Names Family Foundation Grant

“Providing a Better Environment for Health and Physical Education for University Laboratory High School Students through the Construction of a Gymnasium”

Executive Summary

University Laboratory High School is a selective admission, public, laboratory school that is located in and closely associated with the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Uni (short for University Laboratory High School) was established in 1921 and since then has been serving academically talented students in the state of Illinois. Uni’s mission is “to spark the creative fervor and high aspirations of talented young people; to ignite their intellectual growth; to develop their critical thinking skills; to challenge them through traditional and experimental strategies; to instill in them a sense of citizenship; and to positively influence the larger educational community.”

Uni, despite its yearly enrollment of 300 students, has many accomplished and successful alumni, including three Nobel laureates and a Pulitzer Prize Winner. Uni continues to nurture students to their full potential and provides an environment where students can grow and succeed, as evidenced by the consistent success in various math and science competitions as well as standardized tests. Uni has also been recognized several times as a “public elite” school by Newsweek. Along with its talented students, Uni has excellent faculty and staff. All of Uni’s teachers are very experienced and well qualified in their respective fields. Uni teachers are very dedicated to Uni, with most serving at the school for numerous years and some even serving for decades.

Uni is a publicly funded school, and although it receives support from general state aid, it does not receive support from local property taxes. Uni was originally funded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s College of Education, but the College of Education stopped financially supporting Uni in the 1980s. Today, Uni is funded mostly by the Illinois State Board of Education, and additional funding comes from the University of Illinois and other private donations.

Problem Statement

This proposal has been written as a request for funding to build a new gymnasium for University Laboratory High School. University Laboratory High School has noticed several factors that point to the need for the construction of a new gymnasium:

1.     1. Uni students currently share the University’s old men’s gymnasium with gymnasts, which often leads to various distractions, hindrances, and inconveniences for students during their PE class.

2.     2. Kenney Gym (the gym currently being used by Uni students) is a block away from Uni, which 1) makes it inconvenient for the PE staff to commute back and forth to run errands and perform their jobs efficiently and 2) causes students to lose PE class time due to allotted time given to arrive at the gym.

3.    3.  Many of the locker rooms in Kenney Gym that Uni students use are extremely unsanitary and harmful to health, evidenced by regular sightings of cockroaches and the lack of janitors to clean and fix necessities.

Currently, nothing is being done about the problems listed above. Students have learned to adapt to the inconvenient circumstances in the past, but as the gym ages, these problems are worsening to the point that they cannot be ignored. Uni has been unable to build a new gym because we do not have sufficient funding for such a huge project. This is why we are requesting a total of 1.2 million dollars of funding for this project. This money will be used to demolish the old gym located next to Uni and to build a new gym on that land. A new gym would solve all of the problems listed above as well as provide a healthy learning environment for Uni students that will help to continue Uni’s tradition of excellence. A new gym would be of great help to students who are being nurtured into adults who can positively influence the larger educational community. 

The Fault in Our PE Curriculum

At Uni, all students have sports units in PE throughout the school year up until they become juniors. Every year we go through the same cycle of sports units which include frisbee, floor hockey, badminton, pickleball (?), and kickball. This has become normal and accepted at Uni after years and years of doing the same thing. However, I believe that we should reconsider whether these sports units are truly the most useful and educational for students.

            PE stands for physical education, and just as the PE teachers always tell us, PE is a class just like any other class we take at Uni. This means that we should do our best in PE just like we give our best in other classes, but it also means that we should expect to learn useful things just like we expect from other classes. I believe that PE sports classes should educate students on sports that will actually be relevant later on in life. PE should prepare students so that they are able to engage in the culture of sports by themselves even after high school. With the current curriculum, I believe that Uni students are not getting the proper education or exposure to sports that are a huge part of culture in America and even around the world. Some of these sports that Uni students are missing out on include baseball, football, basketball, and soccer. These four sports are the four most popular sports in the US, and yet we are not being taught about any of these sports in PE. Instead, we are learning about and participating in sports such as badminton, frisbee, and pickleball.

            Although badminton and frisbee are well known and fairly popular, there is no way that these sports should take priority over the other four major sports that I listed above. No one can argue against the fact that baseball, football, basketball, and soccer are all a much bigger part of American sports culture than badminton or frisbee. If this is true, and if it also true that the point of PE is to teach students about relevant sports, then why is it that most of our curriculum involves sports that we most likely won’t get involved in again instead of ones that will actually stick with us for the rest of our lives through culture? The worst part is that badminton and frisbee are some of the more relevant sports that we have. Pickleball is a sport that I and many others never knew even existed, and I can almost guarantee that I will never encounter this sport again after I leave Uni.

            Teaching baseball, football, basketball, and soccer is an ideal PE curriculum, but the truth is that having this type of curriculum is impossible at a school like Uni. The main problem is that we do not have enough money to buy all the gear, equipment, and fields. However, I do believe that we can still make a much better curriculum using what we have. We can definitely have a basketball unit, since we have all the equipment we would need. We have a large gym with 8 basketball hoops, and we have numerous basketballs that are unfortunately only used by the basketball teams. We can also definitely have a soccer unit, as we have soccer balls and would just need to set up goals within the gym to play. Floor hockey is a sport that is definitely much more relevant in society than the other sports, so I think that we should keep this unit. Since we don’t have the money or land to have a baseball unit, I believe that we should keep kickball as a replacement for baseball since both sports have many similar rules and concepts. Pickleball should be removed from the curriculum completely because most people don’t even know this kind of sports exists, it teaches students nothing significant or relevant, and on top of all of that the sport itself is not enjoyable for most students. Football shouldn’t be hard in terms of cost, but it is a sport that I cannot see the majority of Uni students participating in. I would be willing to compromise football for frisbee since we can’t have all of the most ideal sports units. Badminton could either be kept or removed, depending on what students would want. Overall, I think that a PE curriculum with sports units frisbee, basketball, kickball, soccer, floor hockey, and perhaps badminton would be a much more ideal and educational curriculum. 

There's Gotta Be More

Can money buy you happiness?

            The question “can money buy you happiness?” is often asked and has even become a sort of cliché question. I’ve heard a lot of different answers to this question, but the most common answer seems to be “no”. Many people claim that money cannot buy you happiness, but their argument seems forced and their lifestyles don’t reflect what they say they believe. I think that many people say this simply because they don’t want to admit that they are living for something as shallow as bills made out of paper. I also firmly believe that money itself cannot buy you happiness and true contentment in life, but I am not just saying this to make myself feel better or to make my life seem more purposeful. Rather, I am arguing this point because I honestly believe this to be the truth, both from my experience and from the experiences of others.

            People argue that money does buy you happiness, because they themselves have bought things that brought them satisfaction. I have no argument against this, because there have definitely been moments in my life when I used money to get something that made me happy. Whether that was getting a new video game as a kid, or buying a new laptop as a teenager, there have been numerous times when I gained happiness and contentment through money. So when I state that money cannot buy you happiness, I am not referring to the short, temporary satisfaction that one experiences when buying what you want. Instead, I am talking about a happiness and contentment that actually lasts and satisfies our desires. Money can definitely buy you happiness for short periods of time, but oftentimes what happens is that the happiness wears out within a couple of weeks or months. This is why we are constantly buying new things even though we don’t need it. People are always looking for the next big thing, because the last big thing faded away and no longer brings the same happiness as it once did. We as humans naturally try to satisfy our desires, and the reason why we keep buying more things is because we have yet to have bought something with money that brought us lasting satisfaction. This all goes to show that we have not found true happiness through money, or else we would not have the desire to constantly purchase new things.

            I have found that money does not bring me lasting happiness through my own experiences, and I am not the only one. Even some of the wealthiest people in the world, people who seem to have everything and anything we could ever want, still seem to be lacking contentment. This truth has been admitted by superstar quarterback of the New England Patriots Tom Brady. Tom Brady is currently earning about 14 million dollars per year, and he has won four Super Bowls throughout his career. He seems to have everything you could ever possibly want: tons of money, worldwide fame, championships, women, etc. However, when he was interviewed about his whole experience, he answered with a response that many people didn’t expect. Brady wondered why it is that he has gained and accomplished all these things, yet feels like there is something greater out there for him. He reached his goal, his dream, and everything he ever wanted in his life, and still he thought that there’s gotta be more than this. If money or any other material wealth can truly buy you happiness and satisfaction, why is it that someone as rich and accomplished as Tom Brady still finds himself searching for something more?

            Just as Tom Brady said, there’s gotta be more than this. There’s gotta be something more than money and wealth to live for in this life. There’s gotta be something greater. This is what I believe. So then what can bring us lasting happiness? I guess it’s up for you, me, Tom Brady, and everyone else to find out for ourselves. 

Pinocchio

How comfortable are you with lying?

I’m kind of like Pinocchio. Not because my nose grows when I lie, but rather because the truth will always come out of me. When you ask Pinocchio a question, either you find out the truth by him admitting it, or you find out the truth by watching his nose grow as he lies. Similarly, if you ask me a question, either you will get the truth directly from me, or you will be able to infer the truth by the vague, evasive answers that I give. This is because I hate lying, and I try to avoid it by all means necessary.

Lying is something that I personally always detested and avoided. Consequently, I am not comfortable with lying to others. Growing up, I was always taught by my parents, teachers, and family members that lying was bad. I never questioned this or tried to rebel against this rule that was set before me. Instead I accepted it and made it my own. I wanted to be an honest person that always told the truth, and so I tried my best to never lie, even when it was “disadvantageous” for me. Of course my parents knew this and so whenever they wanted to find out the truth, they would come and ask me.

Oftentimes, I ended up ratting myself out because of my tongue’s inability to lie. For example, when I was 5 or 6 years old, I somehow tricked my sister into locking herself into the bathroom. I remember we were both in the bathroom, and I told her that as soon as I left the bathroom and closed the door, she should turn the lock to the right. My sister was really young back then, and so I’m pretty sure she didn’t really understand what locks were. I am still struggling to understand what I was trying to achieve through this pointless experiment. Anyway, my sister did what I told her to, and she locked herself in the bathroom. After a few moments of celebrating my successful experiment, I told her to come out now. Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out how to open the door and she started screaming and crying. My parents immediately came running down, and unlocked the door with a key. They asked me what happened, and I was given a perfect opportunity to lie. My sister probably didn’t understand what happened, and she most likely couldn’t explain the situation.  I could have easily said I don’t know or have made up another innocent story. But lying was not an option for me, so I told them the whole truth, including specific details. Nevertheless, I was punished for my obnoxious behavior. But the interesting thing is that, looking back on this, I never regretted the fact that I had told the truth. I remember times when I regretted locking my sister in the bathroom, or times when I was bitter because I had received punishment for what had started out as an entertaining experiment, but never once do I remember wishing that I had lied instead of telling the truth. I rarely ever regret telling the truth, regardless of whether or not lying might have produced a better outcome for me.

Although I hate lying, there have still been plenty of times when I have lied. Usually when I do lie, it ends up being times when I’m asked embarrassing or vulnerable questions that I don’t want to answer. Lying is still the last option I turn to, so when asked an uncomfortable question, I usually first try to answer with evasive, not-quite-lying responses. If I am continuously pushed to answer, then eventually I might lie just in order to avoid any awkward conversations. But even when I make up small lies to get out of unwanted situations, I still feel immense guilt afterwards. I find that I try to justify my lies and convince myself that I had no other choice. Despite my efforts to comfort myself, inside I always know that for myself, lying is never the right choice.  

My Journey Out of the Zone

How often do you leave your comfort zone?

Comfort is something that I value greatly, and because of this, I rarely leave my comfort zone. I usually don’t like facing awkward or possibly uncomfortable new situations, especially because I don’t have the most outgoing or active personality. I tend to keep to myself and stick with people or places that I know well. But out of the few times that I have left my comfort zone, there have definitely been times where I expanded greatly as a person. These positive experiences have caused me to change from someone who never left his comfort zone to someone who sometimes leaves his comfort zone. One example of a positive experience I had when I left my comfort zone was when I came to Uni and joined the subbie basketball team.

Before I came to Uni, I was always a shy and reserved kid who wanted to stay inside his comfort zone. So when my parents told me to join the subbie basketball team, I was immediately against it. I didn’t want to join the basketball team because I had never really enjoyed sports. But my parents insisted that I try basketball, so eventually I gave in to their wishes.

At first I felt awkward and uncomfortable playing a sport I had never played before with other subbies that I didn’t know. Because I had avoided leaving my comfort zone my entire life, it took a while for me to open up to this activity. But I kept an open mind anyway because of the agreement I had made with my parents. Through numerous practices, I started learning how to play and also grew closer to my teammates. As the season progressed and we started playing in games, our team became like a brotherhood and I also started to enjoy the game itself. Before I knew it, I was completely drawn into basketball. I looked forward to every practice and game, and I no longer felt awkward or uncomfortable with regards to the basketball team. I went through various experiences ranging from hilarious to disappointing and constantly talked about them with my teammates. By the end of the season, I had not only gained a lot of close friends from the basketball team, but I also loved the game of basketball. Today, basketball is by far my favorite sport, and it is one of the few activities that I do simply for the pleasure of it. I constantly watch basketball (the Chicago Bulls are and will always be my favorite NBA team, if you didn’t know), and even though I am no longer on the basketball team at Uni, I take every opportunity I can to play by myself or with my friends. I cannot imagine a life without basketball.

The only reason why I am the basketball fanatic that I am today is because I stepped outside of my comfort zone in 8^th grade and joined the subbie basketball team. I learned from this experience that although leaving your comfort zone can be awkward at times, the reward is much greater than the risk. A whole new world can expand before you when you take the chance and leave your comfort zone. Yet even while knowing this, I still struggle with leaving my comfort zone today. I’m not exactly sure why this is so. Maybe it’s because of my reserved personality. Maybe it’s because I only see the risk when I’m faced with these opportunities. Maybe it’s because of a variety of reasons. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Whatever the case, leaving my comfort zone is still something I am trying to become better at. But I believe that as I break out of my comfort zone once in a while and gain more positive experiences through these choices, I will open up as a person and be more willing to leave my comfort zone in the future. After all, I have already grown a lot in this area of my life since subbie year. 

Eldest: The blessings and burdens

Prompt: What’s your role in your family?

            In my family, I am the first of three children. I have a younger sister, who is two and a half years younger than me, and a younger brother, who is nine years younger than me. Being the firstborn, I received the most attention from my parents and family members growing up. Not only was I the firstborn, but I was also the first boy born on my mother’s side of the family. Due to this, everyone took a special interest in me and so I grew up with much more attention than my siblings. However, just as the saying goes, with great power (or in my case, privilege) comes great responsibility. I have found this to be true in my own family life.

            As the first born, I always got the best of everything. Whether it was attention or clothes or opportunities, everything was given to me by my parents. Even after my younger sister was born, I was the one who received more attention. My parents were so busy trying to open up all opportunities to me that I think my sister missed out on some of her own opportunities. Whether it was playing the piano, trying out baseball and soccer, swimming, ice skating, horse riding, or learning taekwondo, I was always given the opportunity by my parents to try out anything and everything. I always knew that my parents had sacrificed a lot for me to become the person that I am, but now I also realize that my siblings had to sacrifice a lot for my sake too, whether they wanted to or not. This isn’t my fault, nor is it my parents’ fault, as naturally the more children there are, the less attention each gets. And in many cases my sister also got to try out all these different things with me. However, I still take it upon myself to try and give to my siblings what I have received from my parents.

            Throughout my life, my parents have always given me their best. As the older brother, I have a responsibility to give my best to my siblings just as my parents did for me. My parents definitely provided a lot for my siblings as well, however my job is to fill in what my parents can’t do anymore. This is especially true for my younger brother, as he has a huge age gap between my sister and me. My parents are older now, and they can’t do all the things that they used to be able to do. So I took on some “parental” duties in my brother’s life. When he was growing up, I was my brother’s main playmate. I was the one who told him stories, played games with him, and entertained him. He would seek after me whenever he was bored, and we gained a really close relationship through this. When I was younger my parents always had time to play with me, but now that they are older I took on the responsibility to both take care of and play with my brother.

            As the oldest, I have received the most, but I also have the responsibility to give the most. I have learned through this process of giving that sacrifice is very hard. I understand more of what my parents’ must have felt like every day as I sacrifice my time to guide my siblings in their lives and provide for them what they need. Although being the oldest is sometimes hard and frustrating as you don’t have an older sibling to seek advice, and you always have to set a good example for your siblings, I enjoy and cherish both the privileges and the responsibilities that come with being the oldest. 

The Good Old Days

Prompt: Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?

The idiom “back in the good old days” refers to an earlier time period which everyone remembers as a better time. I believe that we all have our own personal “good old days”, or a time period that we remember as being the best time in our lives. We often want to go back to these times in our lives because we remember it as being better than our current lives. For myself, the time period that I wish I could return to is my middle school years.

One reason why I wish I could return to this time period is because I had many valuable relationships during this time. I joined a youth group in 6^th grade where I met many older high school students. These older students welcomed me and took care of me, and they had a great impact on me as a person. Youth group became like a second family to me, and I formed many long-lasting friendships there. I also met a new friend in 6^th grade who would eventually become my best friend. We both went through this new phase of our lives together, and as we supported each other we became like brothers. Even in school, I found that many of my friends who had gone to different elementary schools were attending the same middle school as me. The reason why all of these relationships were so special to me is because I shared many unforgettable experiences with them. Overall, this was a time period in my life when I had many valuable people in my life.  

Another reason why I wish I could go back to this point in my life is because I regret that I didn’t realize how blessed I was to have all those great relationships and moments while I was going through them. I wish that I could go back and make the most of every opportunity and savor every moment. I think many times in life we don’t realize how great a certain phase of our life was until we’ve moved on from it. At the same time, the past can seem better than what it was because we can forget about the hardships and struggles that we went through during those times. For example, even though I remember my middle school years as a perfect time in my life, I also vaguely remember many struggles I had during that time as well. I remember having problems with different kids at my school, and wanting to leave my middle school as soon as I could. I remember the pressure I put on myself for performing well even in middle school. However I often forget about these things and only remember the good parts about my middle school years.

Another reason why I wish I could return to this time of my life is because I want to relive my life from this point on. I made many mistakes, and I hold many regrets even today. I wish that I would have stopped worrying so much about the future and just enjoyed those days. Thinking back, there was really nothing for me to worry about, and everything was so much easier back then. However I also realize that even though everything may have seemed simpler in the past, that is not necessarily true. It is not necessarily true because I have grown and matured much more since then, and now that I can handle tougher situations, everything that I faced in my past seems like a joke.

I never realized how special my middle school years were until I moved on from them. But by the same token, it is possible that I might realize how special my high school years were only after I have gone through them. Therefore my conclusion is that even though I wish I could return to my middle school years, I would rather spend my time savoring my life right now. Who knows, maybe right now is actually the best time of my life.

Feedback Requests:

My word limit is a little over the 650 limit, and I would like to know how I can make this essay more concise. Also, what can I do in order to make this essay more interesting and engaging for the audience? Is the tone too formal?