実は....僕....学校が嫌いです、
勉強も嫌い。。。

なぜだろ？

僕。。。知らない。。。

.....

I want to pass my last 3 months of senior life as fun as possible... not filled with homework assignments...

I want to graduate earlier, so I have more than a week to pack for leaving Taiwan.

I want to have a senior trip, but......... you know.........

I am kind of disappointed with how the _____ is now.

sigh sigh sigh...
I've been stressing myself out with school works since I was in Elementary school. Too tired now...

I want more FUN and RELAX TIME!!!!!

Saint and followers

Complains? Everyone has them.
Comments? Everyone has them.
Being stubborn? who doesn't?
But who really listens?

Who is the Saint and who is the follower?

Why can the Saint be the Saint?
Why must the followers be followers?

Who do you think you are?
Stop making lame excuses!!!

"Teaching Civic Respnoses" (summary + opinion)

The basic thesis of this article "Teaching Civic Responses", written by Joel Westheimer, from University of Ottawa and Joseph Kahne, from Mills College, is that schools should teach social civics through educating students to be engaged citizens. Education can raise students' appreciation for democracy and therefore really become a citizen that will actually conduct meaningful things to the society. Westheimer and Kahne said that schools put too much emphasis on community service and service learning. And it seems to become an excuse for the schools to say that they teach civics through service practices.

The article explained three different types of citizens: personally responsible citizen, participatory citizen, and justice oriented citizen.
A personally responsible citizen is someone that do good deeds, such as picking up litter, donate blood, and etc. The participatory citizen is someone 'who actively participate in the civic affairs and the social life of the community at local, state, and national levels.' And last but not least, justice oriented citizens are people who explore, examine, and analyze the root of social problems. They look at not just one side but social, economic, and political forces and develop skills and missions to improve the society.

Westheimer and Kahne went further on the idea that school should teach students how to make commitment to democracy. Most of schools have community service, however, service is not directly related to democracy or social civics. It's like a "citizenship without politics—a commitment to service, but not to democracy." In other word, most of the people are personally responsible citizens, but all the good acts they cannot solve the problem at all. They are not aware of what is the root of the social problems and what are possible solutions for those problems. Therefore, the goal of the school to teach social civics is to culitvate students to become real Justice Oriented citizens and to really solve the problems.

The article ends with a good quote: "The choices we make have consequences for the kind of society we ultimately help to create." We need to be careful of the actions we take because there's always a consequence for it, no matter good or bad. I think schools has the responsibility to enable students to realize what benefit they will get out of being justice-oriented citizens.

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Q: Give your opinion on best strategies for teaching civic responsibility at HIS.

I think it is really important to choose and design programs carefully. The program must interest the students, no matter if it's aiming at personally responsible citizenship or a justice-oriented level. It is really hard to engage students' attention if the program is tedious. As I said above, students need to realize why they should be both participatory and justice oriented citizens.
However, I don't see how HIS can become a justice-oriented citizen because we are not even being a participatory citizen. Even the most basic, meaningful educational opportunities like community service is taken away, so how can we develop a sense of civic responsibility?

Save economy crisis in the US...

As I read the article that listed many plans that will, hopefully, support the American economy on New York Times, the plans that I found most actively supportive can be categorized into two kinds: Alternative Energy and Health Care.

First of all, I think conducting energy efficiency and renewable energy research mandatory is absolutely necessary. We rely too much on oil and it will eventually run out someday in the future. If the U.S. do not start investing in this field, it will be too late when the serious oil shortage problem occurs. Investments now will only increase our future good. It helps to lower the costs of alternative-energy-based products (eg: hybrid cars). Investments in alternative energy can also help prevent future conflicts that oil shortage might cause between different nations. I think what the US government can do at current stage is to replace older vehicles owned by the federal government with hybrid and electric cars. The government can be a role model for US citizens and other nations and lead the trend of "going green".

One of the most convenient things about living in Taiwan is that everyone has health care. Taiwanese citizens only need to pay a little to go to a clinic or a dentist. In contrast, U.S. Health Care system is not so convenient. Patients often have to wait for many days before they can go see a doctor or a dentist. Also, medical fees in the Us.S. are incredibly expensive! Not every citizens can afford the fee to pay for medical treatments. Therefore, investment is Health Care is necessary. The government should help states with Medicaid costs so that cheaper and more convenient medical treatments are available for all the U.S. citizens. The government should also extend qualified individual program so that people can be qualified for medical care more easily.

What can HIS do?

Not to be too pessimistic, but I think not everyone can do something like the two Indian woman in the Opinion Column "Yes, They Could. So They Did." due to many reasons. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the work that the two Indian women had done. I think it is very courageous for two women to travel around India by the electric car and to teach people about their climate-change project.

As an individual, it's hard for me, a high school student, to make really significant changes in the community. To be honest, I don't have much to think about changing the world on my own because I'm busy being a student. I don't have much technical knowledge on how to make a solar energy car. All I can do is to turn off the lights, use less water when showering or brushing my teeth, or these kind of little steps to save energy. I also remind my friends and family members to do these kind of simple steps to save energy consumption.

As a school, we definitely can do more than just turning of the lights. I liked the greening roof-top plan that the 10th graders came up with few months ago. Yet, the plan was canceled because budget problem. I am also thinking about putting solar energy panels on the roof top and on the windows and then we can make use of the solar energy we collected. However, the solar-energy system must be quite expensive. Therefore, I think the first step the school can do is to come up with a proposal of our greening-plan, and send it to Hsinchu City government. I think the mayor would be willing to support our plan by providing financial aid.

Guy or Girl? (draft)

This week our student representative council held a Spirit Week. Today, students get to cross dress--- men as girls, and girls as men.
Our class went for a short trip to 7-11 out side our school during Global Ethics class. It was interesting to see the reactions of people on the streets when we walk out with clothing that we don't normally wear. We had a discussion afterward on gender binary in the US and it with Asian countries.
The main difference between "gender" and "sex" is that 'gender' is a cultural difference between female and male; 'sex' is the biological difference between female and male.

I agree with Ms. Sheilah's comment about this Cross dressing day --- it's definitely a healthy experience because we get to experience different gender culture.
The society has always been patriarchal. So, as a woman, I am happy that guys are actually experiencing how girls feel by cross dressing. Our math teacher, Mr. Truchon, also dressed up in a girl's outfit; he said "Now I understand why girls look in the mirror a lot, because there are always things(clothes, hair, etc) to fix." I also heard some other guys who cross-dressed said that it is not so convenient when they dress in skirts because they have to sit properly.


We also discussed about if cross dressing more difficult for boys or for girls?
I think it's definitely more difficult for the boys because of the gender stereotype that has passed down for many centuries. Boys were told to act manly, can't show weakness, etc. Although there are also stereotypes on girls, however, girls still dress like boys in daily life and we see it as normal.

------ I'll complete this blog entry later

Stock of Social Capital

In the article, it provides a definition for the word 'social capital': it is the emphasis on social networks, reciprocity, and community outreach.

There are nine solutions for innovation and all of them are associated with youth education. Just like Solution 9 writes: "the adults [our] experiences are different enough from the students' [theirs] that adults [we] don't dare guess their answers." I also believe that youth is the our future hope because they have potentials to become the stock of social capital. It is the youth's ideas that will be leading the society to move forward. In order to let kids are so important, the school itself is responsible for their education because school is where the kids are getting most of the knowledge from.

I would like to make comments about the following solutions based on my past experiences in Taiwanese local schools and Hsinchu International School:

Solution 1 - Spur greater parental participation:
I think parental participation is very important because parents are able to provide suggestions for the school to make improvements. In local schools, there are always a Parent Committee for each classes. Parents that are involved the committee usually divide jobs among themselves. Some are in charge of the money, some are responsible for the educational matters, and etc. The school also held PTA regularly to exchange information with the student body, the school, and the parents themselves. The participation of parents can provide fairer opinions and make fairer decisions.

Solution 2 - Make school smaller:
I’ve been to Taiwanese local schools with more than three thousand students. I felt the students in local schools are only test-taking machines because of the traditional Taiwanese educational system. And there are very few opportunities for everyone to participate equally in different activities. The teachers hardly have chances to get to know each student and try find out their strengths and weaknesses. The school is too big that there is no sense of collaboration and trust.
However, two potential disadvantages about small schools is that students will not be able to develop a more complete social skills in a school that is too small either; and schools might not be able to provide enough learning resources or tools for students in a smaller school. Nevertheless, smaller schools like HIS do have its advantage on developing student's individual strengths.

Solution 6 - Model high schools on a community:
I strongly agree that students are the key members of a school and the school should trust students more on what they can do. I think that it is important for the teachers to trust and listen to students more because students are the ones that can really tell what can be improved and what should be kept. Reciprocity is another key factor--- I agree that 'student-to-student' teaching method should be practiced in schools. Students who are older can share experiences with younger students because younger students look up to older students as a model. Sometimes, it might be more effective for a student to teach a student rather than a teacher teaching a student because of the age difference.
HIS seems to value 'trust' and 'reciprocity' a lot and I appreciate the opportunities the school provide the students; but still, there are room for improvements.

Solution 7 & 8:
Although the textbook is important, I think 'lived-experience' is also important. Contributions to the community helps raises awareness of what is going on. Actual experiences also help students to prepare for college and even when they enter the work field.
I will use HIS's internship program as my personal example: I felt that I learned a lot at my internship with my mentors. I felt that these experiences are important for my future, especially for entering a college community. I also felt that I've become more independent since I started my internship last year in October.
Therefore, I think schools should definitely come up with more ways to create a meaningful education for the students.

The other solutions that I did not mention because I think civic education, extracurricular activities, and community service are the basics that every school should practice.
A school based on trust and reciprocity will create stronger bond between the teachers, students, and even parents. Communication between those three is the key to a successful education!

ILE Reflection #2 (to be proofread...)

Roxanne and I have been helping with some minor chores since the seventh week at Sir Speedy. For example, think of some simple designs for the client, played with Flash, cut papers, compile papers that cannot be used anymore into small notepads, and etc. I've also learned how to use the paper cutter, hole puncher, photocopier during the past few weeks.

The most special experience was a visit to the printing press. There were many big machines for mass printing. The people there first print client's image on 4 pieces of metal plate, and then they would roll the metal plates into different machines for different colors. All the images are printed based on 4 different colors - CMYK. C for cyan, M for magenta, Y for yellow, and K for black. When it comes to bigger machines, the person can adjust the amount of ink by a computer and they would try to adjust the color of the image as close to the original design as possible.
Some clients are picky about the colors, therefore my mentor usually go to the printing press to make sure the colors on the image are the same as the original design. For smaller printing machines, the person will use his own judgment to mix the paints to get the right color.

I was quite amazed to see how little change in the amount of the inks will effect the complete product! The people in the printing shop will have to repeat the step of adjusting the amount of inks for at least 10 times to get the right color. Imagine doing this job for years and years... they must have a lot of patience to do this job well!
The total papers used for test-printing are also a lot. For example, if the client wants to print 1000 posters, then the clients must prepare 1200-1300 papers because those extra 200-300 pieces will be used for test printing. It is a huge amount of papers wasted. Therefore, the design industry are promoting digital design, so there won't be that many papers and inks wasted.

Good and Bad of Globalization - Essay

Teenagers chat on the Internet, go on Facebook and My Space, etcetera to meet more new friends. These things are happening because of “Globalization”. Globalization is a trend of everything being internationalized, including technology, education, economy and culture. Globalization can bring positives such as cultural diffusion, improved living standards, and a boom in economy, but at the same time bring harm to the developing countries and the environment. I would like to explore the idea of Globalization in economy and see how the positive and negative impacts affecting the global community are concerned with good and bad incentives and moral responsibilities.

Let’s look at the positive effects:
First of all, Globalization brings innovation in both economy and education to developed and developing countries. People exchange knowledge with and learn from each other and allow more technological advancement to be made to improve our lives. For example, about 100 million people owned cell phones by the mid-1990s and the number rose to 3 billion in 2007. According to a report done by the London Business School in 2005, an increase of 10 cell phones per hundred people in emerging markets contributes to 0.6 percent growth in GDP (*data from International Union for Conservation of Nature).
Secondly, Globalization can improve living standards in developing countries. For the US, about 200 billion US dollars were devoted to foreign investment because it is the best chance for them to get out of poverty and improve their living standards. There will be more job opportunities therefore many people will benefit! More job opportunities mean a greater labor force. This leads to the third positive impact: lower cost of living and more stable national economy. It is easier to get inexpensive but high quality goods if there are more workers. For example, according to an article I read on “Forbes.com”, it says that as China built up its infrastructure, it created a Special Economic Zone that enabled foreign companies to build more factories and hire cheap labor, and go years without paying taxes while the government builds other infrastructure that they need. China’s export grew from 970 million USD to 974 billion USD in three decades. Per-person income increased from 16 dollars a year in 1978 to 2000 dollars in the present. Surely both China and foreign investors benefit from this economic growth.

After seeing three main positive impacts, we need to look at the unseen or unknown sides of Globalization. Although the economy has improved, one may also argue that the global economy is, in fact, becoming more imbalanced. As Joseph Stiglits stated in his book “Making Globalization Work”: “Globalization has compounded the problems arising from the misalignment of incentives in modern corporations.” Obviously, the main cause of many negative impacts is that foreign investors often lack incentives to protect the workers and the environment.
First impact is that, moral responsibility is weakened once multinational businesses are created because of the mind-set that a developed country may have on those developing countries. It is easy for technology-advanced countries to think that ‘because they (workers in third-world countries) are poor, they deserve less, or even are worthless. This is when competition in foreign investments are wrong; there are usually no strict laws to regulate powerful investors on what they can and cannot do and no strong laws to protect foreign workers and the environment. For example, the chemical plant for Union Carbide, an American company, exploded in 1984 in India. The court extradited the company, but it refused to cooperate and rejected the extradition request without explanation. As a result, India was forced to clean up the mess that the company made (*data from the book “Making Globalization Work”).
This ties to the second impact: when something happens in international business relationships, it is harder to find someone to be responsible for the consequence. We can see this problem in the Wal-Mart movie “The High Cost of Low Price”. A young female worker who works in a factory that produces products that will be sold in Wal-Mart said that she does the same chore for twelve hours a day. She is forced to live in a crowded, dirty room with other female workers and cannot go home to see her parents often. But she needs this job to earn money for her parents. I am sure there are much more similar cases like this young woman’s. The problem is, who is responsible for workers’ rights? The Wal-Mart Company in the US or the Chinese government? Third World Countries are usually the victims of these international businesses. Only developed countries gain the most profit.
Last but not least, Globalization and foreign investment will threaten the environment. The big environmental issues such as deforestation, severe drought and flooding, desertification, threatened biodiversity, and global warming are all caused by the huge demand on resources. In order to meet the global demand for goods, investors seek for more and more resources all around the world. For example, China’s investments alone in Africa in 2006 were estimated at 50 billion USD. In May 2007, TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade-monitoring network, released a report indicating that illegal logging in Tanzania has increased in an uncontrolled rate only to meet the demand from China. This is definitely a huge threat to the forests and ecological system in Tanzania (*resource also came from International Union for Conservation of Nature).
On the whole, having seen the positive and negative impacts of Globalization, it is necessary to educate foreign investors to have moral responsibility and good incentives. Investors should take shareholders, employees, and the community into account because everything in interconnected. It is like a chain reaction – once one part collapses, other parts are affected too. We definitely want innovation, more positive cultural exchange, and a healthy global economy. It is everyone’s responsibility to take care of their own actions so the whole world, both developed and developing countries can benefit from Globalization!