“All children are born artists” (said by Picasso)

Ken Robinson, an expert of education, proposed his ideas about education during his TED speech. He put emphasis on the extraordinary evidence of human creativity, especially capacities that children have for their innovation. All kids have tremendous talents. They are not afraid of making mistakes, so that they can come up with something interesting and original. Although Mr. Robinson said that creativity is now as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status, current education systems sadly squander and kill children’s creativities. He said that they better grow into creativity, and not out of it.

“What’s it for, public education?” Mr. Robinson answered that whole system of public education is a protracted process of university entrance. Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects: at the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanity, and at the bottom is art. It focuses on only children’s heads, not the creativities. They also need to learn academic ability because it dominates their intelligence, and consequently people with creativity were less valued. Moreover, we are even facing an academic inflation. Students preferably study useful subjects for work, however, the degrees, that they have got, unfortunately have no meaning in future. We need to change this situation. Mr. Robinson gave an idea of adopting new conception of human ecology. While studying it, we have to rethink about intelligence, as it has diverse and also there are many elements to indicate one’s intelligence, in order to protect the future of our children and their gifted imagination and creativities.

In my opinion, we surely need to study the basics of academics because that build up our basis for developing ourselves. However, I agree with Mr. Robinson’s opinion, which we should not indicate one’s intelligence only by an academic ability. Each student has his or her specific talent, and adults are responsible to raise child in the best education. This education does not have to be just letting them entre good schools, but developing children’s talents and individualities. Parents need to make sure of children’s characteristics, and let them go to schools, which best fit for them. I think there are more things parents can do for education of children than those schools and teachers can. Therefore, we cannot just blame the general education systems.

One more thing that I concerned about is the fact that most children lose their creativities as they grow up, although they used to be not freighted to be wrong. One of the reasons for this is that our society teaches us not to make mistakes. Even national educational systems teach that mistakes are the worst thing we can make. Stigmatizing mistakes keeps people away from challenging and expressing themselves. I think it is very important to create a society where people are generous about making mistakes, which allows them to develop not only academic ability, but also capacities of creativity.

US President Barack Obama will propose three new laws that all deal with our privacy information. As its background, many large US retailers were hit by cyber-thieves who tried to scoop up payment-card data. One of the laws will require companies to let customers know within 30days if their personal information went astray in a data breach. The second law will attempt to give people more control over what can be done with the data companies gather about them. The last one would ban educational software makers from selling data they collect from students. Mr. Obama is believed to want to resurrect a “consumer privacy bill of rights” that was first proposed in 2012 and witch would ensure consumers are consulted before data gathered from their online activity is sold. Exact details of the proposal will come to light during a speech od Mr. Obama at the US Federal Trade Commission on 12 January.

After reading this article, I was surprised that those educational software makers sell our data for their benefits. I really dislike those spam mails sent to my address, and that may be due to these thoughtless organizations. We must feel furious about this, and at least I feel now. In Japan, there are also many cyber-thieves and our personal information has been stolen. Also it is worse that some companies sometimes hide about leaking the information. Thus the law, that require companies to let customers know when information is leaked, is good. However, I think it is too late even if companies tell us about the leak within 30DAYS! I hope all the companies to become honest and responsible for their action. Surely we also have to be responsible for protecting our privacy by ourselves.

Pro-democracy student groups are demanding for full voting rights in the next election in 2017. However, Chinese government wants full control over the list of candidates who can stand in that election, and so denies the demand. As a result, protest has been still continued and there have been scuffles between police and pro-democracy groups. Recently, a new type of gruop appears, which is consisted of masked men who waers sugical-masks. Police seems cooperate with these masked men to tear down the barricades and to  finish this protest. Police even announced that if people resist againt these masked men, they will be arrested. Today, protesters are still trying to oppose the government for their rights

After reading this article, I wander who the masked men are. We can think simply that they are just ordinary people who support current communist government and work as an anti-occupy group. There is also another opinion about the gruop. Some of the pro-democracy protester say that the masked men look like gangstars. As a hypothesis, in my opinion, the masked men are gangstars and they might be even hired by the government to calm down the protesters. I think it is not fair to suppress non-violent movement by violence.  Any authorities should not just control their fellows only by power. They should correspond to the problems sincerely and try to work out the best solutions. I hope the Chinese people and the government will reach an agreement about the voting rights and have a fair election in 2017.

I believe…

Tue, 2^nd Period 31345050 Daiki Hirabayashi

I believe working hard together with friends is our lives’ asset. I recently watched the movie called “The King’s Speech”, and I again realized the importance of cooperating. If we have friends who we can trust, we will be able to overcome any difficulties.

Firstly, I shall give little summary of the movie. “The King’s Speech” is the historical story about Prince Albert, who was also called Bertie, and later became the King George VI in Britain. Although Bertie was a member of the royal family, he was imperfect person as we are. He was very humane, but also stubborn and serious too much. Furthermore, the biggest problem he had was stammer. He could not speak properly in front of the audiences, even though he had many opportunities where he had to speak to his people. So his wife, Elizabeth, asked the unorthodox speech therapist, Lionel Logue, to cure Bertie. At the beginning, Bertie refused Lionel’s treatment. However, he gradually opened his heart to Lionel and revealed himself, which he had kept as a secret. The treatment was about more than correcting stammer for Bertie because he gained a hugely trustful friend. Together with Lionel, Bertie could overcome his stammer and succeeded his declaration speech of the WW2.

I believe this movie proves that the friendship can cross over any gaps and differences. For example, Bertie was a British King and Lionel was an ordinary person from Australia, and despite their differences of classes and nationalities, they could become friends. No matter the differences, we can become friends with anybody. We do not have to care about any gaps. If we meet someone we can really trust, we should esteem that relationships. I do not say that we have to have many friends, but I believe we should have at least one friend we can trust and help each other.

Moreover, I believe we can overcome any tough situation with this cooperation with friends. Bertie’s stammer was a mental illness, so it was difficult to cure it. However, in order to solve the stammer problem, Lionel tried to understand who Bertie was and accept all of him. Lionel did not try to be a doctor, he rather tried to be a friend. This is why Bertie could overcome his weakness. “Don’t think about unnecessary things, just say to me, my friend.” This quote is Lionel’s word. He never stopped encouraging Bertie. This is the perfect example of friendship. A friend is a person who tries to understand and accept you. With the friend, you can relax and can be who you are and who you need to be. The friend gives us power to fight against hardships. When we work hard and try to overcome difficulties, we obviously need such friends.

We cannot value the importance of friendship, it is priceless. We should continue working together and helping each other with our friends because they are always with us.

Summary

The Obama administration announced that the US will no longer produce or acquire anti-personnel land mines and plans to join an international treaty . The treaty is called “Ottawa Convention”. It pronibits the use, stockpiling, pruduction and transfer of the mines. The head of delegation for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said US announcement is some progress and a positive change, although there is no guarantee or timeline for doing so. Also US still possess over 9 millions land mines in storage around the world. He concluded that US should join at least set a targert date to join the treaty and immediately pledge not to use land mines and begin destruction of its stockpiles.

My Reaction

I truely agree wih banning the use of land mines. I have heard a lot of stories in which innocent people are hurt by those land mines. The people lose their legs, part of bodies or their lives because of the land mines.  It is hazardous. Land mines can not target a specific person or object. So it hurts and kills people randomly. The mines are also very difficult to be removed.  Land mines do not make anybody happy.

I think US action was right and brave, although it is little late to decide to do so.  I hope the movement of banning land mines will have more progress as the big user of land mines has come to end the use of the deadly weapon. Japan actually has not signed the treaty, yet. It is a shame. We should join the treaty and cooperate to prohibit the land mines as fast as possible.

hdaiki