Population and Migration

We learned about Population and Migration today in class. Over 7 billion people live in the world today, and the number is growing. The problem is too many people are being born and not enough people are dying. The life expectancy is the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. Most well developed countries, like America, have a pretty good life expectancy for people. Countries that have horrible conditions (contaminated water, etc.), like Indonesia have very low life expediencies for people. We also learned about Immigration and emigration. Immigration is when a bunch of people are entering a country, and emigration is when people are leaving a country. Both of these can have negative and positive effects. For example, when too many people enter one country, not enough jobs are available. Sometimes people leave or enter a country for a specific reason. Pull forces is when a person moves to a country because of a reason like freedom of religion or better government. Push forces is when a person leaves a country because of a reason like civil war, or environmental danger. 

Test Day

The test we took today took the whole class period. It wasn't a very difficult one but we had to write 3 essays at the end and it basically took up most of the time. When we first started the test everyone was silent but then people started finishing after only 20 minutes. Mr. Schick said that if they had already finished then they obviously have done it wrong, because it is impossible to write three good essays that quickly. I think my essays were pretty good because it took me awhile to write them and they were very detailed. About halfway through the test, Mr. Schick walked over to the door in the corner, which I recently thought was a closet, and opened it up to get some air. Apparently that’s a whole other class. When people started to finish they moved to the back to get on their laptops without bothering anyone. That didn't really work because we bothered people anyway. 

Preparing for the Test

Since we have a test tomorrow, in Human Geo, we went over some stuff to prepare us for the test. We also presented our power points about the effects of globalization. We discussed topics that could be on the test and reread our notes to refresh our minds. So basically it was a review day. Thank God we reviewed because we talked about things that I would have completely forgot about on the test. Like apparently Socrates’s famous saying was “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I would have totally gotten that wrong on the test. So basically the test is going to be about a letter to Garcia, our roman vocabulary, Socrates, globalization, and anything else we have learned. 

JUST DON'T DO IT

We did some more research on the down side of globalization again today.  We looked at articles about the argument over how Nike should treat their employees. One website wrote about how Nike had solved it issue. The only problem was, they didn't really solve it. Just because they gave the workers less hours doesn't mean that their lives are much better. The reason the article was saying Nike solved the issue was because they were pro-business and didn't want Nike to lose any money. What Nike needs to do is pay the workers more, give them safer work conditions, give them health benefits, and so much more. Another article we read was about how Nike was forcing the workers to work for lower salaries, by threatening them with the military.  What I don’t understand is how you can treat someone like crap, when they are human beings too.

Behind the Swoosh

We watched a 20 minute video, about Nike sweatshops, in class today. The video was about a man named Jim Keady, who was a coach at a very nice catholic high school. He refused to wear Nike products even though his job required him too. The reason he refused to do this was because he thought that people who worked in the sweat shops had unfair labor conditions. They didn’t get paid enough to live a satisfied life. Jim traveled to Indonesia to see what it is like to live like a Nike worker. After only a week there he knew that it was impossible to be able to survive with so little money. Near the end, Jim came back to America and tried to talk some sense into the Nike CEO’s, and managers, but they all denied him. Jim knows that the way these people are living is sickening and he has to do something about it.

PowerPoint project

It’s kind of a surprise that Steven was the one with a bright idea today in class. His idea was that we made a PowerPoint about globalization using Google documents. Everyone agreed with him because using Google documents is extremely fun. For our Power Points we had to find out more about globalization and its effects. We also had to make sure that the website we used were reliable and had factional. 

Saul the Persecutor

Mr. Schick told us the story of Saul today. Saul, like many others, persecuted Christians. One day he was riding his horse up mountain when he was attacked and blinded. God came to Saul in a dream and asked him why he was persecuting him and his people. After his encounter with God he changed his name to Paul and traveled the word spreading the good news of God. He became one the top five most influenced people in the world

 What does a man in Kenya need to make a call on his cell-phone? He needs infrastructure. For example, electricity, a job, cell phone towers, etc. In class we also talked about the U.N and how they are an example of globalization. Another example is that American movies are the biggest money makers around the world!