(목요모임) [8 June, 2017]Thursday meeting topic

[주영이]

1. This school teaches Korean dads 'how to hug'

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-10-28/school-teaches-korean-dads-how-hug

 

Chang is a student at the Duranno Father School in Centreville, Virginia — home to a growing Korean community. The Father School is a four-day retreat of sorts, designed to transform stoic Korean dads into more loving and involved parents. The oldest student is in his 70s, the youngest is just 27, and almost all have something in common — their wives made them come. 

 “She basically signed up and said, this is the start date. Go ahead and go,” Chang confesses. “But I’m glad I did it. They had homework, you know, that I normally wouldn’t do. It gave me some insights."

We’re in a church fellowship hall, where a live band plays modern Christian hymns, and the men sing along, followed by lectures and activities, including a lesson literally on how to hug. One arm here, bring the other person close, and no patting on the back. Then there are small group discussions that resemble both group therapy and a locker room huddle.

A volunteer in his 40s talks to a younger man in his 20s. “Do you think your father loved you?” he asks. The younger man pauses, and the older one answers for him. “Yes he did.  He just didn’t know how to communicate it.”

The Duranno Father School was started by a church in Seoul in the 1990s, as a response to an epidemic of absentee fathers in South Korea. Korean men work some of the longest hours in the developed world, Confucian values praised them for not expressing their emotions, and for some, it was the norm to physically discipline their kids.

By the third day, a few students have already dropped out. But those who remain are surprisingly honest in their sharing. Most say they’ve been disappointed by their own fathers, one worries about his teenage son, and another confesses he doesn’t see much of his grown children. A few admit with chagrin that they’ve turned out to be a lot like their own dads.

And the school’s not just about being a better dad. The men are assigned homework, like writing letters to their wives, and sharing a list of 20 reasons why you love her. Give her the kind of the attention you did while you were dating, the instructor urges.

One of the men shares the heartfelt letter he’s written to his wife. Since coming to the US four years ago, he admits life has been harder than he expected. “Living in a small apartment with children, unable to speak the language or find work,” he says, “we grew tired, and said more hurtful words than we intended.”

As it turns out, parenting is hard, and the stresses of immigrant life only make it harder. So a version of the Duranno Father School launched in the US in the early 2000s. A Korean version meets the needs of more recent immigrants, while an English language school serves the next generation. Over the years, the school has expanded to more than 40 countries around the world, with more than 300,000 graduates.

In fact, the school is staffed entirely by graduates. The older men say they don’t want to see younger dads repeat their mistakes. They don aprons and serve up coffee, as they share their own stories during breaks. Frankly, they say it’s easy to revert to their old selves in a matter of months, but in coming back to volunteer, there’s a community that keeps them accountable, says alum Dave Lee. 

“Even though I fall back on it sometimes,” he says, “through this school, it made me closer to my family — my wife and my children. I’m able to reflect back on things I’ve done wrong, or could have been done differently."

Families are invited to join the fathers for their graduation ceremony. The men change into the school’s signature referee striped shirts, as a symbol of their transformation. At the close of the night, the men file in with towels over their shoulders. They kneel before their wives and wash their feet gently, just as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet in the Bible. Women lean forward in their chairs, dabbing their eyes with tissues.

I meet a woman in her 50s, as she links arms with her husband and waits in line for their graduation photos. She’s holding flowers and eager to talk about the changes she sees in her husband. “You know, Korean men, they enjoy drinking.” She says her husband has agreed to drink less, and she’s thrilled. “I’m so happy to hear about this. Yes very, very happy.”

Fathers put their arms around their children, and smile for the camera — their wives look relieved and hopeful. Meanwhile staff are already circulating, recruiting new graduates to join their ranks as Father School volunteers.

Questions:

1. How do you describe Korean fathers? Do you think your father is a typical Korean father? Why or why not?

2. What do you think about this school that teaches dads 'how to hug'? Are you willing to take this class if you are a father or a mother?

3. Do you often express your gratitude to your family? How do you express when you do?

4. Do you think that you’ve also turned out to be a lot like their own mom or dad? What characteristics do you want to learn from your parents?  

 Topic by 시에나

Light pollution

 Did you know that there's a type of pollution being released from every city around the world, every single night. But it's not what you'd expect. It's light pollution. And researchers say it's causing problems for some of the creatures that live near us.  Everyday, when the sun goes down, our world switches on. Every twinkle you can see here is a billboard, streetlamp, office building, stadium and a thousand other things, all lighting up the night.
Without man-made lights, we'd only have daytime to get things done and stuff like night-time sports practice or walking down the street after dark would be pretty tough. But all of that illumination comes with a side effect called light pollution.

About a quarter of the world's electricity is used for lighting, but a lot of that light isn't being used efficiently. For example, some streetlights spread their light around rather than pointing it in the direction it's needed, and some lights are kept on even when there's no one around.

That's wasting a lot of electricity which costs billions of dollars and helps to release millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the air. But it isn't just a waste of energy. Studies show the lack of real darkness can mess with us. You see your body has a kind of inbuilt clock that's supersensitive to light. It's how you know to wake up in the day time and sleep at night, but artificial light can confuse it. So if you've got your lamp on, or there's a bright light outside your window, you can end up staying up for longer or not getting enough rest. It doesn't just make you grumpy; experts say it's also putting people's health at risk.

And it's not just humans. A new study has found that lights on the coast and on ships out at sea are making some tiny sea species like these move away from, or move closer to, our glow.

Some bigger animals like sea turtles like to nest on dark beaches, but too many lights can stop them from settling. And their hatchlings need natural moonlight, not spotlights, to find their way out to sea.

Lights can also disturb frogs and butterflies and it can confuse migrating birds, making them lose their way. Because of this, some people around the globe have decided it’s time to switch off.

In New York, the Mayor is getting people to turn off outdoor lights which aren't needed to help migrating birds find their way and to save energy. Paris has done a similar thing, for a couple of years too. And on some coasts around the world, lights are banned during turtle nesting seasons.

It's a start, but experts say we could do a lot more to reduce light pollution by using light wisely. That means switching off lights when you're not around (especially outdoors), directing light where it's really needed and using dimmer, energy-saving light globes.
All that would have one more benefit too. The glare from light pollution blocks our view of the stars, which means there are millions of kids around the world who've never seen the night sky for what it really is. And as these pictures show, it could be a pretty spectacular sight.

http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4230574.htm

1. Do you know what is the light pollution?

2. How has light pollution affected you? What effect of light pollution can be the most damaging?

3. How has the world changed since you were a child? ( technology, values, environment, health)

4. Do you know about any anti-pollution programs in your community?

5. What should we do to increase the awareness about environmental pollution?

Are Teens Today More Narcissistic Than Previous Generations?

 Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: taking selfies and being told you’re “special” has spoiled your poor, young adult brain. There’s a lot of media shade being thrown at millennials — those born between the 1980s and early 2000s — saying things like today’s young people are entitled and hard to manage, that we’re obsessed with gadgets and appearances, and that our job skills aren’t up to par with our egos. And while it’s tempting to dismiss the accusations as generational jealousy, recent research seems to indicate there may be some truth to this kind of talk.

“Millennials are more narcissistic than boomers and gen Xers were at the same age,” said Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of several books on narcissism — a personality type characterized by selfishness, an overblown view of one’s own talents, and a craving for admiration.

Twenge told Youth Radio that according to her research, millennials tend to be “tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also disengaged, narcissistic, distrustful, and anxious.” In a study of college freshmen published in 2014, Twenge found that millennials were more likely to score themselves as “above average” and have positive self-views compared to previous generations. Millennials also scored higher on a test known as the Narcissism Personality Inventory, which measures factors like vanity, superiority, and self-sufficiency.

Assuming for now that teens today might be more narcissistic than they were in the past (which, by the way, not everyone does), some psychologists say narcissism can be a coping mechanism that actually benefits millennials.

“I think of narcissism as an adaptive thing that teenagers use to work on self-image and identity,” University of Notre Dame psychologist Daniel Lapsley told Youth Radio. Given the issues today’s teens have to deal with — fierce competition for college, a tough job market, and, thanks to the Internet, less privacy than any previous generation — he says that teens may need a slightly inflated sense of self in order to successfully overcome the challenges they’ll face.

“A certain sense of invulnerability is a good thing,” he said. “There’s going to be occasions in your life where you have to engage in behavior where it’s not certain. Asking someone for a date or applying to college. If it goes the wrong way your self-esteem is at risk.”

http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2015/06/19/narcissism-me-generation/

1.What is the difference between self-esteem and narcissism?

2. Do you think you are narcissistic? Why do you think so?

3. Do you think that females rather than males are more narcissistic or the other way around?

4. Do you think self-esteem affects beauty? or Do you think beauty affects self-esteem?

5. Do you often take your selfie? What do you think about selfie? 

Topic by 수잔나

[John Park]

Thanks 시에나 ,주영이 for the 1st topic

[Scarlet]

주영아! 주제 재선택하느라 수고 많았어 :)
앞으로도 쭈욱 잘 해줘 ㅋ :)