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Part 1:

The reading for this week has allowed you to look at a story from a different reality.  We saw the story of Hamlet from the viewpoint of two minor character's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. What they saw occurring in the tragedy of Hamlet was a bit different than the viewpoint that Shakespeare shared with us.  For this discussion, I would like you to look at the reality of varying social constructs from a different standpoint than what you are used to.

Choose a topic such as education, religion, or politics and take a bit of time to study another culture (Korea, China, Libya, Guatemala) on the web?  Compare how your chosen topic is observed in another culture compared to that of the United States.

Part 2:

Although I'm a bit confused by this discussion question, I'm going to take a stab at a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  The United States has a growing population of animal lovers and advocates, even though there are still way too many abusers around, whose horrible actions, in my opinion, should be punished by equal treatment.  In addition to these sick individuals, this country is still far behind the times in the way of updating and changing all animal control facilities to no-kill shelters.  I hear and see more and more people who are concerned about stray animals, making sure they are not taken and hurt, as well as those who love their own animals as family.  This is encouraging.  However, the statistics show grave distress in how these living beings are being treated, most times because of some uncaring, irresponsible human.  Fortunately, many are either opening private rescue facilities or helping out by volunteering to be foster families.  For these wonderful people, I am forever grateful!

I don't think anyone has a clue how many innocent animals are euthanized simply because they live or because people have been so irresponsible and uncaring.  Updated September of 2016, animal shelter statistics noted that there are approximately 5,000 animal shelters nationwide.  Also nationwide, 5 million companion animals are admitted into shelters every year.  The average number of these 5 million companion animals that are euthanized annually is 3.5 million!  Sixty percent of shelter dogs and seventy percent of shelter cats are put to sleep each year.  Ultimately, only 15% of dogs and 2% of cats are returned to their owners (Statistic Brain, 2016)!  My God, what kind of people are we?  These numbers have totally boggled my mind and hurt my heart.  If I was rich, I would take every single one in and keep them safe from all this undeserved horror!

As heart and gut-wrenching as this is, through my research, whereas we were far from being one of the best nations regarding animal treatment, I was totally blown away to discover that the people of the United States are neither the worst, with Russia, Greece, Egypt, Romania and many more countries being the most inhumane and callous where their practices and treatment of animals, particularly strays are concerned!  To begin on a positive note, Costa Rica was the first country to make headlines when it became the first No-Kill nation.  They did this by outlawing euthanasia as a method of animal population control, instead designing and relying on "low-cost spay and neuter programs to keep numbers of unwanted animals at manageable levels (Mazzio, 2014)." Bravo Costa Rica!  Even Germany is where the largest animal sanctuary (I love that word!), the Falkenberg Animal Home, resides and has been nicknamed the 'Animal Palace' (love this too!).  This facility is able to accommodate almost 2,000 large and small animals "from rodents to horses (Mazzio, 2014)".  They have an animal loving staff, a spacious and beautiful environment, allowing the animals to enjoy life while waiting for their 'forever homes'.  They welcome these animals to live out their lives in this "peaceful paradise", should no adoption come to be, because Germany is also a No-Kill nation who will only euthanize when medically necessary (Mazzio, 2014).  Australia in working toward being a No-Kill country, being a model for a program called Getting 2 Zero (G2Z) in the efforts to educate, promote, fight for legislative support and using proactive rehoming strategies to diminish incidents of euthanization.

As I draw in my breath, taking in all this good and horrible information, I'll end this discussion with a little information about Russia and their animal control 'programs'.  The practices have been called not only controversial but sinister!  The Ukraine, Greece, Egypt and Romania are others who treat animals in the same manner.  Because these nations do not have well-established and regulated animal care and control policies, "stray animals are eliminated by any means possible and barbaric methods, including beating, poisoning and hanging are oftentimes used, and are even encouraged, as effective ways to cull stray populations of cats and dogs (Mazzio, 2014)."  This is jaw-dropping and heart-breaking.  Now, at the end of this venture into exploring something via social constructs, which I hope I interpreted and completed correctly, I will close...and go love all my beautiful kitties who I adore with all my heart, and try to choke back tears of sadness and anguish...and hatred of all the monstrous human beings who think it's acceptable be so cruel to another living being.

References: Mazzio, J. (2014). How the U.S. compares to other countries in terms of caring for homeless animals. One Green Planet. Retrieved from https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-terms-of-caring-for-homeless-animals/.

Statistic Brain (2016). Animal shelter statistics.  Statistic Brain (via American Humane Society, Born Free U.S.A. & Pet Finder).  Retrieved from https://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-shelter-statistics/.

Part 3:

Great job on your post. The idea of the discussion is to understand that other people look at life or things that occur in life from a different perspective than you do.  This ties in with this week's reading because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern saw the story of Hamlet from a different view point.

Your example of how Russia has a very different perspective on stray or street animals than the United States was very good.  Take it one step further and think about their attitude.  Not only do they have varying policy and procedures but the reasons why they have different policy and procedure is the key here.  What is their attitude toward animals compared to that of humans?

Part 4:

Looking at education from a Jamaican perspective, there are many aspects that we can look into such financial, standardized testing, student teacher ratio and even the grading system.  In Jamaica, schools are graded differently according to levels.  They are even named differently as well.  Take elementary schools as named in America, they are actually considered Primary schools in Jamaica and these primary school ranges from grades one through to six, just as that of elementary schools in America.  High schools in Jamaica on the other hand, usually ranges from grades seven through to eleven while grades six to eight in America are considered to be middle school and nine to twelve is high school. 

At the end of each school grade in Jamaica, students are given a standardized test to determine which school they would move on to based on their final exam grade. For primary schools, students are tested based on lessons from the fourth grade to the sixth grade.  This exam is called GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) and based on the grade the student receive, they will be placed in a high school.  In America on the other hand, high school is determined based on the students home and location.  Students completing high school in Jamaica would have to complete the CXC exam (Carribean Examination Council) and based on the scores of these subjects, colleges and jobs will determine if they are accepted or not.  In America however, students complete the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and ACT (American College Test) and these scores would determine if a college takes the student or not. 

There are many other aspects of education that I have noticed like students to teachers ratio in a classroom, the financial support from the government to aid in building infrastructure and educational materials. America is known for one of the top countries financially to support their education system, so to compare such wealthy country educational to Jamaica which is on the poorer side ofbtge spectrum would be sort of an advantage.  With the viral videos circulating the web most recently, regarding the Trump Education Nominee no one knows what will really be the future standings for Americas education system in the upcoming year.