Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Well Informed 2.0 - Learning and Thinking 

I value education. But I believe the value of education in the United States is going downhill. While I enjoy college and all of the different choices available, I did not enjoy going through elementary to high school because I felt so constrained to learn a certain type of way. In second grade, I was held back because I couldn't keep up with the reading or just simply couldn't sit down and read a book at all. Now that I'm at an age where I understand the education system, it angers me that a teacher didn't just sit down with me and figure out a different way to teach me.

Equality is also an important factor when trying to understand how education works. All children need equal access to education.

Here's a video I found on Finland's education system, which has generated lots of positive outcomes:https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOfZL_J5fo 

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

On the Media: There Must Be Another Way

I am not very big on discussing politics, mainly because everyone around me discusses it every day, and it gets kind of old when you hear the same arguments over and over again. But this post from On the Media, titled "There Must Be Another Way" caught my attention. I listened to the segment called "Voting from the head, not the heart" and the main point of the discussion was Canada's voting system and how they've succeeded with it.

I have debated, and others have as well, about the fact that we have two presidential candidates who both have their boatload of problems. I've heard people say they're not going to vote because they don't like either candidate. But with this topic, it was discussed that there's a potential way to fix this problem. Canada has a few different political parties, and what the country has been trying to do is have more of a strategic voting system, where someone votes for a less desirable candidate to avoid an undesirable outcome. This can often swing an election.

This strategic voting system has a lot to do with cultural, social and physical context. America is quite different than Canada, and we as society are stuck to thinking there's only two parties, and we have to vote for one of the two candidates. But that is not the case. I think, even though it's not likely for us to change our ways, american voters should look into this concept of strategic voting. Maybe we won't end up with lying Hillary Clinton or crazy Donald Trump.