PSP | adnansportfolio

Concept Map

First Draft

Prompt #4

Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

Topic: Solving Racism and creating understanding through exposure to other people.

Sapporo, the biggest city situated on the northerly most Island in Japan. We are close to Russia, close to amazing food, and close to the world’s best mountains. The closet international school is also home for me here. I have lived in an amazingly unique dormitory housed right beside our small school of only 190 people ranging from kindergarden to 12th grade. How is life like for a three quarter Thai and one quarter Spanish boy who has come all the way from his comfortable life in Thailand to come and experience something completely new and exciting in Japan. There are perspectives here that you can get in no other place, here in Japan, foreigners are known as “gai-jin”, directly translated to alien or “you don’t belong here”. Most Japanese people are very kind and generous, but their society as a whole refuse to integrate outsiders and make it a part of theres, they hold their own unique values and identity. So when foreigners come here, it does not matter if previously they have viewed dark coloured people as criminals, or indian people who work at curry restaurants. Everybody converges and appreciated each other here. Take my school for example, we house more than 20 different nationalities, all in just 190 people. My dormitory of only 20 people has about 8. I see and interact with people of different cultures, religions, and races. But never have I ever judged them pre determinedly by any of these factors. In Thailand were I come from we have very secular views of certain races, and I grew up with those views. When I came here I was surprised to see so many coloured individuals we were not the thieves, impoverished, and curry restaurant workers my society stereotyped into me. I have the wonderful opportunity to interact with so many different people, the room to the left of has a Japanese-Canadian and a Australian. To the right a Ugandan-British-Japanese, in front of me a Bangladeshi-Canadian born and brought up in Japan. No one here can really say they really belong anywhere, or say “EMERICA!”, because they really do not have a country or culture to identify them, they are a mix of everything. They only thing these possess is a human sprit, ethics, and morals. Universal truths that are common to every religion, culture and ethnicity. Living here you realize how absurd racism and segregation is. When we have a conflict with an individual here, we do not blame it on their color or the stereotypes of their culture, we blame on the person, the individual, not the collective whole. This a skill that many people in the world need to understand and implement. Do you think police brutality would be such a huge problem if so many police officers had a predetermined view of black people, no. Do you think in places like Iraq and Syria there would be wars against two different religious sects, no. But millions of people die anyhow, for causes and reasons we cannot really justify with proper purpose, did the boy in Ferguson have to be shot, no. The solution to this problem is the light that has opened my eyes, exposure to different cultures and people from a young age, without the input from parents. Even if your parents are you care-givers, there originally secular bringing can obscure your views of people. A baby does not discriminate, so why should we. I wish I could share my exact experiences with everybody in the world, then a lot of our racism would go away. But I can only share the lessons I have learned from it, and the lessons state that it is up to us to let the newer generations grow up with each other, without assertions from us, let them learn the world for themselves. Independent learning, a philosophy extremely stressed at my school, and should be in the world.

FINAL DRAFT

Surprisingly racism is thought to be a universal truth, but here in the small but diverse melting pot I live in, people are not negatively stereotyped. In Thailand we have very secular views about race, we judge people immediately by their skin colour. Every black person is primitive and every Indian person owns a curry restaurant. Now the absence of racism in my school in Japan is a constrast. From my oberservations people here have incredibly mixed backgrounds. in my dorm, the room to the left of has a Japanese-Canadian and an Australian. To the right a Ugandan-British-Japanese, in front of me a Bangladeshi-Canadian who was born in Japan. No one here can really say they really belong anywhere, or say “EMERICA!”, because they really do not have a country or culture to completely identify themselves, they are a mix of everything. They only thing they possess is a human spirit and a universal set of ethics and morals. Racism and segregation cannot really function here, no matter what the reality is outside. People here are valued, respected, and awarded for their human characteristics and I am happy to be a part of a small community like this. I realize through this life experience that racism is a problem that can easily be reversed. I look and see how our little international school can forget racism, then I realize that exposure is the biggest keystone. Exposure builds perspective, perspective heaves toward understanding. We are exposed to an international community, we build perspectives by meeting new cultures and we learn to present our own cultures more clearly. Which leads to communication.

Did I just find the solution to racism, well yes, it sounds overally simple but we tend to overcomplicate our solutions. Racism is a problem that as become so complex that we are cravens to it. But it's roots are much more basic. A lack of communication, exposure and perspective all contribute to the flourishing of racism. Like any sport or academic subject, there are fundamentals, basic structural components that must be learnt to be an all round player or student. If your fundamentals are not sound then you can never reach a desired level of proficiency. We have to go to the fundamentals of racism and teach the newer generation how to better communicate, explore, and gain perspective. Racism, can be solved with very basic methods now it is just up to us to actually implement them. My school as a community communicates tries to understand each other and takes every individual no matter what color, religion, culture and judge their character rather than insignifanct features. A thinking like that is what prevents us from blaming a theft on the person with the darkest skin color. Racism can only be solved with the basics of human understanding of each other.

Concept Map

OWN PSP

Halloween 2015, my school organized a halloween fashion show for the primary kids and as student body president I had to walk the kids through the catwalk. There was this one little Russian girl in the front of the line, she was nervous to walk out there by herself to show case her custom. I looked down at her and offered to walk with her see quickly had this look of anguish her eyes, running away. I got the same reaction from more kids, I knew it wasn't because kids don't like me, I knew there were other reasons, so I stood back and MCed the event until someone was willing to take my hand. After the show was over, I saw that Russian girl again crying in the back of the stage, a teacher was calming her down. I walked by to get to the stairs, and I heard the teacher asking why she was crying, she cried “its because of black people like him!”. I walked away trying to ignore what I heard, I went back to class and distant memories kept poping back into my mind. Being stripped searched in Frankfurt airport for being a muslim 8 year old. Being told stop taking up jobs in Canada. Being interrogated by police often. Being called a n*ger, a muslim, terrorist, indian, black, brown, dirty immigrant, illiterate, unintelligent, and the funniest of them all, too white by my parents. Racism is not going to leave us and that is a fact I have lived with. People always find a way to distinct themselves for others, as I am doing my doing my uniqueness through my personal statement. It is ok to realize that we are all different and we do not agree with each other, but the involvement of hatred rather than understanding as been a battle for society as a whole. I myself do not know where I am from, I am born in Japan, I am ethnically Bangladeshi, I am a Canadian citizen, and I grew up all over the place. Now this too much to explain to elementary kids that refuse to hold my hand, that no it’s ok I have ties to a predominantly white country(Canada). And this method works for me quite well, especially in Japan, where I can automatically see a change people’s tone and behaviour when I tell them that I’m Canadian, I become equal to them, so I can get an occasional laugh because it baffles them so much that I’m Canadian and not white. These are perceptions that are conditioned into people, and the only way I have seen it undone is not through educating people but actually exposing them to people from different cultures. And showing them that people aren't very different in their basic selves. Being a part of an international school in a country were we are known as ‘gaijin’ meaning ‘alien’ or ‘you don't belong here’ in Japanese. Every foreigner here regardless of religion, race, and nationality share a common label. People band together no matter their differences in the face of a common suffering. They communicate and understand each other as a byproduct. This solution sounds very optimistic but racism is still a dilemma, and all these days at an international school were I felt human, a small little girls reminded me that as I leave this protective cocoon in my school. There is world out there that doesn’t know me and will judge based on my skin.

1st draft

2nd Draft

Halloween 2015, as student-body president I had to walk the elementary through our halloween fashion show catwalk. There was a little girl in the very front, she was nervous to walk on the catwalk. I looked at her and offered to walk with her. She had this look of anguish in her eyes and ran away. I got the same look of disgust from the other kids. I knew it was not because I was a big scary high schooler; it was something else. So I stood back and hosted the event. After the show was over, I saw that girl again, crying in the back while a teacher calmed her down. I walked by and heard the teacher asking her why she was crying, and she yelled, “it's because of black people like him!” I quickly walked away, trying to ignore what I heard, and I went back to class as distant memories kept popping back into my mind. Being stripped searched at a for being a muslim at 8. Being told “to stop taking up jobs” in Canada. Being interrogated by police everywhere I go. Being called a n*gger, a muslim, terrorist, Indian, black, brown, dirty immigrant, illiterate, unintelligent, and the funniest of them all, too white. Racism is a problem I want to solve. Or I at least want to die to see kids not looking at me in fear because of my color. But I know it is not going to leave us very soon; it is too ingrained into society and it is logical that people always find a way to distinguish themselves from others, as I am also doing by examining my uniqueness through my personal statement. It is acceptable to realize that we are all different and we do not agree with each other, but the involvement of hatred rather than understanding has been a battle for society as a whole. Every curriculum in the world offers history and literature as mandatory subjects, easily manipulated by governments, to fit their agenda. But no one cares to make science mandatory, a study that has helped us exponentially grow from the industrial revolution. For racism I turn to biology. A subject so beautiful because it diminishes our lives purpose to only sex and living. We are just a collection carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and trace elements, that would only cost about $160 to assimilate. We share the same mechanisms as protists, same analogous structures as whales, and same methods of genetic transcription as bacteria. There is nothing inherently divine about our race and colour in the macro scale. You learn to respect life when you learn biology and you realize every living thing can feel, muslims, blacks, lesbians or even koalas. This is the education I want to emphasize in schools. Not just proving that all humans are equal, but that all life forms deserve their pursuit of happiness upon this earth. Emphasizing biology in schools has a greater rippling effect into global issues. In our age we have greater dangers than what terrorists will do to us. We have an earth that is dying from our unsustainable affluent habits, but if the majority of people were educated in life sciences, we would not have large debates on the existence of climate change. But rather debates on how to live harmoniously with the earth, then amongst ourselves. Biological knowledge should because “the source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature . . .He resembles a child destitute of experience, full of idle notions . . .”(Broch d’Holdbach). Understanding the world around biologically will bring us closer together emotionally.

What I changed?

I completely cut out the entire bottom half portion from my previous draft. I shortened the beginning and went into the meat of the prompt as fast as I could but still preserving the storytelling aspect. I added a real proposed solution to racism this time. I still feel as the though the ending portion of my PSP needs more refinement, it’s hard to give a solution so confidently to such a complicated problem. I did quite transition into a completely different topic in the very end, how biology can combat racism which transitions into a better ecological environment. I feel biology has a solution can bring many good chances to our society should be including and I need to work on this further to not stray away from my original train of thought. The quote in the very end is powerful but my conclusion to it sucks.

Final Draft

Halloween 2015, as student-body president I had to host the elementary halloween fashion show. There was a little girl in the very front really nervous to walk out to the catwalk. So I offered a hand. She had this look of anguish in her eyes and ran away. I got the same look of disgust from the other kids too. I knew it was not because I was a big scary high schooler; it was something else. So I stood back and hosted the event. After the show was over, I saw that girl again, crying in the back while a teacher calmed her down. I walked by and heard the teacher asking her why she was crying, and she yelled, “it's because of black people like him!”. I immediately walked away. Life for me has been full ‘random’ checks at the airport, and occasional stops by the police. In Japan I'm called a gaijin, directly translated to alien or you do not belong her. Everywhere else I been a n*gger, terrorist, muslim, and immigrant. Racism has been my life’s dilemma, but I was surprised how society has ingrained itself into it. How can it reach little children? How can it ever leave us?

As I live around the world and study in different places, society begins to veer further into segregation. A good majority of students in these nations, including the U.S, are missing out on a very important lessons from a certain subject. But it is only offered as an elective in high schools across the world. It wasn't mandatory to take it. Right then I knew education had failed to change with the times when it failed to teach us biology. A subject that clearly proves to society that racial segregation is solely a human invention. In biology every human is equal, and they are equal by observable fact. We, black or white, share the same chemical pathways and every other fundamental function with other life forms on earth. Biology is indifferent to bacteria or humans, everyone of us has two purposes, to live and to reproduce. Biology humbles us, reminding us that we are not as superior as we think. We share the same genetic mechanisms, the same elemental building blocks, organs, apparatuses and the same form of energy currency with almost every single life form on this earth. From a protist, to an insect, to a sloth, life is life and biology instill that fact, there is nothing contradictory to it. The disease of racism is from a blindness to that truth. Minds are easily manipulated by corrupt thinking when they are unsure about their environment. “The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature . . .He resembles a child destitute of experience, full of idle notions”(Broch d’Holdbach). The earth is not barren. To abolish racism we must realize we are not the only ones living upon this earth. Only then we will realize that we are all just one species.

I want to die seeing society more collective and accepting of each other. I do not want my children growing up with the same fears as me. I don't want them to feel injustice and segreagation. No matter how simple my solution sounds, to such a complex and embedded issue. Society has always advanced when it indoctrinated science. Women were not equal to men until scientific minded philosophes from the French revolution laid down their fundamental arguments against it. Now all women in the western world enjoy equality. So now it is our newer generation’s turn to embody the teachings of the biotic world and pave the way for the equality for all men. Biology must be instilled into all of society to lay the groundwork to oust racism, and I will be one of those people that make it a reality.

Word Count: 631