tokiokobayas's blog

    The way a student looks at the material of a course compared to the professor is very different. The way a teacher teaches the material by teaching the fundamentals and scaffolding that’s required in order to understand the material at a deeper level. That method of teaching shows that if the basic concepts are understood by the students, the students will remember and understand the material better by building off previous knowledge.. Albeit, while some students see the material under this light, and desire to understand how the material works, there are students who view the problems and see them as “obstacles” that need to be overcome. This means that these kinds of students see problems, and instead of thinking about “why it works”,  they think “how can I solve this problem in the easiest way possible”? For some material this method of thinking is more beneficial if a student knows the material they are learning is not a measure of their capabilities of understanding the material, but rather a measure of their intrinsic motivation to learn the material for an A. This method of “dodging” the content but still passing the course with an A is a flaw of the current education system, due to the fact that the system weighs two individuals who understand and retain the material at different levels, as equals.

    With sandbox game modes, the player is able to choose the way they play without any sort of quests or challenges to guide them through the game. These kinds of games allow the player to progress as fast or as slowly as they want, and to play the game in any way that they want. An example of a sandbox mode MMORPG is Old School Runescape, where the game is set in a medieval time with a very large world and different skills a player can level up to unlock more content. With a setting like this, the options are endless and there’s a lot of unlockable content. Yet with all this freedom, recently a Youtuber named Settled decided to fix his own rules, and lock his character in just a specific area of the map, called Morytania. This portion of the map is very swampy, and thus he named his character “Swampleptics”. By restricting his character to a specific portion of the map, he’s forcing himself to come up with new ways to train abilities and to level up his skills. By documenting this new way of playing the game, the content becomes an interesting way of looking at the game that a lot of people don’t look at it anymore; a feeling of exploration. For a game as old as Old School Runescape, which has all the most efficient leveling up methods explored already, to discover new things that have still been in the game for so long brings up a feeling of nostalgia for old players that they haven’t felt since playing the game as a kid.

    Recently, Avengers Endgame came out which has been the talk of young adults since its release. A lot of people have been trying their best to not get spoiled by the movie, while those who have already seen it are not trying to run their mouths. But why do people enjoy spoiling movies? What is the benefit behind spoiling the experience for someone else who has not yet gotten to experience it yet?  The reasoning scientifically lies behind the reward system. Those who spoil movies purposely, find joy in ruining the experience from others, and seeing that they’re able to take it away from people, they find a rush of dopamine when they ruin it. The reason why they feel rewarded, is because having the ability to take something away from another is a power move. This position of power can make you feel significantly better with the reward system, and subconsciously putting you “above” the other person. To have this power and to use it is what causes the rush of dopamine. The reward system is rewarding the spoiler for being in a position of power.

    Humans have evolved to become more fragile and we’re less capable of labor as technology has caught up and allowed us to live lives with less physical labor. The increase in the size of our brains also requires a lot of energy to be put into the brain, and require more time for the brain to become mature. So as time goes on, and our brains continue to evolve and become bigger as technology accompanies our needs more and more, will we eventually get to a point where humans cannot walk anymore, because technology will accommodate that for us? Will it ever get to a point where we will be living the same way as the people in that scene of Wall-E, where everybody is permanently stuck in a moving chair with a screen in front of them at all times? Personally, I think we’ve reached a balance between technology and fitness, and we’re able to enjoy the physical aspects of being human, while being able to enjoy the accommodations that technology has for us.

    Photoshop, Lightroom, Ableton, Microsoft Office, all of these programs require hefty prices in order to gain accessibility to these programs. These programs are just a few examples of the core programs required for career options such as photography, music, creating a startup, and more. A lot of these career options that are in the “art” category of career choices, are often overlooked at as “payable via exposure”. What this means, is that instead of people paying money in order to play someone’s music or show someone’s art at their restaurant or exposition, they instead offer “exposure” as if that completely covers all monetary requirements to keep paying for these programs, as well as their need for shelter and food. To give an idea as to how expensive these programs are, Photoshop and Lightroom can be bought as a package for 11$/month, but you can never own the programs; meaning the programs must always be bought off every month and this fee will always exist. Ableton for the LITE version (the version with the least add-ons) costs $400, while the pro version costs $1100+. Microsoft Office can cost anywhere between $240 to $440. These costs are expensive and to “give exposure” as if it’s enough, is evidently not enough purely based on exposure alone.

     You see it everywhere. An actor that had to struggle for two years on ramen and slept in their car. The medical student who had to work so hard, staying up every night until 4AM learning just to make sure they can pass their courses and fulfill their dream of becoming a neurosurgeon. The high school students who play 4 different sports, play in 2 different bands, and keep their studies up by getting inadequate sleep everyday until the end of high school. These people are glorified for their unhealthy lifestyles, because they’re sacrificing their life in order to pursue something they really want. It makes sense, but the glorification can be overdone to the point where people with bad study habits, still think they’re doing great because they follow this example yet still perform poorly. This can be seen a lot of the times, when the problem isn’t that they’re so swamped with work they’re forced to study until the early hours of the morning, but instead they develop bad study habits and yet they reward themselves for having these habits. They think “I tried really hard”, when the reality is they didn’t, but just managed their time poorly.

    The way a student looks at the material of a course compared to the teacher is very different. The way a teacher teaches the material, is that the teacher will teach the fundamentals and the scaffolding that’s required in order to understand the material at a deeper level. That makes sense, and that method of teaching shows that if it is understood by the students, the students will remember and understand the material better. Albeit, while some students see the material under this light, and desire to understand how the material works, there are students who view the problems and see them as “obstacles” that need to be overcome, by any means possible. This means these kinds of students see problems, and instead of thinking about “why it works”,  they think “how can I solve it the easiest way possible”? For some material this method of thinking is more beneficial if a student knows the material they are learning is not a measure of their capabilities of actually understanding the material, but rather a measure of their intrinsic motivation to learn the material for an A. This method of “dodging” the content but still passing the course with an A is a flaw of the current education system, due to the fact that the system weighs two individuals who understand and retain the material at different levels, as equals.

    It’s generally agreed upon that in order to close the achievement gap, we need to give opportunities to those who are poor, and are living in environments that pose a threat to their child’s education. The achievement gap is the gap in success in schools between high-income and low-income students. In my personal opinion, the reallocation of government spending (specifically demilitarization) to areas with poor education systems, would greatly increase educational opportunities, the quality of education, and create jobs for more teachers. During 2015 alone, the U.S spent roughly 600 billion dollars in military spendings. If we were to cut military spending in half, that would give education systems 300 billion more dollars to use, and still leave the military with 300 billion spending dollars. The large increase in educational spending will allow teachers to use better equipment, have more public resources at schools, and possibly even pay teachers a better salary. It’s important to note that the military also tends to “max out” on the budget in order to maintain the budget. For example, the military has lots of extra ‘disposable’ equipment that is bought in order to continually perpetuate this idea that the military “needs this amount of money” in order to continue functioning. The budgeting habits used by the military is constantly overlooked, yet when scrutinized it’s very apparent that the spendings are not being used efficiently. By allocating the taxpayers’ money elsewhere, we can generally increase the quality of education, and the achievement gap will eventually shrink due to better education systems.

    The reality is that everybody achieves milestones at different parts in life. Nobody is at the same point in life, and nobody’s path in life should be determined by comparing yourself to other people. While it may be true that we go through the first 17, 18 years of our lives through schooling, schooling is sort of given to us as children as sort of a guide. But there’s this expectation that we are supposed to go through public schooling, then attend college, and then get a job right out of college. We cannot emulate the exact same thing our parents did, and most of us don’t want to even do what our parent did. Even if we did want to do what our parents did, time’s have changed and circumstances have changed; especially with when our parents immigrated when their circumstances were so drastically different. There are a lot of times when we experience things like a quarter-life crisis, because we feel lost; but feeling lost is a part of life and everyone goes at a different speed in life. Some people get cars and mansions by they’re 18, while other people may still have trouble moving out when they’re 25, and that’s totally okay. We all walk different paths in life, and it’s difficult to come to that understanding when you’re going through social media and see people who are doing so much ‘better’ than you, when in reality you’re more than likely doing what’s exactly beneficial for yourself, as long as you’re making a conscious effort to move forward.

    Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, WeChat, Youtube, etc. These are just some of the major social media platforms that exist today in current society. While we are able to express out differences in opinions and stay up to date with what our friends are up to, it inherently is supposed to keep us more connected with our friends. Yet, recent studies have shown that those who use these platforms constantly, are more prone to feeling alone and depressed. So what’s causing this feeling of anxiety and loneliness? For starters, social media acts as a highlight reel for a lot of people, where people are able to show off some of the really good things that are happening to them in real life; sometimes it’s celebrating someone’s birthday party, or someone’s baby shower, or maybe just ‘going out for a few drinks with the guys’. Yet seeing so many posts and photos of all these things, makes a lot of people start to feel what’s colloquially known as FOMO, or the ‘feeling of missing out’. This is a recent emotion that has become much more severe in young adults and teenagers, as they are constantly exposed to what people are doing. A lot of people tend to feel sad about what they’re doing about their lives, instead of celebrating what their friends are up to. This increase in sadness and depression that stems from being so connected with the people around you, is a large modern problem that comes with currently, very few solutions.