The Learning Network: Student Reading Contest Winner | China, Norway and Orwell

Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesA customer in a Beijing cafe — not yet affected by new regulations requiring bars, restaurants, hotels and bookstores in China to install Web monitoring software — surfing the Web. The fourth winner of our contest wrote about privacy on the Internet.

This is it: our fourth and final winner in our monthlong New York Times Summer Reading Contest. This week, Shannon Doyne and Amanda Christy Brown helped me judge, and their help and insights were invaluable – it was hard to choose from among the more than 100 thoughtful entries on topics that included healthy food, math camp, e-books and the attacks in Norway.

Geri told us: “I have never read the New York Times before, but this summer my sister gave me homework. She told me that I had to read one New York Times article a day and write an essay on each article.” Her sister had a clear purpose: “She wanted me to learn more about the world and she wanted me to become a better thinker and a better writer.” Geri concluded, “I protested and I didn’t like that my sister gave me summer homework but I’m (secretly) glad that she did because I’m learning new things and am thinking about new things.”

We’re glad she did too, Geri. And we’re grateful to the teachers, librarians, parents and others who encouraged students to participate in our contest this summer.

And now, without further ado …

First, our three runners-up, in order of submission:

Gyu-Hyeun, of South Korea, a global citizen who shared concern for those affected by the famine in Somalia.PavlaJCS, who tried to process the killings in Norway.Calvin, who put his family’s experiences into the larger context of the real estate market.

The winner is MunawarR-BSGE2016, who caught our attention in previous weeks, writing about meteorologists and the case of Aisha Bibi. This week, he tied in a reference to a classic novel with a comment about Internet freedom in China:

Ever since reading 1984 by George Orwell I’ve grown paranoid of the possibility of a hellish future manipulated by a dictatorship eyeing our every move. The reason this article caught my eye was because of the eerie similarities between China’s new web-monitoring regulations and the totalitarianism described in my favorite book. It seems the more I see, hear and read of these government-related acts in the media the more my nightmare becomes reality.

China has already limited citizens’ Internet usage by banning services such as YouTube and Facebook- which teenagers like me absolutely cannot live without. By also monitoring who visits which websites, the idea of internet anonymity is null. When I’m on the Internet chatting or sharing, I have the advantage of no one knowing my name or location and not harming me. To have my privacy taken away from me — especially by the government — is disturbing, and halting my computer usage seems better than anyone becoming suspicious of me.

Although I disagree with them, I believe the true motivation for these regulations are the recent attacks in Norway and not a simple imposition of power. I would like to believe that if the Internet activity of mastermind Anders Behring Breivik had been monitored, the attacks in Oslo and Utoya wouldn’t have occurred. Breivik had clearly announced his beliefs and intentions on Internet forums and YouTube- if the authorities had been following him, seventy-six more people would still be living today. Despite being unconventional and controversial, such kind of surveillance in Norway could have saved lives.

In fiction and reality, it always seems that government is power-hungry and evil. However, I don’t think the Chinese government should be called evil in this situation; they’ve stated their intentions to catch business-stealing criminals and terrorists like Breivik through this software. However, bookstores and Internet cafes are already losing business as they shut down their Wi-Fi protesting the regulations, willing to lose a profit in favor of their customers’ freedom — a modern civil rights boycott. Although I agree with them, I feel that some form of surveillance should exist- one that tracks specific websites and people instead of monitoring innocents. Some countries already monitor suspicious Internet activity, but they need to step it up a bit. I don’t want totalitarianism in my society, but if a guy threatens to bomb a building in an Internet forum I think it should be taken seriously.

If you know anyone who thinks “kids today” know nothing and care less about news and the world, we hope you will show them the entries, especially the winning submissions, in our New York Times Summer Reading Contest.

Students: Thank you for the intelligent and moving entries you submitted. We’re glad you participated in our contest, and you can read the submissions of all four winners here.

Starting Aug. 8, we’ll bring our popular Student Opinion feature back from summer vacation, and we hope you will join the continuing conversation there.

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The Learning Network: Student Reading Contest Winner | On Counterfeit Merchandise

Andrea Morales/The New York TimesPages from a pamphlet seized by the police that a streetside counterfeiter in Chinatown had used to show potential customers what was available after just a phone call. The third winner of our Summer Reading Contest wrote about counterfeit merchandise. Go to related article ?

She’s been a runner-up the past two weeks, and now she’s our Week 3 contest winner. We’ll tell you more about her, and share her winning entry, in a minute.

But first, we want to acknowledge the 71 students who wrote in to participate in the third week of the contest. They were interested in a wide range of New York Times articles, on topics like tiny toads,?swimming with sharks, sidewalk advertising, playgrounds, the Internet and memory.

We received not one but two articulate entries from a writer named Calvin, both on the national debt, and a discussion about the Women’s World Cup from the obviously passionate Arsenije. The entries from these two writers nicely demonstrate the breadth of interest, and strong writing skills, exhibited by our student contest participants.

Our runners-up this week are all from the Baccalaureate School for Global Education in Astoria, Queens, whose rising eighth graders are participating as a summer assignment. They are:

Nicholas, who self-identifies as a “beta male.”Munawar R., who shared his admiration for meteorologists.Raiaan, who is concerned about the famine in Somalia.

And now, for this week’s winner.

Aglaia, 15, of Forest Hills, N.Y., who last week philosophized about noise and the previous week about Cy Twombly, evidently has wide-ranging interests. In her winning entry this week, she delved into the issues raised in an article about counterfeit merchandise:

A true New Yorker knows where to find the best restaurants, museums, shopping centers, and now, places to buy counterfeit purses. Selling counterfeits of designer purses is nothing new. It has become “an industry” spreading from downtown to Time Square. This article caught my attention because I’m familiar with the world of counterfeit purses. While I’ve never bought (nor sold) any bootlegged products, I know plenty of people who have been coaxed by low prices and adept salesmen and have bought counterfeit purses.

This article is extremely relatable. The description is true to reality and also a bit humorous, though it doesn’t take away from the gravity of the issue itself. A year ago, I went to Chinatown with my mom. We witnessed, firsthand, venders scurrying around slyly trying to sell their goods. I begged unsuccessfully for a counterfeit purse since my friends had designer handbags (real or fake; I didn’t care.)

Still, let’s face it; we’re not fooling anyone with our bootlegged products. Consumers know that their purchases are not genuine. Many just cannot afford a real one. Our psyche tricks us into thinking that we’ll fit in if we keep up with the latest trends. Thus, we need a look-a-like designer bag to stay in the loop.

The problem with counterfeiters is that they take business away from actual brands. However, our main concern shouldn’t be the “cat-and-mouse game” the author describes. I actually sympathize with the venders. They’re only the middlemen, doing the painfully arduous task of dodging the police and settling deals. Additionally, many venders are immigrants, legal and illegal, who speak little or broken English. For them, they just trying to make ends meet.

The origins of the problem stem from foreign manufacturers who knowingly undermining brand-name companies. Nevertheless, consumers share an equal amount of blame. I’ve learned in history class that our economy is controlled by the dynamics of supply and demand. In this case, demand creates its own supply. If people want fake purses, manufacturers will continue to produce and wholesalers will continue to import, enlarging the problem.

I propose three alternatives to harness demand for illegal counterfeits: 1) Crackdown on wholesalers who import illegal products. 2) Impose penalties on guilty consumers. 3) Educate our generation and teach them, like my mom has taught me, that we, as individuals, are worth much more than anything we own.

If that isn’t food for thought, we don’t know what is.

Entries have already begun pouring in for the fourth week of the contest. You have until Friday morning to enter. Ready, set, go!

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