The story Annie talks about is seemingly about the process of from producing stuff to final disposal, but I recognized that what she actually wants is the real change of behavior of government as well as the common people toward stuff things. The system of stuff consists of five stages, which start from extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and finish at a stage of disposal. However, the thing is that this linear system is now in obvious crisis and there have been lots of problems during the system working.
Firstly, I would like to talk about people. The words such as ‘of/by/for the people’ captivated me several times during listening to her. This is right. Government’s one of main roles is to take care of us protecting us from harmful, dangerous, and detrimental things. Have they been doing well like this? In fact, some governments don’t have the power to control so-called big corporations. As a result, for example, we are truly exposed to lots of advertisements encouraging us to purchase any stuff continually.
We also should think about our environment. Usually, when people buy things, they are not likely to consider what the earth will look like in some years. However, it is the time to be aware that the entire world is now in crisis and to take realistic measures globally. According to her, 2,000 trees are being cut a minute and 100,000 synthetic chemicals have been emitted a day in U.S. I was really surprised to hear that human breast milk is getting more contaminated due to super-toxic substances. In the case of U.S, 4.5 LBS of garbage is disposed and actually we have no choice but to burn or recycle them. Considering that when burnt, toxic substances are also definitely given out, getting in an international trouble will be a matter of time. No, it already is now.
Finally, it was quite surprising that the degree of national happiness has been declining since 1950s, even though the stuffs people everyday buy are getting various and updated. It tells us that no matter how hard people work and no matter how good things they shop, they actually cannot gain the real feeling of happiness, which can be achieved from their family, friends, and enough leisure time. All of theseă…ˇnew technologies, updating fashion clothes, and overflowing advertisementsă…ˇare supposed to be for meeting people’s needs. However, the situations now might be upside down. That is, people are struggling barely keeping up with those stuffs.
It is truly important that government as well as the mass needs to aware of what to be done first. Instead of consuming energy continually, replaceable and renewable energy should be considered first. People’s health care or sustainability should be ultimate purpose, not consuming goods. In order to achieve these, all of us at any time at any place should make efforts because this problem is true of all over the world, not only U.S’s.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Proposals to Solve Provlems
In Korea, there is a scene of a teacher lecturing in a classroom with lots of students dozing off. More and more big and small private institutions are appearing steadily. At first, they were considered to be for schoolwork’s make up for those who fall behind but are now changing into stronger and more necessary they think than public schools are. According to a survey, the gap of entering a university between the students and the ones who try a year more has been increasing. It tells us that people depend more on private institutions rather than a real school which used to be original. How can our school system retrieve its own traditions and authorities?
Above all, the overall renovation of the education system is now required. In Korea, almost every student struggles to admit to so-called ‘the top ranking’ universities. This fact is getting severe because the result affects which job to be given and ultimately the money they can earn. While admitting to the university is very tough, graduating from it is rather easy. This leads to the higher competition among the high school students, so they think private institutions can meet the expectations of them. The collapse of public education of Korea can be solved by changing these overall atmospheres of society as well as education.
Another specific proposal for solving the problem can start by trying some change of a classroom. It is said that the number of students in a classroom of Korea is the most of all OECD countries. Even though it has been lessened to 35 to 40 people, it is still too much to deal with all of them for one teacher. A teacher is not able to care each of them and it ends up for students putting more emphasize on their private teacher who can teach in more detail asking and answering questions. With more classrooms and less students in a room, the public schools would have more possibilities to go back to original.
Accepting more professional teachers can be one of the solutions. Many students and their parents are complaining about some teacher’s lack of expertise. Some teachers stick to their teaching methods or materials for 30 years without speculating about big and small changes. Teachers who cannot answer students’ questions are not that hard to find. Scouting foreign teachers to foreign language subjects or higher standard process of choosing a teacher are being required. I guess it can prevent students from not trusting their teacher any more.
Society is changing every day and that is why education system of Korea should not be stuck in some old-fashioned way. More and more parents are worrying about money spent on kids’ private education. It is time for public education to strengthen and to retrieve its own authority it used to have. Only big and small changes of public education can stop the trend of the overheated private education.
Above all, the overall renovation of the education system is now required. In Korea, almost every student struggles to admit to so-called ‘the top ranking’ universities. This fact is getting severe because the result affects which job to be given and ultimately the money they can earn. While admitting to the university is very tough, graduating from it is rather easy. This leads to the higher competition among the high school students, so they think private institutions can meet the expectations of them. The collapse of public education of Korea can be solved by changing these overall atmospheres of society as well as education.
Another specific proposal for solving the problem can start by trying some change of a classroom. It is said that the number of students in a classroom of Korea is the most of all OECD countries. Even though it has been lessened to 35 to 40 people, it is still too much to deal with all of them for one teacher. A teacher is not able to care each of them and it ends up for students putting more emphasize on their private teacher who can teach in more detail asking and answering questions. With more classrooms and less students in a room, the public schools would have more possibilities to go back to original.
Accepting more professional teachers can be one of the solutions. Many students and their parents are complaining about some teacher’s lack of expertise. Some teachers stick to their teaching methods or materials for 30 years without speculating about big and small changes. Teachers who cannot answer students’ questions are not that hard to find. Scouting foreign teachers to foreign language subjects or higher standard process of choosing a teacher are being required. I guess it can prevent students from not trusting their teacher any more.
Society is changing every day and that is why education system of Korea should not be stuck in some old-fashioned way. More and more parents are worrying about money spent on kids’ private education. It is time for public education to strengthen and to retrieve its own authority it used to have. Only big and small changes of public education can stop the trend of the overheated private education.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Hello ^^
Hi, everyone.
My name is hye-young Kim. I'm from Korea.
I came to Karlstad this semester and I am very pleased to join this class, 'Academic English'.
Very glad to know you guys and I hope all of us can contact each other quite often.
This is the first time to make my own blog, so a little bit confused until now. ^^;
Thank you for visiting my blog. :)
My name is hye-young Kim. I'm from Korea.
I came to Karlstad this semester and I am very pleased to join this class, 'Academic English'.
Very glad to know you guys and I hope all of us can contact each other quite often.
This is the first time to make my own blog, so a little bit confused until now. ^^;
Thank you for visiting my blog. :)
why do people seem to love posting lists on the web?
"The best top 5 moives of this year" or "The 10 jobs which appear or disappear in 10 years", this kind of headlines we see very often. Like many people love compiling and posting lists, I do as well. Actually, we can see others' post on their web easily. Nowadays, more and more people like ordering with numbers and showing them to other people. As Andy said, this is a kind of trend (phenomenon) called listmania and I also had time to think about the reasons of why people really like it. Here's what I consider to be the reasons.
First of all, people tend to set the priority of a specific topic. In a fast-changing society, people cannot perform everything at a time, so they do set a priority and decide what to do now and then and what to put aside. This social background has been influencing on people's life deeply, in a more detail. I am also one of those who get up in the morning, think about the things of the day and make a decision of what should be done in order. Like this, people are now even arranging almost everything they are interested in such as the movies they like or the books they prefer and so on.
Secondly, They make a list in order to share their likes and dislikes with others by showing their own things (lists). These days, people have their own blog or at least could have experienced visiting an individual homepage of someone else. we are able to see their entries quite easily and of course blog owners also make them seen to public. For this reason, people want to let others know their tastes by making a list of some certain topics. They express sympathy of others' opinions or sometimes do disagree with others.
Last reason of why people post lists is to make it seem clearer by ordering with numbers. Sometimes, beginning with numbers or alphabets can lead to a better understaing of what is written. This aspect might be one of the good things of making a list. I also find it easier to grasp something which is being ordered. For the people living in a busy world like this, it has been needed something which enables readers to catch in a simpler and easier way.
More and more people love posting lists on their website and this kind of phenomenon doesn't seem to stop very soon. People so called 'listmania' are appearing at any time and anywhere. I guess this trend is closely related to the atmosphere of our society. We contact people with the cyber space quite often, so blog thing has been a great means of how people express their own likes or dislikes by posting the lists. As a person who enjoys making a list, I appreciate others' lists on the web as well.
First of all, people tend to set the priority of a specific topic. In a fast-changing society, people cannot perform everything at a time, so they do set a priority and decide what to do now and then and what to put aside. This social background has been influencing on people's life deeply, in a more detail. I am also one of those who get up in the morning, think about the things of the day and make a decision of what should be done in order. Like this, people are now even arranging almost everything they are interested in such as the movies they like or the books they prefer and so on.
Secondly, They make a list in order to share their likes and dislikes with others by showing their own things (lists). These days, people have their own blog or at least could have experienced visiting an individual homepage of someone else. we are able to see their entries quite easily and of course blog owners also make them seen to public. For this reason, people want to let others know their tastes by making a list of some certain topics. They express sympathy of others' opinions or sometimes do disagree with others.
Last reason of why people post lists is to make it seem clearer by ordering with numbers. Sometimes, beginning with numbers or alphabets can lead to a better understaing of what is written. This aspect might be one of the good things of making a list. I also find it easier to grasp something which is being ordered. For the people living in a busy world like this, it has been needed something which enables readers to catch in a simpler and easier way.
More and more people love posting lists on their website and this kind of phenomenon doesn't seem to stop very soon. People so called 'listmania' are appearing at any time and anywhere. I guess this trend is closely related to the atmosphere of our society. We contact people with the cyber space quite often, so blog thing has been a great means of how people express their own likes or dislikes by posting the lists. As a person who enjoys making a list, I appreciate others' lists on the web as well.
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