Music - The thing that keeps me alive

Music is a great part of my life, I doubt it that I would survive without it. I cannot remember any period of my life when I have not sung in a choir, I compose some music myself and of course I would not go anywhere without my tuning fork! So what is it that has given me this great interest in music and singing?

First of all, I believe that my family has been a great source of inspiration. My mother and my grandmother have always been singing in a choir. When I was a kid, I sang in a children’s choir and when I grew older, I started to sing in the same choir as my mother and my grandmother. Of course I was the youngest member of the choir. I was only sixteen, and the other members were at least thirty-five and above. My grandmother was seventy-five by then. But the difference in age did not matter, since the music kept us all together. I also have an uncle who is a conductor, and I have always looked up to him. He has inspired me to write my own music, for example by giving me blank music sheets as a Christmas gift.

Secondly, I believe that musicians all over the world have been inspiring me. In fact, I think that every child is inspired by musicians. Almost every child wants to be a pop star in a period of life. The difference between me and other children of my generation, though, is that I never liked Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys or Aqua. I listened to folk music and Björn Afzelius. Of course I listened to other musicians as well; the important thing was that they had to have written the songs by themselves. And if they had not, their songs had to tell me something, instead of being mass produced, commercial songs that did not mean anything. I wanted to know that the singer actually meant what he or she was singing. I still want them to.

To sum up; my family has probably been playing the greatest part when it comes to inspire me to keep on singing. Thanks to them I always have the music at hand. If it had not been for my mother and my grandmother, I doubt it that I would have started singing in a choir. However, known artists have inspired me as well as anyone and I have them to thank for a lot.

You are never alone...

Since the terrorist attacks (known as 9/11) against the United States we cannot go abroad without being strictly checked-up. And as time has gone by, more and more surveillance cameras have been put up in almost every street corner. On top of that, every move we make on the Internet is can be checked as well. Is this what we really want, to be controlled everywhere we go? Is this kind of surveillance necessary to prevent crimes and other bad things from happening?

On an airport, you go through several security check-ups. You are being asked whether you have packed your bags yourself and if you have left it unattended at any time. These questions can seem quite annoying, since you know that you have not packed anything dangerous. However, these check-ups are there for a reason; to guarantee our security on the airplane. If something would happen, I would not be comfortable in knowing that it could have been prevented by a simple question or by an extra check-up. In this matter, I think that surveillance is a good thing and I would not want to live without it.

Likewise, we are being supervised on the street, often by hidden surveillance cameras. Some people think that this takes away their freedom, but what if something would happen to them? If my sister (or me, for that matter) would be raped, I would want the rapist to be caught in some way. If he had been caught on tape, that job would be a whole lot easier. What I am afraid of, though, is that these tapes could be used by someone with criminal intentions. I have nothing against being watched over, as long as these cameras are there in order to make my world more secure.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to discuss the fact that every site that we visit on the Internet can be checked. To be honest, I have nothing against that either, as long as I am not being checked just for the sake of checking. I want this technology to be used as a way of finding evidence against criminals, like people that visit child pornography sites.

My ideas above may indicate that surveillance is good as long as no one checks me up. The fact is, though, that I am for this kind of surveillance as long as it makes our society more secure. I have nothing at all against being checked-up on an airport, since I know that the reason is to guarantee mine and my co-travelers’ security. And when it comes to surveillance on the streets and check-ups on the Internet, I am for it as long as it is not being misused.

Let the children be happy, without the pressure that grades will put on them

The pressure on children is high nowadays. They often participate in many kinds of leisure time activities, they are expected to be social and friendly and younger and younger children start wearing make up and fasionable clothes. As if all this were not enough, the government now wants us teachers to grade them already in primary school. As far as I am concerned, grades are totally unnecessary in primary education.

First of all, grades are a factor which put pressure on young children. In the school where I am doing my school practice at the moment, the children get to know if they reach the aims or not. They can also get a mark called "reach the aims well". This is in fact, in my opinion, a sort of grading. The pupils want to know what they can do to reach the aims well, which gives them a lot of extra work to do. They have to work much harder than what is really necessary and they will always hear that if they want to reach the aims well, they have to do this or that. The pressure on these young kids grows day by day. This pressure comes from everyone; teachers, parents and also the pupils' friends, since children always have compared their results.

Secondly, a pupil that do not recieve the higher grades, starts to feel that he or she is stupid. If we start grading very young children, they will get a label at a very young age, and this label, no matter what it is, is very hard to get rid of. A pupil that is a "good" pupil will always try to keep up, while a not so "good" pupil is very likely to just give up. The "good" pupils will keep on working until they cannot take it anymore, and the less "good" pupils will stop working, since they feel that it does not lead anywhere.

However, many people do think that grades are good, since it gives the pupils and their parents a view on how well the pupils manage and keep up in school. I think that using grades on a piece of paper is just a way of avoiding to confront and to communicate with pupils and their parents. If we start (and keep) communicating on an earlier level, we will not need grades in primary school.

We all want happy children, but a child that feels a lot of pressure is not likely to feel happy. Nor is a child that has the label of being "stupid". By grading young children we will increase this pressure and we will label our pupils, willingly or not. Let the children be children and let them play, without worrying about grades!