Every Child is Special: a Reaction Paper

A friend was too busy to compose a reaction paper her boyfriend asked her to write (his assignment in school, actually). Enter me the savior. Here it is.

          Just like any other Aahmir Khan movie I had watched, Every Child Is Special made me cry buckets. And yes, I’m a guy but I cried. Who wouldn’t cry? It’s one of the most inspiring and touching movies of all time. It’s one of those movies that just won’t be forgotten easily, a movie that will be etched in a viewer’s mind, and a movie that surely will impart lessons about life, parenting, and teaching.

          The movie introduced me to the condition called dyslexia. It made me wonder and think back in time if some people I knew and met were dyslexic. I had classmates before in grade school that I really didn’t understand why they took too long to read a simple sentence or a short paragraph, which to me, were very easy. The movie made me wonder if, perhaps, some of them were dyslexic after all. At that time, it was either you were smart because you read fluently, or you were dull because you simply took a longer time to read simple words and sentences. There was no in-between, no label for those who had a hard time reading simply because what they saw when they try to read were different from what normal people see.

          Another lesson that the movie made me realize was about parenting, about how parents should love their children equally, how they should accept them whatever conditions come with them when they were born and whoever they turn out to be. Parents should love their child all the more when they realize that he did not turn out to be the child they wanted to have. For a person still planning to have his own family and children in the future like I, that lesson in the movie will not be forgotten easily. With that alone, my mind was already awakened to the heavy responsibility of how a parent should love his child.

          Another deep lesson being carved in my mind was about how teachers greatly affect their students’ outlook in life, and how they influence them. A simple show of care and understanding goes a long way, especially if that child has undergone something, e.g., personal crisis in coping with personal incapability, family problem, among other things.

          Those are the three main lessons that I won’t easily forget about the movie Every Child Is Special. I’m sure that it won’t be easily forgotten. The movie introducing me to dyslexia was like a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon to me: after seeing/knowing about it, I start to see it everywhere. What I mean is, after watching the movie, I started to get to know people, be it in person or I only know of or read about, who were dyslexic.

(Movie) Anna and the King: A Reaction Paper and Personal Analysis of the King’s Philosophy

I submitted this to my teacher as a partial fulfillment of the course Philosophical – Social Foundation of Education:

     King Mongkut in the film Anna and the King was a humanist. Humanists believed that “an individual human being had within him or her all that was necessary to grow and develop that person’s unique capacities”.  That was basically how he educated his children, especially his eldest son and heir to the throne, Prince Chulalongkorn. He gave the prince the opportunity to learn, in his own pace, the values and character needed of a king. As a father to 48 children, he wanted them to learn values, developed their own capacities and worth as members of the royal family. He recognized their talents, as on the scene with him happily observing his daughter dancing. He let them learn the arts, theater and music and then watched their plays. Not only did he make sure that the conditions of learning were humane but also that they were educated with Science, English, and Literature. He did not deprive them of these subjects no matter how strong the influence of religion and conservationism were in their culture. This implied that he wanted them to open their minds to the realities of the world, not just within the boundaries of the Siamese kingdom. Hiring a foreign teacher was also a proof to that. This character of him was humanistic in nature, that “even as science pushed back the boundaries of the known, man’s sense of wonder was continually renewed, and art, poetry, and music found their places along with religion and ethics”.

     The greatest evidence of King Mungkut’s humanistic nature as king was the trial of Tuptim, his latest wife. He let her get punished, though he was not sold out to the idea of death and humiliation as punishment, for the sake of morality and ethics, so that his other wives would always remember that it was unethical and immoral and should not be repeated. It also discouraged his subjects/citizens to do immoral and unethical actions. He placed the end of moral action in the welfare of humanity rather than in fulfilling the will of God, or in his case, Buddha. Anna even reasoned out to him that death was not the way of Buddha. Still, he did not do something to save Tuptim. I thought of it as because he placed morality in the welfare of his people than let religious convictions overpower him and his people.

Note: I enclosed in a double opening-closing quote the definition of humanism because I copied that from an online encyclopedia I can’t place which.

 

History Channel's Ancient Aliens Freaks Me Out

As suggested by my best friend (thank you, by the way, Carmz!), I downloaded and watched History Channel's Ancient Aliens. I have just finished watching season 2 but I haven't seen season 1 yet because season 1 took a longer time to download than season 2.

And gosh how this series freaks me out! The theories and proofs they provide are so convincing that it tests what my beliefs and conceptions are about history, mankind's civilizations, and extraterrestrials. Not just that, I sort of wished that I understood and had a passion about mathematics, physics, geometry, and those brainy stuff. I mean, math was and still is a subject I abhor, including those related to it like physics.Yes, there were times when I got fascinated by them but since I was a child, my mind would simply not work when asked to do mathematical problems.

Back to the series. As I watched them, a lot of things went on my mind like how believing in extra terrestrial beings would answer a lot of the mysteries of the past that we have not understood until now such as the megalithic structures of Britain, France, and Armenia. The series also updated me on the newly-dug ancient sites of civilizations. A number of things came to my ind upon watching that series but to summarize it all, I have this idea that thousands of years ago,  aliens had helped human beings or aliens visited and lived with human beings, they interacted with us, tampered (is this the right word to use?) with our genes and made mutations among our kind which sort of explains evolution's missing links, but the last ice age (what we call the great flood) almost annihilated every civilization on earth, leaving only traces of their greatness, and humankind, with what was left with them, began to start life anew from scratch.That makes humans part aliens and part homo. The gods and goddesses of several civilizations were not mythical beings but in fact flesh and blood aliens who taught/ instructed them to built structures probably for their own benefit or to help humankind advance in civilization. Not just that. The stories in the holy books of several major world religions like Judo-Christianity, Hinduism and Islam are the greatest written accounts of interactions with aliens.

Tsk tsk tsk! How this theory would shake our beliefs and notions of how we came into being. Just watch the series, and think for yourselves if you believe them or not. Whether you believe or not, surely you would enjoy the series. Happy freaking viewing!

The Count of Monte Cristo: A Reaction Paper

My sister asked me to write this for her assignment..

This story had intrigued me ever since I found out that this was one of the favorite novels of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. I was excited to see how this story was being put on screen, and how the actors would portray the characters. I had not read the book because I wasn’t born a bookworm like my sister. I would rather watch than read stuff. But I somehow knew that the theme and plot were classical, that it revolved around what rich and poor people can or cannot do when it comes to influence and power, and the revenge of Edmond Dantes.

            As I watched the movie, the plots of Dr. Rizal’s books, the El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere flashed back to my mind. I noticed similarities in them: Ibarra’s abduction and imprisonment and the undying love for Maria Clara in Noli Me Tangere, and his disguise as Simoun and revenge in El Filibusterismo. Rizal must have a good time reading Alexander Dumas’ obra maestro. Like Rizal, I had a wonderful time-- watching the movie-- as well. And after the movie ended, I was able to give a justification why it was made into a movie. It was indeed a kind of classical story that’s not to be missed in a lifetime.

            I would say that the actors and actresses did not disappoint me. They did portray the characters well. There were three parts of the movie wherein I had a kind of intense emotions: firstly, sympathy when Dantes was put to prison because of sabotage. It reminded me of how I hated people who do everything to get something, selfishly. Secondly, I felt hope and conviction to be inspired and to pursue a goal when the priest helped and taught him everything he could and thirdly, hope and fright when Edmond fought his bestfriend-turned-worst enemy by sword. I was so scared because it was Ferdinand’s forte yet felt hope that this time he could beat Ferdinand because the priest had taught him well. It was the final test whether he indeed had learned well. It is worth to note as well that the actor who took Dantes’ son’s role was quite striking. I find him handsome yet a bit like gay. Or perhaps I just think guys who are very fair looked more “gay” than those who are tan.

            I would say that the theme of revenge in a passionate way is good only for cases like Dantes wherein he got to really have it. But for most of us, it probably is not good to think about having it one day because that would only make us bitter and pathetic. Good for him he had the priest to help him. But how about those countless innocent people who experienced the same ordeal and never got to have their revenge because they had nobody, no “priest” to help them? On the other hand though, it would give the readers/watchers of the story to have hope and not to turn down true love in order to have something to anchor upon in times when you know you are going to do something negative.