2010年1月21日木曜日

Sunset


I took this picture after school. It was so beautiful!!!!!

Dilema - The Bad Bomber

Last week, we talked about the bad bomber.
I disagree with torturing him because he is mad, and it is not sure that the mad bomber will confess where he has planted the bombs or how to stop exploding. Also, I disagree with torturing his innocent wife. Even if he can't stand to see his wife being tortured and it makes him talk, what he says might be untrue. Furthermore, the bombs are going to go off in a short time and maybe the police can not stop it, and it is easy for the bad bomber to gain time if his purpose is to explode the bombs. So, I think it will not work to torture the bomber and his innocent wife.
In stead of torturing them, I think they should negotiate with him. For example, if he confess what the police wants to know, his punishment will be reduced. On the other hand, there will be some counters. I guess some arguments against my opinion. First, It is not good to reduce his punishment. Maybe it is not good to negotiate with a criminal. However, if they can stop the bombs, many people will be safe and he will not kill any people. Then, his punishment should be lighter.
But, there is the most difficult problem; his purpose is to explode the bombs and if he doesn't want to reduce his punishment, no way will work. Also, he is mad and he may not understand what police do. In such a case, we can not do anything.

2009年12月6日日曜日

Discussion#9:How to increase the birth rate

On Dec. 3rd, we discussed about birth rate. Recently, birth rate is raising little by little, but it is still low. Nobi (Masami) is a single mother and she has a seven-year-old girl who goes elementary school. Goda (kota) is a single father. His son (?) is 5th grade of elementary school. Actually, I did not think that these two people were related to this topic because they had already their children. Minamoto (Mai) had just married and she had no children. She is working so that she was worried about raising children up in the future. Now, they can have child care leave for 1 year and it is not enough for them. She wants to have child care leave for 2 years. Honekawa (Kasumi) has studied in France. France has the highest birth rate in EU. She thinks that this is because people in France can take child care leave longer than other countries, and after they get back to their work, their working time is shorter and have more time to take care of their children. Also, it is admitted to give birth without marriage and many old women give birth. In other words, the environment for giving birth and raising up children is better than Japan.
Finally, they found 4 things which will help this problem: increase child care leave allowance, discount system for familly who has children (costs such as transportation, zoo, museum) , child care service in the working place, the right to decide how long they work.

In the class, we were confused because it was unclear if they are talking about the birth rate in the future, or the past. Of course, they wanted to find the problems and why the birth rate is low, and by considering these problems, they will solve the problem. However, I think they should set the theme clearer to make the discussion easy.
Also, I thought that we need to learn a lot of systems in the society.

2009年12月2日水曜日

Discussion#8:Grade Skipping (Nov.26)

Last week, we talked about Gread skipping in the class.Taro (Airi) is a 5th grade student at elementary school. He is smart and he is good at mathematics. So, he wants to skip the grades to study more. Hayashi (Fumika) is an elementary school teacher. She is in neutral position. she thinks that skipping grades will cost less money, and this will help many parents and students. On the other hand, she is worried the lack of communication skills. she thinks that it is hard for students who skipped the grade to talk with students who are different from their age. Lee(Hiroya) is from China. Actually, he skipped some grades and he entered the university when he was fourteen years old. However, he is also in neutral position. He was satisfied with this system because he was happy to study and be awarded. But, he couldn't make special friends because of the generation gap. Koizumi (Chika) is the Minister of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He disagrees with this system because he wants to treat all students equally because he needs to offer compulsory education in Japan.
About communication, Hayashi suggested to take quiz to make sure skipped students' communication skills. Lee added to take this test for all students because all students will be required to be good at communication. But, Taro stated that he wanted to be tested by his ordinary behavior. I also think that usual communication and the communication at test are different and teachers shouldn't judge students by only test.
I think the quality of teachers should be raised if they want to introduce Grade skipping system. And, I think that compulsory education such as classes at elementary and junior high school are really important for students. Even though they are good at some subjects, maybe they are not good at some fields and their understandings are not enough. So, they shouldn't skip their grades. I think it is important to have friends who are in the same generation. If they want to study more, I will recommend them to take traial classes of university or high school while they are in the usual school. This will improve their interests and develop their skills.

2009年11月23日月曜日

Discussion#7:Daylight Saving Time

On November 19th, Moderator (Ryoji), Satsuki (Sakiko), Nikaido (Sachi), Saori (Kamazuka) and Amasawa (Reika) discussed if Japan should introduce Daylight Saving Time system. Satsuki is working at the government, and she explained what the merits are: Decrease traffic accident; Save energy; economic ripple effect. Nikaido is working at a commpany, and she is at the neutral position. She thinks that earlier starting is good because it will save the energy. However, durin the DST, workers can't do overworking. So, it is not good for her that overworking becomes less. Also, she thinks that it is trouble some to change all the clocks at the office. Kamazuka is a housewife. She has a daughter and she is worried about her daughter's condition because she has to get up earlier if they introduce DST system. She thinks that her daughter will fall asleep in school classes. Amasawa is an elementary school teacher. She thinks that introducing DST system is good for children because students can go home before it gets dark and it is very safe. Also, students who belongs to club can do their activities more.
Kamazuka's problem was solved soon because this system would introduced on Sunday, and it is good for people to adapt to the time. Moreover, earlier going to bed and earlier waking up is good for people including children. However, it will cost 100,000,000,000 yen to introduce this system because they need to cange soft ware for compuers and medical care. Actually, Hokkaido introduced this system some years ago and it took about 4,000,000,000 yen...
So, Nikaido explained her new idea. Her idea is that we don't have to change our clock but change the schedule, like changing the time for starting work. But, I think this is very complicated because we need to think the time all the time.
As Hokkaido introduced this system, Daylight Saving Time will work in Eastern Japan, but won't work in Western Japan because Japan runs East to West. Most of us understood that this system wouldn't work in countries which is long and runs east to west. So, I don't think that Japan should introduce this system.

2009年11月20日金曜日

1984 George Owel

I studied about this book and the writer George Owel in the English Literature Class. So, I read the whole story during summer vacation.
Winston Smith who is the main character of this story lives in a society where BIG BROTHER is watching people. There are a lot of screens and notices around there, and it says,‘ BIG BROTHER is watching you’.
This book is about brainwashing.
I recomend you to read this book.

2009年11月13日金曜日

Discussion#6: Medical Bill Free

On 12th November, we had a discussion about medical bill free. If we don't have to pay for medical bill, the government need to burden all the medical cost. So, we talked about how to get the money. The best way to get money is to raise the tax. And then, what kinds of taxes should we raise?
The moderator is Mikako.
Ume (Nanase) is 70 years old and she lives with her husband.Both of them have chronics and they go hospital once a week. They are living by the money from pension. Therefore, their lives are hard and their lives will be harder if the government raise tax even though they can take medical for free.
Tomozo (Chinatsu) is neutral position. He is a smoker and he doesn't want the government to raise cigar and alchole taxes, and he is for raising the comsumption tax.
Kyoko (Aya) is rich and she doesn't care to pay for medical care bill. However, she disagree with raising income tax. She is paying 40% for income tax now.
Miyu (Mami) has 2 children. She rarely go to hospital and maybe thinks that she doesn't need this system. She disagree with raising tax anyway.


Unfortunately, most of us went a wrong way...
We had to talk about what kinds of taxes wee should raise. However, we talked about who can take medical care for free.

First, I want to state what kind of taxes we should raise. I think the government should raise the cigar and alchole taxes because these two are bad for health. If the price are cheap, more people will buy those bad things for health, and they will go to hospital at last. This is waste of money. Why the government must pay the medical bill for those who know smoking and drinking are bad for their health?

Second, I also think that the system in Sweeden is good. It is the best that all people can take medical for free. However, sometimes it is impossible... Then, we need to make the limitation. About the limitation, I think that we should consider those who have serious diseases and disabilities, not only based on their income.