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

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

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!

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

Creativity is Necessary in order to gain a Unique Perspective on History

In world history this year, I thought we would learn about about a new topic every quarter, turns out we would learn about a new topic almost every week. From Religion to Revolution to Colonization we were always reading articles, watching videos, or doing worksheets. We gained a unique perspective on past events and current events through research and inquiry. I found myself in a difficult position during trials and roleplays, I had to abandon my personal opinion and become an entirely different person during the French/ Haitian Revolution Roleplay.

“Slaves cannot be free. Slaves are.... slaves. They’ve been slaves since before I was born. They think that they can... what? Live in society like the rest of us? They’d never be accepted, the only job they would get would be working as a servant. Which is what they are already! What would they do if they didn’t have us? We give them a purpose to be here! We give them jobs and food and a place to sleep. If they fight, they’ll no longer have the things they need to survive in life.” For the rest of my responses click here

It was very hard for me to write this, in the beginning. I didn’t like being that person, but after I started writing I thought to myself ‘what would a privileged, naive women during the French Revolution sound like?’ and the ideas just started flowing. This is one example of being put out of my comfort zone, and instead of seeing things from my own perspective, I was seeing things from multiple peoples perspective. Which ultimately provided the unique perspective I mentioned before.  

I think that the creativity required for this class was something that was not essentially talked about, but was something that was required in order to gain an understanding for the class. Almost every day we wrote a response to a quote or how we felt about a certain topic, and with every journal our minds grew. Another example is during the Cortes trial, we had to put aside our personal opinions and work hard to defend our given group. For my reflection on the trial click here.

Sometimes we were given the opportunity to really explore our creative sides and write plays, poetry, letters, we went on our own and created these things. We usually wrote the poetry as an opposite to something we had already read, for my poem The Somebodies, a response to The Nobodies click here. For my poem Modern Day USA, a response to The White Mans Burden click here