Commentary (New mantra for teachers)

On the newspaper today, titled "New mantra for teachers", teachers were in the spotlight on the newspaper. With Teacher's Day just around the corner, many had begun to consider the significance of teachers in the schooling path of our lives, leading us, caring about us and inspiring us to greater heights. The "Mantra" was just as about the same as the 3 points stated above. Teachers have just made "Lead. Care. Inspire." their motivation to teach students and a form of guideline to teaching.

However, this tagline is just as delusional as it seems. Why do you think I would say that? Yes. It is true that they play a very huge part in the starting few years of our lives, leading us, caring and even doing things out of their way to inspire and help us. But there are some important things that just falls out of the creed. For example, in today's newspaper too, "Clean fun or crude act?", where NTU students were caught on camera taking part in orientation activities and one of the female student was made to eat a banana off a male holding it near his crotch. Have teachers been blind to miss out such a big loophole? Orientation was meant to invite the new students and bask in the joy of getting into such a prestigious university but apparently teachers-in-charge have apparent broke the joy and brought shame on them, together with the school.

Another example would be Mr Otto Fong, a comic artist, ex-teacher in Raffles Institution. He was a very good teacher, able to teach both Chemistry and Physics. He was also my teacher in year 2008, which I improved tremendously under his guidance. He was well-liked by the class and was deemed as a very funny teacher. However, in late 2008, in his blog post, he self-proclaimed himself as a gay and held on to that belief for awhile before law kicked in. This had greatly impacted his job as a teacher and brought about wraths of hurting comments all over the web. Even as a student of him, I would really like to say to all those "morons" to look into the stereotypes that they held in their heart. It may be true he is gay but he is still a very good teacher. But apparently his outrage brought shame to the teaching career by setting bad example (or good) and was removed from his post.

Another leading example would be Mr Daniel Cheng a.k.a. Bishan Gay or BG for short. He was always seen at Hwa Chong Institution or Raffles Institution. He was deemed as a gay as he was always caught looking at boys walking past KFC or McDonald's or even bus stops near the school. All these favourite haunts of him had brought about netizens commenting on his acts of peering at boys when they walk past. There was even a newspaper article on the newspaper on him. But little did people know the true background behind him. He was an ex-teacher in Raffles Institution and taught for many years before being ousted due to his acts. His acts also brought about the degradation of teacher's overall reputation of being a inspiration or caring person. Apparently in this case, it's over-caring and not a very good inspiration to follow.

Teachers were meant to lead and bring about good examples but apparently all teachers are still humans, and they err still. With all the examples above, it shown how bad and delusional the mantra is. Even if it exists, it will be deemed as a lousy way to inspire more teachers to work the extra mile for their students. Many teachers will still be added into the workforce due to the bad economy and the standards of teacher will clearly drop with the new inputs. Teachers with little to zero experience will be having a bit with the students as they cannot cope or cannot teach until the students understand and instead skip out weaker students just as to advance in lessons. All these are also very common within the veteran sector, where teachers with more experiences taught just as the same.

Indirectly, what is the point behind this hypocritical mantra that strives for nothing but just a way to boost the teachers' significance? This shows that many of these plans or even advertisements have just achieved nothing but a waste of resources. As Ms Ho, one of the teachers taking part in this program said caring is integral in the responsibilities of teachers. They have to care for the physical safety, social and emotional needs and mould characters of their students. Great teachers inspire their students to love a subject and other colleagues to become better teachers, she added. I totally agree with this statement, but if all teachers could be great teachers that uphold all these values, they wouldn't be deemed as teachers but robots, programmed to uphold the same values behind teaching. Great teachers would surely err big time once in a while, same as great thinker Albert Einstein, who predicted that nuclear energy can be used as a bomb and that led to Japan being bombed with atomic bombs.

(EVEN I SAID ALL THIS, I STILL RESPECT TEACHERS)

Happy Teacher's Day. (If it still holds the same meaning when it was implemented in all schools, blame principals of primary schools banning ex-students from getting into the premise to celebrate the festive mood and bridge back the old memories of students and teacher relationship.)

Cheers,
ﾊﾟﾝﾄﾞﾗ














P. S. Don't bother blogging about the comments. Public people, just shut the f*** up　if you wanna read and don't read if you don't like it. It's MY POV and MY BLOG maybe biased but i dun give a s*** It's just a assignment trying to make us read the newspapers for god's sake. DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ!

ERP 1 (Qn 1B)

My grandfather was a voracious reader of the Chinese newspaper, reading up on what is happening on the other side of the globe. It was his habit of reading newspaper while sitting beside the green mahjong table, filled with stacks of newspaper and a cup of black coffee. It was because of this reading improved his “debates” with my father, on topics of governance to HDB flats in Singapore. I never once tried interrupting them and joining in the talk, as I was more “English” compared to my 70 year old grandfather. Furthermore, he could not understand English that we speak of in this modernized world of short forms and slangs.
When I was younger, with the Chinese influence by my grandfather, I always listened to the stories of the Japanese Occupation from his accounts, saying that the very first batch of Japanese was utterly ruthless, killing anyone who breaks the law or disrespect them. The subsequent batch of Japanese was much merciful and they treat some of the citizen well. He was one of the “lucky” citizens who escaped the bombings, Sook-ching and even managed to get married and give birth to my mom, her sister and 4 brothers. He provided the Japanese cigarettes made from stubs picked up from used cigarettes and wrapped it with tobacco and paper. It looked brand new, he told me. It was this reciprocity that saved his life and his families’. But even with this “security” backing, food was still a problem and he unwillingly let his son be adopted by another family, who did not have any children. Even till today, he still regretted that choice that he had made in that times of desperation.
But as I grew older, the bond between us was weakening with electronic advancements. Computers and online games had come between us; my grandfather was stuck in his Chinese operas and oldies from cassettes while I was sticking with the latest music, just a button away. Even his advice and concerns became nags for me, which I always walked off or play music into my headset just to avoid the nags. Whatever he said, I will just take it with a pinch of salt. I would rather read my Straits Times than his Lian He Zao Bao. My grandfather was ousted from my “English” lifestyle.
I soon realize that he was separated from me by that language barrier, not talking to me in dialects and talking to me with little words of Chinese as he knew I can’t speak as well. My “society” had no place for him and he soon stopped talking to me about his life, his experiences, his story. My world had been divided from his, but deep down, we both want to strengthen our dwindling bonds and remember each other for the precious memories we had even if age differences seperates us……
I finally stood up from the computer chair, away from my technology and walked towards the debates, prepared to talk in Chinese, our common language.

Opinion

Using science and maths to explain evolutionary biology, even kindness in a person also can be rooted to their genes and to equations. I am truly shocked that goodness, in our genes, only applies to blood relatives and people that you know of, not people that you don't know. This can be greatly seen in this society, if your relative and a stranger is drowning, and you only can save one, who would you save? Many would answer relative. It is a common trend and people are losing the ability to help other people that are in need even though when they are in trouble. Even as I type this opinion, I could remember the amount of times a person helped me before when I am in trouble. Less that 5.

Commentary

“To abuse your daughter when she turns 11 is horrible enough, but then to incarcerate your daughter when she turns 19 in order to perpetuate the sexual abuse, and to keep her in a darkened dungeon for the next 24 years, together with three of the seven children you incestuously impose on her in a mockery of normal parenthood, represents a crime against the soul,” said Mr Phillip Hodson, a Fellow of the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. From this quote, I agree that incest is an ugly thing, not just ending with sexual relationship but laced with shame, disgust, mental and health impacts which affects the child or even the children bore from these acts of emotion.
Incest affect the mental and health state of a children, which could be clearly shown from cases of incest of recent years, with the most famous cases like Arcebio Alvarez from Columbia, who kept on the incest relationship with his adopted child, since she was 9 years old into the 30s and the case of Josef Fritzl from Austria, who kept his daughter under a hidden, windowless cellar for nearly a quarter of a century, raping her repeatedly and forcing her to give birth to seven of his children, who have just seen daylight for the first time of their life after they were released. We can see that the victims are clearly affected as they are constantly in fear of their perpetrator and they are permanently scarred for life as they are afraid to face the world after being raped by their own relatives. Diseases like AIDS, herpes and many more sexually transmitted diseases are transmitted easily through this relation of incest. Many children in Africa also had STDs as they are sold off to other people for money and beliefs of having sex with a virgin will cure the STDs. These causes massive impact to the children and even the descendants of the victim as they have higher chances of death due to congenital disease and they are affected mentally as they don’t know real family values and they are sexually “incompetent” as they are afraid of the experience after they are raped by their family members. Researches also shows that chances of the victims committing suicide is high and they rarely get into a relationship with the opposite sex due to the bad experience they recalled.
However, incestuous relationship might not be bad overall as seen from the case of John and Jenny Deaves from Australia who had incestuous relationship between father and daughter after they were married. Both of them are consensus parties and both agreed to this relationship. They given birth to 2 children, one died due to congenital diseases and the other one is a healthy nine-month-old baby girl. Even though incest is morally incorrect but the father did not “violated his daughter and used his position of authority to take advantage of her powerlessness". Even though it caused the death of his child, both of them are still fine with each other. There were no health or mental impacts due to incest and both parties agree to continue this relationship.
But incest is still incest and it’s shameful and, to many people, disgusting as they conflict with moral values of “father taking care of children” instead of “having sex with them”. Imagine that you are Mrs Dorothy Deaves, who married John Deaves, how would you feel when your husband is having sex with your ex-wife’s daughter or try imagining you being Mrs Jenny Deaves’s husband. Both Mrs Dorothy Deaves and Mrs Jenny Deaves’s husband have divorced both John and Jenny Deaves and as quoted by Mrs Dorothy, "I'm devastated — he has hurt me terribly," "It was hard to face for a long time.” "It's one of those things everyone's so upset about.” It will hurt many people involved in this and create an out roar due to this incident. As quoted by Mr. John Deaves, "Emotions take over, as people no doubt realize, there are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head," he said. We can clearly see that acts of incest is due to emotion and that incest is an ugly thing as many people will look down on the victims and protagonist and comments from one of the commenter on this news posted “How would the daughter feel if their daughter grows up and the Father-Grandfather decides she is desirable and wants to have a sexual relationship with her. Sick, as if there isn't enough people in the world to choose as your partner rather than steal your mother’s husband.” These types of comments will hurt the child emotionally when she grows up.
I am grateful that I live in a family that is well rounded and does not commit incest. Even as we speak, around the world there might be other cases of incest committed in this tainted world. Many are concealed, with little people knowing it except the victims and the perpetrator. Hopefully, cases of incest decreases and that people begin to understand what is morally right and what isn’t. Not using emotion to control your head isn’t a bad thing to do.

Embryonic Stem Cell Motivator

Anyone have ever imagined that organ transplant law can be removed once and for all? Anyone wondered that the queue for new organs for transplant can be removed? Many have wanted them to happen and found many ways to go about trying to solve it. Embryonic Stem Cell is one of the most prominent way to solve this problem as it is feasible to many and it could be done in the near future with the speed of today's technology advancement. It could help many, as scientists say. It will create many people with organs produced by animals in their body walking around, living like normal. People that are close to you might have cloned organs from animals or a living embryo. However, I disagree that it should be continued as it will create problems in moral ethics and many problems will soon arise, like people abusing the organs created out of animals.

Opinion on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Embryonic Stem Cell has always been a controversy since its debut, where if used properly, would be able to solve most of the problems like lack of organs for transplants and to cure diseases that are deemed as "incurable" back then. The usage for stem cells, the basic of all cells, have been proven worthy in the medical field. But many problems have appeared too, corruption have appeared in the field too. Many criticism of moral ethics and opinions of using embryo to create organs have arise over the years. Billions of money have injected into research and development of this research. Although it may be controversy and morally bad, I will still agree that Embryonic Stem Cell research should be continued to help many people with the lack of organs for organ transplant.

Embryonic Stem Cells have helped many people. Many research have been done for stem cells, the basic cells of all cells, where it changes itself to other cells such as muscle, coronary, brain cells and many more to support the organ's function to support the body. It was researched as many people have died with the lack of organ transplant such as kidneys, heart and lungs. The most recent research/breakthrough in this field, is where a scientist managed to "clean out" the heart of mouse of all its cells and injected embryonic stem cells to produce coronary cells. The heart of the mouse managed to beat again and it shocked most of the scientist as they thought it was impossible at all. This brought out hope that one day the researchers can create a organ that is suitable for transplant. This shows that embryonic stem cell research should be continued to create chances that one day our heart can be "reused" even though it is damaged.

Using ethics, embryonic stem cell should be stopped as usage of embryo cells from a female donor. Many deem zygote is a "life" and that it should not be used for experiments as it might give birth to a life. There are other ethics involved also, the newest controversial news, shown in The Straits Times, of January 2006, where Professor Hwang Woo Suk faked his research and results and gained credit for nothing done. The author of this article also stated that,"So what has kept numbers of unscrupulous scientist down to a minimum? Ethics". This clearly shows that ethics is a must for researches. Millions of dollars were inputted into R&D, shown in the example where President of USA, Mr Barrack Obama, decided to set aside 10 billion US dollars for research in this field. If people without ethics, they will be corrupted and tend to fake research like Professor Hwang. This shows that ethics is a half-half status, where it is needed for some and not needed for some and that embryonic stem cell will create a stage where corruption will be high.

Stem cell research have created many cases of corruption but the benefits still stands out compared to others. Even when corruptions occurs, it will help many, with organs and cures debilitating diseases and cure people with stroke if possible. Many benefits have arise from this research and many needs it so it is important that this research continues. This research will help many people that are waiting for an organ or trying to overcome diseases such as stroke. Corruption is nothing but a small setback for a large advantage

Expository Essay (Scrap CCT)

Many people believed that exams are good and they are a form of acknowledgement for the students. However, stress will soon follow and even when they have the knowledge, under the pressure of stress, they will underperform. I strongly agree that CCT should be scraped as there are other forms of assessments, like projects and worksheets. They would reduce stress and can allow the students to perform at their best. It is logical that everyone wanted to do their best but it also depends on emotions and environment at that time. This would greatly improve the results of the students and allow the teachers to understand and help them out in areas that they are weak in when they performed their best.