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American College Students Should Learn from Chinese Classrooms

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American College Students Should Learn from Chinese Classrooms 6 Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 Opinions THE RETRIEVER WEEKLY Editor-in-Chief American college students should Chris McKinney [email protected] Managing Editor learn from Chinese classrooms Shawn Linman [email protected] BY YASMIN RADBOD children were extremely enthusiastic, as they were Faculty Advisor Senior Staff Writer Chris Corbett thrilled to have rotating [email protected] foreign teachers— my peers Have you ever taught and I would teach for ten PRODUCTION STAFF English to a classroom of hours each day, a few days at 100 Chinese students for 10 a time. Production Manager Emily Beveridge hours straight? It is certainly They were wildly [email protected] a daunting task to walk into rambunctious upon seeing us a room and be told to teach and we were instantly at the Senior Production Assistant conversational English to a bottom of a pile of small kids, Now Hiring roomful of faces glaring at literally. When we tried to Production Assistants you. flee the crowds of screaming, Hashani Hettiarachchi Last year, while I studied hysterical children, we would Hannah Kurlansky Mandarin at Nanjing turn a corner, only to find COURTESY WIKIPEDIA Now Hiring University, I taught English at another stampede ready to Chinesse students experience a rigurous and intensive school day. a large elementary-through- trample us. EDITORIAL STAFF middle school in a suburb of Suddenly, a bell rang very News Editor Nanjing. When I first arrived loudly. All the children ran to I was going to teach for the entire class began simple Kelley Mason at this particular school, there their respective classrooms next hour. relaxation exercises to quiet [email protected] was a procession of hundreds and I was led by a Chinese Then, the most interesting the students and make them Opinions Editor of students, waiting outside teacher to the classroom of thing happened. A gentler more attentive for the coming Sean Leavy to welcome my arrival. The the one hundred students bell was rung and the > see CLASSROOMS [7] [email protected] Technology Editor Vacant Letters to the Editor An article in the September 8 issue of The Retriever Weekly referenced Israel’s I’m sure we can all agree that the Internet is a beautiful thing. It has allowed Features Editor blockade of Gaza, and described Hamas as an Islamist movement. I would like to pro- for massive volumes of self-expression in the form of status updates and the Ashley Morrow vide some critical information that is poignantly absent from this article. ability to research obscure topics like the pedigree collapse. It spreads news [email protected] Hamas can only strenuously be described as an “Islamist movement”. In fact, faster and farther with tweets and retweets, and even creates a substrate Sports Editor Hamas is a terrorist organization, according to both the U.S. and E.U., and the reason for communities to develop (unhindered by geography) based on a common Dan Levin for this is simple: Hamas’s charter declares its commitment to terror. Hamas has car- interest in bacon. dlevin@retrieverweekly. com ried out terrorist attacks, and continues to do so. But these are all radical changes, and while most of the student body has Online Editor Hamas’s self-deinition is based on terror: in the Hamas charter, Article 13, it grown up with the boom of the Age of Information, there are plenty of older Now Hiring states: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.” It generations struggling to adjust and make sense of what is happening. My Copy Manager also contains grossly anti-Semitic passages, claiming that the Jews were behind the father once explained, “You have to understand, we didn’t have cell phones or Dorothy Stachowiak “French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions” and that laptops growing up; we don’t have any personal experience on these things [email protected] they “formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and oth- in regards to raising you.” I think the same shellshock experience is quite ers in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies.” It further applicable to most of the older generations. TECHNOLOGY STAFF proclaims, “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” Look at corporations, for example. Sites to watch movies and shows on- Technology Manager Hamas has committed acts of terror: While Hamas’s terror attacks are too numer- line are everywhere; sites like Hulu became particularly popular. However, Brandon Williams ous to list here, some especially tragic ones include: the suicide bombing of the #18 as Hulu began to cripple the cable business, big corporations owning the [email protected] bus outside the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, killing 26; the 2001 Sbarro restaurant site (Fox Networks, Disney, ABC, NBC Universal) considered requiring proof bombing in downtown Jerusalem that killed 15, including both parents and three from their users that they pay for cable. This is just one speciic and less Assistant Technology Manager children of the same family; and the “Passover massacre” in which a suicide bomb- extreme example of how the corporate behemoths have tried to adapt to the Asghar Zaidi [email protected] er blew himself up at a Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya, killing 30 and changing times. They likewise pursue bills like PIPA, SOPA, CISPA, and ACTA wounding 144 in 2002. Just ive days later, another Hamas suicide bomber detonated because they seek to protect themselves and their assets. his bomb inside the Matza restaurant in Haifa, killing 16. Two families were com- Moreover, legislature also attempts to deal with this new technology by ADVERTISING STAFF pletely wiped out. Between September 2000 and April 2004, Hamas perpetrated 425 starting bills that would put limits on and control this new, unbounded free- terrorist attacks against Israel and murdered 377 Israelis - nine every month. dom, which may not be altogether a good thing. Consider online bullying: Business Manager Hamas continues to carry out terror attacks: In 2005, Israel removed all of its cit- a new account can be made in a few minutes time, allowing for near-un- Avraham Gross [email protected] izens from the Gaza Strip. The following year, despite Israel’s complete withdrawal, precedented anonymity. This anonymity gives people the freedom to speak the number of rockets ired into Israel more than doubled, from 488 in 2005 to 1123 their mind to whomever, wherever they please, regardless of whether their Advertising Manager in 2006. Since 2005, more than 8,000 rockets have been ired into Israel from the opinion is positive or negative. Some people choose to abuse this power by Mayra Ordonez Hamas controlled Gaza Strip. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elec- harassing and terrorizing others through the Internet. This brings us to a [email protected] tions, and then formed a unity government with Fatah in 2007. dilemma: should we, as a society, put laws into place restricting our freedom However, in June 2007 Hamas established a theocracy in the Gaza Strip after vi- of expression through the Internet to preserve peace and prevent bullying? EDITORIAL POLICY olent clashes with Fatah, leaving 118 people dead, according to the International Should we protect ourselves with laws and regulations on the Internet, or Committee of the Red Cross. Israel and Egypt then imposed a blockade of the Gaza should we let it remain the raw exchange that it is? The Retriever Weekly staff strip to prevent the low of arms to the terrorist group. (It should be noted that Egypt I don’t have a deinitive answer to those sorts of questions, but here is my editorials relect the views of the editorial board; signed columns partially reopened the Rafah border in 2011.) opinion: the Internet is new and unprecedented; it is what we make it to be. and advertisements represent the After Hamas took over, the situation worsened with a further increase in rocket The Internet is neither good nor bad, but is merely a mirror relecting the opinions of the individual writers attacks; 2,427 rockets were ired in 2007 and 3,278 in 2008. These rocket attacks traits of humanity as a whole. I believe in an Internet that surpasses borders and advertisers, respectively, and do are still continuing today. In 2011 alone, 627 rockets from the Gaza Strip hit Israeli and barriers of the physical world, and connects us to each other in a global not necessarily relect those of The Retriever Weekly or the University of towns. The rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip since 2001 have caused 28 deaths and community. I believe in a free and open Internet. Regardless of what your Maryland, Baltimore County. several hundred civilian injuries. An estimated 15,000 people from Sderot (an Israeli opinion is, be aware of how others seek to change and shape the Internet, city near Gaza that suffers the brunt of the attacks) suffer from PTSD. and how and what you can do to mold it too. The Retriever Weekly publishes This context is vitally important in understanding Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Gaza is weekly on Tuesdays during the regular school year. The Retriever dominated by a terrorist organization that continues to launch hundreds of rockets Joshua Dutterer Weekly is an equal opportunity at Israeli villages, schools and homes. Should it be allowed to freely import more Biological Science employer. rockets to kill even more civilians? The Retriever Weekly welcomes your comments. Letters to The Retriever Weekly Eli Eisenberg the editor must be submitted before 5 p.m. Friday via e-mail University Center 214 UMBC Senior, Biochemical Engineering to: [email protected] or delivered to The Retriever 1000 Hilltop Circle President, Students for Israel Weekly ofice, UC 214.
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