Alabama Tri-Delts Can't Get Over the Past

Recently I was on Facebook when I saw that someone posted a link to a recent "sorority scandal" at University of Alabama. I clicked on it because my mom always talks about how much she loved her sorority in college but what I read in this article was quite disturbing. The full story can be found at the University's newspaper here but the gist of the story is that a black girl at the University of Alabama rushed to get in Delta Delta Delta and apparently had all of the qualifications and great scores from the other girls but when it came to deciding who gets in the sorority, the alumnae jumped in and according to anonymous girls in the sorority, the alumnae and president were the ones who did not let the girl in because she was black and the sorority was traditionally white.  According to the article, the traditional white sorority at University of Alabama have not pledged a black girl since 2003 and she was the only one since! An anonymous member of the sorority said,“Not a lot of rushees get awesome scores,” the Tri Delta member said. “Sometimes sisters [of active members] don’t get that. [She] got excellent scores. The only thing that kept her back was the color of her skin in Tri Delt. She would have been a dog fight between all the sororities if she were white.” This whole scandal has caused a lot of outrage and protests across the country and I can understand why. This scandal seems very old fashioned to me and something that should not be happening now days. My mom always tells me how much of a positive impact her sorority had on her but clearly the alumnae could not let go of the past and how sororities used to traditionally be white. Overall it outrages me as well to know that the leaders of the Delta Delta Delta sorority at University of Alabama were more concerned with how their sorority appeared lined up across the front lawn of the house in a picture than the philanthropic side of it. Other sororities across the country have changed so why hasn't this one? Comments are very much appreciated!

Is Emotional Intelligence the Key to Success?

As I was browsing the New York Times web page today a very interesting article caught my eye because of all the stress students are under with school starting back up again. It was titled "Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?" and you can read the full article here. It is a very lengthy article but the basic point to it was informing people about the strategy of social-emotional learning and many professionals think that teaching kids emotional skills in schools such as coping with anxiety and stress will improve their academic performance. At first I was not sure that these two ideas correlated but after reading the evidence it started to make sense. The article said, "Though it’s not clear how significant this effect is, a 2011 meta-analysis found that K-12 students who received social-emotional instruction scored an average of 11 percentile points higher on standardized achievement tests. A similar study found a nearly 20 percent decrease in violent or delinquent behavior." I agree with what this article was saying because I think that most people would agree that no matter how much you study for a test, if you feel anxious or nervous a lot of the time your mind goes blank and everything you studied the night before does not even matter because your anxiety made you forget it all. Another reason I agree with this article is because if you feel uncomfortable in a class room because you were not taught social/emotional skills at a younger age it is much harder to learn and focus during class. Even if you have an amazing teacher its hard for the mind to stay focused on the material when you are uncomfortable with the setting or people around you. Overall, if schools made a bigger effort to teach social-emotional learning to kids at a younger age I think that this would benefit many kids in the future when it comes to standardized tests like the ACT.