Sunday, December 11, 2011

Como melhorar a educação no Brasil

Vamos falar sobre educação no Brasil.
Frequentei a escola há muito tempo atrás no Brasil, provavelmente muita coisa dever ter mudado, eu não sei como está o sistema educacional agora.

Minha amiga no Brasil colocou este vídeo na página dela com Arnaldo Jabor falando sobre educação.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxUikoH0D8I

Infelizmente neste vídeo ele não fala nada sobre como melhorar o sistema educacional, exceto talvez aumentar as verbas para a educação.

Será que essa é a solução? Simplesmente dar mais dinheiro para as escolas?

Minhas sugestões para melhorar as escolas públicas:

- Abolir a repetência de ano. Eu acho errado que o aluno tenha que repetir de ano caso não consiga notas suficientes. Eu tive a sorte de nunca repetir de ano e de ter terminado o segundo grau ( ou ensino médio )com 18 anos. Mas a maioria das pessoas não tem essa sorte. Um ano na vida de uma pessoa é um tempo enorme. A repetência de ano força muitos alunos a abandonarem a escola antes de terminarem os estudos.

- Adotar exames unificados independentes. Os exames devem ser ministrados não pela escola mas por uma outra entidade independente da escola, como se fosse um vestibular. O trabalho da escola é ajudar o aluno o máximo possível para que ele consiga boas notas nesse vestibular. Mas o vestibular em si é ministrado por uma outra entidade independente da escola.

- permitir que alunos com boas notas avancem de ano, independente da idade. Este sistema existe nos Estados Unidos onde é possível encontrar jovens de 15 anos se formando em faculdades de medicina.

- abolir aulas. Eu sempre detestei aulas. Eu não conseguia ficar acordado nas aulas da faculdade. Na minha opinião o trabalho do professor é responder as perguntas dos alunos. Os alunos precisam receber apostilas com questões e simulados dos exames. Se o aluno não consegue resolver uma questão, ele vai para a "aula" e pede ao professor resolver e explicar a questão.

- abolir a obrigatoriedade de frequentar a escola. Por que o aluno precisa ir para a escola? Essa é uma coisa que eu também nunca entendi. Eu acordava cedo todos os dias, ia para a escola, respondia a chamada da professora e era obrigado a ficar sentado na sala de aula ouvindo uma aula incompreensível. Depois  voltava para casa, lia o livro, e exclamava "putz! Era isso que a professora estava falando??" A escola precisa existir para ajudar o aluno, não para atrapalhar. Forçar o aluno a frequentar escolar apenas para responder chamada não tem sentido.

- fazer com que o aluno dê a aula. O MELHOR JEITO DE APRENDER É ENSINAR. Na faculdade eu costumava estudar junto com meus amigos. Resolvíamos as questões juntos. Frequentemente meus amigos me faziam perguntas e eu era obrigado a responder. Eu aprendi muito mais ensinando meus amigos do que estudando sozinho ou assistindo aula.

- oferecer salas de estudo para os alunos. Por incrível que pareça eu nunca tive uma mesa e cadeira para estudar em casa. Eu acabava estudando na cama, no chão, na mesa da cozinha, em pé... No tempo da faculdade eu ia à noite para uma biblioteca próxima estudar. Eu acho que muitas famílias pobres não tem condições de comprar mesa e cadeira para os filhos estudarem. A escola deveria oferecer salas de estudo para o aluno estudar. Uma sala silenciosa para alunos individuais e outra sala para grupos de alunos.

- abolir vestibular para faculdade. Atualmente ( ou no meu tempo, não sei como é hoje...) cada faculdade tem seu próprio vestibular e o estudante é obrigado a prestar vários vestibulares. Por que não ter um vestibular unificado para todas as faculdades do Brasil? O estudante prestaria um único vestibular e levaria os resultados para as faculdades que ele quer ingressar. Exatamente como acontece nos Estados Unidos.

more on vegetarianism

Depression... I come home to write more on my blog, especially the last one about suicide that is still unfinished.

But now I am not in the mood of writing.
At least not on that article.

I wrote 3 blogs yesterday. I have a lot of personal problems to solve, instead I waste my time writing about problems that don't concern me.

I think it is escapism. I am trying to run away from my problems by distracting myself with other problems.

I wrote a blog about vegetarianism yesterday and showed to a person I follow on twitter. She was not pleased.

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she: sometimes i go conbini hopping just so i can peer hopefully at all the ready meals i can't eat

me: Please don't be mad at me but that is my opinion about vegetarianism
http://hcm9999.blogspot.com/2011/12/vegetarianism-is-not-religion.html

she: i don't see vegetarianism as a "religion" so your point is moot with me, no offense ^^;

me: My point is that eating meat sometimes is not a bad thing. I think there is no need to go to the extreme of never eating meat.

she: then you're really talking to the wrong person. why say things like that just to upset me?? i'm not forcing my views on anyone.

me: Ok, I am sorry!
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Ok, I admit that maybe she has a point. Why was I trying to show my views on vegetarianism to her?

I feel annoyed by some vegetarians that seem to be boasting their ability to resist the temptations of eating meat.
I think some people are becoming vegetarians for the wrong reasons.
In my opinion the only good reason to become a vegetarian is that it is healthier. That is all. But that also means you don't need to cut meat entirely from the menu. You still can eat meat, as long as it is in moderate quantities.

I saw a TV interview of a celebrity  in which she tells how she became a vegetarian and then succumbed to the temptation and went to a restaurant and ordered steak. She described her pleasure of eating meat as an "orgasm".
The audience laughed, I laughed, but come to think of it, it is so pathetic!
What is the point of becoming a vegetarian? Just so you can boast your ability to resist the temptations of eating meat? It is ridiculous, it makes no sense!

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I am not perfect, I make a lot of mistakes. I don't know how I should have handled that conversation.
It reminds of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. He advises never to argue with people.
That is one of my flaws. I love to argue. Because I usually win. But every time you win an argument you lose a friend.
I should stop arguing with people but many times I can't resist the temptation.

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The dangers of expressing opinions

It is very dangerous to tell your opinions to the whole world. Because there is always somebody out there who will get offended.
But what is the alternative? Never express your opinions? Some people actually never express their opinions. At least not in public.
I am thinking about my last 3 blogs. Are they too controversial? In one of them I even defend cannibalism!
I am playing the Devil's advocate, defending the unpopular view on purpose to force my readers (and myself) to think.
If I defended a popular view, my blog would be completely boring! Who wants to know things everybody already knows?

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Suicide in Japan

Let's talk about the unspeakable. Suicide in Japan.

Personally I try not to think about it, but I saw an article in Japanese saying the Japanese government is hiring outside advisers to try to combat suicide in Japan.
According to the article there has been more than 30,000 suicides a year in Japan.

30,000 seems to be high, but on a per capita basis is it high or low, relative to other countries?
Well, I don't know and it doesn't matter.

The problem is that the article doesn't mention any reason for the suicides. Why do so many people commit suicide? Why do people commit suicide? Because I think the only way to tackle the problem of suicide is finding the cause of it. And the article I read absolutely wouldn't talk about it.

I am not Japanese, I am Brazilian but I have been living in Japan for 17 years now and I have worked in many Japanese companies.

I am also buddhist and Buddhism prohibits suicide.
But most Japanese people are not buddhist.

People may choose suicide when they see no other way out. They run out of options. And the last option left is suicide.

So the question is: why do people run out of options?

Life has infinite possibilities. We should never run out of options. And why should suicide be even considered an option?

I am hesitant to talk about this because it may sound as if I am criticizing Japanese society.
People love to praise Japan. But if you are a foreigner living in Japan and start criticizing Japan... well, Japanese people will not love you for that.

But if suicide is a problem, it comes from a basic flaw in people's way of thinking about life.
If we want to solve the problem of suicide we have  to solve this flaw in people's way of thinking about life.
We have to admit and accept the fact that the Japanese way of thinking about life is WRONG. Of some Japanese people at least.

Suicide is a global problem, it is not just Japan.
But I live in Japan, I don't know the situation in other countries.

What is wrong with the Japanese way of thinking about life?

Japanese people have a very NARROW view of life.
You have to do things in a certain way, otherwise you have to die.

That is what drives people to suicide.
They run out of options because they give themselves only 2 options. You either succeed or fail. If you fail you have to die.

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Now I don't want to be presumptuous and claim to know all the answers. I don't know why people commit suicide. I am just guessing. This is just an exercise of thought. Sometimes I may say some things bold or audacious, but my intention is to start a discussion, to have people react and talk and think about these things.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Bread has no respect!

Bread has no respect!

Bread is one of the most important foods in human history!
And yet people completely underestimate bread.

What do you need to eat to survive?
Basically you need energy and very small amounts of vitamins and minerals.

The best source of energy is carbohydrates (protein is not a good source of energy, and I doubt if we have to eat protein at all).

And the best sources of carbohydrates are rice and bread.

There is a very interesting article about this on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food

What kind of food would you like to eat every day?

- It needs to be cheap.
- It needs to be something you can stockpile for times of emergency
- It needs to be a good source of energy
- It cannot have a strong taste otherwise you would get tired of eating it every day.

For many Asians rice is the chosen staple food. It fills all the requirements of a staple food.

But rice is not the only staple food. Another one is flour, the main ingredient of bread.

Flour is cheap, can be stockpiled for a long time, it is essentially made of carbohydrates, and it doesn't have a strong taste, so you can eat it every day without getting tired.

Most of humanity has survived by eating bread, not rice, every day.

But, at least here in Japan bread is completely underestimated.
Japanese people don't eat bread as the main food of a meal.
Bread is always viewed as a light food, something you may eat between meals, or to accompany a meal.

That is completely WRONG! Bread has the power to REPLACE rice as the main food of a meal.

I go to McDonalds and sometimes get puzzled by how much fillings the hamburger has and how disappointing the bread is.

The bread is the main ingredient of a sandwich. You eat a sandwich because of the bread, not because of the fillings. You put the fillings basically to put some taste, since bread itself is essentially tasteless.

But in our "modern" times the roles are completely reversed, people eat a sandwich because of the fillings, not the bread. The fillings are usually expensive, have a very strong taste, are not a good source of energy.
The bread is completely relegated to secondary role.

The same thing happens with pizza.
What is a pizza? It is essentially a crust with some toppings.
But the main food in a pizza is the crust. Because the crust is basically bread. The toppings are there just to give some taste to the crust.

You should be able o eat pizza every day as a full meal! And yet nobody does it. At least not these days.

I go to a pizza shop and always get annoyed by how thin the crust is.

Vegetarianism is not a religion!

Vegetarianism is not a religion!

Some people consider vegetarianism a religion.
They will not eat meat under any circumstances. For them, eating meat is a sin.

Let's  be reasonable! Vegetarianism is not a religion! I see no problem eating meat once or twice in a while.

I think vegetarianism is good for health. According to some people human beings are much closer to herbivores than carnivores. So the human body is more suitable for vegetable comsumption than meat comsumption.

The video below shows several convincing arguments about vegetarianism being much healthier than meat comsumption.



But the whole point here is that vegetables are healthier than meat.
So you should eat MORE vegetables and LESS meat.

But it doesn't mean that you cannot eat meat at all.

There are some things that I never do, because they are addictive. For example tobacco is addictive, once you start smoking it is very difficult to stop, you just want to smoke more and more.

But meat, as far as I know, is not addictive. Well at least not for me... Some people may appear to be addict to meat though...

Still, I am not against eating meat, as long as it is in moderate quantities.

Actually I am not against eating ANY KIND of meat! Even human!

Why are people against cannibalism??? Why not eat human flesh? What is the difference between human meat and cow meat?

That is something I don't understand.
The only argument against cannibalism would be to not promote killing another human being.
Some people could think that if it is OK to eat human meat then it is also OK to kill another human being to eat the meat.

I am against killing another human being. But I am also against killing any other animal. But no living being is immortal. Sooner or later any animal, humans including, will die. After they die, what do you do with the bodies? Bury? Cremate?

Why not eat it?

The United States has recently approved horse meat for comsumption. Some people were horrified.
But in my opinion horse meat is as bad as cow or pig meat, or fish.
Why not eat horse, or insects, or even human meat??

Some researchers say insect meat is much more nutritious than other kinds of meat. And I think they are probably right.

Why not eat cats and dogs? Because they are pets? If people had cows and pigs as pets wouldn't they eat cows and pigs? Don't people who have fishes as pets eat fish?

Please don't take me wrong. I am vegetarian, in the sense that I try to eat more vegetables and less meat. I think a vegetarian diet is healthier than meat.

But I am not against eating meat. I don't think eating meat is a sin.
(even though Buddhism says it is a sin!)
I am not against eating small quantities of meat sometimes. Any kind of meat, even human.

Some animals may have some kind of poison in their bodies in such a way that it is impossible to eat their bodies.  But excluding these animals, I see no problems about eating meat.

What is the difference between cow meat and human meat? Scientifically there is no problem in eating human meat. The arguments against human (or cat, dogs, etc) meat are mostly ethical, moral or religious ones.

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Eating raw fish is barbaric!

In Japan people eat raw fish, in the form of sushi and sashimi, among other dishes.
I think eating raw meat is barbaric.

There is a scientific reason why we have to cook meat before eating.
Eating raw meat is dangerous!

Raw meat putrefies rapidly due to bacteria activity.
That is why raw meat will stink very fast. Many of these bacteria are harmful to humans.
We have to cook meat in order to kill these bacteria.
You can die if you eat raw meat!

Some weeks ago there were several cases of death in Japan due to food poisoning. Japan has no laws against raw meat comsumption but after those incidents many restaurants decided to stop selling raw cow meat.

OK, maybe I am wrong... The statistics are probably against me. How many people per year die or even get sick due to raw meat comsumption? Maybe too few to be considered a problem.

But I still think eating raw meat is barbaric....

Yesterday I just remembered having read an article on Reader's Digest a long time ago saying the eskimos are the healthiest people on Earth because of their diet being based exclusively on raw fish.
If that is true it blows away all my arguments about vegetarianism and raw meat, haha!