Eng portfolio entry no. 2

Original Article: As Harvard goes

March 5 2007, from the Time print edition.

This article basically reports changes to Harvard’s curriculum and briefly discusses their effect.

What is the purpose of education? The traditionalist will promptly respond that its aims to maximise the potential of every student. However, there is another oft-hidden angle of the purpose of education—to endow every student with the skills he/she needs to survive in the real world, as well as to better the world around them.

It is because of this that America’s most famous university will be establishing eight primary subject areas that all students will have to take, encompassing subjects like anthropology and social relations; Ethical Reasoning; and sociology and economics.

A very interesting side to this approach is, I believe, the element of active learning, where the information is not merely absorbed by the student from an inert, uninteractive medium like the book, but where the student is encouraged to experience what he/she has learnt in motion in the real world. There are a few differences between the results of learning from a textbook and learning actively. But the primary reason is this—when an event or a concept is compressed into words, these is only so much that can be put across, and it is very easy for there to be misunderstanding of information, for information to be irrevocably lost. To see the concept in action, however, is something very different, as then the concept is seen in its actual entirety—it is not sieved through another medium where chance of error surfaces, when the dangerous possibility of the information becoming meretricious brummagem hangs precariously on the writers' aptitude in elucidation. Also, it is important to note that visual and kinesthetic impact play a large role in the long-term internalization of the information.

Also, I think that this approach to learning ensures better understanding of what is learned by introducing application to the real world, which leads to a better and more in-depth perception of a particular concept. It is utterly useless for a person to have memorized an entire textbook but lack the ability to effectively use the information gathered from the textbook to solve problems in the real world—that approach renders the studying of the sciences null and void, as it they loses their relevance to the real world. Learning for learning’s sake is useless, as knowing does not truly matter, but how that information is applied greatly does. Just as one does not become a marathon runner from reading about the Boston Marathon, so one does not become a good problem solver by listening to lectures. That is why hands-on work is needed; it pre-empts real-life problems, and ensures that the student, when he exits college and faces the wider world, does not do so with nothing but knowledge of what should happen but not what to do to ensure that it does.

The only thing that is believe is very wrong with this system is the fact that it excludes history. Given that fact that this system places a lot of emphasis on logic and philosophy, it is paradoxical why history should be excluded, as many of the logical premises which lead to leader’s wise decisions in response to current situations really stem from observations of what happened in a similar framework in the past.

Despite this system's shortcomings, which, I acknowledge, are present in all education systems, the system soon to be employed in Harvard promises much, because when all is said and done, everything boils down to one deceptively (and, very sadly, often-ignored)simple principle that nonetheless has profound resonances within the arena of education--that science, as much as literature and every other subject worth teaching and learning, should be used--for humanity.

499 words.

Eng portfolio entry no. 1

Original Article: North Korea Takes the Bait.

February 26th 2007, from the Time print edition.

The U.S--surprisingly-- reaches an agreement with North Korea regarding its nuclear program. The article discusses the effectiveness of the agreement.

When two infinitely stubborn countries come to loggerheads around the diplomatic table, you usually get an ugly, brutal mess which, more often than not, sullenly fizzles down into a very uncomfortable equilibrium—of sorts. It comes as a surprise, then, America and North Korea have managed to reach a “breakthrough” agreement. The terms of the agreement are simple, but revealing—simply put, North Korea has agreed to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, its main source of fissile material for nuclear weapons, for 50, 000 tons of fuel oil from the U.S., China, Russia, and South Korea.

This agreement, however, has been lambasted by critics, who point out that the agreement, ominously, does not make even attempt a nebulous mention of Pyongyang’s currently existing nuclear stockpile—and issue so overwhelmingly huge that it could not have possibly have been an accident. If it is deliberate, then, the implications--and their ramifications thereof--are, to say the very least, unsettling. If the U.S. had been unable to convince Pyongyang to give up its current stockpile of nuclear weapons, this is indicative that North Korea is simply unwilling to give up existing capabilities, no matter the number of diplomatic goodies offered—Kim thinks having a few nuclear weapons in his pocket will serve as a kind of failsafe to deter military aggression from nasty Western imperialists. This seems to show that the U.S. is setting a very negative precedent, conceding to, on an idealogical plane, and almost recklessly rewarding a rogue nation. This would unequivocally serve to delegitimize the already weak Bush Administration--ultimately only helping only to further ramify a multifarious problem that very certainly (and even the Bush Administration wholeheartedly agrees on that)needs no further complication.

Clintonites would also gladly point out that the agreement is a mere facsimile of the Agreed Framework signed by Washington and Pyongyang in 1994. (It called for North Korea to halt nuclear weapons development in return for two light-water nuclear-power plants, which are difficult to use to generate fissile material for bombs. The Clinton presidency ended before the plan could come to fruition—which Pyongyang sees as evidence of Washington’s bad faith.)

I acknowledge that these critiques are valid and can be legitimately supported but for one missing factor: these viewpoints do not take into slightest account the possibility of alternative plans--or rather, the severe lack thereof. I am certainly no political analyst and my views may be somewhat skewed due to what may be a certain simplism of perspective, but from what little I know of enormously Daedalian and often bizarre process that we humans like to simply (and very deceptively) term politics, I believe I can say this with assurance: before a process can be reversed, it must first be halted, and that is why the production of fissile material must first be stopped before the U.S. can actually get down to making North Korea give up its existing stockpile. There is, quite simply put, no other choice. The so called “conceding” of the U.S. is not so much a sign of weakness as much as a sign of good prioritizing by the U.S. government, as well as evidence of adaptability—the seeming lack of which has previously cost the Bush Administration dearly. Also, if the diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang are placed in the framework of a historical context, all too often the friction between the two is cause by their obstinacy when it comes to making compromises. Even if this move by the U.S. can be proven to be a compromise, this shows the acknowledgment of the U.S government that difficult compromises have to be made—certainly a step to set the stage for realizing discussions about normalizing relations between two once-implacable enemies.

Even if I can agree that the Agreement just made by Bush is merely a continuation of the Agreed Framework, I do not think this suffices as a criticism-- what wrong is there is the continuation of a good policy? There is, however, as I see it, a crucial difference between the Clinton and the Bush agreement: simply put, the one by Bush is more effective. The Agreed Framework was bilateral, while the Bush agreement effectively isolates North Korea from all of its allies—including its closest benefactor, China, which was infuriated by the North’s testing of nuclear weapons—making sure that Pyongyang will not start playing its games anytime soon.

500 words.