All I wanted - Paramore

(Verse 1)
Think of me when you're out, when you're out there
I'll beg you nice from my knees
When the world treats you way too fairly
It's a shame I'm a dream

(Chorus)
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you

(Verse 2)
I think I'll pace my apartment a few times
And fall asleep on the couch
And wake up early to black and white re-runs
That escaped from my mouth

(Chorus)
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you

(Verse 3)
I could follow you to the beginning
Just to relive the start
And maybe then we'll remember to slow down
At all of our favorite parts

All I wanted was you

(Chorus)
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you
All I wanted was you

Teens, Sleep and School

by Gisele Glosser

Research has shown that teenagers don't get enough sleep at night and go to school tired. Some experts believe the cause is biological. Others believe that teenagers stay up late because of adolescent distractions. Early high school start times can also contribute to teens' tiredness. This article will explore possible causes and solutions to this problem.

Research shows that teens need eight to nine hours of sleep at night, as compared with eight hours needed for adults. However, they are not getting enough sleep. A recent study at Drexel University of students aged 12 to 18 found that "20 percent of those studied got the recommended eight or more hours of sleep during school nights with the rest getting less than eight hours. The average sleep for U.S. adolescents is seven hours..." [1] A study of Rhode Island teenagers found that "85 percent were chronically sleep-deprived and accumulated a minimum 10-hour sleep deficit during the week. Forty percent went to bed after 11 p.m.; 26 percent said they usually got less than 6.5 hours on school nights." [2] Thus, sleep deprivation in teens is causing a growing concern among researchers, educators and parents.

So why aren't teens getting enough sleep? For one thing, they are staying up late. A variety of things can contribute to this night-owl tendency among teens, including social life, caffeinated drinks, electronic media such as computers, TVs and cell phones. Other factors include procrastinating on homework, and even depression. Adolescent work schedules are also a concern. Teens who work more than 15 hours a week at a job have less time for sleep.

Sleep deprivation in teens may have biological causes. Some experts believe that teens' body clocks start later. Tests by a professor at Oxford suggest that "students perform better in the afternoon, because their body clock is programmed about two hours later, possibly for hormonal reasons." [3]

Some experts believe that biological changes in teens affect their ability to sleep. A recent study found that "biological changes that take place in puberty keep kids from being able to fall asleep as early as when they were younger." [2] Another study "measured the presence of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin in teenagers' saliva at different times of the day." They learned that "the melatonin levels rise later at night than they do in children and adults -- and remain at a higher level later in the morning." [4]

Lack of sleep affects teens' ability to function at school. A recent study showed that "sleep deprivation can affect mood, performance, attention, learning, behavior and biological functions." [4] In less clinical terms, "Daytime sleepiness makes it difficult to concentrate and learn, or even stay awake in class. Too little sleep may contribute to mood swings and behavioral problems. And sleepy teens who get behind the wheel may cause serious — even deadly — accidents." [5]

The typical start time for most high schools is 7:00 am, which can exacerbate this problem. Some schools have experimented with later start times. The study at Oxford found that "By delaying the start of school by one hour, and moving more demanding subjects to later in the day, then absenteeism and depression will fall... But that does not mean young people should be indulged and allowed to stay in bed late." [6] Researchers at Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Connecticut found that "Teens whose high schools have a delayed start time sleep longer and report less daytime sleepiness." [7]

One solution is for parents to impose earlier bedtimes on their teenagers. A recent study found that "Teens whose parents pack them off to bed at 10 p.m. are less apt to become depressed or have suicidal thoughts than their peers who stay up much later." [8] It should be noted that there is a big difference between having suicidal thoughts and being suicidal. In any event, parents can strive to get their teens less wired at night. This can be achieved by discouraging them from drinking caffeine past 12 noon, and by keeping TVs, computers, and especially cell phones out of their room at night.

Why Learn Algebra?

by jason gibson "Why study algebra?"  If you're a parent, it's a question that you will no doubt hear as your children study the subject.  If you're a student, it is a very natural question to ask, "What's the point of learning algebra in the first place?"

After all, all of the math leading up to algebra that we learned growing up such as addition, multiplication, decimals, fractions, and the like, seem to have a concrete meaning. These concepts all deal with numbers in some way or another and because of this we can wrap our brains more easily around the concepts. After all, I can pick up six pencils and give two to a friend and by using math I can figure out how many pencils I am left holding in my hand. We can all imagine situations where basic math serves us well - calculating your change in the grocery store for instance.

In short, basic math deals with numbers. Since we are all taught how to count at a young age the concepts of basic math, even though challenging at first, seem to have a practical value - even to children.

Enter Algebra. Suddenly, we are asked to deal not only with our comfortable numbers but with letters. And it doesn't stop with this. You start seeing parenthesis and exponents, and a whole potpourri of other symbols that seem to make no sense at all. This single fact more than any other turns many people off to learning algebra. At the very beginning you are asked to learn certain rules on how to calculate things in algebra. You must learn which steps are legal to do before others, and if you do them in the reverse order you get the wrong answer!

This leads to frustration. With frustration, despair follows in short order. And so the thoughts begin: "Why do I need to learn this?" "When would I ever use Algebra in real life?"

What you have to remember, though, is that basic math is riddled with special rules and symbols as well. For example, the symbols "+" and "=" were at one time foreign to us all. In addition the concept of adding fractions, as a single example, is filled with special rules that we must learn. When adding 1/3 to 1/3, for example, you keep the common denominator and add the numerators, so that 1/3 + 1/3 = 2/3. The point here is that when you begin to learn algebra it may seem overwhelming with the rules that you must learn, but this is no different from the multitude of rules that you had to learn that dealt with basic math such as addition and subtraction.

Learning Algebra is achievable for all, you just need to take things one step at a time and learn the basic rules before moving on to more advanced topics.

But this does not answer the question of "Why should I learn Algebra?" This is a difficult question, but the simplest answer is that Algebra is the beginning of a journey that gives you the skills to solve more complex problems.

What types of problems can you solve using only the skills you learned in Algebra? I invite you to take a journey with me back to your childhood. We've all been to the playground and had a great time on the see-saw, the merry-go-round, and the slide. At one time all of us were completely fascinated with these trips to the playground, but Algebra can help you understand them. The physics of all of these playground toys can be completely understood using only Algebra. No Calculus required. For example, if you knew the weight of a person at the top of the slide and you knew the height of the slide you could roughly calculate how fast you would be traveling as you exited the bottom of the slide.

On the see-saw, let's say that a person was sitting at one end and you knew that person's weight. You'd like to sit on the other side of the see-saw, but not at the very end - you'd like to sit opposite your partner in the middle between the seat and the pivot point. Using algebra, you could calculate how heavy you'd have to be to exactly balance the see-saw.

Moving away from playground equipment, as children we were all fascinated with the magical way that magnets attract each other. Using algebra, you could calculate how much force a given magnet would pull on another magnet.

There are examples all around us of things in the everyday world that you could fully understand using only the tools in algebra. If you drop a rock off of the roof of a house, how long would it take to hit the ground? If you dropped a second rock 100 times as heavy off of the roof of the same house, how long would it take to hit the ground? If you somehow brought a bulldozer up to the roof of the house and dropped it, how long would it take for the bulldozer to hit the ground? The answer in all three cases it takes the same amount of time to hit the ground! The time of free-fall depends only on the Earth's gravitational field (which is the same for us all) and the height of the roof you drop from. Even though the bulldozer is "heavier" than the rocks, they all fall at the same rate to the ground.

Most people would assume that learning about more "advanced" topics such as rocket propulsion and Einstein's theory of Relativity would require much more advanced math than Algebra. It is true that more advanced math is necessary to understand every facet of these and other advanced topics. However, many of the fundamental principles can be understood using only the tools in algebra. For example, the equations that describe how a spacecraft orbits the Earth only involve algebra.

Moreover, many of the central topics in Einstein's theory of special relativity can be understood only using algebra. For example, it turns out if you are traveling on a spaceship near the speed of light time actually slows down for you relative to your friends back on Earth. In other words, if you were to fly in a spaceship near the speed of light for some time and then you returned to Earth, you would find that you had aged very little while your friends on Earth have aged a great deal! Albert Einstein coined this phenomenon "time dilation" and it can easily be calculated using only Algebra. This effect is not a theoretical effect - it has actually been measured many times. In fact, the GPS system of satellites in the sky that the military and police forces depend on must take into account the effects of time dilation or else the system would not work at all! Because the satellites are moving in orbit around the Earth at speeds much smaller than the speed of light, the time dilation involved is very small - but it must be accounted for or the system would not function.

Now, you might be thinking, "I never learned how to calculate things such as this in my algebra class!" This is in fact true. All of the applications we have been talking about here are known as the study of Physics. If you had to boil the word Physics down to one sentence it would be: "Physics is all about studying the world around us using math as a tool."

Simply put all the math that you ever learn is really a tool for understanding the world around us. And believe me, we have only begun to scratch the surface of understanding how the world works. Algebra is a stepping stone to learning about this wonderful universe that we live in. With it you have the tools to understand a great many things and you also have the skills needed to continue on and learn Trigonometry and Calculus which are essential for exploring other types of problems and phenomena around us.

So, try not to think of Algebra as a boring list of rules and procedures to memorize. Consider algebra as a gateway to exploring the world around us all.

Math and Social Injustice

by Jack Ucifferri

When you walk into a typical math class on a typical day in almost any school, you'll notice that most of the students are bored and distracted. That, believes Jonathan Osler, founder of RadicalMath, is a social justice issue.

"Math classes should give students the tools to better understand their reality. Who cares if 'Train A goes x+4 times faster than train B' when your community isn't adequately served by public transportation?"

Traditional math curricula don't teach students how to compare the density of check-cashers to banks in low-income communities, evaluate college loan plans to determine which offer the most favorable rates, or analyze data on rates of diabetes and asthma in communities of color. Lesson plans for addressing all of these issues can be found at RadicalMath.org, a free website for educators interested in integrating issues of economic and social justice into their math classes.

"I believe in engaging and empowing students to learn about issues that are relevant to their lives and communities," says RadicalMath founder, Jonathan Osler, who taught in a public high school in Brooklyn, New York for six years and now coaches math teachers in a public high school in Los Angeles. "But there were no sources of information for how I could integrate social justice issues into my math classes, so I began writing my own curricula and posting it online." Two years later, RadicalMath contains over 800 lesson plans, data sets, and articles, has received over 1,000,000 page views, and has drawn visitors from all over the world.

Osler explains that it is critical for students to graduate from high school with strong math skills, prepared for math-based college majors and careers. But equally strong is his belief that in order to address our country's most pressing problems, young people need to become agents for change in their lives and communities, and math is a tool that can help them do so.

RadicalMath.org contains information on dozens of issues including racial profiling, immigration, global warming, and the criminal justice system. There are also numerous financial education resources and lesson plans on economic topics such as minimum vs. living wage, predatory lending, the mathematics of the lottery, and home ownership.

Last April, Osler, along with several other RadicalMath contributors, organized a national conference to discuss teaching math through a social justice lens. This first annual "Creating Balance in an Unjust World" conference drew over 500 educators, activists, parents and students from around the country to Brooklyn, NY. Osler and the other organizers expect to draw twice as many participants to this year's conference