math Lab where you can get extra help math by a teacher or a student how is in a higher math class. So it honestly seems like they care about your education and the teachers and the school wants to see you succeed.

Going through these experiences showed me that learning is not hard it’s all about how you get taught. Not everybody learns the same, also that not every school is the same prime example the situations i just explained. The school I'm at now which is SLA cares more about my education they just come up with ways for any student to learn were as my old school taught everybody the same way. It's important to know your students as a teacher because you could get through to some who feel like school is not for them and slowly make them realize that you care about their education and want to see all of their students succeed.