March 25 (WED): Uniform Day and Inspection

WEDNESDAY IS UNIFORM DAY. WE ONLY HAVE A FEW UNIFORM DAYS BEFORE THE INSPECTION. YOU WILL BE INSPECTED AND RECEIVE A GRADE. UNIFORM DAY INSPECTION IS A TEST. 

FIRST YEAR CADETS: General Orders 1 through 5.

UPPERCLASSMEN CADETS: General Orders 1 through 11 and Chain of Command. Go to the Mid Term Review Blog post for references (links) for studying your General Orders and the Chain of Command. 

Inspecting Officers:
Period 1: TBD
Period 2: Rose / Dallas is scribe
Period 4: Walsh / Martinez is scribe
Period 5: TBD
Period 6: Sanchez / Veliz is scribe
Period 7: Stevenson / Gray is scribe
Period 8: 

March 24 (Tuesday): NJROTC, and The Way Ahead

Today, we are going to talk about our program and the future. Our program is the first US Navy JROTC program in the state of Connecticut. This is a picture of one of our cadets (Sergio) who was the Captain of the BMHS Soccer Team, but now he has moved on to other things. 

As the year approaches the last Marking Period, and our senior's will be preparing to move on after graduation, you the cadets who remain need to prepare for the future and the changes that come with it. I will give you a class brief on NJROTC and The Way Ahead and then talk to a number of you individually. 

Brainstorming for Upcoming TOPGUN Competition

Welcome back from break, I hope you enjoyed yourself. Tommorrow is uniform day so be ready with your appearance, bearing, and knowledge.

Today we will break up into small groups (group leaders chose teams) and brainstorm potential TOPGUN events for the platoon versus platoon competition. I want each group to come up with events for two categories: 

IN CLASS EVENTS: can be done in school during the class period.

OUT OF CLASS EVENTS: can be done  after-school and online.

Come up with a group list and then give to designated class scribe (see below) to write input on a Google Doc.

Google Doc: PROPOSED TOP GUN EVENTS  (Click on Link) 

PERIOD 2: Group Leaders are Bonilla and Velmani. 

Scribe is Tom Mirabella

PERIOD 4: Group Leaders are Ceja and Fequiere. 

Scribe is Kevin Martinez.

PERIOD 6: Group Leaders are Micheal Ragusa and Christian Araujo. 

Scribe is Michele Veliz.

PERIOD 7: Group Leaders are Mercy Stevenson and James Gray. 

Scribe is Robert Chavez.

Chain of Command Group 2015 Group Activity

CARD ACTIVITY

READ THIS FIRST, Then watch the video!!

Chain of Command...? What does that mean and what is its purpose? Is it just a military concept? If so why study this concept if you are not in the military? If it has applications in non-military organizations then perhaps understanding the concept of a "chain of command" has other applications. Let's watch this video and see how you could apply this concept to other activities.... 

What examples would you give on how the concept of a "chain of command" applies to other organizations and activities? In your opinion, what are some of the universal purposes of a chain of command based on the activities and discussion you have had up until this point. 

Let's take a look at the NJROTC chain of command briefed by your fellow students.... Remember, chain of command will be a part of your mid term exam. 

2014 Change of Command and Staff

On Wednesday (Uniform Day), we will be conducting a BMHS Navy JROTC Change of Command after school at 1430. 

CO:  Walsh
XO: Vacas
Co Chief: Sanchez

1st PLT Cdr: Veliz
Plt Sgt: Mirabella
2d PLT Cdr: Armas
Plt Sgt: To Be Determined
3rd PLT Cdr: Krogh
Plt Sgt: Stevenson

N1 Admin: Bonilla
N3 Ops: Bou-Chahine
N4 Supply: Suarez
N6 Public Affairs: Iannucci

Ferguson Missouri Shooting Overview

We are using the ongoing situation in Ferguson Missouri as a vignette in which to analyze the difference between subjectivity (opinions, emotions) and objectivity (facts) it is important to break down the major aspects of this situation: 

Alleged Crime --->  Police Response ---> Police Encounter --->

Shooting Incident ---> Public Response to Shooting / Protest --->

Police Response to Public Response / Riot --->

Post Incident Investigation (Local / State / Federal) --->

Public Response to Grand Jury --->

Discussion Considerations: 

• Role of Leaders 
• Family
• Community
• Local / State / Federal

• Role of Media 
• Reporting News or Making News
• Subjective Reporting versus Objective Reporting
• Impact of Social Media
• What Would You Do Differently?
• 
  

What Is Your Least Valued Character Trait...?

Each one of you shared your most prominent or valued positive character trait about yourself in the form of a short impromptu speech. Self analysis is a critical skill to develop as an adult in society. You are expected  to regulate your own personal and professional behavior and conduct to be successful in life. There are no guidance counselors or housemasters in the adult world, only bosses, co-workers, authority figures, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and family.

You may not have the benefit of having a "Julius" in your life to tell you like it is or what you need to hear. You may need to be your own Julius....

Class Assignment: 

1. I will form you into groups and you will discuss what negative character trait bothers you the most (about yourself or others) and discuss why. 

2. Have one person in the group take notes for the group, and when we gather together as a large group you will share your groups feedback. 

Lets Assess What You Know and Can Do?

Cadets you will be assessed today to determine your cadet knowledge and proficiency in leading squad drill. The assessment is two parts: a short quiz and a squad unit leader drill proficiency. The quiz consists of five questions about JROTC uniform and five questions about the first five general orders to the sentry. The drill evaluation is a basic squad drill card similar to the station training you recently did. A designated drill peer leader will evaluate your proficiency in leading a squad in drill. The assessment will be a combined score of the two assessment events. 

Good Luck, lets see what you know and can do?

Who Are The People Who Have Had An Impact on Your Life...?

Today's public speaking assignment is self-reflective to determine the impact others have had on your lives. The focus will vary slightly for first year cadets versus upperclassmen cadets with the below questions. 

NS-1: What person has had the biggest impact on your life?

NS-2,3,4: Who is the best leader you ever experienced and why? 

Take five minutes and write down some talking points reflecting  your answer to the appropriate above question.

Each student will be required to present their response to the class in the form of a short (1-2 min) impromptu speech. 

Uniform Accountability and Prep Day for Drill, Appearance, and Knowledge

Today is a modified uniform day due to a change in the school schedule yesterday. Today we will set up three working stations:

• Station 1: Squad Drill Evaluation Prep: Review each cadet being the squad unit leader for squad drill. 
• Station 2: General Orders To Sentry Review: Review individually and collectively the first five General Orders to the Sentry. 
• Station 3: Uniform Accessories Update: Cadets will notify the Supply Rep of the uniform items or accessories they are missing to include updating their ribbons. the Supply Rep will keep a detailed record and turn it into the SNSI. 

The Class Drill Peer Leaders from the previous day will be the station leaders. Cadets will be at each station for approximately 15 minutes. 

Drill with Drill Rifles

One of the suggestions for improving cadet involvement in our Navy JROTC program is to conduct more rifle drill in class. The above short 5 minute video is a Navy JROTC unit conducting a portion of an Armed Drill routine. We will be conducting platoon unarmed and armed drill as a class period this year based on the cadet suggestion. In the past we focused on the after school drill teams while conducting drill during class periods but not with as much emphasis, we will change our focus. What that means to your class period is each individual cadet needs to focus and put more effort into drill than perhaps they did in the past. Your class period's ability to conduct both unarmed and armed drill is a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound) NJROTC goal for each of you. Our goal will be to conduct the platoon drill card for the Bethel Drill Meet by the end of the first Marking Period. 

Class Activity: You will draw drill rifles and a class leader will be designated to go through the basics of individual armed drill. 

Basics: 
Fall In.
Position of Attention.
Dress Right Dress.
Right, Left, and About Face.
Parade Rest and Rest.
Port Arms.
Mark Time March.
Forward March
To The Rear March.

Overview of Manual of Arms: :

• Do's and Don'ts of carrying a Drill rifle
• Professionalism, Maturity, and Safety
• Order Arms
• Port Arms
• Right Shoulder / Left Shoulder Arms
• Present Arms

Individual Areas of Focus When Performing Armed Drill:
Rifle positioning: placement of the hands, distance of rifle from your body, elbow placement, etc.

FOCUS and MAKE an EFFORT TO IMPROVE. 

You Saw Coach Boone and the Titans Do It - How Can You Increase Cadet Involvement

We watched Remember The Titans from the perspective of observing two separate groups that were not committed to work together and were not involved with each others transformation. 

Link to Previous Activities: You were required to take notes as you observed the film on techniques or procedures the leaders and followers used to influence and shape the two group's transformation into one group. 

Organization: We will form into the same groups as yesterday and develop a group list to accomplish the following task:

Task: Provide a Group List of Specific Ideas on how to improve Cadet involvement in the NJROTC program. 

• Be specific: for example if a student suggests more challenging activities that is too vague. Provide some specific challenges you feel cadets would want to be involved in. 

Product turned in: Group Leaders will provide a group list of your suggestions to the NSI at the end of the class. 

Purpose for Activity: As we start the new school year, I want to harvest your ideas to incorporate into the program this year. 

Lets Talk About Commitment and Being Involved as a Cadet

This is a picture of Jackie Calzada who is now a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. She was a member of our NJROTC program and after graduating she committed to her country by joining the military. Other cadets who graduated committed to getting a college education, civil service, and foreign service. 

Let's talk about the words: involvement and commitment.

INVOLVEMENT:(VERB) to include as a necessary circumstance, condition, or consequence;imply; entail, to engage or employ. 

COMMITMENT: 
(NOUN) the act of pledging, engaging,obligation, and involvement. 

As you watch the film Remember The Titans, thinks about how the followers choose to commit to leave their group and get involved in the process of joining a new group. 

Think of how the leaders (coaches and team captains) get others to commit and get involved in forming a new team just like we are trying to improve our NJROTC team.   

Let's knock the Rust off and do some drill!!!!

We have had enough talk in class, so let's get out of our desks and conduct some drill. Drill is a great mechanism for accomplishing a number of things:

• Move people from one area to another in an orderly fashion
• Allow everyone to work on self discipline, attention to detail, and bearing.
• Demonstrate technical precision while responding to commands
• Reinforce followership and leadership (Does the leader give the proper commands at the right time and do the followers execute the proper movements at the proper time?)

You will pair off into teams or small groups and start to practice: 

• Position of Attention
• Facing Movements
• Mark Time March and Halt.
• Marching and To the Rear March.
• Column Movements and Flanking Movements
• Squad Drill
• Platoon Drill.

Let us see how this goes...?

ADMIRAL McCRAVEN's COMMENCEMENT SPEECH...What Could a SEAL Teach You?

"While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform," McRaven told students. "It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status."

1. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
2. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.
3. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.
4. If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
5. But if you want to change the world, don't be afraid of the circuses.
6. If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.
7. So, If you want to change the world, don't back down from the sharks.
8. If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment.
9. So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud.
10. If you want to change the world don't ever, ever ring the bell.

• Start each day with a task completed.
• Find someone to help you through life.
• Respect everyone.
• Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often, but if take you take some risks, step up when the times are toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never, ever give up—if you do these things, then next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today and—what started here will indeed have changed the world—for the better.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-mcraven-commencement-speech-at-ut-2014-5#ixzz32svUoeO7

NAVAL TASK FORCE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING PLANE

As we prepare to organize into 7th Fleet Naval Task Force Groupings, we are going to conduct some background education into the recovery efforts that follow an aircraft accident and investigation similar to Malaysian Flight 370. This crash investigation is too immature to be able to analyze what happened, so we will look at another crash with more information available.

In a recovery effort over the ocean there are generally a number of factors affecting the search:

• Flight Plan for the plane (Where the plane is supposed to fly)
• Radar Flight Path (Where the plane actually flew) to determine when you lost contact with the missing plane. This also helps determine where to start your search. 
• Once the search is initiated they generally use three methods to find the plane:
• Visual Sighting (air crews and sea crews looking for survivors or wreckage)
• Surface Radar: from surface craft and aviation assets to find the survivors or wreckage on the surface of the water..
• Sonar is used to find the plane or (find flight data recorder)

There was a previous crash Air France 447 that departed from Brazil to France when it crashed. The only way transportation authorities can determine what might have happened to cause the crash is if they recover the remnants of the plane and the flight data recorder which has considerable detailed information. Your mission will be to recover the flight data recorder, but it is important to see how that recovery effort fits into the bigger question,We will watch a video which will give us some background:

This crash and the recovery effort will give your teams some perspective on your upcoming task.           

Recovery Efforts Cost Money   

Five Things That Mentally Tough People Do Not Do...

5 Things Mentally Tough People Do Not Do

Click on the Link Above

Homework Activity Over The Weekend, due for 
Monday, Feb 3:

1. Open the above Link, Read the Short E-article, and Analyze the concepts. 
2. Then, at home over the weekend, discuss these five traits with an adult relative (your parents, guardian, aunt, etc.). 
3. Enter your relatives feedback as a blog entry. Just list your Class period and your first name only, and who the relative is (Dad, Mom, Grandmother, Aunt, etc.). Do NOT WRITE YOUR RELATIVES name. 
4. Prior to class on Monday, read some of the feedback from others and comment.  

In Class Activity for Monday: 

1. The class will be broken up into small groups and discuss this for 15minutes and list them in order of important (# them 1 through 5)  and make sure all of you take notes. 
3. We will discuss group comments and rankings of these "traits" as a class. 

Remember, your Success Is Always Connected to What Your Attitude Is.

Cadet Leader You Have A Dilemma

SITUATION: You are a student cadet at BMHS and have four cadets assigned to you as their leader.

WHAT NOW STUDENT LEADER??? One of the cadets you are responsible for comes to see you first thing in the morning and is very upset and needs to talk to you. This cadet says he has been accused of leaving campus the day prior and participating in unauthorized activities while off campus during the school day. He says he is innocent. He said he needs your help very badly.  

GROUP ACTIVITY: Form into your assigned small groups and develop a plan of action of how you would determine if that cadet was innocent or guilty of what he is being accused of. 

• Once the group members are designated, how should you organize your groups internally. 
• What are the key questions you need to find the answers to?
• What are the key tasks you need to accomplish to determine his guilt or innocence? 
• What are the sources you will use to determine his guilt or innocence? 

Take 20 minutes to accomplish this activity? Will conduct a class wide small group discussion facilitated by the teacher

How is the POTUS Doing?

How is President Barack Obama doing as our President? 

1. Form into 5 person small groups.

2. Determine in your groups opinion how POTUS is doing both domestically and in foreign affairs?

3. Use all of the resources you have available.

Financial Fallout for an Institutional Lack of Moral Courage

Update from an earlier story we discussed in class last year: 

As a result of former Penn State Football coach Jerry Sandusky's     (age 69) sexual abuse and assault of a number of innocent children over the past few decades; Penn State has paid $59.7 million dollars to 26 young men who were abused. Sandusky is serving a 30 to 60 year state prison sentence due to his conviction of 45 criminal counts of child abuse. 

There was an earlier report to Penn State authorities from a janitor who witnessed the sexual abuse of a young boy in a Penn State shower room by Jerry Sandusky. It was "looked into" by the Penn State authorities but no legal action was taken with law enforcement. Years later an assistant coach, Jim McCready witnessed a similar act and reported it to authorities and law enforcement was involved. 

Final Comment: There is no amount of money that can buy back an institution's integrity when it was lost due a lack of moral courage from the institution's leaders....