Category Archives: rika

rika

Audio essay (Autum 2014)

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He insisted that creativity is tremendously important in education in his speech. He said present education killed student’s creativity. I agree with his idea, and I think that is true especially in public education in Japan, because students are required to derive one determined correct answer, and also they make a habit to do that.

He said that now the purpose of public education was deeply attached to develop university professors. That is because, these are good things for students to get great scores in schools and to aim higher position in the industrial society. Currently, everyone who goes to high school in Japan can enter university without difficulties, as he said the inflation of university education has been occurred. Most children think that it is the goal of their lives to enter more intelligent high school, and then more intelligent and famous university. Actually, I also think that is the very right thing, being got such education from my parents and teachers. Definitely, from my point of view, in present society, getting higher position need to graduate some intelligent schools. And it also means that it is a good measure to make excellent grades in schools because of entrance examination systems in Japan.

Lately, however, it is reported that not intelligent but personality decides one’s school records, according to a new Australian study.

 Personality is a better predictor of success in school than intelligence as measured by traditional standardized tests. Specifically, students who were more open and conscientious performed better academically than those who were merely intelligent.

Australian researchers compared measurements of the “Big Five” personality traits to college students’ grades and test scores. The “Big Five” are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. They asked students to complete personality self-assessments, and also asked others who knew the students well to complete assessments of them. They found that the students’ self-assessments were as effective as intelligence in predicting academic performance, and that the reports from those who knew them well were nearly four times more accurate in predicting academic performance than intelligence. The researchers found that openness and conscientiousness factors exerted the largest influence on academic success. Studies have shown openness to experience to be the number-one predictor of creative achievement.

In other words, the findings told that children who may not be considered “smart” by traditional measures may still become highly successful, both by traditional measures and in their own right. And since personality may be more malleable than intellectual capability, helping struggling students to cultivate beneficial personality traits may be a powerful means of improving academic performance. In the field of education, I think all teachers should break away from admire only intelligent students, then give students their lessons which students themselves would really like to learn.

(459 words)

rika

My reaction-recession in Venezuela

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 Today’s my topic was about recent recession in Venezuela. Since last year, Venezuela has fell into serious depression. Why? President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro said that the economy had been hit by political instability and falling oil prices. He also said Venezuela was suffering the consequences of an economic war launched by US President, Barack Obama to destroy countries of OPEC, which is the cartel of the oil producers.　On the other hand, he concluded that this crisis offered a “great opportunity for Venezuela to change its economic model”, because the country has been deeply depended on oil exports.
 I read this article, then I wonder why President Obama has put those OPEC countries at the disadvantage. I searched the Internet and found that he intended to take sanctions against Russia, and weaken the power of Islamic State. However, not only economy of Russia and IS, also economy of the other countries have been damaged. I think the present situation is terrible.
 In addition to that, when I communicate with the other student, who also selected a topic on Venezuela, he told me that the country was lacking of food because of little support for the farmers in Venezuela. Then I understood my topic and his topic were deeply connected. As the President Maduro said, we should pay attention to how Venezuela cure these heavy “disease” from now on.
rika

My reaction-about problems of the computer spyware

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 Our topic was about “Regin”, a new computer spyware developed by a government.
 A major IT company says that Regin was probably created by a government, because the spyware developed in very short term and worked so sophisticated. It has ever attacked computers in Russia, Saudi Arabia and Ireland. Once the computers were attacked, they would be stolen their passwords or recovered their deleted files. It is still unclear what country’s government developed this spyware, although someone predict that a western organization did.
  When I first read this article, I feel very surprised about sophistication of cyber attack among all over countries. Then I thought two problems on this topic.
First was this attack’s anonymity. Only a half century before, “War” or “Terrorism” meant an attack by real weapons or real soldier. However, now the governments are able to attack their enemies by using such computer spywares. Their special feature is, I think, anonymity. When someone attack computers owned by the other country, they need not to go to the place or face their enemy. I think this way can attack them without suffering from a guilty conscience.
  Second was Japanese legislative system with reference to cyber attacks. I felt that Japanese people and also Japanese government have less sense of impending crisis. If we pass a new law about preventing us from these attacks as soon as possible, Japan would also have a significant damage by attacks from the other countries.
rika

My reaction-About the effect of drinking coffee

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Today’s my topic was about the effect of drinking coffee. According to the previous research, the famous ingredient of coffee, caffeine has known as a cognitive enhancer. That is, drinking coffee helps us strengthen our brains’ ability of recognizing. Now, new studies show that subjects who took the caffeine were better at the faculty of memory. They can identify pictures that were similar, compared with subjects who didn’t ingest caffeine. There’s also argument about the best amount of caffeine to maximize our brain’s performance. According to one view, using the 200mg dose of caffeine was better than 100mg doses of caffeine. Thus they conclude that at least 200mg is needed to observe the enhancing effect of caffeine on consolidation of memory. Then, the more amount of caffeine you take, the better it is for your minds and bodies? Of course, “No”. Coffee also has negative points. For example, coffee can cause a stomach ulcer and have an attack of anemia for some people. The same thing can be mentioned about alcohol. Like since old time, sake has been said to be the best of all medicines, drinking a proper quantity of alcohol has good effects on our health. On the other hand, there are many patients suffered from alcoholism, cirrhosis, and other serious diseases caused by drinking. Therefore I claim that everything (including coffee) has both good and bad effect naturally, so to keep taking care of our health, we should be moderate all times.

rika

This I believe

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When I was a high school student, I really wanted to enter Keio University; I had spent almost all of my school life studying very hard. Also, I was a captain of the softball club, which occupied my after-school hours, so I scarcely had time to participate in extracurricular activities. Now, I am a student in this university, and I believe that “I should challenge all things which I feel interesting” in the university. Today, I would like to introduce what I think the most important in my university life so far.

 

That is my club activity. I belong to the swimming team of the university as a manager. Until now, I played some sports: ballet, basketball, swimming, table tennis, tennis, and softball. But I always has been a player. To tell the truth, I couldn’t understand the feelings of the people who wanted to be a manager at all　before I joined this swimming team. We practice almost every day, and my team is training very hard in order to win the championship of the tournament in this August.

 

Can you imagine what the works of managers in the swimming team is? I suppose almost all of you can’t imagine as I couldn’t before I joined the club. These are our main works: preparation for training, recording time by using a stop watch, putting them on recording sheets, and making Excel file of their data. These look so simple, but actually it takes a lot of time to edit Excel, especially I was not good at that work at the first time.

 

Then, why I still belong to the club and has been able to continue to work as a manager so far?

 

The answer is this: I have been interested in contribution to the team as a manager, and even if it is hard, I would like to achieve things which I feel interesting. It also what I believe now.

 

Since I am a manager in my team, I am not able to swim for the team or make contribution to match results directly. However I feel very happy when the players appreciate my work and make new records. Why? Because through doing my work as a manager, I believe that certainly I can contribute to their swimming career and winning. That is also the point I have been fascinated by taking part in the team as a manager.

 

Thanks to my experience as a manager, I have become doing works in my daily life more carefully than before, felt pleasure by working for other people, and above all, I got special team work and met the best companions. In the tournament in this August, I will face the match with putting all my heart and soul with my best companions.

 

Unfortunately, I have to quit my job in 1 month, after the tournament, but like my irreplaceable experience as a manager, I hope to do a lot of fascinate things in the rest of my university life. Because of that, I‘m going to challenge all things which I feel interesting from now on.

rika, Uncategorized

Porching in Kenya-My reaction

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  In my first group of last lesson, we talked about poaching in Kenya.
According to the article, one elephant was killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off Kenya. The elephant was in the national park, where understaffed conservationists monitored him regularly to protect him from poachers.
After we read it, we focused on animal protection and its law.
　In Kenya, the government set the law which prohibit animal poaching, but actually poaching are happened. So in the problem like that some restriction often don’t work effectively.
Then what can we do from our public position?
　My opinion is that we should buy some products made by companies which cooperate on animal protection. For example, I always use cosmetics sold by LUSH (they’ve been fighting against animal testing for decades and believe in only buying ingredients from companies that do not commission tests on animals). Mr. Brewster also described his policies: He doesn’t eat whale’s meat, doesn’t buy products by Del Monte, and so on.
It is difficult for us to affect and change national law or regulation, but it is possible to assist and influence present social trend by our own actions. That is, I believe, the most important thing from now on.
rika

Referendums in Ukraineーmy reaction

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This is the topic about the referendums enforced in Ukraine.
 The subject was that whether Ukraine’s two eastern regions (Donetsk and Luhansk) should be practically independence or not.
 The referendums were certainly enforced by pro-Russian, but there were no voting booths in places and no electoral register.
 So this vote was condemned by Ukraine.
 I think the referendums should be voted again, because people suspect that this vote had some illegal points.
 For example, government of Ukraine had found over 100 thousands of ballot paper which already put “approved” sign 1 before day of the vote.
 In addition, there was no an official electoral roll.
 It meant that whoever elector in Donetsk could vote in any times and in any place.
 In short, this time’s referendums was nearly illegal and the condition was so bad.
 Do you think that such confused vote is legal?
 I don’t think so.
 The government of Ukraine or the pre-Russian faction must be set a clean and right condition of the referendums, and then it would be carried out.
 The problem have continued from now on――whether the government of Ukraine accept the regions’ independence, after the independence, whether the regions would be admitted by Russia, etc.
These are very difficult problems, but I hope they are solved in good direction, and the policy would be each other’s benefit.