kosei

     For me, this year was the third year with Mr.Paterson. The first year and second year with Mr.Paterson were both very interesting and stimulating. I could recall how I was excited to participate in Mr.Paterson's class by reading my blogs written when I was in grade2 and grade3. This year, the third year with Mr.Paterson was also stimulating and exciting. In addition, this year, I learned some truths which I was shocked to learn. About the media, about the corporations, and about the Countries. All were about the important elements which make up today's world. In this blog post, I want to reflect on this year’s learning from the very first.       The first semester, we mainly learned about the Israel, Palestine issue. Before the classes, to be honest, I was not interested in this issue, as I thought there are no relations between me and the issue. Learning in the class, I noticed that my thought was not true. As a major premise, it is too irresponsible ...

 We watched a video focused on corporations. One of the themes of the video was "Corporations are groups which only work for their profits." Also, comments which have nuances that "Corporations are human which has every right which others have but who can only think about themselves" appeared a lot. From these two statements, corporations reflect as bad, evil guys, but it's true that an enormous number of those corporations  "the bad guy" are turning nowadays economics. I think we have to keep in mind this fact. Economics is having benefits from corporations but I don't think this is the correct appearance of economics. It's true that the corporation itself has problem, but the bigger problem is the system of economics. By improving the system corporation will not be at the core of economics and I think as a result this will change the corporation. (or smash corporations.)

 We learned about IMF and the surrounding incidents (or the "unfair" system of it). Mr.Paterson taught us about the system, reproducing the reality using students, their belongings, and (fake) money. IMF was first made to support poor country's development economically, but since development does not occur without technical power, supporting only with money can't make the development. To make the development poor countries get help from developed "rich" countries. In the return, poor countries give rights to deal with the natural resources of the country, or natural resources themselves. With the technical help of rich countries and economic help by IMF poor countries earn some developed cities and systems, but since they sold their natural resources, which were their only financial resources, they now have no money to pay back to IMF. This means that with a little development in poor countries, rich countries become richer and poor countries become poorer. ...

 At the beginning of the class, Mr.Paterson taught us some malicious incidents of Japanese food companies and food stores in Japan. It was a little shocking to know some gloomy facts and histories of Japan, but it wasn't a big shock. Japan's restrictions against food additives are very lenient. It shows how Japan thinks it's important to make foods priceless and a lot. I could predict japan's treatment of food easily from these facts.  We also learned about the world system theory. This is one of the perspectives to look at and explain the world's movement's system. This system explains not only today's world but also the history of the world. Searching about the system I felt that for a perspective to look at the world, this system is effective and we can earn a deeper understanding of the world, but an explanation of the history and the movement this system do not match. There's a possibility that until nowadays similar flows have been repeated but I t...

 We learned how the media report about the election, particularly about the candidate. The important information, which we need to decide who is competent to be elected is about the content of the policy or achievement of the candidate. Media report these things too, but they report more information that is not related to the election directly. To be honest, we don't need this kind of information to decide the candidate to vote for, but I think sometimes this kind of information can help people who can not decide the candidate easily, both in a good way and a bad way. By the information, interest again the election between citizens can increase, But at the same time, because the information does not relate to the election directly, there is a risk that citizens can not decide the candidate in a proper pivot. If citizens try to know about the candidate voluntarily, but of course they don't. To create the interest against the election of the citizens I think we have no choice bes...

 Since half of us could get one more class from Mr.Paterson today half of us told another half what we learned that day. Because that class which only half of us get was about what I didn't know and since the content was shocking it remained in my mind strongly. I think I remembered the class and I believed that I could tell about the class exactly but it was farther more hard to tell what I learned in my words. After we told half of the class about Steven Donziger and about his surroundings in some small groups, we changed the member of the group and asked how the students who listen could understand our explanation. Also this time I could feel how difficult it is to tell what we learned in our words. I thought it's impossible to tell exactly the same as what we learned because when we tell others, we naturally speak with ourselves feeling, and this feeling is equivalent to bias things. When we tell something perfectly exact I think it's important to talk with bare bias bu...

 Since only half of us attended school Mr.Paterson's class progressed with 10students. I think we can have a more satisfying class with few people. Today we also had a class about biased things and Israel and Palestine. We watched some shocking videos which are happening right now in Palestine, on Twitter. A large building was bombed by Israel with attention only one hour before the attack. Hospitals and orphanages were bombed too. I believe in these places there are people who don't have any military connections with Israel so I was  shocking a lot to know the fact that people who are doing nothing are attacked. I didn't know that those things were happening now and I think this is not only because I didn't have attention to these problems but the media informing is influencing too. Watching and knowing the present circumstance was shocking but I also wondered the videos which I watched in this class are the truth. Since Mr.Paterson showed us they are believable videos...

 The class started with Mr.Paterson saying only Saitama people can go into the class. I didn't know what was happening at that time. Next, was people who showed an ID card. I had my ID card in my locker so I couldn't get into the class. Finally, all of us could get into the room but we couldn't sit down or we couldn't use chairs and desks. Only Saitama people were able to sit and use desks. Mr.Paterson told us this is what is happening in Israel and Palestine now. Experiencing how Palestinian people are treated by Israeli people I think I could understand that it is not usual in Israel now, but I couldn't understand what Israeli people want to do by treating Palestinian people this way. Also before this class, I learned a lot about how media is controlling information to tell information good for themselves but I thought if we try to do we can see what is happening in reality in perspective with no bias.  After listening to these talks half of the class listened how...

 We learned about how a county use media to control the people and how the media implant bias in the people. BBC news used terms that support Israel and for Palestine, they used words in bad images. I was surprised after watching this news from a critical perspective. In usual situation we do not try to watch news in this way because almost all of us think that TV news is telling the "truth" and actually they are telling the "truth" but, I could recognize that the way they are informing is not perfect all the time. This time, the news was about "Israel's attack on Palestine." and since the UK support Israel, BBC informed this showing how Palestine attacked Israel before with the word "retaliatory attack" of Israel. BBC informed truth news but actually, before the Palestine attack there were illegal and unfair trouble by Israel in Palestine and the attack by Palestine was a "retaliatory attack" on Israel. It means that BBC or the UK ...

 We learned kinds of pictures to make the introduction look better.  There were some points which are necessary. First was the focus. The picture's focus has to be on me so that everyone can know who is the writer. Also, we should take pictures in a suitable place. I this case, a suitable place means place which relates a lot to the writer. I think I should use pictures in which I am playing baseball. The picture should be straight too. I want to use pictures which I am playing baseball but I think this picture has some problems, like the focus so I think I should use another one, or use both of them.

 I had my presentation about my book review. Overall I had positive evaluation to my book, so I tried to explain this book from positive perspective. Today I will reflect my presentation watching video.  Firstly I could protect the time limit but, I think my time allocation was not so good. Because this book's settings are complicated and because this story's storyline is complicated too I think I took too much time with the story's summary. This presentation's purpose was to state my own critique but because I took too much time with the summary I couldn't state my critique which is positive ones fully.  Secondly, I repeated the same word or the same information a lot. Repeating is a good way to tell important and core ideas but I repeated information which is not so important information so it just made my presentation's substances thin.   Thirdly I only moved (physically) to the slide's other side once. I think moving too much is not a good thing but also...

We started to use Flipgrid. I heard this site's name for the first time so, it mean that I used this site for the first time. Reaction from me is that this site is similar to some applications like Instagram or Snap chat. First work was to upload our video. It was easier to upload video than my image before I use.  I could know basic information about Flipgrid but still, There are some points which I don't know how it works. I could not use emoji or filter inside the video, so I want to know how to do it and also I want to know how to alter our voice. I think we can alter voice but I could not find it.  Also a lot student didn't wanted to post their video first. I think it's because other students will watch the video. I think we should make the video only viewable for Mr.Paterson, so that all students can post their video pleasantly.

In the second chapter, Harry and her sister’s relationship became clear. Before the accident(Harry was death because of the accident, he was hit by the lorry) Harry had a quarrel with her sister Eggy. Harry said that he don’t like his sister at all and Eggy said same thing to Harry. Then Harry said if he die you will notice how you love me and he leaf house. Lastly, Eggy said ok then you don’t have to come back, I will be very happy. Then after Harry left house he was hit by the lorry and dead. Harry was regretting this quarrel because his last word before he die became a abuse to his sister. Also it was about dead. He didn’t mean to die but he died so he can’do anything with this now. He thought that his sister is regretting too, so he wanted to meet her again, reconciles, but now he came to the “other side” the land of the death people and if someone die they can’t be alive again.  Arthur says that when people die first they come to the “other side” and then go to the “the ...

Harry, the main character of this story died when he was children. It's because a lorry hit his bicycle. This story's stage is the "other side". It's a word which we go after we die. This word is very difficult to explain. One thing that Harry could tell us is that the "other side" is absolutely odd. When someone dies that person gets into a line. At the end of the line, there is a man who checks why the person is dead and who is the person. When the check finish, finally the person enters the "other side". On this island (Harry says that the "other side" is an island) although there is a sun, like our world it doesn't move at all. times don't go too. It's very interesting because, because of the time people don't grow anymore (it means that people in the "other sides" are the same figure as the moment they die) but their memory becomes fuzzy. It's very odd. Also because the figures don't grow or cha...

 This year I could learn a lot skills and I could absorb some of the skills. By getting these skills I could become to make a better presentation.  Firstly, by learning in Mr.paterson's class I think my presentation creating skills grew. Before learning in this class almost all of my slides were created with an explanation or boring word, but because of these words on the slide audience don't listen to our explanation. They don't have to listen to our words, instead, they only have to watch the slides. These types of presentations don't give a big impression to the audience so, now I don't make those slides.  secondly, I don't become to watch slides during the presentation. During the presentation, the presenter should make gestures and eye contact with the audience. Gestures and eye contacts show how confident the presenters are.  I could improve computers skills too. I could know the usefulness of google applications and other applications such as Zotero. I...

finally, we had the last presentation.we had to do the perfect presentation because it was our last. I tried to do my best but, I could not change a lot from the previous presentation. There were some good points I could alter. One is that I could tell more information about magnets and markers. By telling more details I think listeners could agree to our opinions better than the last time. I could say some jokes too. I think by saying jokes listeners can relax so it was a good judgment among the presentation. Points that I could not alter are about conclusion, summary and limitation part. Firstly the conclusion part was too short. By the conclusion part listener's concentration are very low and some of them are forgetting our opinions, so I should have told more information about Mayako and Joel's part.

Mr.paterson gave me feedback on my individual essay. There were some small mistakes which are about writing essays so I need to change those mistakes. some mistakes are about the thesis statement. there were three reasons for the statement but all reasons were from the same perspective so I have to alter them and write two more reasons which are about projectors and tools to use whiteboard useful. Also, one paragraph didn't have references so I need to search for some information talking about projectors. Searching references for this paragraph is difficult because in the paragraph I said that It's necessary to change the projector to the transparent color one but, Its a very new one so that there are no essays about the projector. To make the essay better I have to search for it so I want to make more time for doing the essay.

Mr.Paterson showed us some of the essays which we made. One of the essays was mine. I was very lucky that I could hear the points which I have to improve. Naturally one was references. I have to write 4 more references to make my essay persuasive. My thesis sentence was not perfect. I only wrote 1 reason to support a thesis sentence so I have to add 2 reasons. I will be about an environmental problem. Probably references to these problems are necessary. Mr.paterson told me that subtitle has to be the same size as the title, but mine was smaller than the title so I altered subtitle too. I could alter some bad points thanks to Mr.paterson I think my essay is near to finish points so I think I have to start to think about presentation.

we downloaded Zotero. As I predicted it was a convenient application, but it will take time to use the application skillfully. There are still no references in my essay so I tried to search some articles about altering the educational environment, but I could not find a good one so tomorrow I will be going to research a website or college essay which makes my essay more powerful and reliable.  I added titles to my essay too. I removed some information that has no connection with my issue which was in conclusion. It seems it's neer to the goal of the essay but still, there are many steps I have to passage to make a great essay so I want to search more about my topic.

Mr.paterson told us how to use Zotero. My impressions are that It's a very useful application. I don't have the experience to write a very long essay with a lot of references so it's not quite exact but writing a lot of references would be difficult and long work so I don't want to do that but using Zotero those works will be easy jobs. since Zotero is a very useful application, I think to master this application is difficult. Hearing to the explanation of the Zotero I thought that if L could master the application it will help me a lot when I write academic essays, but if I could not master writing references will be hard work.  Mr.paterson told us about the number of references to make a good presentation. It was 10. I was surprised at this big number and I could notice that writing good essays are hard work. I didn't write references at all now so I have to search some references about improving learning environment.