PRAY by Justin Bieber

My group has chosen the song “Pray” by Justin Bieber. This song is written by Justin Bieber with Adam Messenger, Nasri and Omar Martinez. It is also an inspiration from Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” song. In the music video of the song, there are victims of devastating earthquake in Haiti which happened 2010,Katrina hurricane of New Orleans, soldiers being reunited with their family members and those who are homeless also featured in this music video. It shows us the conditions of the victims and the pains they have to gone through in order to survive.

The lines from this song highlight the difficulties and sufferings of people around us. There are issues of poverty, how innocent lives are being affected, sacrifices made by soldiers fighting for their country, living behind their loved ones. In order to change all these, we must put our faith in God and pray. The purpose of Bieber singing this song is to instill hope on those who are giving up in life. We can see this from his visit to the hospitals, homes and soldier camps.

This song can be used in the classroom to create awareness among the students of how lucky they are. Most of us are not appreciating what we have. We often waste food, water and other necessities. We do not appreciate the love of our parents and we do not appreciate the beauty of nature around us. So, through this song, we can show the students how people are suffering, how happy they are when they get something that they really wish for. At the end of the music video, there is a quotation that relates all of us to the Almighty; “God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.” This phrase is very true as we should never let the faith towards God fade away and by praying, we are moving closer to God.

Similarities of the Leaders' speech

From the both leaders speech, I found out that both of them are very persuasive and confident. Confident in the sense of they do not have any fillers in the speech to show doubt in what they said. The use of “ummm”, “ahhhh” or long pause will let the audience to fell uncomfortable and doubt about the content. So both leaders didn’t have any filler at all in their speech. They are manipulative in the sense of they managed to make people believe and act as they want them to be. As stated in the speech of Winston Churchill, “I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall proves ourselves once again able to defend our Island home….” On the other hand, for Hitler, he says that “we are now standing on this continent and from where we stand nobody will be able to remove us again.”

Besides that, both leaders speech also condemned the other parties in order to make themselves more superior that the others. By doing so, they will be able to gain people’s trust and respect for them. For example, Hitler condemned about England saying that “England those colonies are useless. They cover 40,000,000 square metres. What do they do with them? Absolutely nothing.” Churchill condemned French who is falling out of the war.

Furthermore, both leaders also use the pronoun “I” I the beginning of their speech to gain people’s respect and attention. “I do not want to explain…” “I can only reply…” “I have said…” “I asked the House….” By using the pronoun “I” here in the speech, it shows us the leader’s power towards the people and to show the people how great they are. Towards the end of the speech, they switched the use of pronoun “I” into “WE”. In my opinion, this is because they have managed to get peoples’ attention and respect thus trying to make a good connection with the audience. “We are now standing….” “We are involved in war…” “We have found it necessary…” “We shall prove ourselves once again…”. It’s a good strategy for both leaders by getting the people’s attention first by showing the leader’s power and then making good rapport with the audience in order to unite them.

Animal Farm Animated Movie

The movie that I am going to review is an animated movie, which is based on the story, “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. This movie is about the animals in the Manor Farm which are being ill-treated by their master, tried to rebel and take over the farm. All of them are united in the first place in order to throw the human out but when things are settled, the pig; Napoleon took over the throne and become the tyrant itself. They have made 7 amendments when they overthrow the human. But, human’s nature seems to grow inside Napoleon. Greed, envy, pride and lust filled him up. He chased Snow Ball out; he rules the farm with iron fist and then violated every single amendment that has been set earlier. The human’s ugly nature has been well portrayed through the character of Napoleon, a pig.

Human’s nature is truly ugly but these characteristics are what make us human. So, we will have to learn to live with it and don’t let those ugly nature triumphs over the good nature within us. The example has been clearly set in the story, Napoleon, the tyrant who lets all the ugly nature took control of him finally being rejected and chased away by the other animals. Besides that, the story also shows us that the process of forming government is difficult but it’s much more difficult to keep it running. This is because of human’s nature of greed, corruptions, dishonesty and bribery are everywhere. Thus the nature of love, compensation, emphatic faded in the society. In the story, the animals have made amendments where all of them must follow and all of them are equal. But, the greediness and the nature of envy made Napoleon to violate every single law and order to make his kinds to be “more equal” than the others.

The lesson that I have learnt from this story will be trust. Trust here means trust ourselves in order to make thing straight and right. Trust ourselves to preserve and practice the good human nature. Trust ourselves in order to create a peaceful country where bribery and corruption will be zero percent and last but not least, trust ourselves to play a part in caring and saving the world.

Mona Lisa Smile

The whole movie is about an art professor; Katherine Watson begins her teaching career at the all-female Wellesley College. In 1953, a time when women's roles were rigidly defined, free-spirited, novice art history professor Katherine Watson begins teaching at the... Besides getting good grades in this college, the girls in this school also being prepared to be a full time housewife. But, Katherine has different view about the role of woman and she tried her best to encourage these women to strive for a more enlightened future, to be what they want to be. For me, the movie is kind of boring, because the movie is all about feminism. The main character, Professor Katherine, she is a strong woman where she believes in everything that she did and she do what she wants to do, ignoring others view or opinion. She tried her best to make her students think creatively and critically by teaching them something out the curriculum syllabus. This is because most of the students have memorized the text and she has to think the other ways to make sure that her students did learn something from her. Moreover, she encouraged her student to be what they want to be, follow their dreams and not just to be prepared to be a housewife.

I think that this movie did help me realize that teacher should be the one who encourage students not demotivated the students by giving them low marks and bad feedback or remarks. This is because, we teacher is seen as a role model and thus the students respect us. By giving them good feedback, praise or just a little tiny present, we will be able to boost the students’ self-confidence. Do remember we are preparing the students to learn and to cope with loads of problems that they are going to face in the future, not just getting straight A’s in examination. If I am gonna relates Professor Katherine to my school teacher, I think “Mr Lee” my Kemahiran Hidup teacher will suits the characteristics the best. This is because; he makes us learn how to do all the things in the curriculum, not just the theories. He talks to us, not giving orders. He discusses the problem that we faced in our studies with us, not ignoring us. He also let us enjoy the time we have to complete the project, guiding us, and giving us good grades on our project that we have done. His motto was, “Learning is a way to grow up”, so I think he did made his point as we did learn something from the subject itself, not just memorizing the theories and facts.

Lessons that I have learnt is taking responsibility. As the saying goes, remember “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” - Adams, Henry Brooks. So, the responsibility of a teacher is great and it is not an easy job to uphold it. So, for future teachers, do try our best to make our students a lively student not a memorizing machine.

Lean on Me

In my opinion, all movies have its own entertainment value and thus it depends on the viewer to decide whether it is entertaining or not. For me, the movie “Lean on Me” is the story that people will be able to predict the ending easily. Just like the bedtime story, ending will be perfect and the good will triumph the evil. Though the story line is nice, I still not fully understand the conversation as their slang is unique. Elements such as humor, patience, forgiveness, trust and yes, friendships are all good values implemented in this movie. I enjoy the part where the boy asking for Principal Clark forgiveness when he is being expelled from school and the way Principal Clark made him promise that he will be good.

Sincerely, watching this movie scares me a little. It makes me wonder, what if I being transferred to the school just like in the movie? Gosh, this will give me a terrible headache and how am I going to survive in that condition. So, just cross my finger and hoping that my future school will be a normal school with a tiny little bit of discipline problem so that I can enjoy my career.

In the movie, Principal Clark is the new principal in that school. His job is to create a new environment and make the school looks like a school. Besides making the school looks like a school, he also needs to make sure that the students will be able to pass the Basic Skill Test. So, he is quite bossy and tries to change the school in his own way. He makes sure the school safety by violating the fire code and thus receiving complaints from a parent. That’s quite an extreme move as he didn’t think about the consequences if there is a fire going on though his intention is clear, to protect the students from the bad guy outside of the school. Now, his bossy attitude made me relate my discipline teacher with him. My discipline teacher, who is a she, likes to order people around. For example, when you saw her in the corridor, make sure you have an excuse for every questions she is trying to bombarded you. If not, then, you will be ORDERED around, to get her books, to clean her table, to send her files and even take her bag to her seat or car. She is always the one with “rotan” in her hand to curb the discipline problem and so my school always stays out of gangster trouble.

Lessons that I have learnt from this movie will be trust and responsibility. As teacher, we should be responsible to our students. They are our client and thus teaching them, giving them the knowledge is out job. Just like Principal Clark, he has done his responsibilities – take care of the school environment, expelled the bad students, keep up the grades and become a father to all of the students. Besides that, trust is also important as “no man is an island”, we need friends to help us and support us. Just like in the story, Principal Clark has many teachers to work with him but he didn’t appreciate them and the vice principal wake him up to see the truth. This is what friends for; they make you awake and aware.

The Merry Maid and A Great Injustice

After reading through stories and discussing in the group, 5 of us decided to make our stand as “abortion is not the only way to deal with children born out of wedlock”. Now, if you, I mean the girl, accidentally win the “lottery”, do have a second thought about the baby as nowadays there are many ways to deal with that problem. Think about the issue on this track, it’s your mistake and the baby is the consequences that you have to face. Just like the KARMA. Killing it will be labeled as too cruel and unethical and for the rest of your life, you will be haunted by the guilt of killing your own flesh and blood.

In the story “A Great Injustice”, AhNya accidentally got pregnant and she is afraid of the future of her baby which will be laughed by the others as he has no father. She is trying hard to keep her secret but lastly, she told her parents about her condition. Her mother, AhSoh is an understanding woman. She believes that everyone made mistakes and needed to be given second chance. So, she offers to look after AhNya’s baby. This is the other way that you can deal with your “lottery” problem; seek out to your parents. I believe that most parents will not suggest abortion and will look after you. Why? Because you are still their children and the baby inside you, though is out of wedlock, still their grandchild.

If the parents don’t want to help out, here is the secondary choice. Just like Laskhmi in the story “The Merry Maid”, you can give up your child to adoption. “She wanted this child to have a proper home, a temporary refuge. On many occasions she had watched the Indian looking man drive his car into porch every evening as she cycled home from school. He was always cheerful and seemed like someone who wouldn’t reject a homeless child.” So, Laskhmi put her baby into others adoption as other people can give the baby better education and place to stay. Though it maybe hard for the mother to meet again with the baby, but deep down in her heart, she will know that the baby is safe and sound.

Moreover, nowadays, there are “bank bayi” where the baby will be put in a capsule and there is no registration needed for the name of the mother or father. By setting up these “bank bayi” government hope that the baby can be given a chance to survive. So, there are ways to keep the bay born out of wedlock and the abortion is cruel and unethical. Still, don’t have sex before marriage is the best way to cope with the issue or do some precaution.