Humanities Final Portfolio 2013

“I was raised to fight.

Love.

Hurt.

Comfort.

I was raised in conflict.

I was raised within nirvana.”

Over the course of my time in Mr. Block’s class, I have stretched my learning across many different topics.  The Holocaust to the Arab Springs, my time spent C band and E band has been diverse as the school I attend.  Throughout my time in Mr. Block’s class, Mr. Block has made his main point of teaching, the Humanities aspect of all of the topics we have covered over the course of the year.  Within humanities, comes love and compassion and I have learned to put my heart into everything I do in Mr. Block’s class. To sum it up in a quick sentence, I have learned to create humane art, through words, my voice, and movement.

“I was raised a sinner.

Cursing.

Insensitive remarks,

Bruises from big cousins.

Nostrils flaring,

Loud, unruly.”

I first came into Mr. Block’s room, an opinionated 15 year old.  My favorite subject is History, specifically in Civil Rights, so when I found out that Mr. Block’s philosophy on teaching was humanities, I knew it was going to be a very interesting year.  We tackled trials and poetry units, museum proposals and videos.  We used many different outlets to observe, compare and contrast the morality of different historical events.  “I was still young enough to be unaware,

But old enough to question.”

“I have always had a complex vocabulary, according to my mother I was able to say 26 words by the time I was a year old.”  In english class this year, I learned not only how to communicate my ideas through paper, but also through dance, and public speech.  I am a very vocal person in class, to contradict that, I am also very afraid of public speaking.  You can only imagine my nerves when we had to speak in front of Market Street about our opinions on different subjects when we were creating OpEds.  I suppose my vocality in the classroom is not only for a participation grade but also an attempt to break the nervousness that takes over.  This class has taught me to break outside of my comfort zone.

I had to break outside of my comfort zone yet again when I was placed in a group that had to defend Hernando Cortez’ “exploration” of Mexico.  While morally, I was completely against what he did to current day Mexico, I knew I had a job to do, which was make him look as innocent as possible.  “Cortes sought to pacify, not provoke; to appease with gifts, not oppress with guns.” While my group still ended up the most “guilty”, I was proud of myself for pushing myself to try to make a man, who did the most terrible of things, look innocent.  

Throughout my year in Mr. Block’s class I learned how to push boundaries and I became a more compassionate person when it comes to historical events.  I pushed myself to be more open to different ideas, and learned to defend things that I was not morally in agreement with.  Mr. Block’s class has led me to be a better person. When I walked out of my first class of the year, “I was unaware I was leaving a piece of me behind.”