My annotations I feel like are improving. I was able to use my annotations to summarize, ask questions, and define a few words here and there.

 

The essay “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” by Yo-Yo Ma was originally published on the World Post and was launched in January of 2014 in Davos, Switzerland. I noticed in Ma’s bio that he began performing at 5 years old, won more than 17 grammy awards, and produced more than 90 albums. He graduated from Harvard University and has won numerous awards throughout his career. Based on his bio, I can tell he’s a successful musician and could probably give in depth advice on how art and music has changed his life.

My personal reading experience on this essay was fine. I don’t care for the department of arts by any means in fact, I never supported a mandatory taking of an art and music class during junior high and high school years, however I felt as though Ma brought up a good point toward the end of his paper when he discussed the idea of being more cultured. My purpose of reading this text was to get a different perspective of learning beside the basic STEM program and after the read, I slightly support his ideas of STEAM more than I would have before reading this.

Ma basically begins the essay giving some background on why he feels as though our country is so “uneducated” and how we shouldn’t just focus on “innovation”, rather place ourselves in someone else’s shoes and see their perspective and try to understand that. He discusses how art can teach people “values of collaboration, flexibility, imagination, and innovation” which is tied back to his point of changing the STEM program to STEAM in incorporate the ideas of art into everyone’s life. People who have a well balanced education in their own major plus the adapted cultures of others will have reached a point of equilibrium which is a major concept he repeatedly uses in his essay. At the end he provides examples of countries that have “shared their knowledge but are also curious and eager to learn other forms of expression” which builds off his point of equilibrium. There are many more ways of life to people than we see on the outside which is why we need to put ourselves in their shoes in order to get an entirely new culture and perspective on life.

 

Posited: Assuming as a fact or putting forward as the basis of an argument (Dictionary).

Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of others (Dictionary).

Invigorate: Giving a certain type of strength or energy to someone or something (Dictionary).