Language and Religion. Yes or No?

One of the most important things an education should do for students is to present the student information, so that they may make educated decisions on what they believe. They should be presented with the information necessary for them to shape their own lives. One of the many ways a school can provide this life shaping information is by providing a study on religion. This study would not promote one religion over another, but rather present the information about beliefs and the rationale behind them. This is very helpful in the student’s decision making process about their views of the world and how different religions compare with the student’s worldview. One must decide at one time or another, which religion to follow, because everyone has a religion. Even people who say they have no religion have religion, namely atheism. Another way that a student can widen his or her horizons is to take a foreign language. Not only do these languages aid in the understanding of other culture in the world, they can also be useful in the work environment. One can enhance their job simply by learning a foreign language. It has the ability of enabling the individual to earn more money, have more travel opportunity, and more life-shaping experience.
Schools with broader culture bases promote foreign exchange students. The foreign students are able to come and participate in American culture without being completely alienated. The culture programs at the school enable the other students to be able to relate to other cultures of the world and it makes them more accepting of other societies.
These forms of study are not made available in many schools in America. Many programs resemble these, but are not the same. Comparative religion courses are often biased to one religion or another. These courses should be less of a comparison and more of a presentation of facts about religion. This enables the student to take the facts, analyze them on his own and decide for himself which religion seems to be the best fit with his own particular worldview. The language classes are viewed as arbitrary requirements that will be forgotten as soon as graduation. They should be stressed more in an attempt to better understand the world. Not only should language be taught but also, the culture behind the language. The cultural aspect of learning a language reinforces the importance of the language. It makes it seem like the language is actually practical and useable.

Leave it to beaver response.

In response to comments I have recieved about the realistic aspects of my family vs. technology illustration. I think you may have missed my major point. The purpose of the story is not to idealize the era of "Leave it to Beaver." it is a critque of modern tecnology as it relates to the family. I realize that people have problems and that family problems did exist even in the days of our grandparents and parents. "Getting in touch with reality" requires a lot of reflection. To say that Dan beat Nancy every night and that she was "forced" to do manual labor all day long and clean her own oven is also an unrealistic statement. There may have been some families in which this occured, but it was not as prevalent as it is today. Take divorce rates for example. The current divorce rate is over 50%. In the days of our grandparents and parents, this figure was almost half that. When people start to only think about themselves, family core values take a hit. Selfishness has no room in a family. Nancy may have wanted to do these things, like care for her husband and family, because she doesn't only think of her own career goals only, she is thinking of her family, the people she loves. A family must work together in order to operate, and when they start to get selfish, the family will fall apart. And although, it cannot be completely attributed to the advancements of technology, it certainly hasn't made things better. If you read postman, you will see that he also, will give illustrations to support his points. And the symmantics of the story are not the main focus. You cannot discredit an illustration about a good family, just because some families weren't this way. One or two instances of disfunctional families can't be made into a majority. It has been said that my story was custom taylored to fit my point, but isn't that exactly what the story written to discredit mine is?

Hold the books, pass the Communism, please.

It seems like every week, my posts start out with “Last week in class, we discussed…” and I’m sick of starting them that way, so this time I will not.

Some things, I think just should not be done. Taking textbooks out of class is one of these things. I think that it is a terrible idea to remove books from the classroom solely because they have been deemed too biased. This is what the communists do. They remove books from the classrooms, because they are thought to contain objectionable material. This idea of censorship, once it gains a foothold, spreads like a virus. Gradually, the “objectionable content” is replaced with propaganda, and eventually the original text is lost, and the original bias destroyed. In its place, a new bias is created. Leaving the lesson up to the teacher is not acceptable. Teachers are not perfect. They must be held accountable for their teaching. What can hold a teacher more accountable than a reference? No textbooks equal no references, meaning the teacher can say anything he wants and the students will have to just sit and agree because they have no other option.

Some people will argue that they can weed out the fallacies and are able to see through deception, but is this possible? This seems feasible to our honors forum class, but we have to step back and view things from a broader scope. Of course the honors student will analyze what the teacher says, that’s why they are in the program, because they have an ability to think critically. The problem is that this group is only a couple hundred individuals. What about the other five-thousand or so students who may not know how to think critically, or don’t care to? They will absorb whatever the teacher says. This is a big problem. The teacher cannot be given this much influence over the class. The written word is one of the most important tools that humans have and to get rid of it would be a shameless travesty.

Another argument that was brought up was that teachers are not teaching interesting lessons anymore, not being creative. An example of a system that kept teachers thinking creatively at my high school was the auditing system. Randomly, the administration would sit in on a teacher’s class and rate them according to their lesson plans. This was very successful because it kept the teachers from getting boring and monotonous.

All things must come to an end eventually and today I am having a hard time concluding, so for now, this is the end of my discussion. Goodbye.

The God of Technology: Destroyer of civility, morals, and personal relationships.

Once upon a time, there was an American family. Dan and his wife Alice had two beautiful children named Nancy and Joey. This family woke up every morning to the smell of a freshly made breakfast. They would all sit around the table and talk about the day ahead. Alice would pack up lunch and whisk the kids off to school with hugs and kisses. During the school day, children would read the assigned homework, and while some cheating occurred, it really wasn’t a problem. At the workplace Dan would walk in and have stimulating discussions about news and politics with his co-workers. He might draw up a professional looking memo for the boss, and at the end of the day the family would sit down to a home-cooked meal prepared by Alice. The family sat around and discussed the day and enjoyed each other’s company.

Let’s now take a trip to the modern household filled with technology…

Alice screams up the stairs that the kids should get out of bed or they will be late for the bus. The kids slowly get around and trudge downstairs. They were up very late the night before playing video games. They come into the kitchen to try to find something to eat. Joey grabs a pop-tart and Nancy doesn’t eat breakfast. Alice and Dan have already left for work. They both work long hours these days in order to pay off their second mortgage and the mounting credit card bills. Meanwhile, at school, Joey sits in the principal’s office awaiting discipline. Joey plagiarized his essay on Hamlet off of the internet. Nancy wrote her own paper, but she had not read the book. She thought it was too long and wanted to go to the mall with her friends. So instead of reading, she got on Spark Notes and found a summary. She didn’t get caught, but she had still compromised her honesty. At work, Dan punches in and heads to his cubicle. He doesn’t know much more than the names of his co-workers. They used to conduct meetings but now every thing it done by conference call. He drops the boss a quick informal email and receives a text message from Alice reading: “Sry, will b home L8. Pick smthing up 4 the kids 2 eat. Thx.” Alice leaves work to run and grab the kids from school and takes them to their various activities. She runs several errands ranging from picking up the dry cleaning to getting the dog groomed. She comes home and the kids and Dan have already eaten. She grabs a cold piece of fried chicken from Popeye’s and heads to the computer to do some more work. Exhausted from the day she heads up to bed and lays down. Dan is already asleep. The kids have been in bed for an hour. She wonders what happened to her family as she swallows a sleeping pill and slips into an artificial sleep.

This first family seems much happier even though they don’t have instant entertainment, fast food, instant messaging, and computers. The second family seems to never even communicate. Their busy lives have taken control and they are no longer able to function as a family. This illustration may seem extreme, but is it really that unbelievable?

Technology Road: A Two-Way Street

In class, last week we continued our discussion on consumerism and gradually segwayed into the topic of technology and its flaws. We found that the advancement of technology is not necessarily a good thing. Many times, it is more of a hindrance that a help. We discussed the illustration of a young girl who could get up in the middle of the night to learn about algebra on the internet. We realize, though, that this is a girl who is unlike almost all children. This idea is just not practical.
Promoters of new technology will tell us that it is definitely a good thing and that it is advancing our culture and society to a whole new level. In fact, many of today’s technologies are putting blocks in the road of our cultural advancement. For example, technology has made our society less personal and less personable. Through the internet email and telephone, we no longer have personal face-to-face conversations and relationships. They are more shallow and impersonal. With the introduction of text messaging, we now no longer have to ever talk to anyone. Looking to enter the dating scene? Uncomfortable in social situations? Just go online. Find a date and possibly a spouse on Match.com. Here you don’t even have to make an effort to go out and meet people. You can just browse a network of people and read about them to decide which one you like best. It’s like buying a car. You browse to see which one looks most practical or most fun and research its features. If you don’t have any friends, just log onto myspace. Add people like there’s no tomorrow and chat with them all day long. There becomes no need to go into the real world and experience life, when you could just park in front of the computer for your whole life.
Conversely, sometimes technology needs an advocate. I will be that advocate at this time. Without advancements in technology, we as a civilization would not be well off. Advancements in medical technology have caused life expectancy to skyrocket. Without these, a life of forty-five years would be a long, well-lived one. Safety innovations protect us from everyday life. The inventions of safety glass, seat belts and air-bags keep us safe on the road. Buildings are reinforced and built with steel, enough so that they can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. This could not have been done hundreds of years ago. Broadcasting has helped us stay connected with the current issues in the world. We can be connected to the news almost anywhere in the world. This is important in keeping our horizons wider than just the goings-on of our own town.
Technology does receive a bad rap sometimes, and many times, this is for good reason. We must remember, though that technology is a two-way street. There are bad aspects, but they come with so many great innovations, that it becomes impossible to discard it.