Beauty contests for children

A few days ago I was recommended a very good movie called “Little Miss Sunshine”, a lovely story which presents a big problematic for children, girls specially. Briefly explained, the movie is about a little girl who watches on tv a beauty contest for little girls. She admires the contestants and decides that she wants to participate in the next contest. At first the family refuses since they are afraid that she might be ridicule in front of the other well prepared girls but then they decide to allow her to participate.

While watching the movie I got to interiorize in the world of these beauty contests for little girls and I looked up for some more information. I found such shocking photos

I came to know that these girls wear an incredible amount of make up, they dye their hair and some of them even undergo cosmetic surgeries. Most of these deplorable actions are carried out by their parents. These children are also deprived of school and they live their lives around the contests. As soon as one of it ends they start preparing everything for the next one.

In my opinion, beauty contests for children should not be held. What’s the good in it? They only teach children how to be more concerned about their appearances than about their qualities as human beings. Beauty contests encourage parents to live through their children’s lives, promote egocentrism and envy. I cannot think of anything good coming from them. Can you?

Temptation and the cellphones

You probably remember, as I do, those times where cellphones were not a regular object. We were glad to have at least a phone in ur homes but cellphones were probably a fancy object that only the fortunate people owned, something to dream about perhaps. I can recall the exact moment when my best friend came to my house holding her first cellphone. The device was quite big with a very small black and white screen. It was absolutely incredible that she owned a cellphone being only seventeen years old! She was the first one in our class to posses one but pretty soon we discovered how the personal phone had become a fashion.

Almost ten years later it is absolutely inconceivable to find someone without a cellphone. Everyone has at least one. Companies are creating even more advance phones every time, so advanced that it is no longer necessary to resort to a computer in order to use internet.

These apparatus are fully equipped with whenever you need. And if you have in the palm of your hand all the information you need I wonder… Should cellphones be allowed in a class? Well.. why not? But my concern is, should we allow students to make use of their cellphones while they are in an exam? Are they to be trusted having the temptation of looking for the information there are required in their phones?

I had the chance to witness a misuse of these devices, someone copying from the cellphone while I wracked my brain in order answer correctly. I felt so irritated I could not stop thinking about it for a while.

In any case, I believe the use of cellphones in the middle of an exam should be punished somehow. I have discover that copying from the phone is just another way of cheating, a simpler one.