Hi! My name is Isabel Medlock and I am a freshmen at Science Leadership Academy. This year in English class we had to choose an issue, research it and then try to do something to raise awareness of the issue or help solve it. The issue I chose is the stigma of mental illness. The reason I chose this topic is because mental illness has interested me before and after reading a little bit more about it I decided it was a good issue to choose. Another reason I chose this issue is that some members of my family are affected by a mental illness.

People perceive mental illness with a negative perspective and that leads to prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. The Mental Health Commission defines stigma as a mark of disgrace that sets a person apart. Many people think that mental illness only affects a few people when in fact in a given year one quarter of adults are diagnosable for at least one mental disorder. Another common belief about mental illness is that all people with a mental illness are violent and should be kept in a hospital.  In a 2006 Australian study it was found that 1 in 4 people thought that depression was a sign of weakness and would not employ someone with depression. 1 in 3 people said they would not vote for someone with depression and 1 in 4 people thought that people with schizophrenia are dangerous.

This is a chart that shows the percentage of adults with a serious mental illness by state:

People who have a mental disorder are discriminated.  In England, if you have a mental health condition you are not allowed to serve on a jury. You can also be removed as a director of a company if you have a mental disorder. In a video I saw one woman said that she wanted to join a local weight loss group. When she told the counselor who ran it that she had a mental illness she was told that she shouldn’t join because she would be disruptive and the other members of the group wouldn’t want someone with mental illness in their group. There are just a few examples of ways that people with mental illnesses are treated unjustly.

In 2008 only 13.4% of adults received treatment for mental health problems. That’s a little over half of the adults diagnosable with a mental disorder. The reason people aren’t seeking treatment for their mental disorders is the stigma surrounding mental illness. The stigma makes people too ashamed or embarrassed to get the help they need. 90% of the people who commit suicide have depression or another mental disorder. Most of these deaths could have probably been prevented if these people weren’t afraid to get the treatment they needed. It’s important that we change the view on mental illness so that people are no longer afraid of getting help and don’t choose to end their lives. People with mental disorders have to live with the stigma and the discrimination every day and it isn’t fair.

These two newspaper headings are examples of how the media portrays those with mental illness.

After researching this topic I have new questions. How did people view mental illness in the past and how has their view changed since then? Are there illnesses that are viewed more negatively than others? Why did people start viewing in a negative way?  How are children and teenagers affected by the stigma of mental illness? As I keep researching this topic I hope to find the answers to all these questions. I also hope to find more stories about the experiences people have had living with mental illness.

Here is a link to a video of a man with schizophrenia and his mother discussing the stigma.

Mental Health Discrimination Bill video

Hello!  My name is Indee Phillpotts and I am a freshmen at Science Leadership Academy.  For a project in my English class we had to choose a topic that interest us and that we care about.  I chose women bias in the Science and Engineering workfield.  I am a young women, and although unsure of what I want to be when I grow up I deserve to have as many options as possible.  

For years and years women have been considered worthless and less important than men.  It was an unwritten rule that the men had the jobs and the women took care of the cooking and cleaning.  That is not the case now.  In these days women have more rights than they’ve had in the past centuries; but there’s still a long way to go.  For instance, men are paid more than women.  On average a women working full time makes $.70 for every dollar a man makes.  But pertaining more to my topic only 11% of engineers in the world are women.  Leaving the other 89% to be men.   

It’s unfortunate that such a small amount of women are in that workfield when women are as capable as men at these jobs.  Like Ada Lovelace for instance.  The majority of people have no idea who she is and what she has done.  That is insane because Ada Lovelace was the worlds first computer programmer.  Without her we wouldn’t be where we are with computers.  If a man was the first computer programmer he would probably be considered the “father of computers.” Which coincidentally when googled is Charles Babbage, Ada's lifelong friend. Charles Babbage actually enlisted Ada to translate a french memoir by mathematician Louis Menebrea, to which Ada added incredibly important notes that would be used by Charles. I'm curious to know if Ada was living in more recent times if her talents and accomplishments would have more recognition then they did back then.

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) First Computer Programmer.

During World War II when all of the men went to fight in the war, women got to show that they are capable of working too.  Since women were never really introduced to the jobs that they could temporarily have, the government  created a fictional character named “Rosie the Riveter” to inspire women to get jobs.  Women were inspired all right!  Before the war only 1% of people in the aircraft industry were women.  That number jumped to 65% during the war.  Women who had never worked with large machines or engines were doing equally as good a job as the men.  Sadly when the war ended women were replaced with men in their jobs and everything went back to the way it was.   This probably contributed to why the women rights movement came into action.  Once women got a taste of those jobs they wanted more.

Rosie the Riveter, A fictional character created during WWII to motivate women to

get into the workfield.

There’s proof that women are as able as men to do “man's” work.  But then why in present day do less women study for these professions and aspire to be engineers?  It is said that by the age of 4 children are conditioned to think that boys have trucks and build things and girls have dolls and play dress up.  Before children are even taught to multiply and divide they already have it put in their minds that girls can’t do certain jobs.  Because of that conditioning it’s a given that boys will dominate in those fields. This puts girls who want to work in those areas in hard positions.  It’s hard to feel comfortable in an environment when you’re the only one of your gender.  Girls in single sex schools even have a higher participation in physics than in co-ed schools.  Probably due to the lack of competition.  The bias in these work fields is impossible to ignore; especially from a woman's standpoint.  If women and girls are informed about this topic, then maybe we can move toward a more accepting and less biased future.

Bibliography

Hello, my name is Cacy Thomas and I am a 9th grader enrolled in Science Leadership Academy. In my English class we were told to write 3 blogs about an issue that we are passionate about and would like to spread to the world. This is my first blog post and my issue is concussion awareness and research in young athletes. I have cared about this subject since October 2nd, 2011 when I received my third concussion following my first and second concussions on June 6th, 2011 and July 17th, 2011. All within a five month period my life was completely turned upside down.

Before I received my head injuries I had many instances where I had no idea what was going on or even what a concussion was. So just to clear the air and make sure you know what I am talking about, a concussion as described by Centers for Disease Control is,

"A type of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, caused by a bump,

blow or jolt to the head that can change the way your brain normally works.”

Click here to see a short video explaining more in depth of the definition of a concussion.

Hello, my name is Felix Schafroth Doty, and this is the first of three blog posts for my English You And The World (YATW) project. For this project, we are to choose an issue in the world, anywhere, and combat it with some form of volunteering. I have chosen Financial Literacy and Education, and the fact that not nearly enough people have the knowledge to live a financially savvy life.

This problem came to my attention when I read a book on teenage finance and education. This book is called The Motley Fool Investment Guide For Teens, written by David and Tom Gardner, owners of a stock investing site. However, this book isn’t just on investing in the stock market. The Motley Fools, as they call themselves, teach you throughout the book about how to be smart and safe with money, and ultimately use it to your advantage. Their website is here.

But anyway, back to the problem at hand: Financial Literacy. This is a definite problem in America, as shown by a recent survey:

The 2012 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, released in April, Financial Literacy Month, found that despite the recession, Americans still lack basic money skills. More than half of the 1,007 adults polled for the survey admit to not even having a household budget.

Also revealed in the findings:

• 33 percent, or more than 77 million Americans, do not pay all of their bills on time.

• 39 percent of Americans carry credit card debt from month to month.

• Only 59 percent of adults say they have savings -- a 5 percent decrease from last year.

• More than one in four adults say they are now spending more than last year.

• 42 percent of respondents give themselves ratings of C, D or F on their personal finance knowledge