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)