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Taylor Washington

Final Portfolio

11 quotes from my work

1.) A messages that "The world is just" cartoon may be trying to get across to its audience is that the world will never be able to agree on what justice for all really means- Journal # 40

2.) People who work for social justice see the world as incredibly sad - pathologies of power worksheet

3.) American live in a fantasy land and fall in love with un real things- Vine Deloris worksheet

4.)It made us seem like freaks and that we do a lot of unnecessary things that when in reality thats not what the american culture is really all about. They totally twisted up our culture so just for this reason its not acceptable to judge another culture.- Journal #3

5.) How can another child of Buddah be trusted with knowing the truth?- Sacred text analysis

6.) Go to combat with HIV/AIDS, malaria and other popular diseases , without the education no one would be able to have the knowledge on how to control or overcome the disease.- Different views of development

7.)The point is that foreign investments are not the key to solving poverty. it might just be making them sink even deeper into poverty.- "Globalization worksheet"

8.) All I do is try.. I try but can never succeed in what I do. Being a stay at home has not been as good as the rich people make it look. My husband can not do this all alone… He is constantly losing his jobs because of his pride.-  Keystone pipeline monologue

9.) The Congo exhibit it to show that colonialism comes from hatred of one culture to another culture and trying to enforce change- quarter four benchmark

10.)Good afternoon jurors we are all here today to to figure out who is the blame for “dehumanizing" workers and corrupting the environment of the workers.- Sweatshop Trial

11.) Though each party shares the blame we believe the consumers and poor party allege make up the largest  portion of the shared blame. the country ruling elite are responsible for encouraging global sweatshops which is an important part in the problem. Without the encouragement from them there would be nothing pushing to have people working in ridiculous conditions. The consumers also take on majority of the blame because more than most of them are aware of the conditions the poor workers are living in and the ridiculous wages they make (or a lack there of), but they decide to ignore what they are paying for. we the System are innocent. the system is completely run by the people and the people who are running us  could also put in the effort to change us if they feel the system is not good enough. there is us  there are many other systems  that need some changes but we can only change if the people change.-Sweatshop Trial

Final Portfolio

This year in World History, I learned about different countries throughout the world. If I was asked to give a theme about my history class this year, I would say the main idea was change. People all over the world have been fighting oppressors for their rights since the beginning of time. Earlier in the year during our revolution unit, we focused a lot on Ukraine. The people were trying to start a revolution to change the government. They read books and studied different revolution tactics. They took a lot of strategies from Egypt's revolution a few years earlier. The key thing they learned is that the point of a revolution is too see change, and in no circumstance should you leave before you see drastic improvements. I learned that strategies in revolutions evolve over time due to trial and error.

Majority  of the countries we learned about this year are not considered first world countries so I did not learn a lot about them previously. One thing a number of these countries had in common is that they started off wealthy. When I found this out, I spent the first three marking periods wondering how they went from these amazing dynasties to the state they are in today. When the fourth quarter began, I learned how this decline was possible. The explanation behind it is colonization. And another thing these countries had in common is how they were colonized. The countries acknowledged that the land was not theirs but everyones. Western civilizations had a different opinion on the land and felt that they should claim everything for the name of their lords. I find it fascinating that every group of natives accepted the explorers and welcomed them into their land. In some cases the natives even seemed to help and aid the explorers in taking over their land.

Alot of people have problems with the way society is today, but they seem to forget you don't have to sit back and wait for an epidemic, you can start one yourself. In the beginning of the year, we learned about the Keystone XL Pipeline. We talked about the pros and cons to extending the pipeline. Alot of people in the classroom had different ideas and views and opinions on what should be done. We didn’t realize it, but we ourselves can really get involved and make a difference in our communities. Petitions are a great way to create awareness about problems and issues in our communities. This may not be the biggest way to create a change, but it is a great start.

In September 2013, I entered my World History class I was assigned to and found that my teacher was Mr. Block. I wasn’t very excited to have history because I never really liked the class, or the the things that were taught in it. But, the first day of history, we actually were having a discussion and ended up using M&M’s. M&M’s? Oh, I could tell that it was going to be a fun year!

My favorite activity and project in history this year was the first trial. Actually, it was all of the trials. I loved those. I loved that I could put my opinion in the trial along with all the research that I did, depending on what I was assigned to. It was also hard for me because other peoples opinions weren’t always right in my eyes and I don’t agree with people easily.

In one of my first journals, I said, "Not to procrastinate and to get my work done when I first get it.." (Journal Entry #4). This made me think about all the struggles I had in History class this year. It was hard for me to adjust  to the “sophomore lifestyle” but I think I did an okay job. I did slack for some quarters, and in the end I tried to pull everything together and I think I need to work on that the most. Next year I really need to begin to procrastinate less, because it is a very crucial and important year.

Creativity happened in history class this year during the keystone pipeline monologue project in the beginning in the year. For that project, I used creativity in the way I wrote my monologues, the way I talked in my video and just the whole thing overall.

So I did have some bad expectations and things that I didn’t like, but it turned out okay. There were a bunch of assignments I loved and a bunch that i hated. The projects and the worksheets were a little intense since we did sometimes get them back to back, but it was fine. I think that from all of this, I have learned to just be more productive at an earlier time.

Links to my work:

http://scienceleadership.org/blog/Pipeline_Monologue_Project-25

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1_kp2JKv6YfH52AGvQKW93OifebhVutVrJsSOuPqYX_I/edit?usp=drive_web

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1rgruHQE41gP0n0B9AtYBwcuVCzHZwlDaPBBk2Eko1Ws/edit?usp=drive_web

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1cIG17epnv-g1niXB_lFjF8tHzkX0pxSM7VklYKosFiI/edit

World history is a very broad and expansive subject. Throughout the year we have not only studied things from the worlds past but subjects that are making history now. From sweatshops to Revolutions, even the Keystone XL pipeline. One conclusion that I have came to throughout the year is that beliefs can be used as a way to oppress many people and also that no opinion is wrong. Using collaboration this year has been full of unlikely discoveries pertaining to equality. One day at during this class we started off writing in our journals. The journals always make us think about issues that are usually ignored or not thought about as much in everyday. Mr. Block does not stop at us just writing our ideas in the journals but makes us share them with the class or our small table group. This gives us different ideas that we did not think about from other people. What you say someone else might of never heard so it brings another sense of learning into class. Also in the class when we could go around the class and have everyone share an idea or discussion question which leads into a new units.

In my journal that was required for the year I wrote multiple opinions on different topics that involved the current part of history we studied. “There should be no reason for them to apologize for something that they did not do or cause.”(Journal #19) This journal we were talking about how the people shouldn’t feel guilty for the things that happened in their history hundreds of years ago. An example is the British being sorry and apologizing to the native americans for Columbus coming to America and taking their land. There should be no reason for the British to apologize for the acts that their ancestor committed. Apologizing for someone else makes it less important, and less meaningful.

I found a lot of my journal entries had very interesting subjects when I went through it. “People are not concerned with what is just in the world.” (Journal #37) This quote is from a later journal entry that involves a cartoon of a fish cartoon (See cartoon here). The cartoon shows how the world looks from different social standings. I said people are not concerned mainly because the people that need justice are the ones that are barely heard or looked at. This gave me an idea of how the world actually works. The world is not full a piece but full of fake justice that is meant to make you forget about the real errors in the systems of the world. This relates back to the Sweatshops trial that my class did. The trial explained why sweatshops are a problem but people do not notice the actual effects of it. In trial, workers, system, multinational corporations, poor country elites and US consumers were tried (Notes from Trial). The point was to find out the true group responsible for sweatshops.

In the last quarter the class read a book about an Igbo tribe in Africa, called Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In a journal I wrote.  “I believe he wrote this book so people will not make assumptions about this culture. He wrote it to show the importance understanding something in depth rather than just guessing and/or assuming.” (Journal #45) This was important because it does bring out people assume about different cultures rather actually learning about them. This gave me some perspective on opening my mind to different poeple around the world rather than just ignoring them as just another part of the world.

One thing that we did that is really going to stick with me involve the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeling is a pipeline thattransports oil from tar sands in Canada throught the United States. This pipeline could result inthe loss of lives, jobs, many other things. We wrote muliple monologues about the pipeline that explain poples views. From calling to the people who will be most affected from the ones who did not even know about the pipeline. It shows that everyone should know about something that be such a drastic change in the country. “Talk’n bout jobs.. ya’ll ever thought about who’s jobs you’ll be taken, did ya? 7 million bucks, for what? Some frick’n oil and this country can’t even give people a damn job at a grocery store. If ya would just give them what they want, they’d shut their snouts and people like me get some damn rest. Ain’t nobody asking for some 1,179 mile metal tube through the damn country. Now let me go, cans aint gonna collect themselves.” (Keystone Pipeline Monologue)

Something we did in the beginning of the year an assignment involving Hijab life and story behind why women of Muslim culture wear them. This was really the starting point in seeing that world is not as it seems. No one should really judge a women who wears a hijab before they learn the the meaning of the hijab. The hijab is not because the women are oppressed by the men. No the hijab is used to show a different way of looking at the world. It is apart of a culture we do not fully understad and show learn mroe about.  “The authors perspective is that a woman's hijab a sign of morals. Hijab allows men to chase women due to their personalities and not their bodies. Also that they guard their modesty.” (Women and the Hijab)

In conclusion you can see there was a lot to be learned this year but I found it most interesting that everything we studied lead back to unequality and oppression. It gave me a new outlook on the world. That makes me feel grateful for everything I have and also will forever teach me not to just believe everything that I have heard. It taught me to research, and that ignorance is not bliss.

Symbiosis is “the living together of two dissimilar organisms in more or less intimate association”. This means that the two parts cannot live without each other. You can apply this idea to a huge amount of things. I would like for us to take a look at the term when it comes to understandings. You cannot have an understanding without other understandings, as every understanding is reliant on the understanding of something else. Take, for example, the slicing of an orange. You have a knife and an orange. To have the intention to slice the orange, you need to have an understanding of what a knife is used for, and the fact that the orange is soft enough to cut with said knife. We were asked to form this final portfolio around an understanding, and the understanding that I want to focus on is “Understandings have symbiotic relationships.”  So, let’s take a journey into the world of understandings.

In my World History class, we use this idea of understandings to see beyond the established, textbook facts. We synthesize this information into a more cohesive form. I want to take you through some examples of this intriguing structure. We will begin with something from the beginning of the year. In October, we conducted a trial that involved Cortes’s conquering of the Aztec nation. This started with research, as we had to establish a basic understanding of what happened, and who should be tried for what crimes. Once researching was initially finished, we had to adapt strategies for winning the trial. We had to use our prior knowledge and mix it with the knowledge we had of the trial participants speeches. From this, we formulated questions. Questions, such as “What justification do you give yourself for killing your own men, and people of your country?”. We used our understandings from each response and each group’s arguments to form questions as we went, creating a full, constricting understanding with which to pin our opponents. The full contents of our group’s look at the trial can be found here.

One of the more interesting projects I did this year for World History involved the creation of a play. We had to write a play, one that had grounding in the world, and involved world issues. For this project, I wanted to take a more personal approach and take a look at crime in Philadelphia, my home city. I did research, analyzed the crime in Philly, and used my knowledge of many events like these to write about my own, fictional version of one of these crimes and craft a story around the potential motivations behind it. In my play’s case, the reasons behind the crime can be summarized quite nicely by the main character and perpetrator of the crime’s, mother “Jeremy, I would rather die than let you get caught doin’ something illegal. I will pay for my chemo myself. And then, I’ll get better, I’ll go back to working in the office, and we can have a nice life again.” The full play is here.

Another project involved the analyzation of revolutions, finding a way to talk about and relate revolutions. The project itself asks for the fusing and synthesis of understandings. One of the major things I talked about in the project was the fact that revolutions can take many forms, which I found of import after trying to find a new way to angle my project, so as to promote a different way of understanding revolutions. So, I made the claim that flat design was a design revolution, so that I could show that things like design have revolutions too. You can find the video here.

Throughout the year, we have been using a journal to answer daily questions. These questions are used to assess our current understandings, and to wrack the minds of multiple people in the class to come up with greater understandings based on everyone’s individual thoughts. In one of my Journals, my very first one, I talk about how people are abused for the sake of labor. This is reciprocated, mixing more symbiotic understandings, towards the very end of the year, where we do another trial, this one about sweatshop labor and who is at fault. We began the year with a concept, and learned more about it later in the year. Another of my journals (found here) addresses how people’s understandings are influenced by more correct understandings.

History over the years has changed how society looks at religion. Society all the time has a bad effect in our community. Back in the days people were able to freely be who they were and act the way they wanted, over time terrible things happened such as colonialism and slavery this two can be related because they forced people to look like others in order to survived or to adapt to their ways of living, religion was also a big part of history and society  because back then it used to define who you were and what you could do.

World history has been an amazing experience. I have learned and acknowledge things that I don't think I wouldn't have normally thought about. This class has shined light on lots of changes, both positive and negative. I think Mr. Block has done an outstanding job on bringing the past back to life with his awesome units and lessons. Some of those lessons will be talked about today as I look back on things that developed me as a world history student. I remember me sitting in class in the beginning of the year thinking I would probably hate this class, going off past experiences with other history classes. This class was different. Mr. Block totally changed my perspective on how I viewed this course

Many of the units that were taught and focused on has came to a complete understanding about the way this class is summed up. One of the biggest things that popped up a lot throughout all the lessons we learned was that self identity was a very important credential here in this society and especially all around the world. We looked at units about social justice and and religion/culture. We saw how countries were being colonized and oppressed. We saw how many cultures were being europeanized and taken away their rights and cultural beliefs, just to “fit in”. The “American Dream” did not have any room for people of any skin tone that flawed their ideas at all. Even if that meant not being able to do basic human rights. African countries had the worst of many. Apartheid was a big part of history that we are still scared from to this day. Leaders like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi fought so that someday we could possibly become one and have all equality, but it`s not over yet.

One of the things that stood out to me this year that also reminded me of my understanding,was when we did a discussion on the girl that went back to Africa for a funeral and later went on to move permanently to the country. Here is a part that I truly liked:”She was a strong woman and I think she could have been just as strong living in Africa. She was on a mission and she had something she wanted to accomplish.” I thought that reminded me of when I was thinking about the time I was in Africa and I had to be strong. When I returned back from Africa I thought a lot about how things were so different from back home. I made pledge to myself that I wouldn`t allow people to live like that. That I would try my very hardest when I got older to help those who can't help themselves. I saw that their self identity mattered, because I would see if you were of lebanese descent they would treat you better. It was something about Americans that made life so much easier over their. They would literally ask you if they could kiss your feet, they would stare only because they are not used to such things that you might have. Social identity played a major role in that.

• Return to Nigeria

Another unit we did was from the 3rd quarter when we did the plays. It was my second time doing plays. I did one when I was in middle school and had it performed by fellow classmates. I thought that the topic I wrote about for my play could explain just how much world history has tied into having a self identity. The topic I wrote about was about a woman who cheated with married man because she had a problems with herself. Her boyfriend would beat her and would have drinking problems.I have a part of a scene that explains a lot of my general understanding, Mama Jones: “Yeah, you think so honey. You know why they also come to you, because you easy, ya little hoe. Aint nothing to you, but skin and bones. You aint no real women, You a little girl. They know you just a easy fix to get some with. You hardly know anything baby. And you need to keep more than just ya mouth closed before something come crawling out of there’s saying mama.. This is another crisis of identity when a troubled young girl sleeps around because she is unable to get into contact with herself. She looks for love in the wrong place and maybe ends up getting hurt. I think that many of people struggle to find themselves so they search in others to do so.

• My Play

The unit on revolution was one of my favorites because we did a project on country that we were assigned and had to show how they struggled for their rights and how they overthrew the higher authority. I did mine on Egypt. I learned lots of things that I would never had knew if it were not for this project. Identity was an issue with Egypt because if you were poor and did not have a lot of money it was equivalent to not having a voice or rights. Many of what I was reading when I first started was they were trying to shut up the people that were complaining that they had no rights, which was very unfair. Here is a quote from the story that I Thought stood out, “He was an unfair dictator. He was living a wonderful life while others were living in poverty and dying from simple resources like bread. He was overpowered by the people of egypt. This is an example that long endurance and hard work for justice will happen eventually.” This was the dictator of Egypt and the only reason he was there for that long was because he had a self identity that was higher than most of the people that were against him.

• Revolution Digital Story

I remember I was sitting in class one day and I was looked up the board and saw that the warm up was asking me a question about whether other cultures were allowed to judge other cultures. At first I thought that it was a question that was actually very smart, because  even though we do it, we never really acknowledge the fact that we do it. Even if we do acknowledge it, nobody says that it is wrong. The other resources that I have is the journal we wrote in everyday. I have wrote some meaningful things in there, but one of which I believe I truly should discuss. It was on journal number 3 where I talked about when would it be ok to ever criticize other cultures. I said it would never be ok due to the fact that as a cultural there will never ever be a right way to believe in what you believe in. I think that just ties into the self identity and make yourself fit into a theme that makes other cultures feel lower than some cultures that may be a little more popular such as christianity.

• My journal entries

Here is another journal entry that I recognized as a very important entry that I thought would be very good. In the journal entry it gave me 2 quotes and I said that i disagreed with the second one. The second was basically implying that religion was a drug and blinded people of what actually was going on. I thought that was wrong or disagreed because I thought that religion should be an escape for any bad drugs that try to come into your life on a daily basis. I said I think people should turn to religion if nothing else.

• My journal entries

All these resources made my time in world history thoughtful, fun and meaningful. I think that Mr. Block has altogether changed the way I look at history. Before coming to this class, history used to be a frag. I used to hate it. It made no sense as to why I had to learn about something that happened 200+ years ago, but this class made it so fun to learn about stuff like that. Now looking back at everything in my journal, I agree with some and disagree with some. I think that overtime as you learn more things and see different things you evolve and change. Change is not always bad, but then again change could be bad as we saw in history. Overall this year has been successful, because whenever you can take the knowledge you have received and place it on other things in your life, that class truly has changed your perspective and identity.

Development comes over time. Change never shows right away it is a process. “When trying to achieve change the process sometimes does matter and does not. When it comes to change I don’t think the process matters. However, when you are trying to become a doctor and you cheat the whole way through the process does matter because you can’t pursue in a career which you know nothing about” - Journal 52. Over the course of my sophomore year in history I have learned a lot, mostly about change and how it affects people.  We have gone through many units through the four quarters. We have talked about revolution, development, power, society, technology, religion and how all of that affects the people.

Dealing with the revolution I have learned a lot and it has opened my eyes about many things. During my working with revolutions the main thing that stuck out to me was the struggle for power. When revolutions take place there is a unbalance of power. The people who are suffering from the revolution are the native people of that land. A question that most people ask is “Are revolutions ever really over?”We watched some clips during class of the movie “The Square” during the Egyptian Revolution. Some people said “People are true power.” I made a video about revolutions and the power struggle here. You can see some quotes from the film that stood out to me and the quotes broken down here. Dealing with revolutions you will never see a positive outcome immediately. The changes expected from the revolution comes late. The first thing that comes after revolution is development. The people have shown that after revolutions you have to try to develop and make things structured around you so you can become structured.

Talking about religion and culture this year also helped me open my eyes. In culture you see the development the most over time. You can see what cultures actually stuck to what they believed in or if they wandered off or became “modernized.” Over the course of the year I wrote a journal about criticism dealing with cultures: “I don’t think it’s ever acceptable to judge someone else and how they live” - Journal #3. You can read the full journal here. Sometimes when revolutions took place there was a change in culture. When other countries would come over they would leave different effects on the people as in slang, beliefs, religion, dress, how you live and more.

Other than historical events, another thing that has changed and is still changing over time is development. Technology has developed in many different ways, positive and negative. Technology has affected historical events significantly. “Having some people be exposed to revolutions online are more difficult because instead of making a change people will just act like they care instead of really doing something”- Journal 32. In saying that there is more of a negative change because not a lot is being done. In Egypt an entire revolution started because of one post online so having technology also increased development.

In conclusion I really appreciated and learned a lot from working with Mr. Block in World History this year. I’ve learned a lot but what I will never forget is that development comes over time and change never shows right away it is a process. I can apply this to my everyday life.

Throughout the course of the year studying in World History, I’ve learned overall how important it is to stay together as a whole community, and not as separate countries. If we fail to contribute to a safe, respectful, cooperate community, then how will we ever have the power to stand up for ourselves? We’ve learned this broad statement over the course of the year by learning about sweatshops, bill of rights, revolution eras, and even colonialism. All of these small topics reflect on the idea that although the world is going through a rough stage of poverty, discrimination, segregation and more, we still need to represent our community by acting as a whole.

When we started the class in the first quarter, we learned that a method (not the best) to stand up for what you believe in is to simply protest in to stop something from happening. It also begins because there are many people out there who want to protest for the own rights, sometimes discrimination rights. In this monologue, I took the role of a boy trying to stop a construction worker from helping out with the recent Keystone XL Pipeline. It showed that people protest because they do not think that some things will turn out to be beneficial for the community.

In the second quarter, We were starting to learn about different cultures, if they are different or not, and what we could do to stop the discrimination. In a journal entry prompt given to us in the beginning of the year, we were asked if it is ever okay to criticize another culture. This relates back to the idea of teamwork and communities because it explains why it is never okay to make fun of somebody else just because of where they come from and what they believe in.

We’re halfway done the year now? Good lord! When we reached the third quarter, we had a big unit focusing on revolutions. We learned that people mostly protested in front of their own government because they heard of recent laws that did not satisfy them. However, instead of finding a way to safely inform the law that they have rights that should be heard, they led to violent protesting. In this digital story, I compared two very important revolutions on how they started and what effects they both made: The French Revolution and the Arab Spring Revolution.

In the final quarter, we worked on a playwriting unit. Basically, we spent several months writing our own plays and have been making stronger every day. Then we got into small groups and rehearsed our plays to perform in front of classmates. The pictures show our performances. What I took from this was that It is very important to listen to instruction so that when you perform the play, you can do your absolute best. I also personally learned that if you feel a little uncomfortable with what your lines say, you can just keep telling yourself that they’re just words on a piece of paper and nothing more. Here is my finalized play.

In all honestly I had the feeling that this year’s history class was going to be a bore like any other typical history class. I was proved wrong. On the first day, Mr. Block handed us m&m’s that represented each country’s supply worth. That caught my attention right away. It just wasn’t about what I was learning, but how I was being taught the new information. The most interesting thing that I learned in World History this year was exploring the different changes, cultures, religions, and revolutions in many countries and how it impacted them positively or negatively.

The first topic that really caught my attention was revolutions and their role is developing countries. In Journal #32, we were asked the question what is a revolution in our opinion. The definition that really stuck in my mind was “change against something that involves a large amount of people that all have the same biased decision.” Change was a big part about how revolutions came about, and superior countries taking over third world countries waw an issue. Many revolutions such as the French and Haitian Revolutions were concepts of change that the Haitians definitely didn’t agree with because it wasn’t benefiting them. On the other hand, good change happened in some countries especially involving the government system and how more structure was obtained.

Another topic that really sparked my attention to keep on learning was poverty in third world countries. Comparing education systems and development really made me focus on the weight that these countries had to constantly carry. On the worksheet, Pathologies of Power, we read excerpts of the book that discussed three different approaches (charity, development, social justice) that addressed these suffering countries. The quote that really stood out was “poverty today is a result of a contradictory development; the rich become richer and the poor become poorer." Development really only benefited the rich because they received more money out of it. It’s not like these poor people in these poor countries could afford to live in these developments. There was no point. Today, there are still many third world countries that are still undergoing hardships from these problems.

Diverse religions was another intriguing concept that really taught me how even religion was sometimes an issue. In Journal #18, we discussed the different ways that religion can be a positive or negative force in people’s lives. I stated that many people seek religion to find a new way of viewing life or or forgiveness. Although many religions may give off and interpretations on people. For example, Muslim people who wear turbans or hijabs may be looked upon as terrorist because of people like them have made a bad reputation for them. But is just all stereotypes. Also, limitations have been known to affect the people that believe in the religion because they are forced to believe in something that they honestly know is unjust. This is another example that ties into how revolutions were caused.

Nonviolence and colonization wrapped up the end of our year. In the worksheet, My Faith in Nonviolence,  we were became familiar with the strategic steps in which a lot of people must follow in order to attain a mental state of nonviolence.  In addition, we read “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, and studied quotes from his interview. He expressed the struggle of colonization and how it really separates cultures from one another.

This year has been a very productive year in my World History class. Everything I learned was very mind capturing and wasn’t in anyway boring. I had an amazing year, and hope that I can use the knowledge that I learned in my future!

No Opinion is a bad one, they are only great if they are thought through. My portfolio is full of my thoughtful opinions that can raise questions, and arise debates.

“I think that it's only acceptable to criticize a culture when the culture is really cruel to the people, and everyone knows. But other then that, it's just judging people for how they want to live.” Journal #3. Though my writing skills were much poorer in the beginning of the year then now. I was explaining how it isn’t right to judge the way one lives, unless it is negatively affecting you, or is clearly is wrong. Something that I feel is not acceptable is judging muslim women because they wear the hijab and cover. Thats not effecting anyone. It’s their choice of living. Something that I consider an appropriate time to judge is the holocaust. What Hitler was doing was immoral, and it didn’t affect people negatively.

“Religion is a practice of belief in a higher power. Learning, and worshiping or something even accepting that there is a higher power.” Journal #10. Not in the sense of saying that no religion is bad, but in my belief, if you don’t believe in a higher power, you don’t practice a religion. Not even saying that you have to “practice” your religion, but the simple act of believing is “practicing”.

“A revolution is a significant change in a place that the change has never been done. Not a random change, usually a system change.” Journal #29. I picked this definition because I think there are many things a revolution can be. There is not only revolutions in fighting against different countries like  the U.S. revolution against Britain. There could be technology revolutions such as the first computer, the cell phone.

Good research makes a good story. But also a good story can’t be made without explanations to facts. Our last benchmark was to make an exhibit on colonialism. This was my 1st artifact,”This is a painting of the taino indians. As you can see, they don’t wear many clothes. This is their native style of clothes. To other countries , such as spain this might make them look undeveloped. Making “helping” them seem like an okay thing. Though the way they dressed, their style of life was important to them.” Colonization in Puerto Rico. I thought this was a significant artifact because it shows how the Taino indians could easily be used by the spanish, they were taken off guard but people with god like clothing, while they only wore small skirts, just like in Africa. It makes it easier for the spanish to take over Puerto Rico too, they seemed to have such little judging them by their appearance. It was obvious to “help” them.

This is my 6th artifact,”This artifact shows how puerto rico is a “territory” of the U.S.

Though they celebrate puerto rican holidays, they also have to celebrate U.S. Holidays. The visitors can pick which holidays they think are american or puerto rican. And descriptions of each holiday. The people of puerto rico have to act as if they are american, though they aren't considered americans.” Colonization in Puerto Rico. I would say this was my most important artifact in my whole exhibit. This really shows how puerto rico is still colonized. They have to have our holidays , that are irrelevant to them, on their calendar. But they aren't americans. Having a territory is colonization.

All these things I am putting in this portfolio are the things that I am truly most proud of, though, what I think  I am most proud of is all the work I have done this year In world history. Though I had spinal surgery, I was successful in turning in my work and getting what I need to get done. I am truly proud of myself.

Truly, this year has been... Interesting, to say the least.

Throughout the educational mixture of facts and emotions and a variety of activities, us students have been brought directly into the emotions and situations of the events we have looked at. We have fought intense trials and argued over petty details just to win. We have taken up the mantles of revolutionaries. We have written our own fictional “look into history” in the form of a play. We have truly thrown ourselves into history.

Throughout the year, we have looked upon many different perspectives of the world. One interesting implementation of this was our pipeline monologue project. Click here to see it. "Right now we have a golden opportunity. The door out of this place is standing right there, but you keep trying to barricade it.... Things aren’t always black and white like they are for you and so many others. There are so many other colors and shades. And this one isn’t all bad." (Pipeline Monologues)

We look at the past, we look at those that have had important roles to play, we know where they fit in. But who are we as people? Where do we fit in? A resounding theme this year has been social justice for the oppressed, but what about justice for the ones who don’t know who they are, who have been hurt beyond belief, who still carry their own scars with them for so many years. When we focus on the big picture, we can accomplish great things, but what about the individual behind the statistic? What about one man?...

As part of our Play project, I wrote about what it was like for one man and his friends during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, against Nazi occupation. Click here to see my play project. I looked at more than just the suffering of a people, I looked at the suffering of one man, and how that suffering is connected to the fight for the city, and for the nation.

“Klaus Adler: You’re a fool. If you die, your cause dies...

Jan: And so do you." (Play Project)

“Jan:

You monster. Hell hath no fury like that of a Pole.

(*Starts kicking Klaus*)

This is for my wife! This is for my friends! This is for Warsaw!

And this is for Poland!!! Give Lucifer my regards!

(*Shoots Klaus in head, blows smoke off barrel*)

Well, that’s over. “ (Play Project)

"Stop. What have we seen here? Utter desperation. But this isn’t the end of the story, though you may think it is." (Play Project)

We have focused on such diverse issues from the Keystone XL pipeline, to the role of religion in society. Several more links and quotes from my work are included below: I personally analyzed the relation between religion and war. Click here to see my wiki page about it.

As I write this I think back to my own past experiences. I think back to those days when me and my father sat on our couch and talked about those out of the box topics. Those discussions where we would talk about the first man being discovered in Africa, the Pyramids of the great Egyptians, and the thought of life elsewhere in the galaxy. I think to how these conversations affect how I think articulately.

General Idea:

I have found that process is a key factor in presence and appearance. These are subjects that are extremely important when expressing goals. How you achieve the goal is most important, especially when dealing with the things that follow that goal.

During various class discussions that led into my own explorations the key factors of reaching a goal became apparent. The way that Gandhi led his people from freedom. The wars of today going on in places like yemen. Reading the list of 198 ways of nonviolent action. The best way to fight a war is not through death or harm or hate. The best way to win a war is through logic and setting an example for what is right. To set empathy in the hearts of your enemies.

The best way to win an argument is through logic, while the best way to ace a test is through studying. This is because the way you achieve these things, the presence and appearance, don’t create further conflict. Rather they leave you with the knowledge and experience to be able to perform those tasks again expertly. While a method such as acing a test through cheating will not allow you to pass the test again without cheating. People will think you were good at those subjects and ask you to help them, but you would not  know how.

Quotes:

“Somebody had to work for that discount you got. Another message is that so many other people had to work for you to get you your clothes that you thought were so cheap and worth buying. There are so many ties with these big corporations that oil could affect the cost of clothing.”

Journal 1. Question 1.

“Process and preparation is most important when achieving the means. The knowledge you attain from getting there the first time may be the knowledge needed to get there again. The ripples you have imbedded while achieving that action will come back around. The bonds you have made will remain. The damage you dealt will still be damage. However, you can always try, try again.”

Journal 52. Question 1.

"Layout and appearance. What is on the outside is really important when swaying one's thoughts and looking for approval"

Scientific Revolution. Commentary.

"This section of the reading digs deep into the experience of experience. It says that Myth helps not only theoretically explain experiences, but to give them a deeper meaning. This deeper meaning makes experiences more worth while and last longer."

Power of Myth. Analysis/ Closer Reading.

"What you do and what you would prefer to do affect your livelihood. If what you do is different than what you would prefer to do, than your livelihood shall decrease.

Sacred Text Analysis. Commentary.

“People used the message of hippity-hop to get their message across. The message of inequality trying to tear down the Ukraine people was presented. It became powerful when put onto youtube.”

Revolutional Digital Story Benchmark. Fun In Revolutions.

“It still all boils down to a good organized plan and luck for everything to happen in it’s favor. So the best strategy to have is to not disclose your weaknesses, or identity to your oppressor and to construct a plan involving a community.”

Class General Discussion. In your opinion, what are the best strategies for revolutionary change?

Multis: “Only pleasing the consumers”;”Maximizing opportunities” System: “The only system without government intervention” Consumers: “Not responsible for what they buy” Workers: “Forced into labor”

Sweatshop Trials. Trial notes.

King:‘Was doing his job’-”Does doing your job consist of ignoring a mans attack on slaughtering some 240,000 people?”;’He didn’t know’-”How could you not know what was going on when you sent a letter carrier to cortez in a failed attempt to cancer YOUR previous orders?”

Cortez Trials. Trial notes.

“Between the Phoenician Colonies and the greek colonies, the main difference was the reason for colonization. Phoenicians mainly colonised to increase their access to trade, and to build trade routes. While the Greeks partly colonised just for power that came with spreading the control of their empire.”

Colonial Exhibit Proposal. Fun Fact.

Analysis:

These quotes explain the course of events that lead to this thesis. If you read the quotes carefully and in order, the sequential data would show the growth in my processes. It would show how I’ve grown as a writer, as an intellectual, as an individual. It would show that process is a key factor to presence and appearance.

Other work:

Colonial Exhibit Proposal

Revolutional Digital Story  Proposal

Narrative Document

Journal 25 and Journal 37 Document

Change is a necessary part of life but is also very difficult to obtain.

"The people have unexpected powers. We never know how much we can do as a whole." (Journal #35)

Global Inequality. Humans and the Environment. Religion. Exploration. The Renaissance. Human Rights. Revolutions. Colonialism. When thinking about a world history class in any normal school, I wouldn’t think of most these topics. As a student at Science Leadership Academy, I guess I was wrong thinking this school would be like every other one. To be honest, I’m glad these were our topics of study. If I continued to learn the same historically popular facts about wars and countries and Columbus, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the class.

A large handful of what we learned this year is how world history, in all of its forms, has impacted education. "The lack of education is like an infection that can spread and it has a cure, but many people can't afford it," (Global Education). We began the school year by looking at some local and worldwide education faults. Being a world history class, this was very unexpected. I wanted to and thought we'd learn about ancient civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans or the Mayans and Incas the first week of school. We watched a film called Time for School (watch part one here, and part two here). This documentary followed around seven children from all around the world. These children were struggling to achieve their basic education rights. I was really interested in this documentary and watched as much as I could of it. It was interesting following around different children from different cultures to see how similar or different we are. "It's hard to obtain education rights in some places, making the lack of education a constant issue. Government and groups halt the rising of education by saying that certain people/groups aren't allowed," (Global Education). An interesting website that we used in the first quarter is The Places We Live. This is an interesting, interactive website that takes you on a journey to different places of the world to see how the living conditions are. This was another aspect of the class that I loved.

Skipping ahead in the year, we worked on studying revolutions. "Anything beneficial and positive are the most important things to revolutions. You want to do positive acts, so there's nothing people can use against you. The 'least' important things are not necessarily not important, just not beneficial," (Journal #36). In this unit, we were challenged to study a revolution and ask questions about it. We looked into the French Revolution and discussed the current revolution in Ukraine. We also learned about the Arab Springs revolutions. We watch the documentary, The Square, which is about the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square. I chose to go in depth with the Ukrainian Revolution, known as EuroMaiden. I found a primary source, a girl who lives in Ukraine and participated in the revolution, and having first-hand accounts of what’s happening in a foreign country is really exciting. I based my revolution guidebook around the relationship that social media and revolutions have. Since I found my primary source through social media, I thought it was fitting to do my project about social media. You can see my project from this unit here.

Overall, this year, I enjoyed what we worked on and I enjoyed the class.

My History Portfolio:

I remember vividly the first day of the trail, anxiety coursing through my veins. I knew this project was going to be something else the day we learned about it. It was going to magical. This whole class has taught me to march to the beat of my own drum, and take control of my own education. I have experimented with many different projects, each of which had descriptions pliable enough to craft something unique. Every single project was more original and innovative than the last and made me think of ideas in history in expanses of new ways.

Social change is the result of creative minds putting their best work together, rallying the people and just giving it your all. A job worth doing is one worth doing right so you might as well give your 100% every time. The ideas of social change I learned in this class have rocked me to my core, shedding new light on historical instances I had prior knowledge on. The vast amount of freedom allowed in each project really let me run wild with my creativity. Each worksheet and assignment on a topic wove masterfully constructed questions together with insightful commentary on the source material allowing me to really get imaginative with each response. We could always count on Mr. Block to provide the necessary information during pause breaks in movies. They were useful and unobtrusive and really helped me understand some of the trickier topics.

In order to understand myself I had to do some deep soul searching. At first, I was unsure about this class, the assignments were vexing on a deep moral level and the near laissez faire setup of the class intimidated me. But by the time we were setting up our play outlines I was raring to go and giddy as ever. The plays really opened my eyes to how social inequality ticks and what the driving forces are. Mr. Block let us go wild with this project and I think it really affected how the plays turned out. The limitations were unobtrusive helping each play find its own footing and really become something else. “I don’t know why I was so excited by this. It didn’t mean anything for sure yet. What was I thinking” This is a quote from play.

I wish had spent less time on drawing in my notebook, I wasted all that paper doodling instead of letting my ideas on the state of the world flow out onto the pages. It is my biggest regret. And, now, at the close of this long spectacular year, I can see what a huge mistake I’ve made. My drawings were mere distractions, roadblocks on my journey to becoming a socially-conscious adult. I should have soaked in every bit of sacred information that was provided for me in this class instead of letting it slip away, dripping through my open hands. This class makes me love history and I walk away a better man because of it.  

Links to my work:

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/presentation/d/1PC_eav8ZiLmgQcanaklmUbEqcWa3i4A5_eQS6QREdjA/edit?usp=drive_web

https://drive.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/#folders/0BzLvODXVI4hdQlJYSEZiVmdMR2s

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1-knNkuZalOd0eiH0mkmxUVSwtNdBmnNXUmouklLckS0/edit?usp=drive_web

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1uzW-Z3QBQD_Xh0PJWROBf3pyhqViaPPBc3KOA0g3_kI/edit?usp=drive_web