Reasons Why Vegetarianism Is the Best

Although, for many people the smell of a well barbecued steak could make their mouth water, but have you ever thought about how much negative impact takes place just so that this piece of meat could come to you?

I take the position that vegetarian food, although for many people it may not be as tasty as non-vegetarian food, has huge positives like better health and a lesser negative impact on the environment, that can outweigh the benefits of having a Non vegetarian diet. In our day to day diet, I feel that for the benefits of innumerable we should have a completely vegetarian meal at least once a week, thus reducing your amount of meat consumption.

Vegetarian food has further benefits than Non vegetarian food. One of the reasons is that Vegetarian food is significantly far more environmentally friendlier than Non vegetarian food. According to scientific research Animal Agriculture is the one of the three biggest reason for global warming. It is responsible for about 20% of global warming, being a greater contributing problem than deforestation. It has grow to a huge problem although many people don’t notice it. Scientists are so concerned by the effects of rising meat consumption that Dr Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and possibly the world's leading authority on global warming, made a plea last year for people to have at least one meat-free day a week. (Finn, 2009). There are many reasons why IPCC made this plea out to us all. First of all Animals only give us 1/10 of what they eat as meat and use the rest to survive, and in that process they also pollute the air with methane. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, also known as EPA, Comparatively the impact of methane (CH4) on climate change is more than 25 times greater than Carbon dioxide (CO2). That's not only it, to feed the 19 billion livestock we're raising, we have to grow thrice as much plants for them than we had to if we all didn’t eat meat at all. This takes up a lot of land, 33 million square kilometers to be more specific. That is about the size of Africa. And that's not even counting the land used to grow crops exclusively for the animals.  That’s a lot of land that once could have been trees or grassland in their original state. After that all the effort to get so much food to the animals emits huge amount of greenhouse gases. Adds poisonous chemicals into our soil, air, and water. Animal agriculture creates a lot of greenhouse gasses and it is greater than all of the gas emissions from planes, trains, and automobiles combined. All of this mostly affects the land and air but what about all the freshwater being used. About 70% of fresh water is used for agriculture. It takes about 15000 litres of freshwater to make one kilogram of beef whilst it takes only 900 litres to make a kilogram of fruits. If you had to pay for all the damage that the meat had done the environment to get to you it would add a whopping $240 to your weekly grocery shopping bill. But, as the earth can sustain this damage, for now, we don’t have to pull out that extra 240 dollars from our pockets. Even if it’s not possible to completely become a vegetarian, it’s still possible to make the problem little better by eating meat less often. Now as you all can see eating meat already does so much damage to the environment but what about how badly it affects the animals. A quote from Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States. “From locking animals in tiny cages, to slicing parts of their bodies off without any pain relief, to genetically selecting them to grow so obese and so fast that many become lame, it’s by far the biggest cause of animal suffering in the world.”(Melone, 2014). Now this is just the question about your humanity. How would you feel if you were just raised for the sole purpose for being food for someone else with no greater purpose in life? That is some food for thought.

Another reason eating less meat is an amazing idea is that, consuming meat not only harms the environment but it also harms you. A study from Harvard School of Public Health found an association with red meat consumption and increased risk of a shortened lifespan. “We know processed red meat like hot dogs and salami are the worst,” says Larry Santora, MD, medical director of the Dick Butkus Center for Cardiovascular Wellness, Saint Joseph Hospital, Orange, California. (Melone, 2014). Red meat is not what you think it is. To treat the meat, countless chemicals are added to it and this sometimes can be harmful to the consumer. According to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, meat being rich in cholesterol can clog the consumers arteries. This increases the chance to obtain a heart disease or cancer by 44%,  and that is no small number. Even with the amazing taste a meat has, after knowing it’s dirty little secret it can make it hard to swallow.

It's been said that meat provides nutrients like Vitamin B12 and Omega-3 that is not present in any plant based food. The vegetarian diet often has many perks that are related to personal health.(Melone, 2014). Research shows that vegetarians tend to be leaner than their meat-eating counterparts, and that they also tend to have lower cholesterol and body mass index (BMI). Data also suggests that a vegetarian diet can help with weight loss and be better for maintaining a healthy weight over time. This can be a crucial aspect in the long run. It has also been shown that having a vegetarian diet increases your life span by an average of 10 - 13 years. A vegetarian diet is rarely a negative for anyone and it is always a win for everyone although not many notice it. Virginia Messina, M.P.H., R.D., who has written extensively about vegetarian diets quotes that “Vegetarians have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and tend to be a little bit thinner, so vegetarians are automatically going to be at lower risk of certain chronic diseases,”. According to so many studies it has been shown that there are multifarious benefits vegetarianism can have on your personal health.  Lot’s of people think that eating a vegetarian meal provides less protein and iron. But there are countless studies lauding the benefits of a vegetarian diet. As for protein, the great myth is that you won't get enough of it unless you eat meat. But according to the World Health Organisation, the average Non veg eats twice the amount of protein they need in a year, so the odd vegetarian meal at work shouldn't weaken you too much.

There are innumerable benefits from eating less meat, Including valuing animal rights, saving the environment and personal health. But coming down to to the core with biology, humans in the first place were never meant to eat meat, and ever since then we still haven’t adapted to eating meat like numerous carnivorous and omnivores. Many characteristics that meat eaters have such as Lions and Bears are not present in us. We haven’t developed many of the required characteristics that we need. Like strong acids in stomach to break down meat thoroughly so that we don’t get food poisoning from the billions of bacteria present on meat. We also don’t have sharp claws and canines to help tear the meat resulting in more work for the digestive tract. And now if you are thinking - nobody likes being a vegetarian, nobody wants to be a vegetarian, and being a vegetarian is so lame and stupid. I have a perfect answer for that. Did you ever know that the famous Steve Jobs was once a vegetarian and some people said that his vegetarian diet help battle cancer and live longer than others would. What about the genius Albert Einstien he too was a vegetarian and how can I forget our famous popular female singers, Beyonce Knowles and Ariana Grande. You see a vegetarian is not that uncommon as many people think. I know many people prefer the greater taste and varieties of the non veg options in almost every Restaurant . And also many people think it is the quickest and the easiest way to get food. Have any of you seen frequency of occurring Fast food restaurants like McDonalds, KFC, BurgerKing is ? Although there are these benefits from eating meat But is it really worth what little we are gaining from compared to how much we are losing?

I'm not saying that you have to immediately change into a vegetarian and have a super strict vegetarian diet, although that would be amazing and great for you. No, No, I'm saying that with the best of you efforts you should try reduce the amount of meat you eat bit by bit. Baby steps that's how we all learnt how to start walking. Maybe say no to that Hawaiian Pizza and go for a vegetarian Pasta. And it you want a have a goal set for yourself try with having at least one completely vegetarian meal once a week. And something to help you motivate yourself, remember all those cute little piglets and calfs your saving lives of. 

bibliography

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/why-go-veg-learn-about-becoming-a-vegetarian/

http://www.britishmeat.com/49.htm

http://www.eatingwell.com/nutrition_health/nutrition_news_information/why_a_vegetarian_diet_is_good_for_your_health_and_the_health_of_the_planet

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/apr/27/work-canteen-vegetarian-food

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/HRD-ministry-seeks-IITs-IIMs-views-on-veg-non-veg-canteens/articleshow/44976176.cms

http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/7-reasons-vegetarians-live-longer

http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/10-reasons-to-stop-eating-red-meat/3-youre-eating-pink-slime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDsSnpYZrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANUoAdXfA60

Having The Freedom To Choose The Sports Done in P.E.

I take the position that middle school students should be allowed to choose the sports we do in P.E. While kids get the required amount of physical exercise with the variety of sports given to us, middle school students are not enjoying P.E. classes because of the sports they don’t enjoy or are struggling in. The UWCSEA P.E. department should allow the freedom for middle school students to choose their own sports units in the P.E curriculum, because firstly, middle school students are starting to not enjoy P.E classes, and are pushing themselves to do things they don’t want to. Secondly, students’ self esteem is becoming lower because of how uncomfortable they feel when they’re doing the sports they’re not good at.

One critical reason middle school students should be allowed to choose their P.E curriculum is because students are starting to not enjoy P.E classes, and P.E classes are meant to be fun. Penelope Trunk, author of the article “Forced Gym Hates Exercise”, says: “Kids who don’t have any gym yearn for exercise during the day and they generally know what they like, team sports or individual sports, rigorous or methodical... Kids who are forced to do a certain type of exercise generally dislike exercise in the same way that kids who are forced to learn a certain way that’s not appropriate to them start to hate learning.” (Trunk, 2013). This is important to notice because that quote summarizes what I feel like in P.E. class. I don’t usually like the way we are being forced to learn the sports that we don’t take any sort of interest in, and I find myself become quite tense. I think the author’s intention was to tell P.E. coaches and parents that kids that have to follow the system of P.E. units get tired of doing forced sports. A study conducted by the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) interviewed 1,500 kids and found that over half (51 percent) of girls are “put off physical activity by their experiences of school sport and P.E. lessons.” (Alamy, 2012). This is significant because 51 percent is a lot of girls that don’t like sports just because of their experiences, which is saddening because kids should be able to enjoy sports without any obstacles in the way.

Another crucial reason middle school students should have the right to pick the sports they do in the P.E. curriculum is because kids’ self esteem is decreasing because of how unconfident kids are feeling when doing sports they’re not good at or not fond of. I have personal experience. I really find myself engaged in some sports that we do, such as basketball or badminton. They are really fun, interesting sports which I wouldn’t mind doing in P.E. classes. I feel I strive in these sports and really like them. However, I feel that P.E. units I have such as touch rugby and volleyball are really challenging for my abilities, and I dread P.E. and feel uncomfortable when attempting to do the sports. Furthermore, I know some people like my classmate Piper, that really like touch rugby and volleyball, and some people that despise basketball and badminton. This is important to notice because I feel this can relate to everyone, even outside of the P.E. subject. You can be really talented at humanities, but struggle in maths. It’s exactly the same for P.E. units. Also, Sarah Harris, contributor to the Mail Online, found a research at that was conducted at the University of Bedfordshire in the UK. They found that almost half of middle school teachers (42 per cent) say that their students don’t enjoy PE lessons, and that thirty-nine per cent of children across the UK have a negative attitude towards being physically active by the age of 16, according to a survey of 400 middle school teachers. This shows that many middle school students’ interest in P.E. is decreasing, because it says that by the age of 16, the children have lost their attention towards P.E. At this age, children are going through adolescence and while we’re going through this transition, we start to make many decisions that usually stick through to the end of adolescence. P.E. is a subject in school that shouldn’t be ignored, and is crucial to our health, but with people losing interest in it, it’s not gonna benefit their mental health (e.g. feeling better about your body) if children are not interested at such a young age.

I do agree that their is no need to change the system of the current P.E. units. In the survey I conducted within my mentor class, most if not all the respondents generally said they didn’t mind the P.E. sports we had in school, and 12.5% of the peers said no to changing the sports curriculum. The P.E. units we’ve been having have been quite successful throughout many years and there have been no complaints. Also, I do understand how painful organizing everyone into these sports would be, let alone organizing middle school students into different P.E. classes. But don’t we want all kids to be comfortable, confident and contented when they’re playing sports? Isn’t that what sports are meant to be doing? Offering this opportunity to select what sports we can do would help achieve this goal.

Middle school students should be able to have the rights to choose the sports they want to do. I take the position that while middle school students stay fairly fit with the P.E. units given to us, we are having to follow the system of sports that some kids aren’t eager to do. The UWCSEA P.E. department should provide the rights for middle school students to choose their own sports units in the curriculum.

I do understand that it’s gonna be very chaotic to organize the sports for 620 students. Also, most kids still like the P.E. units. However, there are kids still struggling out there. I’m proposing an idea which can help solve this issue. We can treat P.E. class as a health society; kids who are keen athletes can have the opportunity to sign up for hardcore sports, and other kids who are less eager to do tough sports can choose ones they want to do so they feel better about themselves.

Homework Balance

In a world where students are receiving increasing pressure to perform well academically, one of the biggest points of arguments that this pressure shows up is in homework. For many students, this drudgery seems like a torturous repetition of the already long school day. But even the students who hate homework most seem to acknowledge that there is some benefit to doing homework. In fact, for many students homework is a necessary reinforcement of concepts learnt at school through practice. But what is really going on? Is homework a great tool for students to continue learning even at home, or is it just an enormous time sink in the lives of already busy students? The evidence seems to say that schools should not give too much homework to students as this can cause stress, lack of personal time, and lessened interest in academics. Instead, schools should occasionally assign a small amount of balanced and relevant homework based on the individual student’s needs. This paper will argue in favour of a balanced and differentiated approach to homework, that hones in on the needs of individual students without overwhelming others with the unnecessary workload.

The first reason students should not receive too much homework is that it can cause stress. According to Youki Terada, a research trend tracker who holds a Master’s in Education and has studied educational research, one of the biggest drawbacks of homework is the fact that it can cause “...physical and emotional fatigue…” (Terada, 2015). He also mentions that homework “...can cut into sleep time…” and “...can increase pressure from parents to perform well…” The fact that we see homework causing fatigue and actually cutting into sleep time for students shows that there is a problem here. What is most important to see is that the homework that causes the most stress is rote memorisation homework - similar repeated exercises with only small amounts of changes. These repeated exercises tend to be, from my and other students’ experiences, very tedious and long tasks that are unhelpful to learning reinforcement. All this kind of homework does is cause stress without benefit. Instead, what should happen is a small but focused amount of homework - for example, according to Monica Fuglei, an adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, effective mathematics homework “...should have a small number of varied exercises.” (Fuglei, 2013). The small amount prevents any possibility of stress while the varied exercises are even more effective for students to reinforce understanding and make analytical connections between concepts.

The second reason students should not receive too much homework is that it takes away from personal time. According to Trevor Pilgrim, a retired Principal of The Lodge School (a secondary/high school in Barbados), homework often “...disturbs family life…” and “...keeps them [students] up late at night…” (Pilgrim, 2013). He also says that it is important for students to “...relax, play and pursue sports and hobbies…”. These are major issues with homework, and how much time students have to spend on them. According to Terada, the average High School Student spends almost seven hours a week doing homework. Doing the calculations (not including weekends, which under most normal circumstances should be free for all students) that means students spend 1.4 hours a day doing homework. After a long, seven hour school day and co-curricular activities or sports for most students, 1.4 hours can often be the 1.4 hours before bed. There isn’t even time for them to go talk with their family or relax! This can often contribute again to feelings of fatigue, tiredness and stress in students - according to Antranik, a personal health trainer, “Stress and the lack of time go hand in hand. When we feel we don’t have enough time, we often panic!” (Antranik, 2013). One of the contributors to this problem is the fact that many teachers, especially in Middle and High schools underestimate what they call a “twenty minute task”. After a school day, student’s minds are tired and this task can take up to thirty minutes. Multiply that by four and we get two hours of homework. This is way too much - some teachers may not completely understand the busy lives of students. However, this can be fixed - homework that is set with outside activities, extra time and the three other pieces of homework from in mind, combined with effective homework practices like varied exercises and relevant work can make homework less of a time sink and more of a helpful tool to foster student learning.

The third reason students should receive less homework is because it can decrease interest in academics. Already mentioned is the problem of most homework being tedious rote memorisation. No student enjoys these kinds of tasks and might end up viewing academical knowledge as mostly just memorised information of no relevance to their own lives. Akshat Jain, a student from UWCSEA has mentioned that with regards to rote math practice, he “...feels frustrated, annoyed and angry with this kind of homework. I think this kind of homework is quite useless for my personal learning.” And it isn’t just him. Many students cry out similar complaints, and the evidence backing up these complaints is definitely stable - many students forget things within a summer of learning them because they have no interest in committing these things to memory. While some skeptics will say that learning to do things that are unenjoyable is an inevitable part of life, this is only true up to a certain extent, and after that, it can, in fact, be a detriment to student learning. Academics on their own in school already seem irrelevant and detached - according to a survey conducted on LiveScience.com, two out of three High School students report that they are bored in class every day, and 75% reporting that they do not find the material they are learning interesting (Bryner, 2007) - and homework is definitely not helping to correct this image.

So what can be done to fix this? Eliminating homework is not an option. John Bishop, author of the book Goal Setting for Students mentioned many important benefits of homework in his article entitled Ten Benefits of Homework. The most prominent include how homework “...teaches students about time management...how to set priorities...how to problem solve...how to work independently…” (Bishop, n.d.). These are things that can’t be learned elsewhere but are important life skills that students must eventually understand one way or the other. By eliminating homework, we throw the baby out with the bathwater. What is important for homework is that we don’t set too much of it, and what we do set is “...engaging, relevant, and supports learning…” (Terada, 2015). The best way to do this lies in several answers. Fuglei lists these examples: the flipped classroom - “...where students engage the lecture material outside of the classroom and then classroom time is dedicated to what would have been homework under the traditional setup. Teachers are then free to allow students to work in groups or individually, visiting each group and testing their mastery along the way.”, spaced repetition - “Spaced repetition covers and revisits material over time in ways that traditional homework has not, revisiting material that has been covered in the recent and distant past to reinforce a student’s knowledge base.”, and retrieval practice - “Retrieval practice can lead to interesting assignments like the role-playing homework described in “How to Create Effective Homework,” in which students adopted a historical persona. Their drive to maintain their character extended into their motivation for completing homework.” The flipped classroom is the most effective way to do this but requires a lot of logistical changes to happen. On the other hand, spaced repetition is something that can be easily implemented into the current homework regiment. Retrieval practice is something that can be done both in and out of class - one example being that of our school, where in Humanities Class, we engage with history through role-playing, like acting out the various parts of the Feudal System, exploring the differences between the English Longbow and the French Crossbow during the Hundred Years’ War by having a simulated battle, and learning about the Age of Exploration by role-playing a selected explorer. These are examples which many students can attest to enjoying, myself included, but yet we learn so much from them. Critics will argue that much of the benefit of homework has been lost by changing its format, and while this may be true in some scenarios, such as standardised testing where rote learning is what is most necessary, for other types of learning like skill development, this type of homework is much more effective. When it comes to assigning effective homework, there is no excuse - teachers are spoilt for choices.

In conclusion, homework is a widely but incorrectly used tool. While there are many benefits and positives to be derived from it, right now, it is overused, as can be seen through its damaging effects on students - effects like stress, detraction of time and boredom. But homework is at the same time a tool with great potential for improving student learning - it has many benefits for rote learning and things which cannot be done in class, as well as providing teachers with a progress chart for viewing their students on. While others claim that the only solution to this problem is to eliminate homework, I contend that that is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that the true solution for most cases is to instead change the amount of homework quantitatively, and change how it is done qualitatively - so that there is less homework that is more relevant, personalised and interesting for students. This is something that must be done - homework can only be most effective when assigned in a differentiated and balanced manner and it is important for students to get their learning in the most effective manner, so this must be implemented in whatever way possible.

Bibliography

1. Bishop, John. "10 Benefits of Homework." HotChalk Lesson Plans Page. HotChalk Lesson Plans Page, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
2. Fuglei, Monica. "Ending the Homework Debate: Expert Advice on What Works." Concordia Portland Online. Concordia Online Education, 28 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2016
3. Pilgrim, Trevor. "Homework: Harmful or Helpful?" Eduflow. Eduflow, 03 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
4. Terada, Youki. "Research Trends: Why Homework Should Be Balanced."Edutopia. Edutopia, 31 July 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
5. Bryner, Jeanna. "Most Students Bored at School." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 28 Feb. 2007. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.
6. Antranik. "Time and Stress." Antranikorg. N.p., 20 Jan. 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.