The Famous of New Trier High School

Earlier this week in AIS, Mr. O'Connor mentioned the bulletin board in our school: the "Look Where They Are Now!" board which proudly displays what former students of New Trier are doing now. The only thing is, this board doesn't display ordinary grown men and women who are living ordinary lives and work ordinary jobs, this board shows only the famous people that came out of New Trier, like Rainn Wilson. Why would New Trier only put celebrities? I think it's to show that we're the kind of school that can produce famous people. It makes us that much better than any other school. I also think that we have this board because it attracts families and their children to want to go our school. Who wouldn't want to go to a school that produces celebrities? Although it's really cool that all of these great people came out of New Trier, I don't personally don't think it's a good idea to flaunt New Trier to that great of an extent. Someone in our class said that every once in a while they change the board to show regular former New Trier graduates-people that went on to be teachers at New Trier. I think they should display these kinds of graduates more often.

Why do you think we have a celebrity New Trier graduate board? Do you think it's appropriate?

The American Flag Part 2

Going back to my last week's post and this week's task of taking an original photograph of an American flag, I went around taking pictures of flags. First, I asked my dad where we keep our flag when it's not up on our house on the 4th of July. The result is the picture below: we keep it rolled up and dusty in our basement.

As I wrote in my last blog post, my family is not big with the American flag. After finding the flag in my house, I drove around nearby neighborhoods, searching for flags on houses. When I came to the house below, I was shocked when I saw a tall flag pole with the American flag in the front yard.

I have seen flag poles before, but in places like fire departments, police stations, schools...etc. Never in a front yard of a small house. It made me realize what a contrast stood between my family's "flag" and their flag. We never take ours out, and this house probably has it out 24-7, 365 days a year. It's really interesting to see which houses/families have their flags up. I think the main question is why certain houses have flags up and why others don't.

What do you think? Does it matter if the house is big or small?

The American Flag

Today in class we discussed the flag and what it meant to us. Honestly, for me and my family, I don't think we're very patriotic. Not that we are un-patriotic, but we don't have mugs with flags on them, we don't have flag napkins or flag plates, we don't have a flags in any rooms in our house. The only time we put up a flag outside of our house is on 4th of July. Some people might think that's terrible, but really, I don't think a flag means that much. It's a piece of fabric that has a pretty design on it. I think a lot of students are grown up thinking the flag is a big deal. That's it is the "norm" to respect and worship the flag. For me, even though I grew up in that same environment in school, I don't think the same way. Maybe because the flag isn't a big deal in my household.

How do you view the flag in your household?