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Lesson 15, Task 4: What do I believe in?

I am against a dress code in schools. 

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Lesson 15, Task 4: What do I believe in?

Hello and welcome back to my last blog entry. I will talk about School dress codes and what my opinion on this topic is. I am sure that a lot of you guys will have different opinions on this topic, so you are very welcome to comment under this post. 

So let’s begin. 

Many people these days believe that a dress code for students will automatically solve the issues that wander around schools, but they are wrong. I live in a country, where dress codes do not exist and therefore I am against the idea of introducing dress codes. This essay will further explain my opinion, where I will support it with three different arguments.

           Starting with my first argument, dress codes mainly target just girls and are therefore sexist. These dress codes are for clothing such as shorts, which have to be longer than the Girls fingertips, as she has her arms on her sides. Furthermore, tops need to be three fingers wide and should cover the most of the Girls shoulder. Cleavage, tight pants and crop tops are also forbidden. Schools argue, that if a girl wears the named clothing, boys in the school would be attracted and distracted from their work. Also, schools argue that they are in a ‘business’ environment and students need to learn to respect and therefore dress appropriately. As you could see, these restrictions only target girls and should help boys concentrate on their school work. This could give girls the idea that they should hide their body’s and be submissive to the male population.

           My second argument is about education and how dress code suspensions can take the focus away from education. When a girl or a boy is being suspended for the day, due to that he/she wore something the school thought was being inappropriate, they miss lessons who are essential for their education. Furthermore, they might be not able to work as efficiently at home than in school and might end up having trouble in catching up with the work. Yet, this would only happen if they are suspended for a couple of days and are not able to follow the classes. The teachers expect from the students to catch up on the missed school work and therefore put even more pressure on the students.

           The last argument that will support my opinion is as follows. Dress codes in schools do not benefit individuals themselves and the freedom of every single student. Having a dress code hinders the development of the personality. If a school introduces a dress code, this automatically means that it “forces” students to commit to the dress code or a uniform they do not want at all. This could have a negative influence on the school atmosphere and the school spirit. Also, students need to be comfortable in themselves and might achieve better grades if they are. Forcing them into a dress code has negative effects on the student and he/she might not feel as comfortable. Clothing is the main part on how a person can express personal things such as the favorite music band, if they like specific colors more, if they like a certain brand etc. It is a way of showing the world around them what they like and to feel comfortable in it. If we take this away from the children and teenagers, they will not be able to express themselves as fully as students without dress codes.

 To conclude, I think that having a Dress Code in Schools is not beneficial for the students and the School atmosphere in general. Dress codes are still mainly for Girls and target Ideals that are straight forward sexist. If you only introduce a Dress Code due to that boys can not concentrate if the see a girls legs, then the school has to target the boys first and educate them. Girls dressing the way they want is not the problem a school should target. A school should be all about education and insure that every student gets the same education, no matter on what they are wearing. Dress codes take away the focus of education and put the focus on gender roles and how girls should behave. We live in a civilized society and we should learn that it does not matter what a girl wears. 

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Here follows the last part of my third entry. I will talk about things that frustrate me on how people perceive my cultural identity and about stereotypes that I will prove to you are not true. 

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This is the second part of my third entry and it contains a “speech” that was inspired by the “I am Canadian” speech, which I will give you a link below. Enjoy! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg (I am Canadian)

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Hello guys, and welcome back to my third block entry! This blog entry will be all about who I am and I will focus on my cultural Identity (gender, nationality, ethnicity, race), my membership to certain cultural groups in society and on some things that frustrate me about how people perceive my cultural identity. This entry will be posted in three different parts, with three different audio files but they are all part of the Headline: “Lesson 15, Task 3: Who am I?”. 

I hope you enjoy it!!

Below you will see a picture of me, to give you an idea what I look like (as mentioned in the audio) : 

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

The best german comedians (in my opinion): 

(Otto Waalkes) 

(Luke Mockridge) 

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

Here are some pictures of the sports and other activities I described in my Essay: 

(Taekwondo) 

(horseback riding) 

(Field hockey)

(hanging out with friends) 

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

Here are some examples of modern and old German architecture: 

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

Examples of clothing that influenced me: 

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

Examples of typical German food:

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Lesson 15, Task 2: What has influenced me?

In this blog entry, I will talk about the things that influenced me during my lifetime. I will include food, fashion, architecture, leisure activities, and entertainment of my home country Germany. 

The first thing I want to talk about is the German food. The cuisine of Germany has evolved as a national cuisine through centuries of social and political change with variations from region to region. Furthermore, German Food is very salty and substantial. That is why I developed a more salty tongue than a sweet one. Do not get me wrong. Germany also has very good cakes, candy and, other desserts, but the salty side personally influenced me more in terms of my eating behavior. With that, I mean that for a snack I rather take a sandwich than chocolate or I often skip desserts and eat more of the actual dinner. Some typical German snack foods are puddings, sausages ( a long tradition of sausage-making exists in Germany, with more than 1,500 different kinds of sausages), potato chips and pretzels which originated in Europe among monks in the Early middle ages. Germans also have a traditional structure of meals. The Breakfast usually consists of bread, toast or bread rolls with all different kinds of topping (butter, honey, ham, cheese, jam, eggs). The most common drinks during breakfast are coffee, milk, tea, cocoa and, juices. After breakfast, the main meal traditionally is Lunch, eaten around noon. Dinner is always a smaller meal, often consisting of bread, vegetables, meat and, cheese. Yet, in the more modern society, this traditional way of eating is being lost, as you eat only a small meal in the middle of the day and have a hot dinner in the evening at home.

The next thing I want to talk about is fashion, and what has influenced my style of clothing. I am dressed very sporty and like to wear big hoodies, leggings and just comfortable stuff. Yet I look at fashion magazines, online sites and Instagram pages to find the newest trends and search for my ideal clothing style. I would say that I am influenced by French, American and Italian fashion and that like to try new things. In France, Fashion design and production gained prominence from the 15th century on and from the 17th century, it exploded into a rich industry both for local consumption and for export. Paris acts as the center of the fashion industry and holds the name of global fashion capital. In Italy, the fashion reached its height during the Renaissance. During this time period, art, music, and philosophy were also segments of culture that were flourishing in Italy. Soon Italian fashion became immensely popular and influential across Europe. Today, Italy and France contain the cities of fashion and therefore are very popular in terms of fashion trends and shopping. The American clothing style is more informal and most of the shops where I buy my clothes have American roots, such as Nike, Hollister etc. To conclude, my clothing style is a mixture of the high fashion standards of France and Italy and the more comfortable clothing style Americas. 

In terms of architecture, I can not say a lot because the only influence I got in this is my mum. She loves an open space, a bright living room, high walls and a welcoming atmosphere. I learned to love the same things and I do not like wood houses or dark rooms which are very common in old German houses. Do not mistake me, German architecture has a long, rich and diverse history. Every major European style from Roman to Post Modern is demonstrated in German villages and cities, including renowned examples of Carolingian, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Modern architectural style.

The next thing I want to talk about that influenced me is leisure activities. I did and still do a lot of leisure activities. I started with horseback riding when I was four years old and did this sport for another 8-9 years. Horseback riding is a very famous sport in Germany, yet it originated in Central Asia about 800 BC. On horseback, you could go much faster than anybody had ever gone before and that is why it became famous very fast in a lot of countries. Another sport that I did was Taekwondo, which is a Korean martial art, characterized by its emphasis on head-height kicks, jumping and spinning kicks, and fast kicking techniques. It originates in Korea and on August 15, 1945, Korea was liberated from Japan and Korean arts could once again develop. Field hockey is one of my favorite sports and I did this while I lived in Belgium because there it is one of the most common sports. The earliest origins of the game date back to the Middle Ages in England, Scotland, France and the Netherlands. Yet today, due to the amount of school work, I usually just hang out with my friends, listen to music or enjoy my free time without having to worry about anything. As you could see, I did a lot of sports while I grew up and this is because Germany is a Sport nation and you want to be part of it. 

The last thing I will mention in this essay is the form of entertainment that has influenced me. A lot of people (non-germans) think that we do not have any kind of humor and that we hate Irony. This is not true. Germany has a huge amount of comedians and a lot of comedy shows that are shown on TV. Comedy is a staple of German culture, with many Germans making light of situations in social conversation. Germans distinguish between "Comedy" and "Komödie". "Comedy" refers to post-1990s TV-comedy, which is characterized by comedic entertainment in the form of stand-up comedy, stage shows, modern satire, cabaret and adaptations of foreign comedy concepts. "Komödie" refers to films and plays. The humor for example often derives from mixing different styles of speech or contrasting them with each other. This is what influenced me. We Germans love to laugh and try to turn life situations into comedy. This influenced in a way, that I am able to laugh and stand over things that are difficult for others. I do not take life as serious and I think that that is a good thing. 

To conclude, all of the things explained above, the food, fashion, architecture, leisure activities, and entertainment, influenced me and my character as I developed. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to grow up in such a fascinating country and a well-developed world, where I have access to other countries norms and cultures. 

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Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

Challenges in the Dutch society

The Netherlands is transitioning from a welfare state to a participation society. It is yet one of the happiest countries on the global scale and this occurred mainly after World War II. The Dutch welfare state assists residents in the domains of labor, income, education, unemployment, and disability, engendering solidarity between healthy and capable people and those who are not. This results in the general protection against extreme poverty and lack of care. In the 1980s, political emphasis shifted to more individual responsibility, fueled by the rising costs of the welfare state. This lead to a secure society without any drastic changes in society, which can be viewed in the population projection shown above.

Other challenges that occurred more recent are for example the growing inequality which refers to a gap between highly educated citizens that benefit by globalization and the less educated citizens who might feel victimized by globalization. This could be explained by looking at the population pyramid again. The Netherlands has a higher number of people in their mid-40s to their 70s who often are not able to keep track of the changing society in terms of technology (I am generalizing here, I am sure there are exceptions). Another challenge is the tension between globalist and identity politics which split the society. This is the most difficult task for the Dutch politics, the have to strike to a viable balance between emergent and more manifest identity politics and continuing globalization.

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Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

Changes in the community and population

As you can see in the graph, the population of the Netherlands increased dramatically over the past 68 years and will reach its population density in the year 2040. After this year, the population will not dramatically increase or decrease anymore and will just undergo slight changes. This could have many reasons, such as that the birth and death rate are equal and synchronized, leading to a balanced society. Furthermore, there will be no baby boom in the Dutch society anymore due to that the younger generations focus more on the career than on having a family. The baby boom I referred to earlier is shown between the years 1950 and 2010.  This happened due to that World War II ended in the year 1945, and therefore more families were reunited.   The dutch community changed over the years aswell, including laws such as the states pension age (The Dutch state pension age goes up by 3 months on 1st January 2018 to 66 years of age, previously it was 65 years 9 months), improvements on quality of childcare (The number of babies per childcare professional will be reduced from 4:1 to 3:1, providing each child with greater amount of attention) and the minimum wage (The minimum wage will increase from € 1,565.40 to € 1,578.00 gross per month from 1 January 2018). To conclude, the community has changed in terms of the population size and in other aspects as listed above. Changes in the community and population size

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Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

The Population of the Netherlands

Now, let us have a look at the population of the Netherlands in terms of ethnicity, sex, and age. To give you all a better understanding I will include a population pyramid.

As you can see in the population pyramid, Netherland's population is equally distributed between males and females. What is noticeable in this pyramid is that the population between 0 and 39 years is much smaller than from 40 to 69 years. After 69 years the population decreases again. Because of this distribution, the population pyramid has a significant shape called 'Stationary' (stationary population pyramids display somewhat equal numbers or percentages for almost all age groups.).   In terms of ethnic groups (an ethnic group, or an ethnicity, is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities such as common ancestry, language, society, culture or nation.), the Netherlands is distributed into seven groups : Dutch 77.4%, EU 6.2%, Turkish 2.3%, Moroccan 2.3%, Indonesian 2.1%, Surinamese 2% and other 7.7%.

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Here you can see two of the most beautiful cities of the Netherlands, Amsterdam and Maastricht. 

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Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?

In this blog entry, I want to share with you my knowledge about the beautiful country I call my home since 3 years: the Netherlands. Living here is amazing and a wonderful opportunity for me. The Dutch society is very welcoming and it is just about being happy and open-minded. Furthermore, this entry will be all about facts and stats that relate to the population of the Netherlands.

Due to that, it contains 3 different parts, I will post them individually but yet with the same headline: “Lesson 15, Task 1: Where do I live?”