Life: Under Construction

State school pupils 'lose' places to private school pupils.?!

via www.guardian.co.uk

What a load of codswallop!

In this article, the Guardian is attempting to pull the wool over our eyes and convince us that state school students (the equivalent of public school here in the States) are having their spots in university usurped by private school students. Getting into university programs is competitive. Under the current economic circumstances, the number of places at any university has declined in order to save money. This has meant that there is increased competition for the remaining places. On average, private school students get better A-level results in the courses that are required for entry into the top universities. This will translate into a larger proportion of private school students getting places because more of them meet the requirements. This is not a case of universities favoring students who come from private education, they are merely picking the best students. Instead of grumbling about placement in universities, the Guardian should be asking itself why private schools do a better job when it comes to A-levels and what can be done about it.

Extra Education vs. Test Scores: They both have downfalls

via roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com

During Communist rule of the Soviet Bloc, the central government would set benchmarks for what factories should achieve. They set a level of wood they wanted used in one month in furniture making, they set the number of watts that they wanted produced from a light bulb factory. The result? The factories who were set these goals achieved them the easiest way that they could: the furniture factory turned out pieces of furniture that were so large and heavy they were next to impossible to move, the light bulb factory produced bulbs that had such a high wattage, they would blow any fuse that they were connected to. The problem here was incentives: you tell someone that they should be focusing on how much wood they use or how many watts there end-product has and that is what they will do, and they will ignore the other standards that might also be important to you.

The importance of incentives applies to everything, in this case, teaching. If a teacher's promotion (read: pay raise) is based on how much extra education and training they get, that is what they will focus on. While I'm sure there are plenty of teachers who do genuinely care about their performance in the classroom, the fact that that performance has nothing to do with whether they get promoted, get more money or more seniority means that there is an incentive for them to take their eyes off of teaching and instead do as many extra courses as they can.

Clearly, it is not optimal for students to have teachers spending time becoming accredited when they could be preparing lessons. The Obama administration has noticed this and so they are recommending that promotions be based on children's performance. This sounds like a move in the right direction but then you may ask yourself 'How will a class' performance be quantified?' The easy solution is with standardized tests. Tests present there own host of issues because, like with basing promotion of degrees, if this is what a teacher's advancement depends on, this is what they will focus on. In the past when tests have been used to rate teachers they have devoted a disproportionate amount of class time to getting their students prepared for the tests, this has meant that skills like writing or creativity that are not tested have been ignored. In some extreme cases, the pressure on teachers to have students that achieve high scores has caused the teachers to cheat, giving their students the answers!!

The bottom line is that it is impossible to quantify a 'good teacher' in a way that can be evaluated by the people that run the public school system. I have long been in favor of a voucher system that allows students who would otherwise be stuck in public school, to attend private institutions. This would give students and parents the ability to vote with their feet for institutions that have a good teaching staff. Schools that were filled with teachers that didn't care would close down for lack of public funds (by why of the vouchers).
It's just an idea.

Hot sex no match for cold cash

via www.nydailynews.com

AOL polled women asking them whether they would rather be given $50 a week or have more sex. The majority said they would choose the cash. While the New York Daily News feigns shock at the mercenary nature of women I think that this poll was engineered to have this result. It has been widely proven that while sex is important to all women, it is not as important as being in a loving relationship. Had they posed the question: if you had to chose between $50 a week and finding love, which would it be? I think most women would fore go the extra cash in their pocket to find someone with whom they had a future. For proof I would argue that you just need to look at the popularity of dating sites where women (and men) shell out thirty or forty dollars a month for the chance to meet someone that can lighten their days (that monetary amount does not include the money spent getting ready for dates, actually going out on dates and the countless hours spent dissecting said date).
Any men out there should not feel disheartened at this poll's attempt to cast women in a superficial light.

China Warms to New Credo - Business First - NYTimes.com

via www.nytimes.com

China is fascinating. It is also scary and seemingly alien but first and foremost I find it fascinating. Here we have a former Communist state, trying to use the power of that highly centralized, highly regulated structure to conquer the free markets..and they seem to be succeeding!! In order to begin to make the leap to become a developed country, they had to open themselves up to the world. In doing that, they have made it more difficult to control the country with the same iron fist that Mao used. Will China continue to walk the walk of free markets or will it go back into hiding? Only time will tell.

Child Trafficking...Closer than you think

None of us live in a bubble, every action we take affects the world that we live in and has consequences beyond the initially obvious. The Guardian today reports on the results of a published study by ECPAT, an international campaign against the sexual exploitation of children. Whether you buy pirated DVDs, purchase roses from street vendors, smoke home-grown marijuana, give money to young beggars or visit prostitutes, you may be unwittingly be financing and supporting child trafficking. In a survey of adults in the UK, one third were not aware that child trafficking was alive and well in their own country. Who can be surprised? When you think of human trafficking it's natural to assume that it takes place in some place on the other side of the world, far removed from your own backyard. ECPAT is doing it's best to remove this ignorance and to get the word out. Especially with the economic difficulties being felt around the world, families on the cusp of survival may be forced to sell their children (their only assets) to human traffickers. These children (and young adults) will be moved to a new country, have their identiy removed and probably be beaten and perhaps raped. They will then be set to work helping to sell DVDs, helping to grow weed in hot-houses or be forced into prostitution.

People need to know the truth about child trafficking so that they can make informed decision. That 'Transformers' DVD a street seller is offering you for a pittance may seem tempting but remember, it may not cost you much but may have cost someone their childhood.

Tougher Penalties Sought for Driving Drunk With Children - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

via cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

You would think that the risk of getting yourself in an accident and seriously injuring yourself would be enough of an incentive to prevent people driving while intoxicated. Clearly, given the number of drunk-driving accidents, it is not. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) report that in 2007 nearly 13,000 people died in accidents that were in part caused by drivers who were impaired by alcohol. That number is staggering. Obviously, we need tougher punishments to make people think twice about grabbing those car keys. This includes both tougher penalties if you are caught driving drunk and also if you cause harm while driving under the influence.

What bothers me about the current proposed changes in the wake of the Taconic State Parkway accident is that it is focusing on the victims who were children. Gov. Paterson is proposing legislation that would make it a felony to drive while intoxicated with a minor in the car. My issue with this sort of legislation is that it puts a higher value on the life of a child than on the life of an adult. I love kids, and my heart goes out to the family who lost three daughters in last week's crash but is their grief any more real or intense than the families of the men in the SUV that Diane Schuler hit? Those victims were all adults but does that make the pain their families feel any less? I think the answer is no and so I say, don't just make it a felony to have kids in the car, toughen the penalties if you have ANYONE in the car. The judgment of these politicians has been clouded by the image of the innocence that has been lost when a child is murdered. Innocence is lost, lives are shattered when anyone's, no matter their age, life is stolen.

East vs. West, Individual vs. Community

I found this video posted on the Guardian's website at the beginning of the week. Since then it has sat in a virtual 'To-Do' pile, more accurately 'To Write' and I am finally getting down to it. The video features an intricately choreographed routine featuring thousands of performers. This style of production became popular, and renowned, at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics several years back. Simple movements done en masse has a surprisingly hypnotic affect. It's as if each human body becomes a pixel on a screen. These performances seem symbolic of the East's culture: there are no stars, no real status as individuals. Instead, each person is expected to contribute to the whole and it is only as part of the whole that they have value.

In his book Outliers, (Yes, I realize I am still talking about this book but it's because it's thought-provoking and because I haven't had much time to finish it) Malcolm Gladwell talks about the influence a nation's culture has on an individual and how that influence shapes the way they will approach a certain task, or life in general. It should come as no surprise that the US ranks very high in terms of individuality. In other words, our culture teaches us that to be individual is important, that being individual is even more important than being part of a whole, like the image of the lone cowboy riding off into the sunset. It is because of this cultural influence that we will probably never see a group of Americans performing the same sort exhibition as the video clip above does. Try as we might, it is not in the American culture for us all to be regard as peas in the pod, identical and subservient. The average American who is pressed into that role is likely to be uncomfortable. Look at the drive every American has to make a name for themselves. Every day when I go into the newsagents, I am surrounded by people buying and scratching lottery tickets and game cards. Many people are easily spending $20 a day on tickets, the reason being that they are not happy just being ordinary...they want to be extraordinary! Lotto tickets offer the common man a chance to make a name for himself.

I think Asian culture is very different from American in this respect. Just as their performances feature thousands of people working as one, that is how their world operates. Young people move into the city to make money not because they want a richer lifestyle, though that may provide some small incentives, but because they feel a responsibility to send money back home to the country to support their families. In farming communities, families cannot operate isolated from other families. Every member of a village is required to help harvest the rice at just the right moment. The growth that we have seen among the Asian Tigers, especially China, is state engineered. It all comes back to the importance of the whole group versus the individual. It could be chalked up to the difference between Capitalism and Communism but I think these cultural differences begin much deeper than simple market systems and they extend out into our performances.

Trousers Nix Travel Plans

Yesterday, I wrote a post commenting on France's restrictions on swimwear, today I was glancing through Yahoo's Odd News page looking for something amusing when I came across something that was not amusing at all. Lubna Hussein was at a party with some other women back in July when she and 12 others were arrested for being indecently dressed. Hussein lives in Sudan where a woman's indecency is a criminal issue. The problem for Sudanese women (apart from living under an oppressive religious regime) is that there is no clearly defined definition of indecency. This means that police officers can use their own discretion in arresting women on these grounds. Hussein currently faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers on that night. While she is in the midst of trying to fight this case, Hussein as a journalist was invited abroad. She got to the airport only to find that the government had put her name on a blacklist that prohibited her from being allowed to travel. Hussein is now stuck in Sudan. Who knows if her name will be removed from the list once this case is settled in court.

Stories like this make me very thankful that I live in a world where women have choices and am not subject to the objectifying notions of sexist men. I for one am hopeful that Lubna gets the support she needs to beat this wrap. Going back to France's fight against Islam that I began discussing yesterday, I think the problem with having the swimwear restrictions that they do and making an issue about girls wearing head scarves to school, is that it actually makes France seem just as fervent and unaccepting as the countries whose influence they are trying to keep out. Sudan forbids trousers, France forbids burkinis while French citizens have much more freedom than Sudanese, on this issue at least, they seem similar. Given the disdain with which France seems to regard nations that are ruled by religion, you would think they would want to prove that they are nothing like them. 

Come on France, whatever happened to 'Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité'...rise above these petty issues!

China gets slapped on the wrist, too bad it won't hurt!

The New York Times reports today that the WTO has ruled against China in motion brought by the United States which argued that China's regulation over the importing of books and movies was in violation of the free trade agreement. The ruling means that China will have to sell American and European DVDs and books along side the domestic versions. While this may be a small win for the US, it does not level the playing field. Currently, even when American DVDs are allowed into the Chinese marketplace, they cannot compete with the cheap pirated versions of the same movies. Chinese consumers are used to purchasing DVDs at exceptionally low prices. It is not clear whether American sellers will be able to match those low prices. If they cannot, it will not matter that if American DVDs are placed on a shelf next to Chinese DVDs. Since they are perfect substitutes, consumers will go with the one that costs less and importers into China will not be afforded any additional market share. Until China honors movies and books as copyrighted products, the US will not win this war.

This feels like a clear sign that, for the first time in a long while, the US is not dictating the terms of international trade. It's China's party and they'll cry if they want to!

skimpy speedos REQUIRED!

Who knew that swimming costumes could be such an emotionally charged issue?! Here in the states I would assume that most pools and other swimming locales just have one requirement: WEAR SOMETHING!! For old men this means a tiny little SPEEDO, for younger men and boys loose shorts are the thing to don. On the ladies' side, the modest wear bathing suits that feature a boy short or covered midriff while the immodest trot out with an itsy-bitsy-teen-weeny....You get the idea. Apparently the French aren't afforded the same freedom to pick and choose their swimwear. The Guardian reported today that in France, men are not aloud to wear loose swimming trunks and women are not allowed to wear cover ups. 

The authorities that impose these restrictions forcing men to wear tiny SPEEDOs and women to wear nothing more than a slim fitting traditional bathing suit that exposes their limbs and outlines their form, argue that it is merely a hygiene issue. The argument is that longer swimming shorts or cover-ups can be worn outside the pool where they pick up dirt which would then be tracked into the pool if these items were allowed. The argument, that I can think of, against this hygiene defense is that there is no guarantee that people's skimpy bathers are clean. They could have been hanging out in their backyard in them or gone to the beach and not washed them yet. This is why the system, featured at American pools, of having people rinse off and disinfect their feet before getting in the pool is a more certain way to ensure that no one is tracking in unwanted dirt. Although all of this discussion about small amounts of dirt seems pointless when there is absolutely no way to prevent people from urinating in the pool so no matter what is done, the swimming pool is never going to be a pure affair!

The additional aspect to the swimwear debate is France's growing Muslim community. To some in the Muslim community, a woman's modesty is central to her, and her family's, religious observances. Because of this, some Muslim woman have asked to have 'Women Only' periods at local pools and have attempted to wear burkinis to their local pools. Some officials have cried out that changing swimming pool policies to fit in with the Muslim communities requirements is tantamount to turning the secular institution of public swimming pools into a religious institution. I can appreciate that the French establishment feels that it is threatened by this large, growing number of people who are ruled by religion, something all French have but do not practice. It is not as if Islam is the only cultural influence France is resistant to, think of how loathe they are to adopt English terms in their language! That said, it seems overly stringent to control what people wear to the pool.

At the end of the day, people visit the pool to have fun and enjoy themselves...not stir political ire. The French might do well to remember that and ease up a little bit on all the tourists that still consider themselves modest.