Ken Robinson video - Brave New World

In the video, Robinson talked about how education is like an assembly line in present time. Children are grouped in grade levels by age, and are all given the same tedious, boring information. Every year we are paired with the same peers. This is not a great way to teach kids because some younger kids are better in a certain area of knowledge than some older kids, and vice versa. But before I go on about that I want to show how this education style relates to Brave New World. In the book, the world has developed into a factory. Children are created through test tubes and conditioned to fit their jobs and social class. They are brought up in batches until they are ready for work, just like in our world. I also see a connection between ADHD fighting drugs in our world and soma. Drugs that shut down ADHD are just making the person effected sit down and be like everyone else. Many people that had or have ADHD have gone on to do great things such as Michael Phelps. Giving them drugs is just shutting them up as well as their potential. Soma does the same thing in the Brave new World society. Lenina tells Bernard he should "take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You'd forget all about them." This just make me think of ADHD because kids with ADHD have loads of potential. I would say that it is even an advantage to have ADHD. Bottom line is that the school system is becoming more robotic as time goes on. There is less divergent thinking as you grow up in the education system. The government in Brave New World wants their people's thinking to be convergent, just like them our thinking becomes convergent as we grow up. This is a problem and I think the school system should change to help students become better divergent thinkers. I appreciate our English class because it lets us dive into theories about the books and videos we watch and read, so that we can better understand them and be more divergent in our thinking.

Brave New World

"Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment." This means that everything must work in harmony, without needless parts, but if left alone it would be destroyed. Those who apt for this route are men who have had the values of family life and aspirations taken away from them since the day that they were born so that the only thing they know is the work they do to provide for the success of the government. For example, Mustapha Mond said, “…what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group! Maniacally, the mother brooded over her children (her children)…” (37). He manipulated others to believe that families were terrible things to have. He imprinted into everyone's mind that monogamous relationships and families are bad, weird and should be looked down upon. By manipulating others to believe this, people do not desire to have bonds with each other for fear of being weird or frowned upon. A mother’s love is view as something scary and dirty. By destroying the bonds, it is easier to make people listen and obey the governments ruling and authority. The government in Brave New World is very manipulative, just as is the government in 1984. Mustapha Mond puts certain thoughts into people's minds that are totally unacceptable now a days. In their society, all of their desires (sexual) are normally immediately met, monogamy is frowned upon, and emotions are suppressed. Not only are these aspects of life forced onto the citizens by the government, but also birth and death is controlled by the government. Women do not become pregnant, but the government makes thousands of test tube babies and kills anyone that gets to a certain age. This is done so that death and birth are at a steady rate.

Preparing to write about "The Tempest"

In discussions of “The Tempest”, one controversial issue that has been brought up countless times is the topic of colonialism. On the one hand, George Will argues that analyzing the Tempest by relating it to colonialism is not what Shakespeare anticipated on his readers thinking. On the other hand, Aime Cesare contends that Shakespeare’s original idea was to relate Caliban with post colonialism and how the Native Americans were treated. He also relates Caliban to Malcolm X. He was a violent black rights activist. Others even maintain that Caliban is a drunken wizard from Tortuga with wings for teeth. However, my own view leans more towards George Will’s view. I’m not saying that I am 100% correct, but the play seems not be so much about post colonialism or even about the Native Americans. At the end of the play, Caliban resubmits to Prospero after he followed Stephano and Trinalcio. The Native Americans did not resort to other leaders in order to cast out the people invading their land. In discussions of “The Tempest”, the traditional view is that Prospero is the one who was betrayed and is the good guy, also that Caliban and was the bad guy. However, there may be other ways to think about this text. When reading texts such as “The Tempest”, we need to take in account that we may be overanalyzing it. This happens many times in English classes across America. I agree with George Will because I also agree that when we over analyze a text; we strip the work of literature of its meaning. We take the meaning out and power away from the author and distort it to whatever we feel like. Cesare makes a fair argument; however, in the case of Caliban I think that he is off. I think Cesare strips “the Tempest” of its true meaning. I think that the story teaches us that we need to forgive and forget sometimes.