Thirty days without eating Meat
'30 days' is a TV program that broadcasts thirty days of life experiences with special conditions such as a straight guy living in gay village or a normal citizen working in a coal mine. It shows how some ordinary people go through these special experiences and what they learn from them. They learn some important lessons on various issues; especially, viewers can often learn about minority's perspectives on controversial matters in this society.
My '30 days' program is 'thirty days without eating Meat'. Of course, in this society, some people do not eat meat at all. These vegetarians refuse to eat meat, because they believe eating meat is to go against animal's rights and dignity. They also believe eating only vegetables is much healthier than eating meat. But for majority of this society, it is very common to eat meat. Since we eat so many hamburgers, steaks, pizzas, and chickens in our daily lives, it would be so painful and disastrous for us to abandon eating meat.
My scenario of 'thirty days without eating meat' is this: firstly, I'll choose one person randomly. I'll will let him live with vegetarian for a month, so that he can copy the vegetarian's daily diet menu. For the starter, it would be very challenging not to eat meat at all. He will suffer from kind of withdrawal symptoms, as many people usually do when they quit smoking.
Then I'll let him visit Meat production company and show the exact process of how meats are produced. In the animal slaughtering process, cows, pigs, sheep, and chicken are slaughtered in very cruel and disgusting methods. Perhaps he will obtain a strong motivation to quit eating meat after watching the horrific scenes and thinking about animal's rights and dignity.
My purpose of the program is to let people know the cruelty of animal-slaughtering process and think about animal's rights. I also want to let people think about vegetarian's life and daily diet as well. I think it would be very good to eat only vegetables, if they can tolerate. It can be a much better diet plan for many people, especially who are suffering from obesity.
Motions:
1) TH would not eat meat
2) TH would ban animal-slaughtering process
3) THBT 30 days program is a good education program for teenagers
What is the purpose of education? The main purpose of education is to give everyone equal chance as a means to succeed in life. Through learning knowledge and skills, students can learn how to deal with problems they might face in the future. For example, main reasons why students learn language are that they can learn how to understand others' opinions, express their own ideas, and solve problems through communication. They learn Math, because Math teaches them not only how to calculate figures precisely, but also how to think logically and systematically.
How about creativity? Should creativity be taught in the classroom? Does it have to be considered as important as other subjects like Language, Math, and History? Sir Ken Robinson answers "Yes" in this video. He claims that current educational system is not enough for the students to increase their creativities. As current education system was established during industrialization period, the traditional methods do not work in this modern era, which demands people more creative thinking. "Education kills creativity," says Mr.Robinson, emphasizing the necessity of creativity education. He claims that creativity is so important that it should be considered as a main subject.
Of course, creativity is a very important factor, especially for those who live in this modernized and diverse society. I strongly agree with it. However, Mr.Robinson's claim contains some problematic points as well. I would like to point out those problems of his speech.
His claim lacks feasible methods. He does not suggest any tangible solution to change the status quo. He claimed that creativity should be considered as importantly as other subjects and it should be strongly taught in the classroom. But the problem is, "How?" How can we actually teach creativity to students? How can we raise the creativity level of the education system? It's not an easy question to answer. Some people say that we should make a new subject called 'Creativity', which deals with creative thinking, reading, and writing skills. However, this is a very bad way of teaching creativity, because it can make students lose interests in the subject 'Creativity' itself. Rather than making a new subject, we have to find a new way to teach creative skills in other subjects. I think the best way to raise creativity is to increase creative activities in the coursework. For instance, under conventional educational system, teachers only gives a lecture to students. Instead, I would recommend teachers only suggest a conceptual basis and problems, and let students freely discuss and try to make their own solutions. Similarly, we can do apply same process in other courses. For example, in history class, students have to get opportunities to conduct their own research, read old historical sources, and write historial paper. In Science courses, students have to get chances to freely discuss about scientific phenomena, conduct their own experiments, and write a scientific research paper. These activities should be included in the courses; just giving lectures and taking exams do not raise the creativity of students.
Another point is the 'attitude' of people. Many people agree that creativity is very important, but they also mind entirely changing educational system. They are quite conservative when it comes to educational matters. For example, in South Korea, many parents say 'creativity' should be prioritized, but if we ask them, "Do you want your kids to study in liberal atmosphere?" they woud say "No." They would rather answer, "Still lectures, exams, and quizzes - these conservative methods of learning- are also very important and should remain as well." These conservative attitudes prevent new liberal educational system from being applied. Many people are still obsessed with grades and test scores, and I think the grades and scores are main factors that deters the increase of creative thinking in classroom. Attitudes of people - obsession with grades and old ways of learning - should be reformed to enforce new mechanism of creative learning.
As a member of Minjok Herald, KMLA's student newspaper, I was quite interested with Michael Moore's proposals: let's spread out our own opinions freely and go against adult's world! He says students and young people can join this by participating his 'Highschool Newspaper'. It seemed like a very attractive option for us at the first place. However, there are some problematic points in Moore's arguments.
The most fundamental question is as to whether student has a right and responsibility to freely criticize and go against government. Michael Moore says that children, teenagers, and students should freely stand up and make out their voices being heard by the government. He praises the students in Cairo, Wisconsin, or wherever, that made their own decisions and the decisions were significant enough to change bigger changes. However, he is neglecting that student's main role is 'to study', not 'to fight'. Of course, if there are some problems around this society, students can deliver their opinions and voices to adults, and it can make some changes in the status quo. I acknowledge that point. But if this goes way too far, and if the students start to neglect 'studying', it would be a serious problem. What happens if students are only concerned about the matters outside the school, and always talk about worldwide political, economic and diplomatic issues? What Moore's suggesting is to letting them join his own online newspaper, but this can lead students neglecting their major job - studying.
Another problem that Moore's proposal contains is that he does not teach how 'censorship' really works. You may argue that 'censorship' is bad and should be abandoned; however, censorship is indeed necessary in some cases. For example, some information that contains excessive violence, pornography or military secret are categorized into the area of 'censorship'. And student needs to know that censorship is sometimes necessary for the greater social good. But Moore doesn't seem to care about censorship: he just want students to freely make their opinions on whatever issues, and collect them, and post them on his online newspaper. In real world, for example, the articles of Minjok Herald are written by student writers and editorialists, and some of them are 'censored' by editors and teachers, because some articles can be somewhat controversial and harmful to the school and the students themselves. This proper censorship is always taking place behind the publication of newspapers. However, Moore's proposal is just to collect young people's idea freely and spread them without any kind of filtering process. This is very dangerous.
Of course, I strongly agree that students, young teenagers should make their voices louder and try to make some changes. Young generation's feedbacks and criticism could be very beneficial for the society. However, if Moore really wants to implement his plan, then he should promise that students will not neglect their major role - 'studying' - and learn some necessary filtering and censorship process as well.
Motion:
1. THBT student newspaper must deal with political issues
2. THBT censorship does more harm than good to student journalism
3. THBT Michael Moore's Highschool Newspaper should be abolished
