Stereotyping

Recognize the word? Of course we do. Because most of us at most of the time do that. Believe me, we do! 

"Stereotyping is exaggerated generalizations associated with a categorizing system, they go beyond the facts at hand and make clams that usually have no valid basis. It is also something that most people find difficult to avoid from doing."

No matter how I want to reject this statement, its seems even clearer that we often being prejudice towards certain thing. Thus, I am strongly agree with the statement above. It is true that when we oversimplified or offer standardized image of a person just because of the common behaviour of other people.

Take obese people as one of the example. First thing that come across our mind would be the size of the body. And then we will start to generalized them with statements and questions in the head. This type of people must be very lazy to work out! How they used to eat? How much portion they have taken? And plenty more. We tend to categorized them into the size and standardized them based on the natural or habitual of an obese person.

Well, technically the truth is what is right but what is right is not nessecessarily the truth. We cant simply perceive what we see and believe what we view. 

But still, no matter how we realize this matter, we cant avoid ourselves from stereotyping. Its just..us!

"Prisoners to get varsity-level courses"

Based on the newspaper article, "Prisoners to get varsity-level courses" excerpt dated 3 March,2013 from New Strait Times, I strongly agree with the measures taken by the Prisons Department in changing the right of a prisoner in life.

People used to have this kind of stigma, the idea of saying that most of the prisoners are not qualified in getting any opportunity and chances in continuing their life after being released. We are building a gap between these prisoners and the normal life with us within it. And trust me, we are being judgemental towards these people.

All of the measures done by the authority to enhance the skills and educational level of the prisoners, aiming to increase their competency after serving their sentence is what I believed a good did for these people. Not many of us dare to foreseeing the benefits of hiring some ex-prisoners nowadays but then, is it fair for the prisoners to be punished like this for their whole life?

As a human, these people have their right to continue living in this world, same like the others, despite what they have done before. It is unfair to judge these prisoners based on the crime they had commit before. Maybe, they have returned to the right path while serving their sentence. Who knows? All this while, people could change and it is not impossible for a prisoners to move back to their old life if we keep perceiving their fault once ago. As stated in the article, "the ministry and department had succeeded in reducing the level of repeats(those returning after being released from jail..", clearly people, we do not want the record to be decrease in a short time.

The crime that they committed might be beyond their conscious and they might do not even want to do it on the first place and influenced by some reasons such as the life hardship . Imagine if we or one of our family members are in that kind of situation, do we want to be judge by others forever? I bet we dont. 

Well, through this measures, it will not only gives new hopes to the prisoners but also moral support for them to change their life. With this way, we can let them know that there are chances for them to change themselves as well as their future.

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho

Critical Literacy

Sometimes, I have tendency on listening to the others.Same goes to one of the killer subjects in the forth semester, which is Critical Literacy. Before entering the second year, i have already heard about this particular subject from the seniors. Some were good and most of them were not. 

To be truth, I was really insecure with that kind of information. I started to questioned my ability to take this subject. Whether or not, I could manage to apply critical thinking in most of the evaluation process. 

As I have already just started on this subject, I was expecting some ease on the learning process and I am expecting something different from this particular subject compared to the other. I hope that I will be able to be critical enough to critically analyzing some critical situation  that have been given to us. well, now its sound critical already.

Most importantly, I hope through Critical Literacy, I can learnt to view things in a different way. Perceive other people's view as well as mine can actually generate better skills of thinking and that, is what I strive for.