1.

This topic is something that I very much dislike, I very much dislike the Mcdonaldized

impact on society and culture. One of the examples that this can be seen in is literature. Im a

classicist. So one of the reasons why I want to get involved in education is because I dont want

society to lose its ability to enjoy the classics, for example, and lose ability on how to read and

analyze a text. For example, poetry was a major part of society for hundreds of years, now,

barely anyone is society can read and understand a poem. You may have heard of the English

Blend club on campus, I was the founder of that club and who helped resurrect the Great Plains

Review, Sterling's Literary Journal, which had been dead for 10 years. Myself, my student

cabinet, and the English faculty, very much so wanted a creative and literary movement to come

back to Sterling College. Because of this, obviously, I was more seriously engaged in poetry

reading, critiquing, and writing. So I was greatly surprised, in Mark Watneys poetry class, to

come across a poet who I had never heard of before, but something about his word or style stuck

out to me, enough so, that I wanted to give him more thought and study him further. His name

was Sir Philip Sidney, a late 16th century poetry of Elizabeth's court. Now obviously I was

already interested in the classics and poetry, but really this was the guy that kind of introduced

me really being able to understand Medieval and Renaissance literature and culture and society.

Eventually, because I began to practice reading his poems and understanding the culture and

ideas behind them, this strongly helped me to begin to read, interpret, and be interested in

Shakespeare, today (which now Im teaching to my Chinese students). So Im very much

indebted to what Sir Philip Sidneys poetry style has done in contributing my understanding of

the Renaissance and literature. One of the joys I learned was Elizabethan poetry is lot like

sipping red wine or eating an exquisite high quality steak. You cant just whiz passed and

through it. In fact, you cant read it in your head, you have to speak it out loud, like music, and
listen to the music of the accents. Sometimes theres a cadence that you have sort of pick up, if

you want to get the poem. This is 100% true of Shakespeares Sonnet 17, his most famous one, if

you are not able to pick up how to read the poem properly with the right rhythm, then you will

fail at reading the last two lines wrong, and in doing so will completely mess up the effect the

poem is supposed to have, and the interpretation I would say. I think God has created us to be

thinkers and construct and comprehend beauty and high ideas and ideals. Something that I feel

this culture doesnt understand because of mcdonaldization, but something Christians in

Elizabethan culture did. It would be very rare to hand Shakespeare or the King James Bible even

to a high school student and ask them can they read this. But I want to point out, that we are on

the verge of the day when if you handed Charles Dickens to a High School student, for them, it

would be like handing them Shakespeare, and they will call Charles Dickens Old English. This

is extremely sad if you think about it. Today students moreso just go to sparknotes or youtube or

ask yahoo to figure out answers about a literary text. They have/are losing their ability to read

literature and poetry and comprehend it. And negatively speaking, it will probably become

outdated, just like poetry has become outdated in society, when 150 years back, the days of

Longfellow, and the other fireside poets, it was a huge part of culture.

2. I guess I had trouble really understanding what a Bureaucracy is. Obviously I would have

heard the term in education, but Im not that sure I would have been accurately been able to

define it. Even reading the definition in the text book really didnt answer too much of my

confusion, even though they spend like two pages trying to explain it. From what I could tell

many federal organization use the bureaucratic structure, well actually I have worked for my

state government before but I guess I was low end of the pipeline to where I didnt really get to
see examples mentioned in the book take place. The only example that I could think of was that I

worked for the school district and that year DHS, department of Health, really extensively

cracked down on health code in my school district I was working in. We were never told why,

but my guess or instinct would be there probably was a child with a sexually transmitted disease,

maybe born with aids or hiv for example, attending one of the schools in my area. That was my

guess. Anyway, because of this high alert strict code, children were not allowed to touch each

other in any way, and we had to supervise them going to the bathroom and watch them wash

their hands one by one and if any child unclasped their hands in the hallway or touched anything

with their clasped hands, like their dress, their hair, their nose. Anything. We had to make them

turn around and go back and was their hands. When dealing with 7,8,9 year olds, and with strict

rules that not a single child could be left unsupervised in the halls, this left quite the juggling act.

Anyway, this made the department I worked for really stressed out because they were being

extensively supervised by DHS, who had the power to shut down the program. The home

department was at another school, but my supervisor I worked for extensively felt the pressure

from above. It was like, DHS says, we dont care at all about your program, we proceed you and

have the power to shut you down, so you better follow every protocol and be afraid of us if we

surprise you with a surprise supervision. Which in turn made my bosss boss, and office, treat

my boss and all other supervisors in the same kind of demeaning sort of way. Thats the only

example I have had in the states.

But to be quite honest, all of the examples listed in the book, especially the negative

examples, are seen on regular basis at the school I work for here in China. I would say almost the

entire socialist/communist school system is structured extremely in this way. Almost all 6 points
are seen over here at the university I work at, and I would say that Ive seen all 6 portrayed in

extreme ways, to the extent that a lot of the school system is inefficient and ritualistic. Especially

since next year the government will asses the school, so this year they have become extensively

ritualistic on any class or student policy. In fact there has been some new policy just produced

within the last year or so here, which in turn, I believe will extremely effect Americans being

able to come over here and work. They have come up with some new crazy visa requirements,

because they are afraid of fake graduates, to the extent that I think hardly anyone is going to go

through the like now 20 checklist requirements to get a work visa to come over here. I think it is

crazy and could not recommend any friend to come over here, now, due to these outrageous

red-tape visa requirements.

3. So again, I work in China and have lived here for 3 years now. Shame is a huge part of

asian culture. Youd have to see it in action to really wrap your head around it, but it really is

something really not in our culture. First off, China is very much a who is number 1 and the best.

Almost every aspect of life is about comparing ones self to a standard that you dont fit and why

someone or something is better than you. It is all about popular or most well known that

matters, here. In fact, I dont think the Chinese have that much ability to judge something in and

of itself by themselves, they constantly look towards how is it rated in the eyes in society or

popularity. You could try to present something to them and ask them why is this good or why

was this rated like it was, and it's almost like talking to a child or infant. They have very little

practice of judging something by itself without comparing it by something else or turning to see

what others and society have said. Obviously they know how to enjoy something and such, but

when it comes to actually having an opinion and being able to have a sound opinion, many
Chinese just dont have much practice on how to do that. For example, you could take them to a

concert, they would want to find out how popular this song is, oh Mozart, hes the most

famous, okay, yeah, it was fantastic, it was lovely and charming. What a wonderful experience.

Unforgettable, in fact. Verses, oh, I dont know anything about this song, or composer. Let me

check how they are rated, oh, they have a very low rating, well, okay, yeah I think it was only

soso. Notice how independent thought is not so much a part of the culture. So if you can see how

this works in pop culture, then compare this to how it would work in a school system. First off,

what they think about anything, school, teacher, major, city, future career, is meaningless

compared to what their parents think about these things. It does not matter, its like ant compared

to foot. First and foremost, the parents opinion is king. So their major and school and career is

foremost based on what the parent thinks, they have no say. Their parent will then based off what

they feel, culturally, is the best job for their child. Now if the parent is already a factory worker,

maybe they will want their child to follow a similar career path. Or the parent will see who

makes the most money, money is basically the most important thing in Chinese society. This

culture is almost worshipful of money. In fact one of their gods is a money god, youll see him

when they drink tea, hes a toad/frog with a coin protruding from his mouth. Before they drink

the tea, they will pour the first cup of tea over the money god. This is supposed to be good luck

so that fortune and wealth comes to them. So if you walk into a Chinese local shop, it could be

common, depending where you are and how friendly you are the shopkeeper, that the shopkeeper

will first invite you sit down and have tea with him in the shop. If you do, you will most likely

see him pour the first glass over the money god. All of this is to say that wealth and societies

opinion and familial piety are like the number one things in this culture, so this all gets funneled

down to education. Which is why shame is powerfully used here. Little children will be in school
from like 6/7am till like 10 pm being told by their teachers that if they dont work hard for their

test basically you dont love your parents (because this test will determine the future career you

will have and how much money will make to support your parents). It is a socialist based

education system, so every grade is compared off of everyone else's grade. So your grade is not

important, its your Rank that is. So it is possible, in China, to score a 98% on a test and

receive a failing grade if everyone else in the class got a 99%. Anyway, I could give lots of and

lots of examples of how shame is used within the public school system. What is more, it is very

secretive. As in, I didnt start seeing how my students shame one another until after teaching

about 2 years here. It wasnt till the end of my second year did I realize that the students were

shaming one another, because it isnt very much publicly displayed. Anyway its hard to digest

and talk about this kind of thing in just a few paragraphs, so whenever I talk about Chinese

culture its hard to figure out what is best way to explain it. Maybe I didnt do that good of job

above, because its hard to think about and type real fast about it. But anyway, in a nutshell, its a

big part of society and education system here, because everything is about not how did you do,

but how did you compared to someone or something else.

4. The text presented 4 views of justification of punishment. The old testament like view of

do the crime, pay the time. As in you murder someone, you yourself deserve death. Then there is

the age of enlightenment view of Deterrence, that punishment deters crime. Then there is I guess

the 20th century view of rehabilitation, that criminals need to be rehabilitated. And then there is

the modern view of seeing punishment as a social protection service. I have no idea what

Greenlands view is because I scanned the text and couldnt find any mention of Greenland. And

the map on 172 says explicitly that there isn't any data on Greenland. So I have no idea how to
answer that question. Perhaps the question means Canada, as Canada is talked about in the text?

Im guess that how the question is posed, its supposed to mean that America views prison as

both retribution and social protection. Whereas Greenland is rehabilitation? Opposite ends of the

spectrum. Anyway going more into my opinion, Im actually quite fascinated by the legal

system. I think in another life I would have probably done something in police work or law,

instead of Literature and Teaching. I am extremely fascinated about crimes and solving them, a

sort of detective instinct that I have. I have always felt this intense and strong desire for justice,

and would say one of my big pet peeves is injustice of any kind. It really gets to me. Even its a

little thing, like there is only one cookie left but there are three people in line, if Im the cafeteria

worker, that sort of thing would really bother me and Id be more than willing to go out of my

way to bake a new set of cookies just so that that little kid in the back of the line could get a

cookie. Anyway, so if I think its unfair of a little kid not getting a cookie, I very much hate the

idea of someone committing a crime getting away with it. But what I equally care about is

fairness and justice, which is to say, that I want the system to be accountable to itself and want

fair trials, and I dont want a system where innocent people are legally sent to prison. This text

is talking about punishment, but in my mind you also have to look at the role of the courts, too.

The whole picture, from police officers, how laws are enforced and carried out, how laws are

made, how they are carried through in the courts before a judge, and everything leading up to the

prison door being closed or the lethal injection. One of the opposition listed with death penalty in

the text is DNA evidence has proven that wrongly convicted people have gone to prison and

been executed. Thats a whole other topic, but what I want to garner from that is that it is

possible to wrongfully be punished for something that one has not done. So I want to first of all

state that prison should be a place where real criminals have been put not people who have
wrongfully been placed there. And I think a lot more emphasis needs to placed on this in our

courts systems (our court system and law system in the US is based more on putting people

behind bars vereses one about innocent people getting out of prison). I watch almost daily real

court cases and have probably seen nearly a few hundred crime shows over the past few years

now that this has kind of become a side interest and hobby of mine. What it when someone has

been wrongly convicted, I have pinpointed 3 reasons for that sort of thing has happened. So far,

my theory and hypothesis has hold its water in the examples Ive seen and applied this theory to.

I know that this post is not supposed to be about this, but I will just surmise, that Id like to see a

better product, if you will, created when it comes to our court system. I have been unconvinced

that the jury system works. I would like to be shown the evidence that supports that you can

randomly select 12 random people off the street and they can become experts on who is guilty or

not (why 12, why not 8 people, why not 20 people, see the only answer is, well they did 12

people in Greece, so I guess the answer is 12). I do not trust the average person's opinion on just

about anything (including who should be elected president). Let alone if someone is guilty of a

crime or not (I would only trust informed and intelligent people, not just a random Joe off the

street, if someone is going to be lethally injected and it all comes down to bite mark impression,

and its life on the line, wouldnt you want the person making the final shots be at least

somewhat of an expert on bite mark impressions?). I think it could work if the crime and

evidence are overwhelmingly obvious. But a lot of the time, its not that easy. Some cases are

point blank, he or she did it, lets just make sure that everything is done legally and their rights

are uphold, innocent until proved guilty (and quite frankly I dont think many juries

understand this concept, some do of course, but Ive seen lots of trials where someone was found

guilty not based on evidence but because of feelings the jurors had). But when it comes to cases
such as OJ Simpson, for example, and hillbilly reasoning such as if the glove doesnt fit,

therefore he must not have done it. This is just one example, but I will just want to simply say

that not that the system is broken it just has a lot of kinks in it, because these cogs and kinks

are not being fixed and repaired, we will continue to see examples of wrongful convictions. So I

guess my answer would be prison needs to be foremost about putting real criminals behind bars,

not someone who is innocent but legally guilty. So before we can start talking about the moment

those bars close, we have to pedal backwards and look at the whole thing and process leading up

to the jailman locking the door. Another last note I will make, I have seen literally hundreds of

examples of murder cases, I would say that, gosh, 75%, of the cases that Ive seen that if 30

seconds before murder if somehow that murder was to be told that they would be caught if they

killed this person, I think they still would commit the murder. What is more, if DNA technology

got so advanced that wed be able to have dead skin cells be as accurate as semean or blood

DNA, meaning, if one of your dandruff even fell into the room, you will be caught, regardless,

home robberies and murder would still happen at the same rate. In all reality, criminals are

stupid, they are not smart individuals. Most of the crimes that do take place, are done carelessly.

This is because of a psychological thing that takes place when one is doing something you know

is wrong, we will either do something subconsciously that will make us get caught, or something

other psychological factors are at play. Anyway, again, I could go way more extensive on this

topic and dont feel this is the format to do it in, so I ll just conclude by saying criminals are

criminals, they do crime, its what they do. Sometimes there are factors that lead up to it, but if

you truly studied it, liars, lie, and murders dont accidentally have the intent to kill people, which

is to say, put a liar within a circumstance where they would tell a lie, and they will tell one, put a

murderer within a circumstance where they would commit murder, and they will do it. So society
could educate people more, and educate people on the science behind catching criminals, but for

the most part, most criminals commit crimes for very stupid reasons, they are not that smart to

begin with, and when the pull off the crime they make several mistakes. Its kind of like Sin

nature, you know, if someone struggles with a habitual sin, its really hard to break that sin.

Unfortunately because of the sinful nature, this results in people doing crimes.