Current Events Blogpost #3 What I Would Change About Highschool

The Hufffington Post article linked on the humanities blog shows the response of 20 teens via twitter when asked what they would change about highschool. Schedule changes were common as well as an equal focus on fine arts that is given to athletics. I thought a lot about what I would change in Highschool and although shortening school hours  seemed like it would be a lot easier it wasn't a revolutionary idea and truthfully it was only encouraging us to be more lazy and that wouldn't help us when we got to university one day or even in a trade long hours are a part of life and we have to learn how to deal with them. so what could we change about highschool? Well I have an Idea.

   Research  has shown that each and every individual of any language or race has a learning style that falls under one of the following three categories Kinetic, Auditory, and Visual. Each teacher has a learning and teaching style that primarily falls under one of these categories as well so I propose that we separate students and teachers by the following categories ie Math-Visual or Science-Auditory.
Each person would learn in their categories until grade 10 and then in grade 11 and 12 mixed classrooms so that they develop the ability to work and learn in all environments.

    I personally believe that this will help us learn the basics in an environment that caters to our learning needs a lot better, However switching to a mixed environment for the last two years of highschool will help ensure that we are not left shocked upon entering the "real world" after graduating.

  

Current Events Post # 3

         Things That Are, Or Should Be, Obsolete in School's Today

Recently many blogs have posted very intriguing ideas and thoughts about the things that are obsolete or should be obsolete in schools these days. I agree with most of these facts but I want to add a couple of ideas to the list.

 There were several obsolete things that I agreed with on the list. One main idea that I agreed with was that starting school too early in the morning is obsolete. Many athletes and students who have to stay up till late doing homework, sports, and different kind of extra curriculum activities might have difficulty concentrating in class the next morning. It is very obsolete to start school too early in the morning for the students might not have enough energy or concentration to show their best work. Not only for the students, but it would be a benefit for the teachers to be able to prepare their lesson for the students in this extra time. Many researches have shown that students should be given at least a 30-50 minutes of extra time to rest before the school starts. 

Another idea I agree with are that teachers who don't share what they do are obsolete. If teachers, who are teaching us all over the world, aren't learning anymore, than they shouldn't have the authority to teach us. Teachers as well as students should be showing each other through blogs, emails, or posts, that they are constantly learning new stuff. I also agree with the fact that all students getting the same is definitely obsolete. Almost everyone has hobbies or subjects that they are really excelled at, but schools usually try to force you to excel in all subjects. This is not a good idea, because for some students it might seem like a torture to be forced to do what you are bad at rather than excel more in what you're good at. The age of students shouldn't matter much in school and there should be classes that is made up of students who might have the same interests and hobbies regardless the age difference.

I disagree with some of these facts. For example, I disagree that unhealthy food at the cafeteria is obsolete. The reason that many schools have hamburgers, fries, and fast food is because the students enjoy eating them, not the teachers. It should be our choice to pick what we want at the cafeteria instead of having completely organic foods and vegetables like some school. It is true that organic food would give you a lot of nutrition and knowledge about the benefits of eating nutritional food. However, it is not a good way to force students who might not enjoy eating nutritional food to do so. It would be a good idea to have both fast food and organic food in the cafeteria. Also, the idea of making students put food on their own dishes and wash their own dishes is not a good idea. School is a place where we come to learn about different kinds of subjects and find what we are interested in. It is not a place to get students to clean their dishes for us to learn about growing up and responsibility. We should learn to clean dishes and learn about growing up at our house from our parents rather than going to school to learn about it. It really wouldn't be enjoyable to be cleaning dishes at school when we could be learning new avenues that we never discovered.

 I want to add to this list that making PSR, personality responsibility, 70% of your whole P.E. grade is obsolete. Many schools are making personal responsibility which includes not being late, sportsmanship, participation, and communication as most of the P.E. grade. I personally think this is obsolete, because in this case, P.E. which is a abbreviation for physical education, is basically concentrating more on the mental or sociable side than the physical side . If based on the PSR grade evaluation like in Fraser Heights, you don't have to be good at all in sports to get a good grade, for fitness and athletic skills are only 10-20% of your overall mark. It shouldn't be called physical education if they are trying to make the subject more based on someone's responsibility rather than there athletic side. It is true that athletes should have a lot of responsibility with them but it just doesn't make sense to evaluate students on the PSR when P.E. is suppose to be a physical subject.

 Based on this list Fraser Heights is a very modern school because it tries to build mostly around the students. There is barely any obsolete things in Fraser Heights for they allow students to have freedom and try what they enjoy or have interests in. For example, Fraser Heights is working on using technology in most of the classes, so the students learn a new way of learning. This is a very important way for we need to learn how to use technology not only to text and call but to learn new stuff through them.

 In brief, this list was very detailed and shows that schools should have more reality in them. I agreed with most of these ideas and it was very interesting to read them and think about them. 

Current Events Response Blog Post- Should Women's Ice Hockey be In The Olympics?

This response is based off of the article I found linked on the Hum 8 blog.
The article states that there was rumours circulating on the removal of Women's Ice Hockey from the Olympics. Even though the Olympic committee has released a statement that they don't plan on eliminating the sport anytime soon, This article describes the arguments of why having this sport in the Olympics could be positive and negative.
 
 There is many benefits to having Women's Ice Hockey. Such as the amount of profit it provides to the Olympics and the publicity it gets through social media. So why would they be trying to remove it? Well many people believe that since there are very few strong countries in this sport since it has not been developed thoroughly worldwide just like softball after Beijing 2008 was removed due to the same concept.

On the other hand many countries have certain pinpointed areas of strength in which they succeed tremendously. So essentially it is unnecessary to cancel out an entire sport simply because there aren't enough players , as time goes by the sport will develop and removing this sport is only postponing it's inevitable return.

Furthermore In my Opinion Women's Ice Hockey should not be removed from the Olympics because it would be contradictory to many other sports which have not developed far enough to cause a massive amount of competition.

CURRENT EVENTS #2

Should women's hockey stay in the Olympics?

The debate about whether women's hockey should stay in the Olympics is an ongoing debate.  For those who want the game to stay, they say it needs time to grow and eventually more countries will embrace the sport.  For those who want it to go, they say it's imbalanced because the top two teams are always Canada and the U.S.A.  The other countries have a long ways to go before catching up with the abilities of North American players.

Rene Fasel, International Ice Hockey Federation President and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman are two people who would like to see Women's Hockey stay in the Olympics.   Canada and the U.S.A. already have female hockey players who are the best and they're still improving.  The rest of the world is miles behind which means that they have a lot of catching up to do.  Sochi, Russia hosted the fifth Olympics that had women's hockey as a sport.  Canada has won the gold medal three times and the U.S. once.  Proponents of eliminating women's hockey from the Games argue that this sport is not competitive because it's always Canada and the U.S. that end up winning.  It seems like the other countries don't stand much of a chance unless they do something drastic to improve their game.

Fasel states that European hockey is not what it should be, but it has improved.  He notes that it took Switzerland 60 - 70 years to finally beat Canada at the Olympics for the first time in Torino, Italy.  He feels we need to exercise a lot of patience with women's hockey and draw attention to it.  It is a sport that deserves attention.  Over the years, more and more countries have sent female hockey teams to the Olympics which is a sign that things are improving.  There are currently 8 teams in the Olympics, but Fasel would like to see this grow to 10 teams.

In conclusion, I think women's hockey should stay in the Olympics because it is a sport that women are progressively becoming more interested in.  The general public is also interested in this sport, especially North Americans.  If it were to be removed from the Olympics, it would stifle the growth of the sport since the Olympics draws a lot of attention to women's hockey.  The Olympics promotes its growth because it is mostly an amateur sport.  It is critical that women's hockey remains an Olympic event.  It will take much patience, but women's hockey will grow worldwide in time.   

 I got my information here

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sochi/iihf-president-women-s-hockey-will-never-be-out-of-olympics-1.1691364

Communal dining in restaurants ~ Priya

There is a recommendation for restaurants to have long tables to sit at, instead of our regular booths or tables, so we can support further communication with our fellow residents. There are many pros and cons to this idea.

Some of the pros to this idea are that you will be able to know more about our fellow resident. BC Living says "...dining with our peers provides the opportunities to engage in conversations that let us bond and learn from one another. It’s a chance to share information as well as feelings of belonging. It also fosters better manners." Communal dining will also make "Vancouver a friendlier city" CBC News says. Basically the hopes for communal dining is for Vancouver to become a better place with more communication and support for travellers trying to find a nice,and friendly place to visit.

The cons to communal dining is the lack of privacy. "Most people like to go to a restaurant with the people they know and talk to the people they know." CBC News says. The cost for restaurants to change their tables is another thing we need to consider tables aren't free and no restaurant wants to pay for new tables and make a new layout for their restaurant just because of a recommendation. Communal dining also might make people feel uncomfortable eating in front of strangers; the stranger might be someone rude, or messy, or annoying. You never know who your going to sit with.

I don't think communal dining is a good idea because when I go to a restaurant I go to spend time with my family and friends not strangers, I'm sure me and any other people prefer to eat with only the company they came with. Communal dining might end up with more take out (if restaurant allows takeouts) than eating in. If I'm having a birthday and came to eat at a restaurant I don't want some annoying nobody to be sitting in front or beside me doing whatever, or if the restaurant gives some sort of birthday treat to be singing happy birthday. Also often when someone eats at a table it is left with a mess on it nobody want to be eating by or on a messy table, or have a worker cleaning the table right beside you.

Current events/ The icar?

On Tuesday one of the biggest companies (Apple) announced that they are creating a car that uses your iPhone to control the car like choosing songs, using the internet and many more things that u can use your phone for. Apple teamed up with Ferrari, Mercedes, and Volvo to create an app that allows you to use your iPhone for the icar, this app is called carplay. "iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction" said Greg joswaik Vice President of iPhone and iOS marketing. Users of the icar can press the steering wheel and then Siri is activated you can make calls using voice 

commands.The  app will also anticipate the drivers destination. The new car play app will be an update for iOS 7, it works with iPhones 5s,5c and 5

 

   The companies which will enable carplay will be BMW Group, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia Motors, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan Motor Company, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota Motor Corp are also set to offer CarPlay in the future.

So it will not be an official car but it will be in future cars at the retails listed above in the future 

I got my information from this website 

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/icar-arrived-apple-launches-car-070104772.html

Current Events Post #2

                    Dining with Strangers?

How would you feel dining with complete strangers that you don't know at a restaurant? Starting from 2012 , Vancouver has been trying to encourage restaurants to offer more "long tables". This means that restaurants won't have separate tables but offer communal conversation tables to make Vancouver a more welcoming city and friendlier city. 

  Many high acknowledged people are remarking that Vancouver should be a more acknowledged city and the communal conversation tables is a great way.  The benefits of eating with strangers is that it would let the people bond with each other, practice our social interaction, and fosters our manner. Coun Andrea Reimer said that if Vancouver wants to be more engaged than the city should set up these communal conversation tables. However, this is not just what the city can do, for it falls on the residents. Citizens think that sitting in a restaurant eating with strangers build up a more brighter city and would also help the city become friendlier. This idea would also be a new culture to Vancouver. Many people are trying to persuade the city to encourage restaurants to lay out the format of the long tables. Immigrants that have just immigrated to Vancouver, would feel more welcome if they walk in a restaurant to see long tables set out for people to have conversations. 

  Despite the fact that many popular restaurants have set up this long tables, the B.C. Restaurant Association said, " it is a good idea, but I doubt it will change." Many people want to encourage the city to use this long tables but they don't want to force the restaurants. Citizens that are antisocial think communal dining is like a restaurant with no open seats. They strongly disagree against this idea of eating with random strangers especially because they want to be by themselves. Some people say that communal dining is like cramming up in one long table with strangers which makes you extremely uncomfortable. Many people might think that this is a good way to enlighten and engage the citizens of Vancouver, but it may not be the best way for some people.

  In brief, I disagree with the communal dining for I am extremely shy to strangers and eating with strangers would make me extremely uncomfortable. The way of communal dining wouldn't let me enjoy the food because I would be too distracted by the people going in and out. It also isn't a very happy thought to be all crammed in with people in one long table. I am not a very sociable person when it comes to strangers . This whole communal dining would kind of feel like a game of musical chairs, of people who are done the meal going in and new diners coming in. If I was forced to sit at a restaurant with strangers, it would feel like a dinner party with people coming in unannounced. I rather enjoy a quiet meal with some of my close friend or my family.

Articles I found help on:  http://www.bonappetit.com/columns/nitpicker-columns/article/i-m-sick-of-communal-dining
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/britishcolumbia/story/1.2524317
http://www.vancouversun.com/Dining+with+strangers+among+recommendations+make+Vancouver+more+engaged/9451336/story.html