revised journal- John Dewey versus Ben Brodinsky

John Dewey supports the idea of pragmatism. In his article ‘The Child and The Curriculum’ he emphasizes child centered education. The subjects at school should be according to the child’s interests. According to Dewey the education is the life itself. Education cannot be separated from life. Things that can be useful in social life should be taught in classes. The teacher should be a guide in class activities not a king. Progressivist philosophers think everything is in a process. John Dewey thinks, too.  He thinks the subjects in class should be organized according to the changes in society. They should cover the needs of epoch. The child should learn by doing or practicing something.  Dewey emphasizes another aspect of progressivism: a democratic class atmosphere.  In a democratic class, different types of student can be taught. There is no difference among them. By this way, there can be a high welfare society, according to John Dewey. John Dewey’s general thought is harmonizing with the changing society in education, not taking the classics into consideration. Education should not get stuck in the past. Contrary to progressivism, essentialism thinks the truth is within the past. Ben Brodinsky believes that classics are essential for the education.  But in addition, modern science is a source for educational progress, too.  Ben Brodinsky mentions about three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. The child should learn these basic skills. The things should be taught from a textbook not from an experience of a child.  In Ben Brodinsky’s thought, teacher is the authority in class.  The rule of the class is what the teacher says.  The child should listen to teacher and learn what he teaches. The child is there to learn what is taught.  Discipline is very important in Ben Brodinsky’s idea.  In learning activity, the child should put forth the effort to gain true knowledge. There are some difference between the thoughts of Ben Brodinsky and the thoughts of John Dewey.  While Ben Brodinsky supports the idea of trusting the past knowledge, John Dewey thinks everything is in a process. He thinks the knowledge should be developed according to the changing world. One different thing is the role of the student and the teacher in the class. According to John Dewey, the teacher is a guide for the student. The teacher helps the student find his way. But, to Ben Brodinsky the teacher is a specialist. He knows all knowledge. The student listens to the teacher carefully because of the fact that the knowledge comes from the past. But according to John Dewey, the student’s experience is important for education. A child centered education is needed. Actually there can be some similarities between these ideas of education. In essentialism the truth is in the classics and modern science. I think if someone talks about modern science, he admits the process in life. And this is a similarity because John Dewey thinks it is important to keep up with the process in life to create an adequate education system for new generation.

revised journal- championes league

Today, I want to tell something about the match to be played tomorrow (12.03.2013). It is a Champions League the last 16 match. The team winning this match will have the right to join the quarter finals, and as a result, this match gains a great importance. What is the actual importance of this match? Popularity? Fans? Money? Or all of them? All of these reasons are true reasons. We can also add rivalry to these ones. But why the teams want these things? All football teams have footballers to play football against each other. We can say that they need to pay the footballers if they want to play because the footballers want to eat, wear something, date with girls etc. they are all human beings. If a team has to pay the salaries, it needs money. If it needs money, it needs fans. If it needs fans to make money, it needs to be popular. Here comes the question: how can they be popular? To be popular, they should win football matches. They do not only need to win national matches but also need to win world games like UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The match I want to tell about is a UEFA Champions League game, too. The game will be played between a German team ‘FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e.V’ and a Turkish team ‘GALATASARAY SK.’ The first game between two teams ended with a draw. However, because the first match was in Turkey, Galatasaray has a handicap now. If the second match ends with a 0:0 draw, the German team will join the quarters. However if there is again 1:1 draw, the game will go on two 15 minutes. Now, let’s talk a little about chances of two teams. Firstly, the German team beated a very successful German team Ballspiel-Verein Borussia 1909 e. V. Dortmund, shortly BVB, last week as far as I remember. It seems that it gains its power again. On the other hand, the Turkish team lost a very important game in its league. However, it has a trump card: Didier Yves Drogba Tébily and Wesley Sneijder. These two new transfers will be the wonderwall of Galatasaray SK, two important weapons of F. Terim. On the other hand, the German team has an injury on the center forward position: Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. This injury is thehandicap of the German team. However, when thinking all of these things, we cannot know what will happen. As Fatih Terim said ‘It’s the football, that’s the football, everything is something happened.’

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Article reflection- Supersize me: It is time to stop blaming fat people for their size

            There are lots of over-weight problems in today’s world in all countries of the world. Especially in United States of America, over-weight problems occur. Allison Motluk, writer of the article ‘Supersize me: It is time to stop blaming fat people for their size, gives us some clues about that problem with research results. However, she is not on the side of people that blame fat people for their bigger size. She gives us an example of it. She tells us about the airlines that plan to charge their passengers according to their weights. How can it be possible to value a person according to his/her weights? Are they meat? Are they going to be sold kilo by kilo? However, we cannot ignore the percentage of over-sized people. As Motluk says in her article, while it was 13 percent of Americans 10 years ago, now it is doubled and has come to 22 percent obese people. What is the reason for that rise? Actually we know the effects of the environment on individuals’ lives. The world is changing very fast and we are getting less space for our daily lives. There are a lot of cars and they need roads to go on. They are getting their space, but we are losing ours. It can be said that ‘no space, no health and lots of weight.’ People are becoming lazier day by day and putting weight all the time. However, people cannot be accused of being fat, because the reason of being fat actually is not the person. The environment is responsible for that. There are not enough pathways for people to do sport especially walking. Besides, the food industry has changed in time. As Motluk mentioned in her article, while a McDonalds’ ordinary menu had 59 calories in 60s, it has tripled in time and become 1550 calories. Now tell me a reason to blame a fat person for his/her appearance while there are lots of reasons to blame environment for that problem.     

Article reflection- How to get the most out of yourself

We get up in the morning and wash our face in front of a mirror. If another person comes to the mirror, you can often hear whining of that person. She/he says ‘I am not fit enough, my hair is bad, and nobody will like me etc.’ However, normally that person’s weight is normal and his hair is perfect. Actually this perfectness makes us lack of self-confidence. This self-confidence is important in all places of our lives. As the writer of the article mentioned in his writing, self-confident people come to important places. They conquer themselves firstly. They have the self-acceptance and they know their abilities. We can understand from the author’s clear statements that people need to focus on not the obstacles but the abilities they have. When we think abilities as cars, they become vehicles to get us to the future. However, limitations are broken cars and they just take us to the hills. As a customer looking for cars, we need to be careful. Because nobody wants broken cars or cars to break down in a few days. All type of cars is in front of us, but we need something very important: self-confidence. If we cannot deal with ourselves, we will not be able to deal with the seller, and then we cannot reach the perfect cars and cannot go to the future and success. 

In this video, Robert E Najemy tells us about lack of self-acceptance. He says ‘When I do not believe in love, then I cannot feel the others love towards me.’ How can a person feel something that he does not believe in? There is something similar also. A person can feel nothing for another person. He/she may not accept that person. He/she may not want something good for him. And this occurs in person’s inner side also. One part of the person does not want good things for the other side. As a result, that person wants nothing good for himself, because he does not accept himself.  

Article Reflection- At home with mamma

Italian boys love their mothers much. Even middle-aged males love to stay with their mums. In this article, author clearly explains this situation, and backs her up ideas with research results. As the writer mentioned in the article, Italian mother gives her boys too much affection. She tries to make foods all the time, washes boys’ clothes, treats them like a baby just for the sake of her love towards her boys. All around the world, 18-year-old boys and girls leave their homes and start a new life easily. In most of the European countries, teenagers want to leave home to gain his/her freedom and their parents do not react too much for this leaving. But in Italy, this is different. Italian family generally does not accept leaving home early or working while studying at university. Family constitution in Italy needs to be together with whole family. They say ‘We are happy together, we do not need more money from children wanting to work. We are not needy.’ The Italian mother talks about these and does whatever they can do for her boy. She wants them happy to be happy. An Italian quote says ‘Amor di madre, amore senza limiti.’ ‘A mother’s love has no limit.’ She has no limit. She does not know where to stop. She does everything and makes his boy dependent on her. Then the time comes and boys get married. The house gets just two women but too many. Wives become in the second place after the mamma. Boy loves his mother more than his wife and this causes divorces. Nothing can stop the mamma. She is the secret family boss, to me. Shortly, Italian family is an unshakable constitution. You can never take them apart.          

John Dewey versus Ben Brodinsky

John Dewey supports the idea of pragmatism. In his article ‘The Child and The Curriculum’ he emphasizes child centered education. The subjects at school should be according to the child’s interests. According to Dewey the education is the life itself. Education cannot be separated from life. Things that can be useful in social life should be taught in classes. The teacher should be a guide in class activities not a king. Progressivist philosophers think everything is in a process. John Dewey thinks, too.  He thinks the subjects in class should be organized according to the changes in society. They should cover the needs of epoch. The child should learn by doing or practicing something.  Dewey emphasizes another aspect of progressivism: a democratic class atmosphere.  In a democratic class, different types of student can be taught. There is no difference among them. By this way, there can be a high welfare society, according to John Dewey. John Dewey’s general thought is harmonizing with the changing society in education, not taking the classics into consideration. Education should not get stuck in the past. Contrary to progressivism, essentialism thinks the truth is within the past. Ben Brodinsky believes that classics are essential for the education.  But in addition, modern science is a source for educational progress, too.  Ben Brodinsky mentions about three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. The child should learn these basic skills. The things should be taught from a textbook not from an experience of a child.  In Ben Brodinsky’s thought, teacher is the authority in class.  The rule of the class is what the teacher says.  The child should listen to teacher and learn what he teaches. The child is there to learn what is taught.  Discipline is very important in Ben Brodinsky’s idea.  In learning activity, the child should put forth the effort to gain true knowledge. There are some difference between the thoughts of Ben Brodinsky and the thoughts of John Dewey.  While Ben Brodinsky supports the idea of trusting the past knowledge, John Dewey thinks everything is in a process. He thinks the knowledge should be developed according to the changing world. One different thing is the role of the student and the teacher in the class. According to John Dewey, the teacher is a guide for the student. The teacher helps the student find his way. But, to Ben Brodinsky the teacher is a specialist. He knows all knowledge. The student listens to the teacher carefully because of the fact that the knowledge comes from the past. But according to John Dewey, the student’s experience is important for education. A child centered education is needed. Actually there can be some similarities between these ideas of education. In essentialism the truth is in the classics and modern science. I think if someone talks about modern science, he admits the process in life. And this is a similarity because John Dewey thinks it is important to keep up with the process in life to create an adequate education system for new generation.

Philosophies- free Journal entry

I want to tell somthing the impact of philosophy on education. There are lots of philosophical thoughts on earth.  Some of them are idealism, realism, pragmatism, nihilism etc.  But actually their names change when they are put into effect. In education, the most known movements are perennialism, essentialism, progressivism and existentialism.  According to essentialism, education should be based on organized knowledge, skills and phenomenon (Alberty-Alberty, p.44).  In this movement, it is believed that education needs hardworking.  Discipline is the center of this idea. It should be taught before everything. It helps the child learn how to overcome the things that have seemed difficult in the beginning. Essentialism gives importance to the knowledge that occurs in the past.  The head of the class is the teacher. The student should listen and learn what is taught. Existentialism is not like essentialism. It is believed that each individual human being is free. Each of them has his own mind.  The child should know himself. Socrates says ‘Know Thyself.’ The basics of existentialism can be understood from the sentence. Individualism is the most important thing in this idea. Each person should make their own decisions. The child should learn how to take responsibilities.  When time comes to talk about perennialism, it can be said it is the strictest one. Perennialists think the true knowledge is the past knowledge.  They think the accumulated knowledge should be passed through generations. In this movement the teacher is the authority. The teacher should pass down the past knowledge.  The child should learn what is taught.  The child should be prepared for real life. Classics are the supply of this idea. The child should be taught with classics. It’s time to handle progressivism now.  This idea comes from pragmatism. Progressivist philosophers try to maintain the educative process. In this movement individual experience is important contrary to perennialism. Everything is in a changing circumstance.  Think about Heraclitus. "Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.” Everything is in a process. Nothing is the same as in the past.  In progressivism problem solving is an important matter.  The teacher should help the child develop problem solving skills. He should help the child find its own way.  Group working should be practiced to teach the child how to become a democratic individual.  In class the child is in the center. The teacher should be a source of knowledge for the child.  Contrary to perennialism, the child’s interest is very important.  The child learns what he wants.

Violence Coming with Guns

All around the world, there are little or big weapons: knifes, grenades, tanks etc. and the most important ones: guns. From the beginning of the human being to now there were wars and they are continuing today, too. In the beginning, there were small-scale wars, but in time weapons have changed. People started to use long range weapons instead of short range ones. Guns replaced swords. Guns became so commonly used that nearly all people have at least one gun at home. Guns have become such a kind of weapons that they started to take their power from the human being not from the bullets.

In today’s world, people die because of legal or illegal guns. For example in weddings, at school, parties and even at home by a little child. Having guns at home started to pull children into gun violence. Especially violence at school has increased in recent years. A reason for the increase in the violence among youngsters is violent video games. Video games lead youngsters to be violent at home or school, for example. For instance, in Colorado high school two students performed a shooting that causes 20 people’s death in 1999¹. According to the local authorities, the boys played video games such as ‘Wolfenstein’, ‘Mortal Combat’ and ‘Doom’ excessively. According to National Institute on Media and Family, as of 2001, approximately 79% of America’s youths play video games 7-8 hours per week. Another one of the murder related to this topic was performed by an 18^th year old boy. The boy killed three people and two of them were policemen. The boy firstly performed 3 shots and one of them on the head. Then he performed 5 more shots and again one of them on the head². According to the officials, the killer played ‘Grand Theft Auto’ game day and night for 40 days or more. This is a clear bad effect of video games on youths. However, video games are not the only thing for violence. After a young plays game excessively, there is no need to be afraid if he cannot find a gun for his aim. Because of these reasons, guns need controlling.

Besides video games’ violation, TVs have also the same effect on people. TV has a great effect on people all around the world. They watch TV every single day. They watch many great things, but they come across also violence. Violence spreads among people fast with the help of TV. According to a research by Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University Psychiatric Institute, children who watch TV less than 1 hour a day 5.7% involve in aggressive acts, and the ones who watch more than three hours a day 28% involve in aggressive acts. The bad effects of TV on violation can be seen easily. World has people that are waiting to pull the trigger. If they find a gun, they will kill who they want. Because media is unstoppable, world needs cleaning from guns. If you cannot put out the fire, than do not put more wood to strengthen it.

There are people in the world who are against strict gun control. They think that having gun with them is a right to them. They just want more education but not sweeping all the guns from civil people. Although mankind is educable, there is no certainty that they will take the education. However, there is a choice for people: leave the guns alone. This is easier than being educated enough. Education is a long process. It cannot be done in a minute, but guns can be exterminated.

Although gun control needs certain decisions, it is still a controversial issue. Some think guns are their rights and some others think their beloved children. All have a different point of view. However, guns are getting stronger by sucking the humanity’s power. There is a need for safety. Guns need controlling.