Why Finland won't be teaching 'math' and 'history' anymore

Yahoo News

     Ever since our first day of kindergarten we have been learning conceptual things and subjects such as math, history and science. Every year of schooling the topics get piled on and the ideas get harder. This is the basis for the American schooling system. Believe it or not this is not the only way of schooling in the world.
     In Finland they never had a standardized test system. That is always something that set them apart. Now there has been a shift in the way the Finish School system would like to educate their students. They have created a system called "Phenomena" teaching. This focuses on more topics and less subjects that will be based on each individual person.
     How this works is each student will decide on an overall topic that they would like to learn about. The example in the article is "cafeteria services." The student will study some degree of math, even foreign language to talk to foreign customers. They then would take courses in communication skills and writing abilities. There would also be options for students who want to be on a more academic track. For example they could take classes on  "The European Union." This would include history lessons, economics and foreign language.
     The Finish want to change their education system to adjust to modern society. They want to prepare their students for the working world. In Finland, getting a job as a teacher is a very difficult job to obtain. All teachers must have masters degrees and are compensated far better than teachers in America. Before this change, they already have a lot of room for independence on how they would like to run their class.
     For a long period of time Finland has served as a model for other countries on how to reform their education systems. There has been models proposed in the United Kingdom and in the United States to follow in how the Finland education system is. However in the US any models based off of Finland were rejected due to the fact that it clashed with the American Public schooling system. Students in America must be required to reach a basic level of knowledge before moving on to the next and with the Finish model the students must have a wide extensive range of knowledge that teachers sometimes struggle to generate assignments that pinpoint students certain interests.
     The schooling methods success rate will be primarily based on what the teachers have to offer to the students and "Phenomena" teaching.

Plessy V Feurguson

     Today in class our moot court case was based of of the Plessy V. Feurgouson court case in 1892. The argument for Plessy was argued by Team Reagan and the argument against was proposed by Team Red White and Better than you. Homer Plessy was one eighth black, however he was so fair skinned that you could barley tell. He then went to buy a train ticket for the white train car. He was then caught by an undercover cop on the car and arrested for being a black man on  white rain car.
     Team Reagan argued that Plessy was set up. Nothing that Plessy did was illegal. He was peacefully and legally sold a train ticket. They argued that if the Rail Road company was compliant with the law they never would have sold him the train ticket. Another argument this team had was that the train cars were no "separate but equal". The conditions of the black train cars were far worse than the conditions of the white train cars.
     Team Red White and Better than You argued that each state is allowed to make rules to separate blacks and whites. Their biggest argument was that they keep blacks and whites separate because it would be dangerous to have them together. They made this a public safety issue. If blacks and whites were together there would be a bigger chance of violence. Their final argument was that the 14th Amendment does not extend to social issues. The status of the rail cars is not covered in the separate but equal clause. There is nothing stating that the conditions must be fair, just that the opportunities must be equal. Blacks and whites both had railcars, regardless of what they looked like.
     In my opinion Team Read White and Better than You did the better job at their argument because they presented stronger legal facts over just the moral argument.

Business can break slavery chains

CNN Ending mordern-day slavery

  When you think about slavey what is the first thing that comes to mind? Because when I think about it my first reaction is African Americans working on plantations before the civil war. What many people have failed to realize is that not only is slavery still an issue all over the world but in America as well. Maybe not so commonly for work related reasons but a big corrupt business in we still have today is Sex trafficking. Little do we know is that in the hotel and travel industries we are dealing every day with a huge human trafficking problem.

  On February 13th a 10 year old girl was reduced from sex trafficking by a nonprofit organization called 180 Degrees. This is just the most recently recorded account of it. The International Labour Organization estimates there to be about 21 million victims of of human trafficking, forced into labor and sex.

  Tammy Lee Stanoch is Vice President of cooperate affairs at Carlson family foundation which is a nonprofit organization. The mission of this organization is to care for the worlds street children and to protect them for abuse and exploitation. Tammy is one of the worlds leading business executives and is also a mother and has made herself an advocate for 21 million enslaved children world wide. Through her business and motherly intuition Tammy works every day to speak out against and raise awareness for human trafficking. Not many people realize how apparent of an issue this still is today all over the world.

Slavery and the Civil War

  On Monday February 23rd in class we watched a video on the reality of slavery and if it was one of the causes of the American civil war. The north and the south were clearly divided by slaveholding states and free spoiler states. Having slaves and not having slaves wasn't the only thing that separated the north from the south. The Northern states started commercializing with rivers, canals and railroads travel became easy. Not only was it easy to travel but banks began to spring u all over. Trade and transport became a huge part of every day life. Meanwhile in the south they were dominated by plantations. Wealthy plantation owners dominated the southern part of the US. 1793 was a groundbreaking time in the production rate on plantations and the need for slaves. Eli Whitney introduced the cotton gin transforming cotton from a luxury to Americans most commonly used fabric. Because of the mass production of cotton in the south there was a need for a large quantity of cheap labor.

  Slaves worked day and night with barley any food and minimal clothing. Many were beaten by their owners, sometimes for no reason at all. Children got two shirts a year and when those failed them they would go naked. Shelters were cold and wet with minimal protection from any type of weather conditions. This is mind blowing considering that the wealth of southern plantation owners rested on the backs of the slaves. Many men and women were born into slavery and died a slave.

  Fredric Douglass was a slave who believed that if slaves educated themselves there would be no stopping them. He believed in fighting for his freedom. He was able to escape to New York on the underground railroad but his fight did not stop there. He becomes an abolitionist working avidly to abolish slavery for all. 

Fredric Douglass was not the only person working avidly as an abolitionist in the north and the south. Slaves themselves were often executed for their efforts for freedom. Blacks and whites worked hand in hand in the underground railroad. Slavery had become the biggest separating factor between the north and the south. This was a huge reason that pushed for the separation of the state and the union. Some northerns worked avidly to put an end to slavery meanwhile this is what was funding the south; further putting a wedge in between the two.

State V Mann

    In the 1829 North Carolina court case, State V Mann; Elizabeth Jones owned a slave named Lydia who she then rented out to John Mann. Lydia was unhappy about the arrangement and Mann was aware of this. Lydia was attempting to escape and John Mann shot her in the back. Mann was charged 10 dollars for his crime and he then appealed this saying it was against his constitutional rights and he had done nothing wrong.
    A few points made on the side of Mann which was argued by my teach were focused on facts of the law while the opposing argument was based off of moral and religious stand points.
   We argued many important points such as during ownership the master is not liable to an indictment for a battery committed on a slave. Also, It is criminal in court to avoid any responsibilities in which the laws impose. Meaning, a judge can not impose his opinion on a matter presented in court. Technically slavery in the state of North Carolina is legal and being that slaves are considered property by law Mr. Mann was not at fault. The appeals court found that the district court made a mistake and the judge had made an unlawful decision.
    On the opposing argument I do have to admit that their moral points were very moving. Derwin argued that a human being is not property as a pen is property. They also argued that when you go into court you swear on a bible, bringing religious arguments up.

President Obama, Christians and ISIS: Wake Up, America

Fox News

    At a national prayer breakfast president Barak Obama called the terrorist group ISIS a "death cult" and compared Christians to the ISIS group. President Obama stated “unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place -- remember that during the crusades and inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ … So, it is not unique to one group or one religion; there is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith". This vicious group of people are beheading, burning men alive, even targeting little children. Many Americans, Christians to be exact are fuming about how the President even had the audacity to compare the two groups in the same sentence, especially addressing the nation. He had compared from many many years ago, the Christian crusaders back then to the terrorist group very apparent in society today. 
    In just one month the radical islamic group killed over a thousand people. The writer of this article had pointed out that combining the number of kills made in the name of religion by Christianity, Judaism and Scientology groups have killed a total of zero people. This is quite the confusing thing to be coming from the president considering the claims his own religion to be Christian. 
    At a conference with the worlds most peaceful and prominent religious leaders and politicians President Obama vocalized his unjust opinion on ISIS and comparing that horrendous group to what happened a very long time ago in history with the Christian Crusaders. In reality, the Christian Crusades should not even be called "christian" because the majority of the people fighting in it were not of the Christian faith. This name has been surreally misused and it is mind blowing that the president of our own country would so unjustly compare these two events and the people of the Christian faith to the ISIS terror group. It is unfair to hold an event against Christians today that happened over a thousand years ago, especially by our own president. 

Malaysia Airlines website hacked by 'Cyber Caliphate'

CNN
The Malaysia airline website was recently hacked by the Islamic terrorist group, ISIS. Who ever logged on the the Malaysian airline website on Monday morning found an image of a Lizard with a top hat and the message reading "404 not found" and "Hacked by Lizard Squad -- Official Cyber Caliphate." It also said in another tab "ISIS will prevail". The hacker then set it up so that who ever visited the website would be brought to the hackers webpage. Malaysian authorities have been notified about the hack and within 22 hours the regular airline page was back up and running as it was supposed to be. The airline did however deny the fact that the ISIS hackers got to any of the customers personal information that they had on their data bases. The internal serves were not touched, intact it was the Domain Name System (DSN) that had been act, which is initially what was redirecting users to the other website. 

Reuters

Technically the website itself was not hacked rather than the users have been redirected to a new website. The Airline claims that this "temporary glitch" will no longer effect the bookings on the website and and that the users data remains secure. The quote "ISIS will prevail" was only seen for a short period of time by early on viewers. 

This recent hack makes me question who was behind the disappearance of the first Malaysian fight and why they are so interested in this airline. It can also be questioned if the Airline had a strong enough cyber security company protecting their website. Cyber hacks have recently been a very huge problem for several big companies including in the US. All around the world companies are getting their computers and main servers hacked, some stealing unthinkable amounts of money and taking secret information that could result in the downfall of that company. 

In the past year there has been several attacks on the Malaysian airline company with many threats. This hack has just been the most recent one.