According to a resent research, every week, up to 8,000 teachers will deal with a pupil carrying an offensive weapon to school in the US, such as a knife or a gun. Teachers are facing worrying levels of violence, poor behaviour and disruption in schools. The study also shown that 1 in 10 teachers reported being pushed or manhandled by pupils.
The study by Dr. Sean Neil, of Warrick University's Institute of Education, revealed that serious incidents are increasingly taking place in schools serving disadvantaged areas. According to Steve Simott, General Secretary of The National Union of Teachers, which comisssioned the research , carrying weapons to school doesn't make students safer but more vulnerable and he remarked that they need to get that message across. Teachers are encountering the problem, especially in some of the toughtest schools in the toughtest areas, particularly among boys from socially deprived backgrounds. Boys from disadvataged areas are more likely to have low aspirations, be worse behaved, commit offences and become gang members.
Teachers said in the survey that rather than takle the problem with more referral units, they would prefer actions to reduce class size, make curriculum less restrictive and get more support from parents for school discipline.
As regrading weapon-related violence in school, there's a proposal in Britain to introduce metal detectors in schools. This proposal to introduce " airport style" security in schools represents a remarkable U-turn for the government, since it was againts the move 3 years ago. However, the official line has changed as the cult of the knife has grown among british youngsters. A reserach revealed that the number of teenagers who were found carrying knives to school more than doubled from 482 in 1997 to 1,256 in 2006.
The metal detector plan will be a key element in a new government action plan against violence in schools supported by teachers.The proposal will also shift more responsibility on the parents with a plan to make them sign up to scanning and serching policies as a condition of entry when their children first apply for a school place.
In the US metal detectors have been used for the last 15 years with some succes. Some detectors were installed in response to the 1992 Columbia High School shootings, and in response to some other shootings. A study suggested that metal detectors have helped to cut the number of weapons being brought into schools by more than a half and to cut knife-related violence by about a %35.
In my opinion, to install metal detectors in schools to prevent weapon-related violence is a sensible preacaution. On the other hand, a problem with metal detectors is that this meassure tackles just weapon-related violence but it doesn't tackle violence in schools itself. Violence within students and against teachers is a problem at a general scale and metal detectors are the solution to only one of the consequences of this wave of violence in which we live today. We need to prevent that violence. And in order to do that we need to search for it real causes, rather than dealing with only one of its consequences.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Construction of Happiness
Have you ever asked yourself if it possible to measure happiness? Well, scientists say they actually can. “The Sciene of Happiness”, by Mark Rudin, is a quite interesting article that explains some of the techniques used to measure pleasure. The measuremnet is based on asking people “How happy are you 1-7, 1-10?”. According to Professor Ed Dienner (University of Ilinois) this technique produces real and vaild answers. However, I believe that if a person is happy or not depends on an extensive number of reasons. This would mean then, that to measure happiness is a more complicated task from what the article suggests. Although the results of the technique are not very convincing for me, the article goes through some other interesting ideas related to happiness and its connection with other aspects of life.
The article states that happiness “leads to a long life, health, resilience and good performance”. In other words, the consequence of happiness is a better life. The validity of this statement is commonly accepted by people since it is believed that there are strong links between happiness and helath. At the same time, it is understandable that the happier the person, the stronger the person will be to face life, solve problems and do hard-work. The reason for this is simply the fact that difficult situations seem easier when you confront them in a good mood.
Professor Daniel Kahneman (University of Princeton) argues in the article that “there is evidence that being richer isn’t making us happier.” Most people agree that money does not have such power of bringing happiness to our life. Eventhough we sometimes confuse the terms, we all know that to be happy and to be wealthy are not the same. Those words can appear to be synomyms sometimes. When this happens, when we confuse happiness with being rich, we generally fall in nonsensical comparisons with other people. The problem is that when we compare ourselves with others we realize that there might be things that we still haven’t achieve in life. Or we realize that are people richer and in a better social status than us. In this way, comparision can end up making us feel unhappy. As the article suggests, the best thing to do is to choose objectively with whom we compare ouserlves and about what.
A third interesting issue the article discusses is that “there is no one key to happiness but a set of ingredients that are vital. Among them, family and friends are believed to be the most important ingredients. Not to be alone is paramount for every human being. We all need company and to feel supported. As important as those ingredients is the belief in something bigger that us no matter which your particular religion may be. This gives meaning to human life and gives an answer to many existencial questions that haunt us from time to time. Finally, the author of “The Science of Happiness” also remarks the importance of having enjoyable goals in life and the positive influence that working on those goals may have on people’s search for happiness. Every person needs to feel that their life develops for a reason. We all need to have goals and to feel that we are in the world to accomplish an aim and not just because a mere biological condition enables our existence. In other words, we need to feel that we are more than simple living beings and that there’s purpose in our life other than just to born, grow, reproduce and die.
The aim of every human being is to live and not just simply to exist. We need to get involved with other people and to be connected, and not to live in isolation. We need to plan our future and find the way to achieve that plan. In simple terms, we need to construct our happiness. And this means to live in a permanent seek for this ephemeral state. It is this characteristic of not lasting forever that makes of happiness such a difficult aspect of life to measure. At the same time, it is precisely that same characteristic what pushes, and should push, our constant search for it. Beacuse happiness lasts just a moment, we have no other choice than to live in a permanent search and construction of it.
The article states that happiness “leads to a long life, health, resilience and good performance”. In other words, the consequence of happiness is a better life. The validity of this statement is commonly accepted by people since it is believed that there are strong links between happiness and helath. At the same time, it is understandable that the happier the person, the stronger the person will be to face life, solve problems and do hard-work. The reason for this is simply the fact that difficult situations seem easier when you confront them in a good mood.
Professor Daniel Kahneman (University of Princeton) argues in the article that “there is evidence that being richer isn’t making us happier.” Most people agree that money does not have such power of bringing happiness to our life. Eventhough we sometimes confuse the terms, we all know that to be happy and to be wealthy are not the same. Those words can appear to be synomyms sometimes. When this happens, when we confuse happiness with being rich, we generally fall in nonsensical comparisons with other people. The problem is that when we compare ourselves with others we realize that there might be things that we still haven’t achieve in life. Or we realize that are people richer and in a better social status than us. In this way, comparision can end up making us feel unhappy. As the article suggests, the best thing to do is to choose objectively with whom we compare ouserlves and about what.
A third interesting issue the article discusses is that “there is no one key to happiness but a set of ingredients that are vital. Among them, family and friends are believed to be the most important ingredients. Not to be alone is paramount for every human being. We all need company and to feel supported. As important as those ingredients is the belief in something bigger that us no matter which your particular religion may be. This gives meaning to human life and gives an answer to many existencial questions that haunt us from time to time. Finally, the author of “The Science of Happiness” also remarks the importance of having enjoyable goals in life and the positive influence that working on those goals may have on people’s search for happiness. Every person needs to feel that their life develops for a reason. We all need to have goals and to feel that we are in the world to accomplish an aim and not just because a mere biological condition enables our existence. In other words, we need to feel that we are more than simple living beings and that there’s purpose in our life other than just to born, grow, reproduce and die.
The aim of every human being is to live and not just simply to exist. We need to get involved with other people and to be connected, and not to live in isolation. We need to plan our future and find the way to achieve that plan. In simple terms, we need to construct our happiness. And this means to live in a permanent seek for this ephemeral state. It is this characteristic of not lasting forever that makes of happiness such a difficult aspect of life to measure. At the same time, it is precisely that same characteristic what pushes, and should push, our constant search for it. Beacuse happiness lasts just a moment, we have no other choice than to live in a permanent search and construction of it.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Fighting Starvation with Vegetarian Food
The World Health Organization has decided to fight starvation with Vegetarian Food since they considered it to be more economical and more nutritionally complete than meat. The evidence that supports this theories gives examples in which meat and cerealas are compared. The results of those comparisions show that 16 kg of cereals are equivalent to only 1 kg of meat proving that cereals have higher yield than meat.
Jean Mayer, a nutrition expert from Harvard said that only by reducing a %10 the meat production, the cereal crops will grow enough to feed 60 millions people. Several researches also showed that in the grow and crop of 1 kg of wheat only 60 lts of water are used, while the production of 1 kg of meat needs between 2,500 and 6,000 lts of water. This proves how much expensive may be to produce meat and the negative impact that this industrial activity may have on our planet by making water to be severly depleted. At the same time it has been already proved that the activity of husbandry farms is highly polluting the natural enviormnet of the areas where they function.
As well as proved to be more economical and planet friendly, vegetarian food is believed to be better for our health than meat. Dr. P. Airola, specialist in nutrition and natural biologist, says that eating too much proteins may have a negative impact in our health, especially in what refers to heart diseases. A human being is recomended to eat just 45 g of proteins per day, to which is not necessary to consume meat. This amount of protein can perfectly be obtained from a %100 vegetarian diet.
According to the World Health Organization, the nutritional concepts have changed in the last 20 years. Certain beliefs related to the eating of meat have been displaced by relevant cientific evidence that proves that vegetables and fruits have a great contribution in a satisfactory nutritional diet. Under this theories more and more people are becoming vegetarians at time at which this type of food is being used in the wordly fight against starvation in poor countries.
Why to become a Vegetarian.
When becoming a vegetarian, the Ethic reasons are considered by the majority of people as the most importants ones. The Ethic Vegetarianism starts with the belief that other creatures have feelings and rights similars to ours. This belief widens our vision and encourage us to be conscious about other creatures suffering.
The life of an animal in captivity inside husbandry farms in completely unnatural. They go through artificial breast feeding and breeding, castration or hormonal stimulation, anormal diets aimed to get them fat, and then, death. The truth about the killing of animals is that they do not have a peacful death: they are bit with a mallet, they receive electric shocks or they are fired with air guns. After these, they are hanged by their back legs and still alive, their throats or stomachs are cut so as to let them bleed to death. The mutilation and killings of animals in husbandry farms are not taking into account by the rules applied to the caring of domestic animals, and not even by the rules related to the manipulation of lab animals.
Many peolpe would undoubtedly become a vegetarian if they have the chance to visit an abbatoir, or if they participate once in the killing of animals inside those places. Most people who regurlarly eat meat do not feel responsible at all for those killings, but they forget that any time they buy meat, they are contributing in some way or another with those terrible acts. Most of those people are not aware of the paradox in which they live in, to which Bernad Shaw made reference once: "we pray every sunday...we are against war...meanwhile we gorge ourselves with meat... we are living tombs of killed animals, how is it that we expect that humanity reach peace then?".
Starvation will not desapear nor we will live in a peaceful world if we do not go through a process of conscious raising based on education. People should be educated on this topic and once they know the truth about the killing of animals they should be let to decide if they want to meat eat or not by themselves. Violence against animals is real and even more dramatic than violence against human beings, if we take into account that they are completely defenceless against human abuse.
We need to kill other creatures to survive and in the fight for survival every living being is food for other beings. What is important is not to avoid killing other creatures at all, because that's impossible, but to find the way to cause the less posible sufering to them in our search for food.
The life of an animal in captivity inside husbandry farms in completely unnatural. They go through artificial breast feeding and breeding, castration or hormonal stimulation, anormal diets aimed to get them fat, and then, death. The truth about the killing of animals is that they do not have a peacful death: they are bit with a mallet, they receive electric shocks or they are fired with air guns. After these, they are hanged by their back legs and still alive, their throats or stomachs are cut so as to let them bleed to death. The mutilation and killings of animals in husbandry farms are not taking into account by the rules applied to the caring of domestic animals, and not even by the rules related to the manipulation of lab animals.
Many peolpe would undoubtedly become a vegetarian if they have the chance to visit an abbatoir, or if they participate once in the killing of animals inside those places. Most people who regurlarly eat meat do not feel responsible at all for those killings, but they forget that any time they buy meat, they are contributing in some way or another with those terrible acts. Most of those people are not aware of the paradox in which they live in, to which Bernad Shaw made reference once: "we pray every sunday...we are against war...meanwhile we gorge ourselves with meat... we are living tombs of killed animals, how is it that we expect that humanity reach peace then?".
Starvation will not desapear nor we will live in a peaceful world if we do not go through a process of conscious raising based on education. People should be educated on this topic and once they know the truth about the killing of animals they should be let to decide if they want to meat eat or not by themselves. Violence against animals is real and even more dramatic than violence against human beings, if we take into account that they are completely defenceless against human abuse.
We need to kill other creatures to survive and in the fight for survival every living being is food for other beings. What is important is not to avoid killing other creatures at all, because that's impossible, but to find the way to cause the less posible sufering to them in our search for food.
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