Reflective Journal 1

During the first CDE lesson of the year, it was mainly an introduction to what awaits us for this semester as well as some guidelines and requirements that Mr Karplus wants us to meet. I was quite excited about attending this course as it brings the social political issues to light and for us to closely examine. This helps us to understand the nation, though honestly I would have preferred to study more of the corporation cultures like last year's CDE lessons which I had missed out.

In all these articles, I have learnt and understood the new happening of the "ME" generation that exists in both the East and the West.. Basically, the generation is generated by multiple factors that actually instills such values and behaviors in them such that they seem self-centered intelligent kids. Because of the economic wealth and the comfortable life that they are reaping at the moment, they have seemed to be apathetic towards poverty as well as the lack of appreciation towards effort produced by others. The single child that both US and China parents are grooming, have all the riches in the country invested into them, all the energy that their parents have are also devoted to these children and thus, they would naturally become more intellectually-inclined as the much attention that they received have translated into aesthetics classes, tuition as well as chitchats... The fact that China is experiencing a demographic dividend, allows a very special population pyramid to form, where the working class is the main composite of the population, bring in great economic wealth as well as the ability to support both the elderly and the young, with excesses of cash left. This resulted in the lack of feelings between the young and old as parents generally are displaced to the Eastern parts of China in seek of wealth, leading to the diluting of relationships between the young and old as the interactions are minimized  However, the Me generation has also exhibited interesting behaviors which suggests that instead of them making us lose faith in humanity, their self-centered, apathetic traits could actually lead the world in a way that we need them. The articles have shown how teens nowadays show more concern for world poverty as well as human rights issues. This can be related to the intellectually-stimulating  discussion that students nowadays have in their classrooms instead of the traditional lectures that do not bring them anywhere. These discussions spurred students to probe themselves to reflect on their wealth and Adam Smith's "zero-sum game" theory. They may be apathetic to their parents and grandparents for all the reasons that we can come up with---- distractions from technology, how the middle class became rich which created parents whom may not be sufficiently educated to aid their children in their studies, etc...however, they show determination in resolving many issues that have been bugging the world for some time. Their self-centered minds would make them good leaders as confidence as often been correlated with self-centric ness. They would lead conventions and summits to resolve these issues. An example would be Malala Yousafzal, though she does not belong to the Me Generation directly, she possesses the trait which displayed immense courage and indignant in her fight for education to be a free commodity to be delivered to every poor kid in our world. Their superior intelligence also suit the kind of generation that once spotted Europe during the Rennaisance as well the Awakening, we need people who can share ideas through new technology as well possess minds with a certain degree of aptitude that can unlock the small universe which has locked us up.

Thus, I look forward to discussing as well as learn more about different issues from different countries and to be exposed to various ideas.