Eric Chen's Blog

A British non-profit group said Thursday it plans to air the country’s first TV advertisement for abortion services, drawing criticism from at least one Catholic group. (Click here to see related news)

I personally disagree with the clinic that is trying to air this commercial. In my opinion, abortion is an alternative solution to those who really doesn’t want a baby or for those who accidentally have a baby but does not have the financial ability to raise one. I do not disagree with abortion, but it should never be promoted.

Abortion is not a consumer service. To present it as such twisted respect for life and is highly misleading and damaging to women. The existence of this commercial may pressured needed women into the state of making a quick decision which can never be revoked. To allow the broadcast of this AD is to allow the promotion of abortion, and the quick making of irreversible decisions. The most deadly effect of the commercial is that it will trick people into the mindset of “always having this ultimate way to solve the problem.” People become less responsible when they are having sex with protection, and people will slowly become less judgmental toward this controversial topic, which is obviously wrong.

The clinic said they hope the commercial will encourage more people to make this difficult decision and face the surgery. Though there is large number of abortion in the Unite Kingdom, however, there should be no one out there to promote abortion.

Where is our moral value if we allow a clinic to promote abortion? What have we left in ourselves if we allow this alternative solution goes into our mind so easily? We need to learn to be responsible to ourselves and be responsible to whatever consequences that come by our decision instead of seeking such extreme method right away.

First Abortion Ad in UK

Earlier this week, A Florida mother is under fire for a controversial punishment on Wednesday. A Lee County deputy slapped handcuffs on her 5-year-old boy, and the child’s mother set the whole thing up. The neighbor took a photo, post it online and call the news.(Click here to see related news)

Personally, I agree with the action of the mom. Children should be corrected for misbehaving especially when the child is at a young age. At such a young age, children are easier to form bad habit from misbehaving. The mom has been trying to convince her 5-year-old boy to not set things up for fire by verbal conversation. She has also trying to talk nicely to the boy by cautious warning several times too. However, when being nice for multiple times doesn’t correct the boy, it is understandable for the mother to go a little over the top and call the police.

My parents believe no only in threatening but also in physically punishment. They believe that good discipline comes from the deep impression of doing something wrong and learning a strong lesson. The “physical punishment” part enhances the effect of the impression. It helps deepen the lesson into our mind.

While I do not necessary agree on physically punishment, I do agree wit the kid’s mom. What the mom might have been a little extreme, but I firmly believe it is indeed the right decision. The mom, however, did mention a very strong point. “If more parents did what I did, we wouldn’t have the crime we have now,” she said. This is absolutely true regarding the way how most parents teaching their kids at home. Setting random things up on fire at the age of five may seems like nothing. However, this could very possible leads to children doing more boneheaded things in the future when they are older and dare to do more dangerous event. Setting random things up on fire can also be a really bad influence on the neighboring children. Also, if this kids is at someone’s house and light something on fire, in which might get out of control, could lead to a very bad ending too.

It is not until we have done something horrible that we realize we’ve done something wrong from the beginning, something small as lighting random objects on fire. What the neighbor seen might have been to cruel and brutal for the child, but this Spartan way of training our kids is indeed how people really learn their lesson. After all, people usually don’t really learn their lesson until they learn it the hard way.

We all understand the importance to score well on exams, and every teacher knows the pressure of staying on schedule/curriculum, but are schools supposed to teach students by standard curriculum, or are schools supposed to teach student how to think? Are children learning with their curiosity instead of binding it with the pressure of achieving high testing score? Do schools kill creativity?

The very first step of enhanced learning come with the passion of both the teachers and the students. Teacher that opens up the door of “unknown” draws the attention of the students. It makes students concentrate in class, involve in discussions, and most importantly, undergo the progress of thinking. A classroom of students with innovative thoughts is like a succulent watermelon with tons of seeds that grow into millions of trees of knowledge. Our brain has no limit or boundaries and thinking goes far beyond our imagination.

Teachers who binds him/her class to the standard curriculum is however, less likely to create thinkers. The goal might be to meet up with the standard of the school, to satisfy the parents, or to achieve higher testing score.  What this scarifies, however, is the true learning of the children. Students who got binded with textbook and reading are limited to only a few ways of thinking. They end up growing up not able to think outside the box, afraid of doing something wrong, scared of being what they are not good at, not willing to go against and challenge the book.

I was fortunate enough to have the chance to volunteer myself to share my learning experience in the local elementary school Click here to see related article (SouthCoast Today). There, I got to share and compare how it is like studying back home and here in the states. After the lecture, I was interviewed with a local reporter. I then realize the elementary had succeeded in teaching the children by “opening up their minds to a different culture.” By connecting high school and elementary school, international and local education, these young souls are receiving impacts that open up their mind. There might not be numerous impact might but the influence is surely deep. This cultural exchange not only connect them to the whole world, but also give them information that stimulate their thinking and images that curious them. Asian culture in the classroom (Wicked Local News)  or From China to Marion (The Wanderer) By Susan Grosart

At a younger age, children are able to accept more culture difference from all over the world, where as students that grew up in a binding system tend to have a harder time to accept different way of thinking. Back in Asia, parents still think a better college gives you a better future, and therefore more money and better life. Unfortunately, my parents fell into the corner of such Confucius belief. What most parents and teachers fail to realize is, the lack of creativity is what got they all tangled up in the first place. People are stuck this is stereotypical way of thinking. Students are so locked into this kind of thinking and feel they are screwed if they don’t well in school. They have no creativity and they have nowhere to use their creativity because they were taught to have no creativity by their non-creative teacher who was also brought up to be not creative. This bad cycle goes on and on and results in a society that does not improve.

Creativity is indeed the real wealth of education; it is the heart and soul in every aspect of teaching. However, creativity comes from curiosity, and curiosity comes from the stimulus of teacher. Schools are meant to teach children how to think, not meant to train students into robots or test machines. Great and brilliant teachers teach students how to think, great but less brilliant teachers shows student how to solve a problem step by step. The amount of 5 on AP exams doesn’t separate a great teacher from an ordinary teacher. It is the ability of student to think that tells the excellence of one’s teaching.

Previously in the article, we discussed about the economic effect on the U.S. education system. Less money from the government results in cutback of school budget, and therefore the firing of teachers. This week, however, we are going to discuss about this problem from the society’s aspect.

Frances Gallo, the Superintendent of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island fired all the teachers in the school last month after several years of disappointing test scores. “Only 7 percent of 11th-graders passed the state math tests, and 50 percent of the students at Central Falls failed to graduate in four years.” Gallo said.

Yes, it is teachers’ duty to ensure students good grades. It is also natural for the general public to be consensus that teachers should be responsible for students’ good performance. However, are the teachers really the one to be blamed? Is it all teachers’ fault? Is firing all the teachers a right decision? Does this decision make any difference in helping the students improving their performances? The truth is, a family’s background has a lot to do with a child’s performance at school too.

We are not saying the parents should be absolutely rich and wealthy to send their child to summer school or SAT prepping camp, nor are we arguing the parents should both own a high education title to be able to raise a well-taught scholar. What really matters is the time the parents willing to spend on their child.

Supportive parents that participate in the learning process of their children enhance the result and efficiency of achievement. Home environment is much more important on student’s achievement than a family’s’ economic affordability. Support at the elementary level means spending time with their child, reading to their child, talking with their child, providing a stable home for their child. Support in high school means a quiet place to study, recognition and approval for kids’ efforts, and helping when they are not doing well.

Strong school has supportive parents and an involved community. Let’s take a look at Tabor. It is true that we are a private school that has less worry about the current financial situation. However, we have a very supportive community and parents when it comes to athletic games and school events. A caring family that realized the importance of a child’s education knows to prepare their kids well and work with the teacher rather than put the blame solely on the school. Child who has a dysfunctional family and does not come to school prepared loses right at the start and is more likely to put the blame on the teachers.

Teachers are not magicians. Low test scores and high drop-out rate cannot be blamed on the teachers alone. They need help from the parents, help from the community, and help from state and the governments. Schools aren’t failing because the teachers don’t care or aren’t trying. It is not because teachers fail to follow the curriculum. It is not because they are poorly paid. I believe teachers go into teaching because they want to make a difference and help kids. And they certainly don’t go into teaching to get rich. Teachers are professionally trained people who owns extremely large amount of knowledge in on area and yet know how to “teach” their knowledge. So work with the teacher’s don’t fire them!

After discussing previous article on the national reading report, we now expend our views to a larger extend and compare the national education attainment internationally with other countries.

One of the world’s foremost experts on comparing national school systems told lawmakers on Tuesday that many other countries were surpassing the United States in educational attainment. “America’s education advantage, unrivaled in the years after World War II, is eroding even more quickly now.” This is again a problem that is worth our concern.

As the world wealthiest and strongest country that leads the world, United States should not have the education attainment being surpassed by these many countries (Canada, Finland, China, Korea). The results today are due to multiple reasons. The main reason is the education system.

Instead of listing the difference between the education systems, I will use myself as the best example. Before coming to the U.S., my school in Taiwan is largely controlled by the government. Students do not have a lot of choice choosing what they want to take for classes. Everyone take the same classes in elementary school, middle school, and all the way through out high school. It is almost communism. It is only up until college where students are allowed to choose their major.

This way of education goes against my parents’ idea of education. They believe in order for one to be truly outstanding in one’s interested field, one should develop the knowledge freely and has to learn that particular subject since small. Thus, they sent me here, where children can learn what they like the most freely and un-limitly, expecting me to develop into an expert in the field of biology.

As a consequence, I discovered there are pros and cons for both education systems. Education system in Taiwan does not allow students to have too much interest in one particular field, and everyone is required to take the same class for a 12 years spam. It is a system without too much freedom that ignores any will of the students. However, on the other hand, everyone is off from the same line. Everyone is being tested and learning the same material and being judged by the same standard with the same criteria. No one is extraordinary or special simply because one take a high level of math or English. The grades depend solely on how hard you work. Under such competition and pressure, children learn to work hard all the time and realize they cannot find excuse for having low grade, because everyone is in the same class.

Here in America, learning goes with your will, and it goes beyond what schools can give you. If you are interested in learning a third language, it goes as high as professional level and you succeed in a young age. However, that is the case with the kids with much self-control. Most students here in the States do not realize the neither way the education is here nor treasure and grasp on the chance of learning. I have to admit that though I was given a much greater chance to develop whatever I like, I had however learn to “slack off” as much as I could this past four years rather than using these chance to enrich myself with knowledge.

While we worry about the education systems that might need to be modified, we should also think further in the future. These uncompetitive students will one day become to leaders of this country, but what will happen if these leaders are not competitive enough compare to the ones in foreign country?

When one takes a closer look, large intelligent organizations like NASA and Silicon Valley that flourish with smart people, are actually full of brilliant brains from all over the world. In other word, it is not too exaggerated to say that, American’s success depended largely on the constant flowing in of intelligence from all over the world. Then there is the problem that’s worth our concern again, what if these international countries are gaining their average education attainment, when one day they are wealth and strong enough to keep all their talented scholars? Would America be that nation that has enough power to lead to world again? Would our young generation be competitive enough to stand up for themselves? While all these potential problem are still decades away, it is however worth for us to pay close attention to.

The national report card for reading by fourth and eight graders came out today. Fourth-graders make little headway in 2009 test over 2007 results. The results were flat compared with two years ago. Eighth-graders perform slightly better with an average of one point increase. With all fifty-one states, only three states have increased their scores.

The results are no questionable, worrying. Elementary education is the basic and fundamental schooling of all studies. Setting a solid groundwork is not only beneficial but also crucial for children’s higher education later on in their lives. We, especially the parents and the teachers, should all be extremely concerned with the fact that children are not showing any improvement over this two years spam.

Multiple factors might cause this worrying phenomenon. The recent economic downturn could be a major reason that leads to the problem. With the economic downturn, the government started cutting back its entire spending, including education budget. This cutback has impacts directly on the students, which is eventually shown on results of the test.

With less money, schools are likely to reduce the amount of reading books that are being purchased, which has a definitely impact in the increasing the reading ability of elementary children. Secondly, teachers also find themselves hard to keep their jobs. With more teachers being fired in the school, the ratio of students per faculty is naturally decreased. This means the teacher is inevitably going to spend less time with per individual to help he/she with their difficulties. Thirdly, with less salaries the teacher get, it is not unlikely that teachers become less willing to aid with the students, to care more about an individual’s learning process, or even to stay after school to do extra help. Another side effect that came along with the economic crisis is the decrease in motivation for the parents to spend money on cultivating their children. Whether it is in afterschool session, summer programs, or classes that prepares for national tests. It is hard for the parent to be willing to spend a lot of money on these kinds of programs. It is more practical for the parents to maintain their household before they actually have extra financial ability to afford a child’s education. With all these inconvenient factors, our young children’s education becomes the biggest sacrificer.

“The results today once again show that achievement of American students is not growing fast enough. The reading scores demonstrate that students aren’t making the progress necessary to compete in the global economy,” the Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.

Education is the only way out of poverty. Whether one family is truly in needed of aid or not, education should be considered the number-one important goal that we should all try to reach as high as possible. Government should recognize the importance and urgency of these testing results and should immediately take action on how to improving it. Increasing both the quality and quantity of education of one country will increase its average educational attainment. With the power of knowledge, it will eventually leads to the prosperity of the country and further more to the success of all human kind.

“The International Olympic Committee will investigate the actions of Canadian women’s hockey players who celebrated their gold medal victory Thursday night by swigging beer and smoking cigars on the ice in Vancouver.” – Yahoo News.

The Canadian Hockey Team sure knows how to celebrate their victory over the U.S.A. Hockey Team.  We all understand the excitement of winning the cold medal in the winter Olympic, especially in ice hockey. The main problem however, is the hockey team has done nothing wrong but celebration their victory in the public area, the rink. The celebration should have never been brought to the open space in which inappropriate behaviors could be seen. If the Canadian Women Hockey has kept the “beer chucking” and “cigar smoking” actions in a more private area, there would have been no controversy over this topic. Though the incident was spotted while the rink was cleared out, these ladies should have been aware that they are public images that are constantly being “seen.”

What the ladies might not realize was, young children look up to them. Youth from all over the world treat them as the people they want to be when they grow up, wishing one day they could be just as good to play hockey in the Olympic. What would the children thought when they see the image of their idol doing such inappropriate behavior in a public area? I’m guessing disappointment and the broken of a perfect image for the Women Hockey players.

Not to be corny, but the Canadian ladies should have really taken in more consideration before committing such behavior. Their celebration has raised some eyebrows among members of the IOC after pictures were taken. Behaviors like swigging beer and smoking are “not the kind of behavior the International Olympic Committee would love to see,” especially when one of the players is under 18 (The drinking age in British Columbia is 19).

Honestly, to me, it is not a harmful act. It was merely an understandable celebration with good fun that might have been a little inappropriate. However, to those parents, the situation might be a little different.

To be sure, the Canadian women’s hockey team could have acted with a little more class and be more careful with its celebration. But to do something drastic like ban the team from the closing ceremony or force them out of the Olympic Village would be an overreaction. So, ladies, next time, be more careful of what you are doing when it might raise a problem!

Research has shown that most popular medical dramas on television do not always show a professional seizure treatment nor are these procedures portrayed accurately. A study has found that about less than half of the time were these procedures delivered appropriately. “In nearly 46 percent of seizure cases, characters on these shows delivered inappropriate treatments such as holding the person down, trying to stop involuntary movements or putting something in the person’s mouth, the study said. The shows did show proper treatment about 29 percent of the time, and in the remaining 25 percent of the time, the accuracy of the portrayal couldn’t be determined,” said researcher Andrew Moeller of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

What the screenwriter does not realize is, while he/she is trying to create a better impact by making the plot more dramatic, he/she has also made an effect on every single one that are watching the show. People, who watch the show, without any professional knowledge in medical practice, will not be able to respond nor to separate what is actually right or wrong. Thus, when it comes to the situation and aid is actually needed, they might perform procedure they saw on the TV that is actually harmful to the patient.

The researchers have not yet found nor decided which medical drama is better or worse than the other ones. Also, it is clear to the researches that besides actual medical treatment, there are another characteristics that has gone “off the track” particularly in “House M.D.” Any one who watches the show would found the kind of doctor like House nearly impossible to find in any hospital anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world. “Medicine today requires a collegial environment, with constant collaboration among technicians, radiologists, surgeons, doctors, nurses and other hospital professionals. That’s why House’s character — crotchety, aggressive, egocentric and disrespectful of rules — is somewhat unrealistic” Even more annoying to the researcher Dr. Sanders is when Dr. House performs surgery without a mask or hat.

These phenomena are understandable. After all, dramas do need these kinds of characters to make the play all exciting and satisfy the viewers for the sake better rating. However, researches do find some parts of the drama true as in the actual hospital. The way the “House team” breaks down the problem with every kind of diagnostic possibility and then makes corrections of an error using logical deductive ratiocination with a medial team is indeed true and can be found in most hospitals.

One fact that we should all be alarmed, however, is a false depiction of the CPR. A falsely demonstration of the CPR procedure might cause a greater effect on us compare to any other medical seizure treatments since CPR usually occurs more often in an emergency and is often preformed by nearby parties rather than medical technicians.

Beijing, China (CNN) — Earlier Tuesday, China warned that ties between two of the world’s superpowers would be strained if Obama met with the Dalai Lama.

China’s action of warning the white house shows nothing but yet another mal- behavior of its communist government. “Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of advocating for Tibetan independence from China.” China has been pressing Taiwan, its so-called ”Part of China”, the same way it has been treating Tibet. Without any exception, China treated Tibet in the same way, the way of a communist and the way without much global aspect. Without realizing the same cycle has been cycling for the past five thousand years in its history, China seems to enjoy its total control in nearly every corner of its society.

“Zhu said there would be no compromise on China’s control of Tibet.”

Yet, what did we see? We saw soldier shooting the victims and the government pressing the local media. The government does such a good job hiding the truth away from the general public that the people of China are ignorant to the Tibet rebellion. Even upon students studying abroad who are able to receive neutral broadcasts of the news were defiance to the fact that their government had unfairly pressed just another tribe of their very own people.

Thanks to the media around the world and their effort of giving human kind the truth, we are able to see images and videos of the brutal act of Chinese government. Having one of the oldest civilizations in the world in which the government is supposed to have the most experience in overcoming the kind of problem like Tibet, China has yet to learn even a step in the practice of freedom of speech and the freedom of a person’s will. When including the fact that China tries to warn the U.S., the country with the most experience in practice of freedom, it shows just how narrow-minded the communist thinking is and how pathetic and ironic the Chinese government is.

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