I was a discussion leader in the conversation class, and my topic is “Child Abuse”. Child abuse is a big problem in the world. There are cases of child abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and other forms of maltreatment. The U.S Department of Health and Human, services report that for each year between 2000 and 2005, “female parents acting alone” were most likely to be perpetrators of child abuse. I agree with this report because single mothers have a lot of stress. Japanese child guidance centers throughout the country recognized and took action in a record 59,862cases of child abuse during 2011. Sometimes, I saw child abuse news, and the parents killed their children. I feel sad every time I saw it. Why do abusers abuse their children? I think they were abused by their parents, so they don’t know how to love the children. Therefore, children didn’t notice it, so their people around them must help their children. However, it is difficult that we judge a beginning of abuse, because each parent is different to educate their children. I will judge it if I saw many bruises on their body, or they show me S.O.S signs. I think we should take abuse education more and more. School is not only to study but also to learn society. Children lack social education, so when they grew up, they make big mistakes, such as abuse. I can’t understand abusers’ feeling because I don’t have children. However, we have to help children, and stop the abusers. The topic is difficult, so I think about it deeply.
The Southwest trip was absolutely amazing because I leaned the culture of the area a lot. I spent 7 days in the southwest and I impressed by people who live there and by their culture. These things were totally different from Japan and the people there preserved their traditions carefully. I talk to a lot of Americans and I saw wonderful nature during the trip. There are three absolutely wonderfu and amazing places that I enjoyed. First, I went to a lot of museums and all of them were very interesting. I especially liked The Museum of International Folk Art. The museum has more than 130,000 objects from more than 100 countries! My favorite object was a smiling skeleton doll. This object’s theme was Day of The Dead. When I saw it, I remembered COCO which is a Pixar movie. I also liked The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist and she painted a lot of flowers and nature. I think her paintings are brimming with kindness ...