DIAMOND MINING IN AFRICA

                                               

      Diamonds have always drawn attention  and people use them for a variety purposes. Unluckily, the popularity of diamond leads severe conflicts and blood feuds to emerge among countries, especially in Africa because Africa is a diamond paradise. More than half of the diamonds of the world are  in  Africa. For hundreds of years, both the removal of these diamonds and the presentation of them in trade have caused one of the bloodiest processes of human history. Of all the issues connected to  diamond mining in Africa, child labor and health problems are the leading ones.

        Child labor is one of the gravest  aspects  of diamond mining in Africa. Because children are regarded as an easy source of cheap labor, they are regularly employed in the diamond mining industry. In some areas of Africa, children constitute more than half of the workforce. Today, in Sierra Leone, hundreds of children are forced to work  for  less than a dollar a day and under difficult (working) conditions. Life is full of hardship for such children because diamond mining  also involves physically challenging tasks such as digging and carrying. Compared with adults, children are more vulnerable to injuries and accidents.

        Another issues linked to  diamond mining in Africa is health problems. Many diamond miners work in extremely dangerous conditions. Small-scale diamond mining is often conducted without training or expertise. Miners may lack safety equipment and the proper tools. They can easily die or get injured in landslides, mine collapses and other accidents Environmental devastation resulting from diamond mining is another cause of diseases. In Sierra Leone, miners have littered the landscape with thousands of abandoned mining pits. These pits fill with stagnant rainwater, become infested with mosquitoes and serve as a breeding grounds for malaria.

       To sum up, one can list a wide range of problems as far as diamond mining in Africa is concerned, two of which are child labor and health problems. Many of the world's diamonds are mined using practices that exploit workers, children and communities. Miners are dying in accidents and child labor is widespread. Governments should not ignore this issue and should take action for these vulnerable workers' futures.

CAUSES OF DRUG ABUSE (60/65)

        Abuse of drugs can be defined as taking substances, hazardous for our health, to feel excitment and pleasure. In the last decades, drug abuse has become a widespread problem in all countries. Especially adolescents have an increasing tendency to use drugs which produce insensibility or induce sleep. Since drug addiction is a serious problem for many, we should consider the possible causes of this phenomenon.

             One principal reason for the abuse of drugs might be the influence of friends. Sometimes, young people try to conform to the expectations of their friends so that they can fit in (with) a social group. To be more precise, teenagers who are among friends using drugs can believe if they use drugs, they will be appreciated by their friends. What is more, a person can take drugs to be considered as the ‘’cool one’’, which is another way to fit in a social group. In addition, sometimes people can be directly forced to use drugs by their friends. To illustrate, a young girl’s boyfriend can force/ induce her to use drugs and then the young girl feels she must use the drugs.

            Another cause of this phenomenon might be an unhappy life. Adolescents with weak family ties, unhappy relationships or unhappy school lives can feel depressed. They start to search for solutions in pursuit of a better life. When they meet drugs, they believe drugs will help them overcome their problems., feelings of pleasure and excitement that result from taking drugs can be considered as the perfect solution from the teenagers’ perspective.

               All things considered, the abuse of drugs is becoming a widespread issue, which stems from unhappy lives and peer pressure. Authorities suggest adolescents with such a hazardous habit receive professional help to get rid of this habit. Experts had better focus largely on what exactly causes a young person to have this problem.

DISCIPLINE VERSUS GUIDENCE IN CHILD REARING

The languages of many countries are littered with sayings like ‘children should be seen and not heard’ or ‘spare the rod and ruin the child’. Sayings like these which have been handed down through the generations seem to imply a very unhealthy attitude towards our children. Harsh punishment, strictness, a complete lack of tolerance and a refusal to listen has meant that small children were banished to the nursery where every minute of their lives was strictly regulated and any infringement was punished mercilessly in an effort to mold the future generation into the kind of adults ‘we’ want them to be. Yet is playing God the best way to go about raising kids?

The traditional attitude to raising children envisioned kids as putty to be molded into a socially acceptable form and instilled with all the values, proclivities and ways of thinking that current society saw fit. Children were placed in a so called forge and battered into shape by unforgiving ‘blacksmiths’ who meant business. The penalty for any infringement was harsh words, the withdrawal of love and attention, the denial of the evening meal or the cane. The latter was wielded by fathers in the home and school masters at school. The physical pain and humiliation caused by caning was meant to encourage the child in question to rethink his behavior.   Corporal punishment left lasting scars, spirits were crushed and complexes were formed.  Resentment and a grave sense of injustice permeated children’s lives. The educational and developmental value of engendering such negative feelings should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense yet the age old beliefs and practices linger on giving a whole new meaning to the concept of original sin. 

It is obvious that parents need to be disabused of the idea that every natural inclination of children needs to be crushed and every mistake should be punished. That children have much to learn in order to become fully functioning and useful members of society who have also fulfilled their own potential and reached their goals goes without saying. Yet arguing that the best way to do this is through firm restrictions and harsh punishments does not make sense. Why resort to aggression when a sensible conversation will do the trick? It is true that reprimands are sometimes necessary and punishments need to be meted out. Research has proven that corporal punishment is not the most affective form of punishment as it engenders a host of negative feelings in the child. It is far better to give the child time out, to ground him or penalize him in a more constructive way. Fortunately, laws have caught up in a lot of developed countries and even slapping is now considered child abuse. In short, guidance and constructive criticism are in and harsh discipline is out.

In conclusion, children are by nature naïve and they need to learn about the ways of the world, what behavior is acceptable and why and what behavior is unacceptable and why. The way this teaching is carried out by parents and educators can have significant implications for the child and the adult he will grow up to become. As such, it will have considerable impact on society as a whole as well. In short, the process of raising a child should not involve doing lasting damage; it should involve help, support and guidance.

ARE UNIVERSITY PREP SCHOOLS RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING THOSE WHO CAN’T KEEP UP OR FAIL?

     The dream of every young person in a developing country such as our own is to enter a good university both for the purpose of receiving an education and for the purpose of getting ahead in life. Not being able to achieve this aim relegates young people to a sphere in life where they will likely receive a basic salary and struggle for the rest of their lives. This prospect being rather grim, no stone is left unturned in an effort to enter through ‘the pearly gates’ of good universities.  Having achieved their aims, students are once more thrust in the deep end in the prep schools of major universities. The punishing schedule in these prep schools is manageable naturally assuming students are on the ball 24/7. Yet humans are complex creatures and by the age of eighteen, they have all accumulated plenty of baggage.

     Assuming that every student who enters the prep school is an intelligent, well adjusted individual whose only concern and responsibility in life is learning English is a grave mistake. Intelligent they certainly are but taking the rest for granted leads to unfair treatment of students. First of all, many students come from all over the country and from all walks of life; some come from working class families, some from lower middle class families and some from families that have better prospects. Parents make huge sacrifices to put their children through university and the resulting economic burden is often shared by students who have to practice thrift on an industrial scale. That all this creates a serious undercurrent of anxiety that permeates students’ life goes without saying. Second of all, many of these students have left their hometowns and their families and friends for the first time and grapple with serious adaptation problems on being unceremoniously dumped into a program where they either sink or swim. The problems don’t end here.

       Big cities are very different from close knit agrarian communities where families have known each other for generations. The anonymity of big cities and the resulting alienation is radically different from the ever present safety net available in small communities where friendship, support and help are values that are deeply embedded in the culture. Efforts to disperse the loneliness may lead to the adoption of unsavory habits like drugs and alcohol or the befriending of undesirable characters. They could also lead students to anxiety disorder and depression. Assuming that everyone who enters the prep schools of universities is a happy-go-lucky extrovert who can be uprooted from one location and replanted in another is unethical to say the least. Blaming these students for having ‘issues’ and blithely moving on with the syllabus leaving the victims stranded by the wayside is grossly unfair. 

     There is also the issue of waste of human potential. That these students who manage to successfully pass the university entrance exam and enter university are assets their country needs to exploit for the greater good goes without saying. The engineers, medics, teachers and economists of the future to list a few are these young people who have entered prep schools. Developing countries cannot afford to waste human talent that can carry this country forward and benefit society as a whole. Who knows what they will be capable of once universities have furnished them with the necessary tools to do so. Waste not, want not declared our ancestors and they weren’t just referring to household goods or money. In short, helping these students in their quest to become professionals is our ethical and national duty. Giving them just one go at the hurdles they face is an attitude that just will not wash.

        Another issue to be considered is the pass and failure rates. All administrations like the statistics at the end of the year to reflect a high success rate and a low failure rate. Soaring failure rates, whatever the reason, reflect badly on the institution. The university must grapple with a double edged sword by trying to maintain high pass rates while at the same time trying to maintain the high standards it is renowned for. The university has another issue as well: it may have to answer to a central body. The international standing of the university is also influenced by the standard of teaching and success rates. All this being the case, even if all ethical and national concerns are ignored, it is in the interest of the university to reduce failure rates. It goes without saying, therefore, that prep schools should take certain steps to increase so called ‘through-put’ for the good of the individual, the institution, the country as a whole and the world in general. After all, what could be a more worthwhile endeavor than contributing to the betterment of humanity?

      The last aspect of the problem that needs to be faced up to is the fact the students are not the only actors on the scene: there is the syllabus, the material, how it is implemented in class by teachers and the teachers themselves as individuals and professionals. There is plenty of blame to go round and laying the whole blame at the door of the students is a suspiciously blinkered approach to the problem. The pace could be too fast or creep forward at snail’s pace to begin with and then pick up speed like a cheetah on the hunt. The material could be dull, inappropriate or badly handled. Teachers could be wrestling with a variety of personal problems, be disillusioned engineers for example who have had to dial back their ambitions or they could just see teaching as a job and a means to pay the bills. None of the above will contribute to high pass rates and ultimately, the institution is responsible for addressing these issues and picking up the slack. Arguing otherwise constitutes a most irrational and unethical form of escapism.

       When problems emerge with their software, Microsoft will design a patch to fix the problem. Some institutions mistakenly suppose that the same system will work with those who for one reason or another have thrown in the towel. The so called patches in the form of booklets hurriedly prepared and distributed to students, organizing classes for students and begging for volunteers to teach them and similar ventures are stop- gap solutions which will never bring a long term solution to the problem despite looking good on paper and enabling the administration to tick the relevant boxes. What is required is a formal and institutionalized approach involving the setting up of a support center which is accessible from the word go to lend a helping hand to those who fall behind and to those who fail. This institution should have a mission statement stating its responsibilities and aspirations. It should be staffed with experienced professionals just like other departments in the school. It should present a report of its activities to the administration at the end of the term and remain in close and continued contact with teachers, the curriculum committee and the testing office if they exist in the university. In short, the only answer to the problem is a concerted, continued and official one.

      In conclusion, students, unfortunately for teaching establishments, are not androids. They cannot have code uploaded into their brains and be expected to absorb it. They are complex creatures as are we all, and need to have other areas of their personality and past experiences to be factored in.  Only in this way can we help the next generation achieve their full potential.

HOW TO GET STUDENTS TO MAKE PRESENTATIONS

People are social creatures who thrive in each other’s company. The only way to establish close bonds with people in our immediate social circle and in the wider community is to engage with them through speech. It is through the direct exchange of ideas and through conversation that we form close relationships with people. This is true of friends, family members and professionals of all stripes. Sometimes, the ideas to be conveyed to others in a business or other public setting may require a person to take the floor and address his audience for a certain length of time. This form of public speaking comes easily to some people who by definition like the sound of their own voices or who engage in public speaking as a part of their jobs such as politicians, lawyers, priests and teachers. For others, it is an acquired skill and for yet others, it is something to be avoided at all costs. Universities try to encourage students to learn to speak in public about issues close to their hearts but sometimes it is an uphill struggle. There are, however, various reasons why some students may be averse to the idea of public speaking and presentations and there is also quite a lot teachers can do to change the situation.

There are various underlying factors that need to be taken into account before discussing ways to persuade people to address a crowd. One reason some people may be averse to the idea of public speaking in general and making presentations in particular is sometimes cultural. In some countries such as Japan, it is considered bad manners to stand out and put yourself forward. People who have grown up in such a culture may find it hard to get used to the idea of making presentations. A second reason may be the education system. A classroom environment which is very authoritarian, where teachers aim to deliver the knowledge to the students who are expected to ingest it, no questions asked is not conducive to public speaking to say the least. In fact, students are expected to be seen and not heard as passive recipients of all the teacher passes on to them. Come the age of 18, these students are suddenly plunged into the more liberal atmosphere of modern universities like Boğaziçi where they are expected to carry on like their counterparts in the US for example. Naturally, this does not come easily and takes a little getting used to.

A second reason why students in some countries may have more trouble than others is the way they have been treated in class throughout their primary and secondary education. The difference between the classroom atmosphere in various countries can be easily seen when a primary school classroom in countries like Finland is compared with one in countries like Korea or Japan. The former is colorful, attractive and child friendly, an inviting place for kids in other words; the latter has desks facing a board. In the former, students are encouraged and expected to actively participate in the lesson; in the latter they are expected to sit quietly and learn. In the former, they receive the message that their opinions matter; in the latter, they receive the message that they have no opinions worth considering. Students who have been through the former system will readily make presentations taking to the whole exercise like ducks to water; students who have been through the latter system however, need time to recover from the shock and brave the stage. In short, persuading some students to make presentations may take time.

A third reason why students may feel disinclined to make presentations is the methods which have been used to motivate them to study throughout their primary and secondary education. As can be easily surmised, students going through a system such as the one in Finland are accustomed to addressing their friends in class because their personal interests, their opinions and their take on things have always been valued. Conversely, in a more authoritarian country, this is not the case. The students are required to regurgitate what they have been fed by their teachers. Their reward is a good grade whereas the reward in the former system is the pleasure the student making the presentation derives from the whole experience and the interest of his friends. Grades play a negligible part in the whole process. In short, students who see only grades as their reward for doing what they are required to do will then, naturally, go on to do the math and decide whether to put themselves through the ordeal or not.

There is a magic solution to deal with students dragging their feet come the time for presentations. To be able to get the ball rolling teachers should be disabused of the idea that cracking the whip will do the trick because it won’t work unless the students’ lives depend on the presentation. The silver bullet is to adopt the approach that should have been adopted from the beginning. The students should be encouraged to think that they are doing this for themselves not for grades; they should be made to understand that it is a worthwhile activity which will benefit them and they should be told that their views matter. The lead up to the presentations needs to be carefully planned: the teacher or, better still, another colleague, should make a short presentation to show them how it works; the ways to make a good presentation should be explained and a blog should be set up. Students should be told that their presentations will be recorded and posted on the teacher’s blog so that they can look back and watch them and so that future students can refer to them and view them. Exams like the TOEFL and IELTS have a speaking component and recording presentations will help students improve their speaking skills. Another way to motivate students is to get students from other classes to come and make presentations. Telling a student that his presentation is so interesting that everyone should hear it is a very effective technique. The students in the class which is visited could then return the favor. In short, grades should be incidental not the reward.

To conclude, there are many reasons which make it difficult to get students accustomed to public speaking but the issue can be dealt with provided the teacher is enthusiastic and willing to get out of his comfort zone. A little effort on his part will help students blossom and become the kind of people who are really useful to society.           

HOW TO PREVENT PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is basically taking information provided by others and presenting it as one’s own, and as such, is a form of theft. It is strongly criticized in academic circles leading students to fail and experts to be named and shamed. This being the case, one of the most important issues discussed with students who are being taught the correct ways of writing a research paper is how to avoid lifting chunks out of a text written by a second party and pasting it into their essay. Considering the strong negative attitude towards plagiarism and the number of programs devised to uncover it, it still takes place for various reasons. These reasons can be broadly categorized as ‘unintentional’ or ‘accidental’ plagiarism and ill-intentioned plagiarism.

Some plagiarism is carried out inadvertently and may seem innocuous but the reasons need to be understood in order to eliminate it. Students who have been through a more authoritarian education system where the focus is memorization and parroting have had no practice with using outside sources to do homework. Any paper they write in high school includes information copied from various sources and cobbled together. What is more, these so called papers are given top marks and the blatant plagiarism is completely ignored. In fact, the concept of plagiarism is never mentioned. Needless to say, these students have never mastered the skill of making notes from a reading text either. On entering university and asked to write a paper, they resort to the same tactics that worked for them up to that point with devastating consequences. The students may protest when their teacher, armed with a red pen, has scratched out most of the paper and peppered it with exclamation marks, that they could not have expressed the concept better themselves. It would be unfair to lay all the blame on the student in this case. What should be done is to first, teach them how to make notes from a reading text and second how to paraphrase. These two activities should not be just introduced and then forgotten about; they should be included in every reading lesson throughout the prep year at universities such as Boğaziçi.  Good writing habits and the accepted way of writing research papers should also be taught in a course open to all students at university in their freshman year. These measures should go hand in hand with a firm stand against plagiarism by the academic staff. In short, universities such as our own should not be too quick to criticize.

Not all plagiarism is carried out unwittingly though; some is completely ill-intentioned. Writing a research paper is a time consuming and cognitively challenging task, which is why some may wish to take the easy way out. There are plenty of websites cropping up on the internet which offer to write research papers for a price but it is far easier and cheaper to just mix and match information from previously written material and present it to the teacher. Just like the sites for writing papers, there are also programs that pinpoint plagiarism, which the teachers have access to so most papers of the latter kind are weeded out pretty quickly. There is no excuse for this kind of plagiarism, and it should be criticized in the harshest terms. A concerted effort to come down hard on all plagiarism of this kind will eventually put an end to the problem.

In conclusion, it goes without saying that stealing whole chunks of another person’s work and claiming it as one’s own is wrong and should not be tolerated. However, allowance should be made for students who, for no fault of their own, have not been given the opportunity to learn not to plagiarize. They should be brought up to speed as quickly as possible. That all plagiarism, no matter what the reason, should be severely punished goes without saying however.

HOW TO DEAL WITH BULLYING (This is a 70/ 75)

            Bullying can be defined as  despising, harming and annoying a person. These acts can be physical, verbal, emotional or sexual. Unfortunately, bullying in schools is a growing concern all over the world. Moreover, bullying has negative impacts both on victims and bullies. It is a serious problem with long lasting effects that can be the root cause of criminal behavior, academic failure and lack of self-esteem later in life. Therefore, it might be a good idea to produce useful solutions to alleviate the negative consequences of bullying in schools.

         To begin with, teachers and administrators can play an effective role in overcoming bullying in schools. They can set up programs to educate students about bullying. Due to the fact that there is a power imbalance between bullies and victims, teachers should encourage "bystanders" to become "upstanders". Furthermore, teachers or administrators should get students to be involved in organizing anti-bullying forums where they resolve problems. Thanks to the awareness of the results of bullying, fewer incidents might occur in schools.

              What is more, parents can also help children avoid bullying. First of all, they should have a clear understanding of the reasons and consequences of bullying. Actually, bullies come from homes where physical punishment is used and those children have been taught that corporal punishment is the way to handle problems. Therefore, parents ought to give their children a chance to express themselves. Moreover, enjoyable activities and discussions with children are some of the noteworthy solutions. These activities can provide children with self-esteem. Therefore, in any case, parents are the role models of their children and thus couples should be more careful when they educate their children about bullying.

          To sum up, bullying in schools is not a problem that should be ignored because it can have many negative effects on students. To handle bullying, parents and teachers should be aware of this problem and work together; otherwise, not only victims but also bullies might be affected negatively throughout their lives.