Final Portfolio Project

“Life moves fast. As much as you can learn from your history, you have to move forward.”-Eddie Vedder. Eddie has a point we do learn from our past and we learn from our mistakes but it’s always good to move forward and learn more about yourself. In Mr.Block’s history class we learned more and more about the worlds past and even ourselves. You learn more about yourself when you learn more about your past. We had many units where we got to discover more about ourselves.

I learned that I have a knack for writing. I would express myself in our journal prompts and really go into detail how I felt about the topic of the day. One of our journal prompts  was about fighting for what you believe in and whether you would sacrifice yourself my answer “I mean I don’t really believe in anything enough to die for it... I guess I can say I would die to save my family or loved ones, because they mean the world to me.. But if a random person asked me to take a bullet for believing in the chupacabra I’d be like, you got the wrong one.”After writing that I development a new idea. As we went deeper into our units and learned more about history my opinion on a lot of things change. I felt one way on something but after doing more research and understanding more I would the complete opposite of what I did. Like the Keystone XL Pipeline at first I was up for the pipeline because it would make more jobs, but after our pipeline unit I learned that this pipeline would not only be relocating a lot of people whose homes are in the path, but it it leaks it could a lot of animals and ruin the environment. I wrote three monologues about the Pipeline teaching people about the dangers of the pipeline, here’s a sample of one of the monologues

“Dear Mr.President,

If you do read this, I want you to know that it’s time to make a decision. This pipeline that’s supposed to “help” America is actually tearing us apart. My dad was one of the many protestors who was thrown in jail the other day. He is facing a lot of time for standing up for what he believes in. This pipeline, if made will force a lot of people out their homes My dad was standing up for those people who don’t have a voice. Their voices wouldn’t be heard if it wasn’t for him. I’m just asking for your help, can you just let my dad go please? You knew what it’s like not having a dad around. All I want is mine. I hope you actually read this and help me.

Margaret Brownwood”

To read the full monologue and the other two click here

To read more writing by me click here

One of my favorite units that I really related to was our unit on female scientist and the empowerment of females all over the world. Where we discovered that women all over the world don’t have the same rights as men, and that we don’t have enough females in the science field who make a difference in people's lives. I wrote on one of our worksheet’s from The Cyberschoolbus site that “If women are empowered they’ll start going to school, and we can have more empowered females in the world” and if we have more empowered women maybe we can be seen more than just sex symbols.  I wrote more on that in my journal entry number 46 “Girls were born to be pretty and sometimes used as sex symbols while guys were born to be masculine and be the breadwinner for the family.... When really it doesn’t matter who does what..... well society doesn’t think that”

An important get to know yourself unit was Revolutions and Colonialism. In class we talked about the French and Haitian revolution, the Colonialism of the Aztecs in 1520’s, the Egyptian revolution of 201, The Industrial Revolution. During these units we would have mock trials were you get to play a certain character to defend yourself against the people who did you greasy. During the trials you do background information on the certain person you got and you put yourself in their shoes and it’s was interesting learning about past lives that affect you know.

“The vast universe is a wheel circle of life, birth, death and rebirth”  -quote from sacred text reading, and that’s how our history is people went through what they did so I could be on the path that I’m on now,which is going to school and getting my education to better myself. “Things can happen all at once and little changes can make a huge difference” my response to Science Revolution Worksheet. And I feel as those putting myself in their shoes, I grew a better appreciation for the people who did what they did, but at the same time I learned from their mistakes and how not to repeat history again good or bad.

Overall Mr.Block’s class was interesting.... His teaching was hands on wich made a real impression on me. It was a comfortable learning environment where we could debate anything for hours and still not get out point across, (which has happened many times). We got to express ourselves through journaling and iMovies and songs and at the end of the day we still learned about our past. It wasn’t your average history class with any average history teacher.