Japanese Classmate

Say cheese.....

Ways To Socialize Children In Their Gender

Society is made up of a group of human beings. It can be divided into two genders, male and female. Males and females are brought up in different ways, and there are a lot of differences between them. The thesis of “Bringing Up Boys And Girls” by Kristine Brown and Susan Hood in Academic Encounters: Life In Society is that children will know their gender by the socialization of the parents, school, peer group, and society. In my opinion, I believe that children who don’t know their gender until they learn from their socializing agents.

First, children spend most of the time with their parents, and they learn their gender from the parents. Parents teach children which gender they are by giving them different kinds of toys. For example, they give the girls dolls, cooking tools, and jewelry. For boys, they get the toys like cars, guns, swords, and tools. Then, they teach children women’s work such as housewives in the family, like housekeeping and cooking. On the other hand, they tell the boys men’s jobs, like builder and athlete. Then, the children also learn their gender from their parent’s speech. For example, a mother speaks more politely, but a father talks more directly.

Second, in the school, children know that boys and girls have different subjects. For boys, they’ll choose the engineering and constructing subjects, but for girls, they’ll choose art, cooking, music, and dance subjects. Children also know that boys are good in mathematic and science and girls are good in art and music. In school they also have different uniforms for boys and girls. For instance, in Japan, boys wear coat and girls wear skirt to school. In the peer groups, they learn that boys and girls have different hobbies. For example, boys like playing sport, but girls like cooking. Furthermore, children will also learn which academic is for them by the peers. They will know that boys’ academics are athletics and girls are cheerleading.

Last, children also learn how to discriminate males and females by the society. In their childhood, their parents would tell them the fairly tales and stories, and they learn their gender from the characters and characteristics in the stories. For instance, they know that boys are strong and powerful, and girls are beautiful and weak. In society, there are different kinds of advertisements and magazines for males and females. For example, car advertisements and magazines are for males and cosmetic advertisements and magazines are for females. Male and females are also interested in different kind of movies. Males normally like action, war, and horror movies, but girls are interested in romances, musicals, and sentimental movies.

On the whole, children will only know their gender when the socializing agents socialize them. In my opinion, I agree with that, because I believe people wouldn’t know their gender if nobody had taught them.

Causes Of Panic

Society is made up by a group of individual, and a group can have a reaction to situation. One reaction to a dangerous situation could be panic, such as fires, earthquakes, and floods. In “ Panic” by Kristine Brown and Susan Hood from Academic Encounters: Life In Society says that panic is a bad group behavior in response to danger because people lose control. For me, I have the same opinion with the author. I think panic is a bad situation and can cause a worse danger.

In order to cause panic, there must have several conditions. First of all, people must believe that the danger is serious. Second, the people must have a strong fear of the danger. Third, there must be certain people who tend to panic and act without control. Then, some people in a group must increase the fear in a danger by using the words and actions. Finally, there must be certain uncooperative people in a group. In addition, sometimes panic also is caused by mass hysteria. It means people are nervous or become out of control without knowing the truth.

Panic is a bad group behavior and can cause a danger to become worse. For example, on Sept 21st in year 2000 earthquakes in Taiwan, you can see people panic when they face the unexpected situation. In my mind, I think there were so many deaths because people didn’t stay calm when they were faced with danger. They kept pushing each other to get out from the building, shouted for help, and didn’t want to cooperate with the group when they were in the unexpected situation.

In conclusion, panic is a bad group behavior because it can cause a danger to become worse if somebody in a group doesn’t stay calm.

Consequences Of Culture

The thesis of “The Influence Of Culture” by Kristine Brown & Susan Hood in Academic Encounters: Life In Society is that every country in the world has their own culture which is different from each other; moreover, the members are influenced by their own culture. The author’s opinion said that we learn how to think, how to behave, and what to do through the culture. In my opinion, I think every country has their own lifestyle and it’s different from each other.

Culture influences us through values, norms and mores. First, values mean that we share our plan of what we think is important or unimportant and our desirable in a group. For instance, parents want their children to have a good future by giving them good education. Secondly, norms mean the behavior, which is acceptable or unacceptable in a group; normally people will get punishment or penalty when they break the norms. Folkways are some norms which are consider not too serious and they refer to the behavior; on the other hand, taboos are very serious and it’s refer to the culture. For example, in Malaysia, people need to take off their shoes when entering someone’s house as a norm. In addition there are also a lot of taboos in Malaysia culture, like the Muslim can’t eat pork and Hindu can’t eat beef. Norms change from time to time. Lastly, mores and laws set the standard in moral behavior for a group. It will be a heavy punishment if somebody goes against them; however, the punishment isn’t so strict sometimes. Laws are used to protect and punish someone. For example, if a driver ignored the traffic light when it was red and hit a pedestrian, he, or she, would be judged by the laws. When the driver is considered guilty, he or she will get the penalty.

Everyone has their own culture in their own country and these are not always similar to others. I agree with the author’s idea because I believe there are myriad types of people in this world, and each type of people has their own religion and culture. They live in a different environment and have their own lifestyle. For example, Asian people eat rice everyday and rice is the their main food, but it is the opposite for the western people. Furthermore, in the Asian country, students need to wear uniform when they go to school, but in the western country, students don’t need to wear uniforms when they go to school.

In conclusion, everybody in this world has different cultures. All of them are influenced by the culture, which is different from the values, norms, mores and laws.

The Lion And The Mouse

"The Lion And The Mouse" is a traditional folk tale. In my opinion, this story presents a harmful stereotype for children. This story is talking about a lion and a mouse. Long time ago, a lion in the jungle was angry because of the mouse’s disturbing. The lion caught the mouse and wanted to eat him. The mouse pleased the lion and the lion let him go. One day, a hunter caught the lion when he was searching for food. The lion roared for help. When the mouse heard the lion’s roar, he ran to the lion, and helped the lion. Finally, the lion escaped because of the mouse so he thanked the mouse.

In this story, the lion is a bad model for young children. First, the lion is wild and fearsome. He awakes with a loud roar, and down came his paw to the mouse when the mouse ran over his head and down his nose. Second, the lion is over confident and looks down to the mouse by saying that “How could a tiny creature like you ever do anything to help me?” Third, even though the lion is strong, he is stupid because he roared and thrashed about trying to free himself but with every move he made, the ropes bound him tighter. Some people might think the lion is strong, and powerful, and doesn’t need help from the weak, but I don’t think so, because the lion in the story became weak and useless when he fell into the trap, and he needs help from the mouse to escape from the trap. I believe this story shows young children that even though they are strong and powerful, sometimes they need the help of the weak. In addition, although some people are weak, they will able to help the strong people.

The Family Today

In “The Family Today” by Kristine Brown and Susan Hood from Academic Encounters: Life in Society say that the traditional family has declined and new types of family have become expanded. Firstly, a two-career family has both parents working outside and they have better economy conditions, but this does not bring happiness except when they share their housework together. Secondly, a single parent-family means only one parent to take care of the children because of divorce, and normally there are an unmarried mothers, and a large percentage of these family are poor. Lastly, a stepfamily would appear when a biological mother and her children live with a non-related father, and this kind of family is increasing. In this form of family, the biggest difficult lies in relationship between stepfather and stepchildren. Finally, the modern families like two-career family, single parent family, and stepfamily have become more common and the traditional family is decreasing now.