A long time since I last posted - American Education

I just recently had a current affairs interview. It went quite...ok. So-so (It's to be graded.)
Anyway i decided to study more about the topic that me and register no. 1 (because I am register no. 2), which happens to be David, talked about.

Our topic: Why American Teachers are failing our students.

Many people think that American students are failing their studies because of they and their parents are not putting in enough effort. Although this should, in my opinion, be attributed to the teachers who teach them. In the US., there is a Teacher's Union. Although this Union serves a certain purpose, there is a problem. In fact, there are many problems.
Firstly the teachers get too much freedom and protection from the Union (they claim to be serving the society). When they do something wrong, or that when they are a bad influence to the students (for example, the teacher keeps pornography materials/drugs (cocaine, etc) in the classroom). Secondly the to fire teachers in the US require more money to fire the teachers than hire them. They chase away the potentially good teachers, and keep those lousy teachers. They also pay the teachers based on their seniority. This goes against meritocracy and democracy.
The Union also deploys the teachers in a way that senior teachers (potentially lousy) to teach the low-income/students who live in poverty or minority race students. Although not all senior teachers are bad, they are, on average, not as good as the younger teachers.

If you have any points to make on this topic, feel free to comment! ~HM~

Advertisement (AAP) - Click on the link to view the ad!

Click here to view the ad!

Although this advertisement is not a real photograph, please imagine it to be (=D). The first picture is somewhat like a low-angle shot + a long shot. The long shot is to show the short alley of trash, garbage, to show how people (domestic animal owners, actually) look down on the domestic animals and how they neglect them and leave them on the streets, the dark alleys, homeless and lonely.
In my opinion, this is not what they deserve. Although they are not humans, they are still an essence of life, of a soul.
A white patch in the picture on the right shows the hole in the house when there are no domestic pets in the house. It's a special way and effect used to show the problems with not having a domestic pet around.

After all, a dog is man's best friend. They deserve our respect and care.

E-Learning

This is the e-learning task assigned to me:

I am -
Inter-personal

Language Arts Task:

Write a 250- word response to the hypothetical question from Miss Kinnian: “I feel sad when I see Charlie lock himself up in his room and refuse to let anyone in. I want to help him, but he does not want to see me and I don’t know what else to do. What can I do to help Charlie?”

Response:

It has been very hard on Charlie, everybody who understands and cares for him knows that. I know that you care for him too. Although Charlie is a mentally-retarded person, he understands the feeling about being beaten by a mouse, although he does not understand that Algernon had been mentally engineered. Charlie had wanted to be smart, just for the purpose of understanding his ‘friends’, and making more friends.

You should explain to Charlie, with patience, that to become smart takes time. You can tell him about the benefits of being smart (like when he becomes smarter Algernon would be no match for him, etc, etc.), and only when he waits patiently and let people help him will he become smarter, and achieve his original goal. Tell him that the operation had succeeded, and if he closes the door to everybody who tries to help him he will never become smarter.

I am not trying to take advantage of Charlie’s mental ability (but actually he should be smarter by now), but that is just the plain truth. Charlie will probably listen to you, as he trusts you as a teacher and as a friend. In fact, you should be the person that he trusts most and listens to most. So when you tell him something, he cannot help but consider your words. Improvising on the things to tell him (like including more examples on the benefits of being smart?) would help in your helping him. It can also mend the relationship between the two of you.


-Caspar Zhou Yuan (1i4, 02)

I have read, learned, and now I will summarize

I have read some references about philosophy (hmmm, I'm getting a bit hooked up on this!), and here I will summarize what I have learned. The first chapter of a book by Tomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein introduced the theme of the book, which is, of course, philosophy.
I learned that in philosophy, questions beget questions, and the questions beget even more questions. And these questions beget yet a whole generation of questions. Well, I realized that's the whole idea of philosophy, finding answers naturally, rather than just a cooked up story (supernatural, in other words).
According to Aristotle, everything as a telos, which is an inner goal it was meant to obtain. An acorn has a telos: An oak tree. Birds have one, bees have one. Actually when I first read about this small subject it sounded a little abstract to me. But when I read a joke about this, it became clearer:
Mrs. Goldenstein was walking down the street with her two grandchildren. A friend stopped her to ask her how old they were. She said, "The doctor is five and the lawyer is seven."
What does this mean? I mean, the hidden meaning behind it? I was thinking about this joke when I read it on my ipod. Then I thought about the telos. What do you think?
Does human life have a telos? I was thinking about this. Well anyway Aristotle thought so. He thought the telos of human life is happiness, but this was much disputed by other philosophers throughout human history. St. Augustine thought the telos of life is to love god. Martin Heidegger (a tentalist, actually) thought the true telos of human life is to live without the denial of the true human conditions, especially Death. Well this is a rather challenging starting topic huh? What haveYOUgot to say to this?

- The HM

Chapter 3: The Myths

Sophie received the next big brown envelope which contained her next 'lesson' on philosophy. It was about the Ancient Greek myths.
"By philosophy we mean the completely mew way of thinking that evolved in Greece about 6 hundred years before the birth of Christ. Until that time people had found answers to all their questions in various religions. These religious explanations were handed down from generation to generation in the form of myths. A myth is a story about the gods which set out to explain why life is as it is." (mysterious writer, page 21-22)
Now there's another job for the philosophers. They sought to prove that these explanations were not to be trusted. That's why (partially only, actually) they had these questions to answer (by the questions I mean the ones that were stated earlier in the previous posts). Then the letter goes on to talk about one of the myths in Ancient Greek: Thor and his hammer (but these were not Greek myths).
Myths also existed when the first philosophers were evolving in Greece. The story of the Greek gods had been handed down from generation to generation for centuries. The gods were Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Athene, Dionysos and Asclepios, and many other gods. I am sure you have heard of them. It became only possible to discuss them when Homer and Hesiod wrote most of them down at around 700 B.C. The earliest Greek philosophers criticized Homer's mythology, because the gods resembled mortals too much and were just as egoistic and treacherous. For the first time, in history, it was said that the myths were nothing but human notions. It was probably also because of this that now myths are only stories to entertain somebody with (there are many interesting stories and adventures).
"men have created the gods in their own image." (Xenophane, 570 B.C.)
In conclusion, the Greek philosophers wanted to find natural, rather than supernatural, explanations for natural processes.

- The HM

P.S. What have you got to say to this? It's the newest topic of discussion =D

Chapter 2: The Top Hat

In this chapter, Sophie received a big brown envelope from the same anonymous writer. It was actually a free 'Course of Philosophy'. The first type-written letter was about the questions in life that philosophers seek the answer to. For example, one of the questions mentioned in the letter was "How was the world created?". But that will come later. At the start of the letter, the anonymous philosopher was talking about what people, or philosophers rather, do when their basic needs are satisfied. He/She gave a few examples: When somebody is dying of starvation, the most important thing to him is food. When somebody is dying of cold, the most important thing then would be warmth. If somebody feels lonely and isolated, the company of others would be a significant importance to him.
But when these basic needs are satisfied, what do people do then? Philosophers think that there is still something that we all need. Men cannot live by bread alone. Men need love and care, of course. But besides that, philosophers think there is still something else that we need to know: How we got here and why we are here. The mysterious writer suggested that the best waay to approach philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions, for e.g., How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death?
But basically there are not many philosophical questions to ask. Some of the most important ones were already mentioned above. History provides us with various and different answers to the questions, so it is much easier to ask than to answer the philosophical questions.
In conclusion, a philosopher is always searching for the truth.
Do you have any viewpoints on this matter? please leave a comment, and discuss in on the forum, thank you!

- The HM

2nd Topic I encountered in 'Sophie's World'

Sophie received a letter by some unknown person. That triggered her mental discussion about 'Life and Death'. Now she had received a second letter, probably from the same person, and it wrote: 'Where does the world come from?'. That triggered another mental discussion about the existence of the Earth, the galaxy, the universe. It ultimately led her to think about the existence of God:
"But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn't that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed?"
And:
"But then she started to think again. She could accept that God had created space, but what about God himself? Had he created himself out of nothing? Again there was something deep down inside her that protested. Even though God could create all kinds of things, he could hardly create himself before he had a "self" to create with. So there was only one possibility left: God has always existed. But she had already rejected that possibility! Everything that existed had to have a beginning."

Isn't this topic interesting? Have your say in the forum. Discuss about it.
-The HM

P.S. Before you discuss in the forum, you MUST, MUST comment first!

The Starting paragraphs of 'Sophie's World'

I managed to find 'Sophie's World' (the book that was recommended by Mr. Teo. The book was by Joestin Gaardner). As Mr. Teo has said, it was indeed a challenging read. More so because the book is a novel that was wrapped around philosophy. It makes it harder for us to understand. There are parts in the book (the parts which I read, of course) which require really in-depth thinking to uncover the profound and intriguing meaning to it. For example, what does this paragraph mean to you? :
"As Sophie started to think about being alive, she began to realize that she would not be alive forever. I am in the world now, she thought, but one day I shall be gone.
Was there a life after death? This was another question the cat was blissfully unaware of.
It was not long since Sophie's grandmother had died. For more than six months Sophie had missed her every single day. How unfair that life had to end!"
And, :
"As soon as she concentrated on being alive now, the thought of dying also came into her mind. The same thing happened the other way around: only by conjuring up an intense feeling of one day being dead could she appreciate how terribly good it was to be alive. It was like two sides of a coin that she kept turning over and over. And the bigger and clearer one side of the coin became, the bigger and clearer the other side became too."
These extracts talks about life and death (not literally, or course!). It is a topic that most of us try to avoid discussing about. In these few paragraphs it is talked about clearly. Sometimes people can only appreciate being alive when they are about to die. Quite interesting, isn't it? I will post more about Sophie's World as I read, so keep looking for these posts!

P.S. Remember to comment on it too!
P.P.S. I have added a forum so after commenting on the post you guys can discuss in the forum! =D