The Meatrix was something that I watched in high school when I was reading and researching on the Internet about sports nutrition. My main goal was to find out if the quality of the food (where the food was grown, the method of making the food, additives, etc.) had an effect on athletic performance, physically and mentally. There were two sides to this argument, one saying that as long as sufficient calories and nutrients are taken in, the quality of the food doesn't matter so much, and the other saying that the quality of the food determines our performance as well as our health. Both sides of the argument had strong points, but after researching both views I came to the conclusion that eating real food has more benefits to health, performance, and vitality than simply devouring calories. What videos like The Meatrix accomplished for me was clarify what actually happens to the meat and how corporations tries to make a clean image of the food. Another documentary that was highly informative was Food Inc. which described how food is grown in the U.S.
Living in Japan, I noticed that more people are concerned about the safety of the food than in America, so the food is much cleaner. America's food problem has caused many problems from diabetes, cancer, obesity and other diseases. However. there are movements to help people become more aware of the food they eat. Jamie Oliver, an English chef, made a speech on TED that really described the reality of how little children know about their food. He promotes solutions to educate children about food so that they do not grow obese and get diabetes or cancer.
There are plenty of creative people making an influence on people, getting the message across on the Internet. Being tech savvy is going to be important for people that want to change society in any way, because the Internet is the most effective way to get the message out to people efficiently.
In this lecture, Rab pointed out the contradictions of what is considered to be democracy in the modern world and how it fails to serve the people's opinions. It was a very interesting lecture, as it covered the problems and reasons for why "democracy" is corrupt and the alternative solutions.
Rab mentioned that in the UK (or in a any country), politics is a rich mans game. He pointed out that this is unfair because this means that unless you don't have money, you cannot represent your political opinions. However, although I think this is true I also think that in today's world, it is difficult to be in an environment to have high education without sufficient money. I am not saying that rich people coming into power is a coincidence, but I think that it would be difficult for a person to be politically influential and have strong points to back up their political opinions without a high education. I think that even if someone tried to change the system so that money wouldn't be involved in political power, not much would change.
Money being the motivation for governments and companies isn't healthy because of the economic disparity it causes, but it seems normal because it is a capitalist era where money is everything. With money, you can buy almost anything (besides love of course). If money is the motivation to take advantage of poorer countries, then money should be used as the demotivator to solve these kinds of issues. This has been effective in reducing CO2 (Kyoto Protocol), and it could be used in solving the power issues between poor and rich countries (I assume that there are some international laws like this already).
I honestly thought that this lecture would be boring, because the museum we visited for this class was boring. At the museum we were able to look at different ages of kombinis, but I didn't find it interesting at all. However, Professor Whitelaw's lecture was very interesting and entertaining. I noticed how he started off the presentation by grabbing our attention with numbers and data, as Rab taught us to do. I thought that it was effective looking at the reactions of myself and my other classmates. He used images that had impact, which were humurous but made a point at the same time. I knew that Seven Eleven was originated in the United States, but I had no idea Lawson was too. The history of komibini was interesting and I thought that the culture of komibinis changed according to the era. The fact that the hardness of the food sold in komibini is becoming softer because of the majority of the population becoming old-aged people was interesting because I thought that it could possibly lead to other problems such as jaw disfunctions for younger people. Anyway, the presentation by Professor Whitelaw was excellent and I actually learned quite a few things about not only komibini, but about various other things as well such as the mindset of an anthropologist. We learned by but not only listening, but by looking at things and doing things. I am going to try incorporating these aspects into my future presentations.
We learned how to make websites using Google's services. I've never used Google Sites before, but I found that it was easy to use because of the integration with other the other Google services such as Google Calender and Google Drive. This makes it easy to manage and share information. However, I felt that there are better alternatives to Google Sites but for just starting out I guess it is a good place start.
I personally have experience with making websites, as I used to make them as a hobby. I made a little bit of money (I still am) from a basketball website I built in high school. The way I made money was from placing advertisements on my website. I found that Google AdSense made me the most money, and Amazon Affiliates the next. I learned a little bit about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and just enough HTML and CSS to enable me to build a website that functioned decently. Here is the link (Japanese): http://thebasketballblog.seesaa.net/
Rab gave us some hints on how to change systems in our society by using the media or anonymity. I like how Rab always focuses on what would actually work. I notice that a lot of times, especially in Japan, we tend to focus on things that are ineffective (as I’ve written in other blog posts as well) and end up getting nothing done while thinking that a lot was accomplished. I hear from many adults living in this country that most meetings are useless, and time consuming. I’ve had the same experience in “bukatsu” or club activities in Japan, and it irritated me a lot of times because much more could be done in less time with better organization.
This is one of the reasons why I do not want to work in Japan. I never want to waste my time doing unimportant tasks or activities that are not aligned with my values. In Japan, society forces everyone to fit in to one molded character, therefore uniqueness and originality are often killed. Although this creates more human robots and increases the amount of work that can be handled, creative work is made difficult. Innovation will never take place in these kinds of environments. Although one might argue that this happens in places besides Japan, I believe that Japan is really extreme in terms of being slaves to the company. If more and more Japanese companies and schools start promoting effectiveness based on educated reasoning, the society will become much better in terms of work conditions and stress levels.
Loewen repeatedly states that the reason for student's lack
of education is because of the bland nature of history textbooks. Because of
the strict requirements of page length and content, it is practically
impossible to write a textbook that are interesting to students. Although history
is said to be extremely controversial and dynamic, history portrayed in history
textbooks are the complete opposite. This leads to boring bites of information
that must be memorized instead of naturally becoming knowledge of one. I agree
with Loewen’s argument because I was one of those students who had to cram in
order to memorize anything in the history textbook. However, Loewen fails to
present a solution to this problem. Although it is obviously a difficult
problem to tackle, without a realistic solution I don’t think there is a point
in arguing about the problem.
I think that the difficulty with these kinds of problems is
that it is the organization’s problem and the culture of the organization, so
it is difficult to change anything. Changes that have to do with many people
take years and years to change. Even if there was a way to change the paradigm
of textbook making, it would take so much time to change everything that it
would have become a new era and new material would have to be added and so
forth which would make the task even more difficult. I think that a more
realistic approach to tackling this problem is to inform students that
textbooks are not always correct and that critical thinking is necessary in
order to be informed about history. However, this would require a lot of
reading and discussing, which means that there will be students that will not
read on their own, which would lead to disparity in children’s interest
in history anyway. If teachers could get their students to become more
interested in history, then I think that would be the best way to solve this
problem, but then the problem would be how to raise the number of teachers
capable of doing so. It is just too sophisticated of a problem to solve, but I
am really interested in how Loewen would tackle the problem (Although he might
have written about solutions in other chapters).
After listening to Rab's argument concerning the system of ELA and ICU as a whole, I thought that ICU should accept creativity more. Even though ICU is much more creative than most schools in Japan, I think that it could be better because of new technology that is being introduced year by year. I think that Rab's way of teaching is very up-to-date, there are many articles and videos online that support Rab's philosophy. I think that the problem of the upper powers being too conservative is a major concern for many creative educators around the world. The educational pardigm needs to shift from the classic classroom to the new, more techy kind of classroom. It's just more efficient and effective in my opinion. I've experienced both kinds of classes, but its obvious to me that using technology in class is far more superior in terms of efficiency and effectiveness than just reading textbooks or copying the blackboard onto a piece of paper. There are way too much inefficient methods used not only in education in schools, but in education in various fields such as sports. For example, the training methods used in basketball in Japan is unscientific and is in fact, completely detrimental to the player's performance. However, most coaches do not see this as a problem because they believe that old training methods are more effective because that's how they think they got better. There needs to be a shift in the education paradigm, and we need to use more efficient and effective methods that have evidence or logic, instead of just sticking with tradition. I think that this is one of the major problems that needs to be dealt with when it comes to education.
It was a coincidence that we learned how to use iMovie, because I had made a movie with it two hours before class to make a birthday video for my friend. (By the way, happy birthday to Yuca too.) I was familiar with how to use iMovie but it was fun using the QuickTime recording function. I am personally a Windows user, but I might consider becoming a Mac user after editing videos on a Mac. It is much more easier to make high quality movies on a Mac than on a Windows. It is more user friendly and has less clutter, and also has great templates on iMovie. Overall, the interface on the Mac is much better than the Windows, and I think that is why most designers prefer using a Mac than a Windows. I appreciate the fact that there are loads of Mac computers on campus here at ICU, so I can access them whenever I want to make movies.
Although Macs cost more than Windows, I might consider buying one because I love videos, music, and multimedia overall. Windows are better in some ways, for example being more customizable than Macs, and costing less overall. This blog post is becoming more of a Windows vs Mac kind of post, but this is because I was so shocked at how easy it was to edit videos on a Mac. I have had a lot of trouble trying to edit videos on a Windows in the past. iMovie is so much more better than Windows Movie Maker, and I believe that it is possible to make professional looking videos just with iMovie. If I had the money, I would definitely buy a Mac but since I don't I guess I will have to work for the money over the summer. (image source: http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/zzcj/imgs/d/f/dfc2fa6f.jpg?56656948)
I feel that the Vietnam War effected many
people that are in the age of my parents, making it difficult to show violent
images to students. One thing I wonder about is if the Vietnam War would have
more coverage in the history textbooks a hundred years from now, or if it would
be censored as it is today. I was told by my history teacher that the National
Archives of JFK are kept hidden until 2017 because many Americans would get
angry if they knew the secret about the incident. I don’t know if this is a
credible reason for the secrecy of the files, but if this was true, is the
government doing the same thing for the Vietnam War? Or are they not covering
the war fully to justify the war?
From the information Loewen gives us in his
book, it seems to be clear that the government is hiding a lot of information
to prevent students from having a bad image about their own country. There are
obviously a lot of shocking images and episodes that would be disturbing to
students that would not be appropriate for textbooks, because arguably they
could be harmful to students. I assume that there would be many parents
concerned about the material. Is it worth the risk to educate students about the
cruel acts of America? I don’t think any textbooks would risk it. It is too
much of an inconvenient truth.
There's nothing
like having discussions outside in perfect weather. I feel that being in a
relaxed environment enables us to express our opinions more freely. It started
with a notice from the person that revised the Meiland article, Paul Wadden,
and it was funny seeing that Rab and Mr. Warden shared the same thoughts about
the ELA Reader and the system of ICU, having to give students quizzes at the
end of the lecture and etc.
There was a
story Rab told us that symbolized a lot of the nonsense rules Japanese people
tend to make. It was a story which a Japanese elementary school didn’t allow
for wearing hoodies to school even though the hoodie didn’t include any violent
words or anything harmful. There was apparently no good reason for banning the
hoodie. However this happens a lot in Japan. There is a lot of nonsense that
goes on, unnecessary rules and unnecessary traditions. I felt that researching this
kind of topic would be extremely interesting as it concerns education, cultural
studies, sociology, etc.
No one sleeps in Rab's classes, but I didn't know quite
know why. There was no doubt that sleepiness didn’t creep up because of the
classes were entertaining, but I didn’t know that Rab was using techniques so that
we wouldn’t get bored. Segmentation was the technique Rab introduced to us
today which is useful not only for teaching but for presentations also.
Constantly changing stimulus every 7-10 minutes makes it so that students don’t
lose their attention span. This means switching between talking, videos,
photos, moving around, etc. I thought that more teachers would use these
techniques to teach. I also thought that more teachers should educate themselves
how to teach more effectively, because many teachers are boring. In Japan, the
student is bad for not listening even if the teacher is extremely boring.
However, from what I have learned from various lectures in the ELA, I don’t see
that as the case anymore. The teachers should be more responsible in getting
the students attention and interest, instead of the student being responsible
for it (I am not saying that students are not responsible at all for paying
attention in class).
