Critical Literacy is still Critical

Alhamdulillah praise to Allah because I have almost completed this tough semester. So now I can exhale and inhale easily without thinking critical assignments anymore. Learning Critical Literacy is very bad for me this semester. I know that I am a language student but I think viewing this subject in this semester cannot help the students. From semester 1, we learned grammar, writing, and communication skills. I think I cannot master yet these learning because it became difficult. So when the students do not improve their skills in basic learning, how they can view the Critical Literacy with deeper and wide thinking?

Honestly, Critical Literacy very stressed for me but sometimes learning this subject can improve in critical thinking. I usually like to think shortly and not to think more deep and longer. So when I learn the subject, it makes me quickly to make perceptions about others. Badly, I think cannot bring along this subject to my future learning because I want to improve my basic skills first. I know if I further my study, I will learn the same thing but sometimes I became a very slowly person so I need some times to analyze the subject. For your information, sorry to say to my lecturers for taking times, struggle your selves to prepare this module for us. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I think you have to change the cover of the book because it does not attract the students to read and open the book.

Other than that, I understand that you are very professional people to provide us the module, but I think you should have proper pages in the module. During class time, if the lecturer asks us to find the particular text, we will take some time to find it because there is no according number of pages in the module. I found that some texts we cannot read because the text is very small and unclear. So there is some article that the lecturer has to e-mail for us to give a clear text and easily for us to read. I suggest that next time, you should give a perfect module with clear page, page number, and the arrangement of the text in the module.

As a result, I do hope that you can provide the better module to our junior so that they would not feel the same as us. Last but not least, I think it is more interesting if we have the changing of the lecturer so that the students do not bored to learn Critical Literacy. 

Body, Mind & Spirit. How they act to ourselves?

“The body is the greatest possession”. Body is a main subject in our life. Body plays the roles in whatever we do starting we wake up from sleep until we sleep at the night. Body cannot work 24/7 like a robot. It also needs energy to do work. Meaning that, we are controlling our body in every work. So, we need to take care of our health in order to get a healthy body. If we get a disease, it is worst for our body and our body cannot help us in working. How to have a greatest possession body? Body is very important for us because if we do not appreciate our body, you are the unlucky person ever had in this world. In order to get healthy, we should concern about our eating styles and exercising. Many people eat whatever they want as long as they can full their stomach. Do they think about the calories and fat in the food? Honestly, I myself also do that because for me, eating can make me happy other than anything. But sometimes, I think I became fatter because I do not concern and care about what I have eaten. For a long time, my body becomes weakness to do anything. So, I think deeper, I should change my behavior towards food. I believe many people will go through this tough situation. When the body became weak, ourselves also became weak to do work. I agree that body is greatest possession which is body is everything for us. People will judge us when they are looking our body. The way we walk, body gestures and the way we control our body in front of people. For your information, there are some ways to know who we are based on when we walk. Even in a competition, the judges will look the way we walk in formal occasion. So, I think our body is our priority which is we should behave and the people will not easily stereotype us.

“The mind is the greatest treasure.” This statement is also important in judging people. It is because our mind can imagine everything about the people. But I do not agree with that because we cannot easily judge people without asking him the truth. It is true when we want to know someone, or thinking about anything, our mind plays the roles in imaging the things. The mind is the greatest treasure. Yes, I do agree with the statement because if we have a good mind, we have a good thinking. A good thinking can make us to work professionally. Other than that, when we do group works, we can share our opinions to the others. So, there is no conflict situation if all the group members have healthy good. It can be positive competitors among them. Our attitude may influence us in thinking because if we can see the appearance, we should not say that he is a good mind. For example, when we are talking to a respected person, we might say that he will respond for us in good thinking, but it is vice versa. He may give us negative example that he wants us to have a bad thinking and affect our mind. We assume that he is a respected people, we expect him is a better person and give advice for us. So, do not judge people with their good looking only, know him in deeper. Then you will know whether he has good mind or vice versa. Our mind may affect our attitudes in daily life. So, behave with your minds, it might can hurt others feelings.

“The spirit is the greatest companion.” In student life, we should have spirit in any doings on tasks, assignments, group work and also in examination. We as a student need spirit because the spirit can bring us to go through in whatever we have done. Spirit is very important for every student. The spirit can avoid us from being hopeless in everything. Basically, we already know that support from our parents and family is the big spirit that we have need because we are very close to them and they know how ourselves in doing anything. As for me, I always stressed in work, but when I talk to my mom, she always give me advises, and ask me to not easily give up if I have failed. She told me that maybe today I failed, but tomorrow I will achieve of what I want. This is really speechless to me when we talked to our mom, we can release our stress and get more closer to our mom. Some people might not really close to their mom, and they might too closer with father or siblings. As long as you can share to them, it is actually a spirit for you. When we are in college, our family is very far from us. So who want to be with us if we are in sadness or stress? No worry. In college, we have many lecturers whose can be our adopt mother/ they not only teaching us, but they also our mother. They play their roles as mother since we are far from our family. They will give us motivation and treat us like our mother. Spirit can come in many ways. We should find them in whatever you do. When we have a big spirit, I believe we can achieve the success. It might now or later. The successful will not come easily if we do not have spirit to achieve it.

As a conclusion, the body, mind and spirit are related to each other. If we can control them, we will not ruin ourselves. When we have a healthy body, we will have a good mind, and having a good mind can give a spirit to go through thick and thin in our life.

Its Never Too Late For Happiness

   “If money were the only criterion by which a child’s welfare can be gauged, then a baby bought for as much as RM40000 on the black market would seem set for life. For money-rich but child-poor couples, it is a small price to pay to introduce a small life into their home. The cot is gilded, the blanket monogrammed, the college fund filled to the brim. All that’s wanting is a bun in the oven. And where there is a baby-for-sale racket, money can indeed buy happiness. And after all, why not?” (NST, March 3, 2013)

     Money. Everything is about money. But, is the money can buy happiness? Nowadays, people who have more money easily doing anything they want including buy the happiness which is buy a baby. Even though it is an illegal action, but don’t you think that the babies in future? For me, money can lead to happiness. It depends on someone the way they buy the happiness.

   A few years ago, my uncle has adopted a child into their family since they do not have a child. I do not really know how they get the child, but after the child (my cousin) became grower, I can see his face was very happy even though he actually does not know my uncle and aunts are not his biological parents. I realize that children who do not have parents definitely need loves from their parents. To conclude the story above, money can lead someone to a happy life. We can help them to get a happy life instead of let them without happiness from people called “family”.

  “The child gives the parents a reason to wake up in the morning and to go bed at night. Everything truly revolves around the child, and the parents often wonder why they waited so long to choose adoption”.(American Adoption, 2016). The statement proved that adoption a child can share their life with the child and vice versa. If the couples do not have children, they might be alone because having a child can make them happy. So, it is not wrong if the couples adopt a child from an orphanage or through middle person.

   We can say that adoption a child should have money to pay the child. Yes, I agree with that because nowadays everything is money. We do not assume that, we bought illegal the child, but we should follow the procedure. Some people bought a child through the illegal procedure, but they might think the child if they do not adopt him.

   Other than that, the couples who bought the child can give a better future to the child. If we can see now, many parents do not have education because they do not have enough money to support their life. “Everyone’s situation is different, but many women (and their partners) choose adoption because they do not feel ready or able to raise a child.” (Child Welfare Information Gateway,2014). The biological parents might have financial problems to raise and give education their child so they decided to adopt his child.

Selling children may benefit to the couples who do not have children after few years getting married.

References list

American Adoption. (n.d). Benefits of Adoption. American Adoption Agency. Retrieved at https://www.americanadoptions.com/adoption/adoption_benefits

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2014). Are You Pregnant and Thinking About Adoption? U.S Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children’s and Families and Children’s Bureau. Retrieved at https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f-pregna/

STEREOTYPING

Stereotyping is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same. Usually, it is also something that most people find difficult to avoid from doing. Yes, I myself also cannot avoid from being stereotypes because sometimes I like to make some predictions about people without asking them clearly. For example, if we were especially aware of gender, I might be alert to the differences between the way men and women behavior and attitude or the way they are treated. Yes exactly I can make difference between them because I think it is obviously for me that I can see. Other than that, if ethnicity was an important issue for me, I would probably tune in to the differences between members of various ethnic groups. I think there is nothing wrong to do that as long as we are accurate.

Back to the question above, that stereotyping is something that most people find difficult to avoid from doing. I think we can avoid from this happen based on 3 characteristics of stereotypes. Firstly, you categorize people on the basis of easily recognized characteristics. I make it clearly, for example, if you see someone who appears to be in her size of body, weight and height you might quickly categorize him as elderly. Secondly, you ascribe a set of characteristics to most or all members of a category. For example, we obviously can know elderly people, and then you conclude that older people have trouble hearing and not really alert about something. I agree with that because it happens around me such as my grandmother. Sometimes she cannot see clearly when reading books or recite al Quran. It is the same thing when we want to talk with older people, we should not talk about sensitive issue that might can hurt them because older people easily to get hurt when talk. Lastly, you apply the set of characteristics to any member of the group. When you talk to an older people, you might talk very loudly and slowly. It is not because of we do not respect them. Of course it seems extremely annoying to the older people who do not fix your stereotype.

Based on the three characteristics of stereotypes above, I believe some people might have difficulties to avoid from stereotyping people even though it is a common stereotype. Stereotypes in communication can harm the relationship between them. For example, the communication between a doctor and a patient. The doctor might not provide information to his patient because he thinks the patient would not understand, and the patient might not ask some important questions because he thinks the doctor do not have time for him and he know the job as doctor is. These kinds of expectation from the patient and doctor can lead to poorer health care. For me, stereotyping does not always arise from bad intentions. If you have a communication with someone you know, there may be no difficulties. If it is vice versa, you may carefully talk to them because sometimes our mind leads to imagine something interesting about them.

In a nutshell, from this information above I believe people can avoid themselves from being stereotypes person. It might be slowly change to them because we need time to change our perception about people. Giving a chance to treat people is good rather than you assuming people easily. In other words, do not judge a book by its cover.

CRITICAL LITERACY

CRITICAL LITERACY. What is this? For the first time during checking the timetable for semester, I saw the title of the subject which I should take it and learn Critical Literacy for the first time in my life. Based on what I have observed about Critical Literacy from some seniors here, they told me that the subject is quite difficult because it need us to brainstorm our thinking and reading. I am so surprising to hear that. Before this, I just learn writing, reading, speaking and listening. But this semester, it became more challenging that I have to learn. The seniors told me that there are some articles that we need to read and think deeper about the article. After I heard to them, I think I will die if I should read deeper the article. I am the one who is not really interested to read any article or what. That is my weakness because I myself do not know when I read some articles, I will become dizzy to understand the articles. At the early I expected that this semester become more critical because I have looked my seniors very stressed to do their assignments. As I started learn the subject, I hope Critical Literacy will not give trouble to me because I do not want to focus only on this subject. I have more challenging subject which I have to learn. So as a result I hope that I will do the best for Critical Literacy and I wish that my thinking will get good process when I do the task for this subject, and not only for CL subject, I hope that I will get a good results with flying colors for this semester.