An Atomic Medium – The Manhattan Project²

To end off the new year, PLP conducted their first winter exhibition since 2019. Over the last couple months, we explored three areas of focus where in the end, we would eventually create our own conceptual art focused on the lasting impacts the world’s first atomic bomb and it’s creation had on the world. First, was conceptual art – where we first discussed in class and saw in person on a field study.  Secondly, was analyzing the term “historical significance” – through a blog post that we wrote as a project milestone. Lastly, the infamous Manhattan Project– where we learned lots about in class lectures.

“How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?” – Driving question

After gathering up the key knowledge essential to this project, we then went on to start creating our final products. Our class was separated into 4 different groups; Society and Culture, Science and Tech, Politics and Warfare, and Morals, Ethics and Philosophy. This is how we would be separated on the night of the exhibition, where each group would display their art in their group’s assigned room. I was in the Science and Tech group with Jordyn, Alexee, Liam, Kaden, Matthew and Brenton. 

When it came to setting up our room for the exhibition, teamwork was extremely important. The two hours we had to set up passed by a lot faster than we perceived, and during the moments leading up to the exhibition, our room seemed to not be working out due to set up and audio/visual issues. But in the end, we pulled through and managed to make our room look much better than we originally expected. 

As I was in the “Science and Tech” group, my final product had to be connected to this category.  Given my interest in pursuing a career in the medical field, I decided to focus my concept on how the Manhattan project ultimately provided break throughs in this field. I made my concept on the discovery of radiation being able to not only cause, but treat cancer. This of which was discovered through the ramifications of those who were affected by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I felt like this was a more unique approach, since it was making something positive out of something so negative. If you’d like to hear more, click the accordion bellow to see my artist statement. 

My primary motivation when it comes to my art piece is my personal point of view on the research behind the atomic bomb—that it is conflicting with two different “sides”. It’s about the fact that, the atomic bomb—something so dangerous and deadly, has also lead to technological advances that have ultimately helped save lives. By choosing to base my art piece on a positive outcome that came from the research behind the atomic bomb, I desire to have the viewer spark the same thoughts after coming to understand the meaning behind my art piece.

I decided to have my art represent radiation therapy in an interactive way, as well as with the materials I chose, because I feel as though it is the best way to represent both the concept that I am choosing to depict, as well as the reaction I intend to provoke the viewers with.

As you approach my art piece, I will ask you to remove part of this mannequin’s hair, as a representation of something that those suffering from this terrible disease tend to go through—losing their hair. Cancer has, without a doubt, impacted many people’s friends, loved ones, or even themselves. I want people through my art piece to feel this conflict between this good and bad – radiation therapy – the bad you lose your hair – the good it has proven to cure or diminish cancer.

 

Before the night of the exhibition, I was already unsure about how I was representing my idea, and how it would come off to other people. I realized that my art had the potential to bring up sensitive past or present experiences, and my suspicions were confirmed especially with two people who came and saw my art. One going through radiation therapy, and another who’s dad passed away after going through radiation therapy a few times. In the end, I was still happy with my idea, but if I were to do it again, I would most certainly change the way I represented it. However, representing something such as devastating as cancer can be quite challenging to not unsettle others who were closely affected by it. 

We also completed a new area of writing skills, specifically Text Analysis in conjunction with reading the novel “Hiroshima”.  We wrote three response journals, an in-class theme analysis and finally, a critical summary. I had never written a critical summary before, but I found it quite interesting to look at a novel in a different way and force myself to think about the underlining meaning in each page, word and sentence.  In the end although difficult, the final critical summary in my humble opinion turned out quite well. You can click here to see my critical summary blog post. 

The other blog post we did in this project was on historical significance. For this assignment, we chose an event and needed to show specific evidence to convince others that this chosen event is historically significant. In giving me an even deeper understanding to the term historical significance, I believe that this assignment helped contribute to making my final product’s concept more refined – specifically showing the audience how the atomic bomb affected the world of Science and Technology. 

I think that my conceptual art gave most people a different perspective on the discovery of atomic power. Which is what I felt was a big take away for me from this project – , that the splitting of the atom can and has been used for good. Those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time had to suffer and nuclear bombs that could ultimately destroy the earth continue to be produced.  However, believe it or not, due to the historical significance of this technology the world has also changed for good – impacting medicine, energy, agriculture, space science, engineering and more. 

 

The Hope in John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”

“up through the wreckage of the city…was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green…The bomb had not only left the underground organs of the plants intact; it had stimulated them.” 

After reading this particular part of Hiroshima, it got me thinking about why John Hersey decided to include a piece like this, and what made it relevant to the message he was trying to bring across to the readers throughout the book. It was his diction and use of the word “optimistic” that struck my attention. The most destructive device ever made by man has instantly annihilated 80,000 people, destroyed an entire city and changed the future of modern warfare forever—yet nature still persists in the cracks caused by this bomb. His inclusion of a piece such as this one, provides the story with hope. Which is what I realized proceeded throughout the book. 

The book started off with a tone of panic, as the survivors are trying to keep themselves alive and help others after the bombing. However, Hersey later made the conscious choice to add a 5th chapter to this book, discussing the aftermath 40 years later. Additionally, Hersey made another conscious choice to focus the story on 6 particular individuals. And from doing so, the readers were able to experience a much more up-close and human look into what the people on the ground, at that exact time, were experiencing, feeling and overcoming.

Hatsuyo Nakamura – commons.wikipedia.org

“Her children were no longer dependent on her, and Toshio was ready to take on a son’s responsibility for his aging mother. She felt at home in her body now; she rested when she needed to…It was time for her to enjoy life.” At first, life was not looking good for Mrs Nakamura. She was a widow, suffered illness due to the bomb and faced difficulties in finding work. But in spite of all that, she was eventually able to find her peace. She finally found a good job that didn’t overwork or underpay her, her children were no longer dependent on her and she was able to take care of herself, as well as her children taking care of her.  

Toshiko Sasaki – commons.wikipedia.org

“I shall not dwell on the past. It is as if I had been given a spare life when I survived the A-bomb. But I prefer not to look back. I shall keep moving forward.” Toshiko Sasaki was a character whose life arguably changed the most from the bomb. After suffering the horrific leg injury, getting abandoned from her fiancé and losing many loved ones, Sasaki copes with misery and pain by turning to religion, and becomes a nun. As a result, she finds the spiritual strength to live a long, rewarding life spent helping others, and preferred not to think about her past. This wasn’t the only time that the book included allusions to the bible and Catholicism, which shows that it was something that some hibakusha turned to for comfort in these horrid times.

Continuing on the theme of hope, Hersey’s choice to add a 5th chapter to this book helped in assisting the readers to develop a sense of peace, rather than being left wondering what could have happened to the survivors. And with this final chapter, he was able to end the book off transitioning the tone to one of resolve, as the survivors adjust into their new lives. It’s mind-blowing to think that this book, despite it’s subject being of such an unspeakable tragedy, still allowed the reader to feel hope.

I feel as though having this aspect of hope was not only important to the book, but to the characters in the story. Those who were amongst the “luckier” ones and didn’t die instantly from the nuclear bomb, had no choice but to adjust to their new lives. And there’s no doubt that it wasn’t an easy process. However, most of the 6 individuals had something that kept them going. Father Kleinsorge had his love for Japan and helping others. Ms Nakamura had her 3 kids. And Dr Sasaki enjoyed helping others as well, and even risked getting penalties by treating patients without a permit.

The Creation of The World’s First Vaccine

Hello everyone.  Allow me to introduce you to our second project of the year.  So far, we have been learning about the story behind The Manhattan Project.  We have also been introduced to a unique artist expression called conceptual art. And finally, our teachers are convinced that by the end of this project, we will believe that the Manhattan project is the most historically significant event ever.

However, today, I am going to be giving my own opinion by talking about a significant event that I believe has a lasting impact on the course of history – The Creation of the First Ever Vaccine.  Before I get into how I believe it’s historically significant, let’s first explore a backstory that lead to this significant event – the disease known as Smallpox. 

vox.com Article by: Julia Belluz

Smallpox was a brutal disease. Your body would ache, you’d have a high fever, sore throat, headaches, difficulty breathing and a horrible rash over your entire body (I won’t go into gory detail about that, but again, brutal). Edward Jenner was a country doctor in England, who was thought to have interest in curing smallpox by his scarring childhood experience of smallpox variolation (which was how they had attempted to treat this disease before his discovery). 

It was quite well known in rural England that there was a group of people that seemed to be immune to smallpox. Milkmaids and farmers instead contracted a much more mild cattle disease called cowpox. In 1796, Jenner had gathered enough circumstantial evidence from milkmaids and farmers, that he decided to conduct an experiment. Interesting fact, this experiment was done on a child, which would’ve been super problematic if done today. But, since the mortality rate was highest for children, it was essential to this experiment. 

wired.com Article by: Cody Cassidy

In the late 1700’s there were very little medical advancements.  Jenner, like everyone else at that time, didn’t fully understand the reason behind the success of vaccines – the creation of immunity and antibodies in the human body. Yet, his experiment was successful, and did lead to later discoveries of how the human body really worked. In his experiment, he scratched some pus from cowpox lesions on the hands of a milkmaid into the skin of an eight year old. The child recovered after a few days of mild illness and Jenner then inoculated the boy with matter from a smallpox blister to see if he would contract the disease. Turns out, he didn’t, nor did anyone he came in contact with. 

After Edward Jenner published his work/findings, this news spread accross Europe. And later, around the world. When he found out, King Charles IV got a physician to deliver the vaccine to all of the Spanish empire. 

Something else that I found interesting was that Jenner didn’t want to make any money from his vaccine, and wasn’t interested in patenting it. His vaccine was “free to the world”.  He just wanted people to know about it and wanted to share it. This is contrary to todays world, where companies like Pfizer are making billions on vaccines.  

npr.org Article by: Bill Chappell

Within 20 years of his discovery, his vaccine was already saving millions of lives. Smallpox vaccination was common around the world. Jenner’s determination and innovation changed the world and saved so many lives, and even continues to save lives today. 

The creation of the vaccine and it’s rise of popularity marks the start of the medical revolution. This also increased life expectancy for mankind, the symptoms of a widespread disease (like smallpox) that were often really severe, were now easily treatable. In the following centuries, more and more vaccines have been created and the quality of medicare has increased, which has largely impacted society as a whole.  

What’s important to wrap your head around, is that Jenner created the concept of vaccinology, which is something extremely important to this day – i.e. COVID-19 . Not to mention, without the start of the medical revolution, we wouldn’t have had things such as antibiotics, penicillin or much more recent, mRNA technology which is said to potentially help boost immunity against diseases such as cancer.

The discovery of the world’s first vaccine affects anyone who has access to or has taken a vaccine in their lives. It allows people to travel the world, without getting some diseases that may still be an issue in certain developing countries. Taking necessary vaccines also allows for less strain on the medical system, with less people in hospitals. To sum up, vaccines can mean the difference between life and death, they are just as important to your overall health as diet and exercise.

So this leaves me pondering with the question, what would life be like today without vaccines? 

I believe that it would very different. Population growth and life expectancy of humans plays a huge role in the vast majority of human evolution. So, it could be argued that a large portion of significant discoveries and events may have never occurred if diseases that are now cured by vaccines roamed the earth killing millions. In fact, Leo Szilard was the “ripe old age” of 35 years old when he developed the idea of the nuclear chain reaction, which lead to the start of the Manhattan Project.  In a world in which no vaccines existed and viruses ruled the world, Szilard may have never had the chance to be such a huge factor in the lasting impacts from the atomic bomb.

How Can We Do better?

Hi everyone, this post is marking the end of our “Think you can do better?” project. If you haven’t read my previous posts, the driving question for this project was “How should we govern ourselves?”. In this project, we were split up into political parties and each decided on what we wanted to see happen in Canada’s government. In my opinion, the final outcome of this project was a fail. But, has also had successes and sparked out opportunities to learn. Like we learn in PLP, a fail isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s your First Attempt In Learning and a chance to grow. 

improveism.com Written By Al

At the beginning of this project, our class was introduced to the Zettelkasten system. Which was one of the really good outcomes of this project. It is essentially a note taking system that helps you store ideas in a “second brain”, which for us was in an app called Craft. But, the magic of this system is really in the linking. Where you’re able to link notes to each other (through Craft) by finding a way to somehow connect them together, even those notes are completely different. Which, you eventually create ideas from. I quite enjoyed being introduced to this system and will continue using it for school and personal use for the foreseeable future. 

ryerson.ca Written By Surbhi Bir

By the time the Canadian Federal Election had just finished, we had already learned about some political concepts and Canada’s government structure. So, we then wrote a blog post reflecting on the election’s results. We all got some feedback on our posts before our teacher officially marked them, and mine was to explain why my GIF supported my post. I could’ve done a much better job with the feedback I received, because my paragraph didn’t make much sense compared to the rest of the post. My post was also a bit all over the place, I should’ve made my main message much more clear throughout. To add, I had yet to get good enough at using my Zettelkasten, which I think could’ve also played a factor. 

However, I did take my thoughts on this post and made sure I improved those aspects when it came to my next one. The next step in our project was for our class to be formed into political parties, and have each party come up with plans on how they would like our country to be governed. For this next post, I wrote my party’s press release on the ideas my group and I had come up with (Jordyn, Liam, Meg and Alex O). I made sure to have a clear message throughout the post and made good connections (eg. Solar and wind sectors and to my previous post). I also enjoyed the fact that you could tell that I knew what I talking about. Because of all the research I had done, and used to back up my points included in my post (thanks to my Zettelkasten).

What I want to talk about next is the final step of our project, our party’s campaign video. When we first wrote up our screenplay, we had a specific vision as to what we wanted our video to look like. And it didn’t turn out exactly the way we wanted. At the start of our video where we had the people walking in, I think that you can tell what we were trying to accomplish. But, the overall quality of this part could’ve been improved (ie. audio, visual, place, angle).  Next, the clips of Jordyn and I talking was the most important part that could “make or break” our video, since it was the longest part. We didn’t take the time to memorize our lines as much and we didn’t get to film the way, and at the place we wanted because of weather and time constraints. 

On the other hand, I did really like the visuals that popped up when Jordyn and I pointed. Plus, the content was well said and the editing was pretty good for what we had. All in all, I think that if we had more time or were to do this again, we could’ve definitely made every aspect of our video slightly better. Now that I look at it, I also think that we should’ve explained our party’s name more in depth to avoid confusing our audience. Our party was the most unique out of all the other parties in our class, and I think we should’ve used that as more of an advantage and stuck to it when it came to our video. 

Finally, this project may have been a bit of a flop. But, it has also lead me to be the most interested in anything politics related that I have ever been, and I’m really glad it has. Although, I still have much more to learn and have probably just scratched the surface enough to form my own opinions. 

I’ve also come to the realization that it was a lot harder than it looks to be put in a politicians perspective and make final decisions on what exactly would be best for Canada. I now hold a little bit of sympathy for politicians I have criticized in the past, because they’re people too and also have failures. So, when it comes to answering the question “How should we govern ourselves?”, it may seem simple but it can actually be pretty complex. Because no matter what, there will always be people who don’t necessarily agree with your ideas. That’s because no plan will be 100% perfect, and will always have it’s flaws. For example, if you want to focus a lot on the environment, you need to figure out a way to fund it and other plans you may have. Reducing the deficit also should be put into account. 

 

 

Side note: 

Via BC Gov’s Instagram Page

This visual was something that was just published on the BC Government’s Instagram page. Reading it, I noticed that a large portion of the plans were plans that parties in our class had actually mentioned. This goes to show, that all our parties had legit ideas that governments are actually discussing and implementing. 

Introducing…the Ubiquitous Party of Canada

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog. For our next step in our project, we have been put in the position of politicians and been sorted into political parties. Jordyn, Alex O, Liam, Meg and I teamed up to create the Ubiquitous Party of Canada. And since we’ve been put into our parties, we have come up with our Statement of Intent and now, our Press Release.

Ubiquitous means to be everywhere, which is used to describe the ideas and values of our party. We believe that our party brings the best assets and ideas from both sides of the political spectrum into one.

Here was our party’s press release, where it includes our main values and platform.

Giving indigenous communities more of a voice and focusing on truth and reconciliation is a core value of the Ubiquitous Party. And to provide them with a voice, we would be offering them seats in parliament. The way we decided this was by having representation by population: 5% of Canadians are indigenous, which would equivalent to giving them about 15 seats in parliament. Completing the 94 calls to action is also a large principle of ours, and something we want to create a set year to have them complete by.

Another piece of our plan is about clean energy. The most rapid renewable energy job growth has come from solar and wind sectors. So if we were to invest in that kind of energy, we could not only make a step towards solving climate change, but also create more jobs. Especially for those in Alberta, where most of their jobs are in the oil industry. Although we are pro-business, we do not support companies who don’t align with our values (eg. Environmentally friendly). So, we want to encourage organizations much like the oil and gas industry to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

college.unc.edu Article written by: Logan Ward

Additionally, to help reduce poverty in Canada and to allow lower/middle class to have a basic standard of living, we decided on having Universal Basic Income (UBI). Which means that everyone (rich or poor), gets a monthly cheque of about $1000. At the end of the year, the government uses the tax system to balance out the scales and recoup the extra cash from the higher income earners who didn’t end up needing it. UBI also has the potential to create jobs, recreate a middle wage instead there being extremely high and extremely low ones and boost Canada’s economy. A way to fund this system would be from taxing companies for environmental degradation. Which has been proven to work by an organization that has done tons of research on UBI and how it would work in Canada, I recommend checking it out. 

Next, public healthcare in Canada is something that is very expensive and something we may not be able to do for that much longer. So our group agreed on implementing a 2-tier healthcare system. Where we could still have a public system, while lessening the burden of healthcare costs for the government and tax system. While also being able to use that extra money on plans we have that involve spending and possibly also reduce the deficit that is currently extremely high. Someone going to a private clinic for a surgery for example, would also shorten the wait time for anyone in the public system waiting to get that exact same surgery.

Finally, a lot of big companies already pay taxes and all sorts of other things, so making them pay more may just drive them away. However, social media companies such as Instagram and Facebook don’t pay anything at all to be able to advertise and operate in our country. So, we want to make them pay annual tariffs to be able to operate in Canada. 

All in all, our party is very bold and willing to approach important issues in Canada in a unique way. Like I said at the beginning of this post, we are bringing together the best of both worlds into one party. This is also a connection to my last blog post, where I talk about how our country is very divided, which is proven by yet another minority government. So, if we were to attract people from both sides, it could potentially have us avoid another minority government. To add, we also want to focus on negotiating and working with other parties in government. We believe it’s important to include everyone’s values and that working together is the only way we will get anything done at all. This is what Canada needs, and what Canadians want. 

The Weird World of Politics

 

A drawing of the parliament building in Ottawa

There are over 7 billion people in this world, with a government run in different ways with different country leaders. Each country is ran either as a democracy, monarchy, oligarchy or dictatorship. In Canada’s case, a democracy with a heritage of a British monarch. That today, has no real power over the government in Canada. If you would like to know more about our constitutional monarchy and the different forms of government, I recommend watching this video. Our classes’ newest project is on Canadian politics, and “coincidently” there was a federal election that just happened yesterday, as well as a student vote run by our class. Which is the topic of today’s post. 

The Liberal party has been running our federal government since 2015, and they’ve been a minority government since our last election, in 2019. Which was one of the reasons that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals called this election after only 2 years, in hopes of gaining a majority government. A majority government would of course allow for a quicker process for the making of new policies without having to worry about the opposition. In the federal debate, many of the other party leaders were calling out Trudeau for how terrible timing it was to call the election. Yet, something tells me that they would’ve probably all done the same if they were in his position and were only really saying that to get less votes for the Liberals and more for their own parties. Unfortunately, this is usually the case in the game of politics, it usually comes to election tactics to gain more votes and less about doing the right thing. 

https://www.ctvnews.ca. Article written by: Steve Scherer

For example, the Conservative party leader, Erin O’Toole ran on a platform that was more focused on bringing the party to the centre with a climate change plan and child care tax benefit while at the same time, trying to bring in right-wing votes with statements of getting rid of elements of the gun laws and not requiring his own party to have the vaccine. The NDP party’s plan to tax the ultra rich will not fund the spending habits of their government. Plus, the ultra rich are known for finding ways to lower their own taxes. The Liberals ran on a platform of lots of spending with no concrete plan to actually reduce the deficit. And finally, I actually couldn’t find anything that the Green party may be saying just to get votes, besides doing anything for the economy, which is pretty obvious since their platform largely consists of doing things for the people and environment. 

The game of politics also extends to it’s individual provinces and territories. It is common for politicians to focus their campaign more in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec because the majority of the population is in those two provinces (and have the most ridings, there are 121 and 75 out of 338 seats located in Ontario and Quebec). In Canada, the party who wins the most ridings wins the election. And not necessarily the highest popular vote. In fact, the Conservatives had a lead in votes for the last 2 elections.

National Results – studentvote.ca

However, if you look at our student election, it’s the same issue. The Liberals won the most schools/ridings but the highest vote count was for the NDP. Now, obviously the NDP party did not do as well in the federal election as they did in the student vote. But why is that? It was most likely that many students voted for NDP because of Jagmeet Singh, who is one of the most liked party leaders right now and who’s platform also caters most to the younger population, and has had quite a large impact on them. Some parents may also influence their kid’s values and beliefs in that way, which could be why the Conservative and Liberal parties were both pretty close to each other in second and third for number of votes.

This GIF above represents how election voting typically works, even in our student election. As you can see in the GIF, the person was voting for the NDP, which happens to be who had the most votes from students in our riding and across the country. When the lightbulb popped up, he came to the decision that the NDP party resonated most with his values and beliefs. This visual is also meant to show how every vote counts, even just one vote could make a difference. Unfortunately, we only had about 62% of Canadians who took advantage of the fact that we are a democracy, which is usually the case for every year. For example, many young adults/new voters don’t have as big a voter turn out as there should be, which means that we have older generations making decisions for ours and our futures.

In the end, what we can see is that our country is divided, showing the different beliefs and values of the population. In fact, a large number of our most recent elections have been minority governments, which is a prime example of the division of our country that has been present for decades. This explains why so many people are unsatisfied with and complain about the decisions being made from the government. Plus, the world is complicated and filled with a number of problems, that would be very difficult to fix.

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk Article written by: Richard Reeves

It could be argued that minority governments are good for Canada, because in some ways, they are forced to set aside their differences and work together to potentially do the right thing, in the form of new policies (eg. climate change, Liberal + NDP). Annamie Paul had actually mentioned this very point in the federal debate, that all parties should come together. In fact, if the world is going to make any steps into fixing the devastating effects of climate change, our governments around the world will need to somehow work together. For the good of the human race and the future of our planet. Now that may seem impossible, but I really think it’s worth a try. 

Gee Wiz, The 50’s Were Swell

The 1950s was a time of prosperity and growth in many different ways. At this time, people also strived to make everything perfect, it was so bad that it was
even an obsession. For example, there was the ideal nuclear family with the housewife, working father and kids. The housewife was expected to cook and clean all day and the father was expected to bring all the money home. Now if you’d like to hear more about society in the 50s, don’t hesitate to check out some of my previous weekly posts, such as the one on the movie Grease. 

Now in terms of our most recent project, it’s pretty clear that it’s about the 1950s. In fact, our driving question was “How has Canadian life developed after WWII?” This year, a local non-profit organization called the Deep Cove Heritage Society contacted our program to help them out with a few things such as conducting interviews for them. After we conducted those interviews (I did mine with Emily McGee and Julia Cree) we then assigned those interviewees to people in our class who could connect information from them to their podcast topics and to help answer our driving question. We were also assessed on two different competencies through the entirety of this project:

Discuss, Listen and Speak: Have I respectfully exchanged diverse ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding and extend thinking using appropriate speaking and listening skills for the context and purpose?

Continuity and Change: How are lives and conditions alike over time and how have they changed?

The third milestone we did in this project that I’d like to use as an example of my learning was our Keynote Presentation. In this milestone, we were to present to the class on a topic relating to our podcast topics. 

In the matters of the Discuss, Listen and Speak competency, I think I did well in some areas but not so much in others. I think that I showed good presentation skills and understood the content, so you could tell that I knew what I was talking about. However, I had a problem with constantly saying “things like that” at the end of my sentences and was a bit quiet. But, I did end up taking that feedback and applying it to the next time we did a presentation in front of the class for one of our stepping stones and improved a lot. 

Now for the Continuity and Change competency, I think that I excelled quite well in it and used very strong points for both continuity and change. For my presentation, I talked about how media has affected teenagers since the 50s. I used examples such as movies and film, like the movie “Rebel Without A Cause” is the first movie targeted at teens. I also talked about music and the impact Rock ‘n’ Roll had on them. For things that have remained the same, I talked about how media today still pushes unrealistic beauty standards. I also mentioned that television and music are still very much around today, but have just grown more.

For the fifth milestone we did (being our actual podcast episode), I was pretty happy with how it turned out. We took our interviews, knowledge and extra research on the 1950s relating to our topics to put together the final assignment in this project. 

For the Discuss, Listen and Speak competency, I think I showed it very well in this milestone. However, I also think that I had some areas to improve on. On one hand, I had a good understanding of the topic, you could tell I had done my research and the listeners were able to understand me because I was speaking at a good pace. I also made sure to add lots of context and make connections throughout my episode. But on the other hand, I kept worrying about audio issues because I could never seem to get my voice to sound the way I wanted no matter what I tried. This is one thing I would like to master if I were to make another episode. 

 As for the Continuity and Change competency, I think I nailed it pretty well. I approached this competency in a slightly more unique way than I usually do for my episodes, and decided to do even more interviews and focus on the continuity and changes in teenagers since the 50s in two different sides of Canada: British Columbia and Quebec. I also had a lot of good examples of change represented throughout my episode and mentioned things that had remained the same in my conclusion. An example of changes that I mentioned were the catholic school boards they had in the 50s, but are not around today. To talk about continuities in my conclusion, I said that teenagers today still spend time out with friends, still fall in love, still “rebel” and find themselves and what they want their place to be in the world.

Click bellow to see my progress throughout the making of my episode!

 

In my episode, I came to the conclusion that comparing a teenagers experience in Canada is not as simple as it seems, because there would be differences in different parts of this country, which was shown throughout the episode. In this project, it was also an interesting experience to hear about different parts of Canada in the 1950s. My original plan was to interview people who grew up in the 50s in several different provinces but I realized that it would make my episode way too long.

Finally, to answer the driving question for this project (How has Canadian life developed after WWII?), I would say it has developed drastically. The economy, quality of life and the overall face of Canada all faced major changes after WWII. I realized that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about the 50s until this project and how much this decade impacted the Canada we know today in so many different ways. Immigration, technology innovations, voting rights, workers rights and many more all improved in those years. However, the 1950s weren’t as perfect as they appeared on the outside, there were still issues such as discrimination, which we still know today.

The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll

This week, we got our podcast episodes done and are now awaiting feedback. This project is coming to an end, and so is the school year!

Now as for this weeks post, when you think about the music in the 1950s, you can’t help but think about Elvis Presley. So let’s talk a little about his life. 

Born in Tulepo, Mississippi, in 1935, Elvis is known as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century. He was reffered to as “ The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, but this genre of music had actually already been around. His music was actually inspired by African-American music. Elvis started recording in 1954 at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips. He was on rhythm acoustic guitar with lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black.  

Something super impressive was that because Presley grew up poor, he actually never recieved any real music training and could not read music, so he studied and played by ear. 

Presley’s first song “Heartbreak Hotel” was released in 1956 and became a #1 hit in the US. 

In his music, Elvis’ lyrics contain alot of vulgar words and references to sex, which attracted teenagers growing up at this time. However, parents weren’t the biggest fans of his music. Believing that it was a terrible influence and would corrupt their children. So, this career led Elvis to have great success, but initial controversy. He did concerts, made alot more music and appeared in films and tv.

Interesting fact, I had interviewed my grandma for this project, and she mentionned that not only did she love Elvis Presley but so did her mom, who had no problem with it. Although they were french-canadian, and probably didn’t understand most of the words. 

Family wise, Elvis Presley married a woman named Priscilla Beaulieu in 1967, but they sepperated 5 years later. They also had one child together named Lisa Marie Presley who also had a career in the music business, recording 3 albums. She has also been married 4 times, including to Michael Jackson. 

Unfortunately, years of prescription drug abuse seriously damaged Elvis’ health and he died suddenly in 77’ at the age of 42. 

To this day, Elvis is the best-selling solo music artist of all time. He won 3 Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (age 36) and has been included in multiple music halls of fame. He also holds several records: the most RIAA ceritified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, and the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart. 

 

This Post is “Hopelessly Devoted” to Grease

 

Hi everyone and welcome to another weekly post. This week, we’ve finished our scripts and are going to have our episodes out next week! For this week’s post, I decided to talk about the movie Grease. This movie came out in the late 70’s, but actually very well depicts what it was like for youth in the 50s: young love, drive-in movies, different styles (ie. greasers), dances, rock n roll, diners, etc.

The movie is a fun, feel-good movie with a few catchy songs but, if you were to
listen to it at this day and age, you might notice a couple things that would not be shown on tv today. 

Number one, some of the lines in the songs were quite inappropriate (such as the lyric “Did she put up a fight?” in Summer Nights). In my opinion, the likely meaning of this line would be if he tried to kiss her because we all know that
sex before marriage was extremely rare in the 50s. Another one relating to that point would be Rizzo being shamed for having sex, because of how rare it was. 

Number two, at the dance, the host said that partners had to be one girl and one boy. A lot of people have been hating on this line saying that it was homophobic. That doesn’t mean that that made that line okay, but you need to keep in mind of the context and when this movie was based in, the 50s, which was a completely different time. 

Number three, which was that there was absolutely no diversity in the entire movie. I decided to do a little research on segregation in schools which was a big thing in the 50s. But, later found out that it was actually forbidden in Pennsylvania (where the movie was based in), so there was no reason for them not to have any diversity in the film except for the fact that even in the 70s when this was filmed, that there was an obvious lack of diversity in media. 

Number four, the same people hating on the movie did not like the fact that at the end of the movie, Sandy drastically changed her personality and look for Danny. But, I personally think that she just reinvented herself, as a lot of teenagers even in this day do. And doing it for themselves, not to impress someone they like. She also sings the song “Goodbye Sandra Dee”, because she didn’t want to be a “goodie two shoes” who didn’t have as much fun, anymore. 

The first time I watched this movie was with my mom. She hadn’t seen it since she was in her teen years, so rewatching it as an adult caused her to noticed a few things that wouldn’t be as acceptable today, like the ones I had previously mentioned. She had then explained them to me and said to keep in mind that that was how it was in the 50s. 

In my opinion, I think that the purpose of the movie was made to be entertaining, fun and not to be taken so seriously. Most of those unacceptable parts of the film were there just for the purpose of showing what it was like in the 50s and how much society has changed in the last 20 years at the time (since it was made in the 70s about the 50s). The only part that I think the movie makers could’ve done better was have more diversity. On the other hand, if that were the case, would there have been racist comments made throughout the movie? And would that have affected how successful the movie became?

DisneyLand and 1950s Society

There is not one person in this world that hasn’t heard about DisneyLand or DisneyWorld. Disneyland first opened in the 1950’s, the years after war. People were in need of something more positive and happy after this bad time to get their mind off of traumatic and depressing things…enter Walt Disney. After Snow White, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and his own television show being a huge hit, he decided to open up a theme park, which was quite unusual at the time, but obviously a huge hit once again. 

Believe it or not, several of the rides that were there when DisneyLand had first opened, are still around today. But, over the last 70 years, some rides have had to be rethought, as the world was obviously changing. An example being the Jungle Cruise.

If you have been to DisneyLand before, I doubt that you haven’t been on this ride. The ride where you are on this boat with a group of people and a tour guide, and you are going through a river surrounded by forest. Now, the
“attractions” of what people on that boat see around them is what the problem was and where there were changes that needed to be made. 

In 2001, the ride skippers were “disarmed’ and no longer shot animals during the ride. And just this year, they have announced that they would remove any negative depictions of First Nations, since there were many. This recent change just goes to show how normalized things like racism were back in the 1950’s
(even diverse representation on screen wasn’t a thing).  

Another issue at the time was gender roles. If you look at the animated movie Cinderella, many “bachelorettes” were lined up to meet the prince, hoping he would ask for their hand in marriage. This, reinforcing the stereotypical belief at the time, that the ultimate life goal for a woman was to be married (and stay home, cook clean and take care of the kids).

It’s good to see how much the world has changed since the 1950’s, however there is still a lot of work to do. Today, gender inequality still exists. For
example, women’s right to vote (Pakistan and Vatican City). Racism is still here today (Black Lives Matter and Asian Lives Matter) and the belief system of many countries in the world has not developed very far from the fairytale life of Cinderella and the fake image of the “American life” that America has tried to put up since the 1950’s.