Cashel's Blog

Welcome back to one of my last blogposts ever. This time I’ll be talking about the Iranian Revolution.  

So back in April, about half the class went to Cuba to study the Cuban Revolution but about half the class stayed behind for various reasons. Instead of studying the Cuban Revolution, the people who didn’t go to Cuba studied the Iranian Revolution. Since many people from Iran immigrated to Canada and more specifically Vancouver, there would be a lot of people we could receive information and stories from. 

So for our project, we would have to make a book. Each of us, in partners, would have to create one chapter of the book and each chapter would focus on one of the historical lenses we learned about earlier in the term. Each chapter would also focus on one part of the Revolution. 

To begin, we started researching significant parts of the Revolution. Once we had a good idea of what was important, we chose our topics and our historical lenses. I chose the seizure of the US embassy as my topic and would be using the cause and consequence lens. I would also be working with my friend Tom which made me very happy because me and Tom have created some quality work together in the past. We would be focusing on what caused the seizure of the embassy and how it effected relations between the USA and Iran. 

Tom and I began reaching out to Iranian people we knew and asking them if they would be interested in doing an interview for us. We also began researching out topic in a variety of different ways. We searched the internet for more information about our topic and even watched the movie Argo for some more background knowledge. 

Argo was extremely interesting because even though it is a Hollywood movie, it was based around fact and we actually learned a lot from it. It really captured the feelings of hatred between Iran and the USA and it gave tom and me a good general knowledge of the event. 

Luckily, two people agreed to let us interview them, one in person and one over the phone. 

The first interview was extremely eye opening. The person we interviewed (who wished to remain anonymous) grew up in Tehran during the time of the Revolution. He witnessed the first spark of the Revolution up until the Ayatollah gained power. In fact, he didn’t leave the country until the Iran-Iraq war, to escape the mandatory enlistment. He “didn’t believe in that war”, so his parents paid a guide to help him leave the country. He said that the experience was scary, since he was only 19 years old, but also exciting. He told us about one night when he was riding through the mountains past a military fort, when the guards started shooting at him. His horse panicked and got stuck in the mud but luckily was able to free itself and he narrowly escaped. 

He did not agree with the Revolution and did not believe many of the rumours about the Shah, which contrasted greatly with our second interview. 

Our second interviewee had quite a different opinion. She was very critical of the Shah and her father even marched in revolutionary protests. She gave us great insight into the oppression faced by many citizens in Iran during the Revolution and it was great to get two different interviews with very different information. We questioned both interviewees about the seizure of the embassy and they both provided great information on the event. 

Tom and I were very confident that we had the necessary information to create a great project, but unfortunately we had some technological issues. The mic we used for the first interview only worked for 10 minutes out of the 30 minute interview so we lost 20 minutes of valuable footage. Also, we recorded the second interview on our android phones so we couldn’t get any of the sound clips into pages, but at least we could use the information. 

We began working on putting the book together and arranging our chapter. We also narrowed down our topic a bit so that we would be focusing on how the seizure of the embassy affected relations between Iran and the USA. We inserted a couple of the audio clips and then we were done. 

Here it is, the finished book:

Recently in one of my classmate’s facilitation Friday, a debate arose on the topic of cults. People were debating what the definition of a cult really is and what separates most cults from most religious groups. There didn’t seem to be a definite answer to this, so I decided to do some more investigating until I could find a more concrete answer. 

So, what separates common religion from most cults?

To begin my research I first needed to know exact definitions of a cult. Of course there are many different definitions, but eventually I settled on these:

A cult is: “A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.”

However this definition does not account for the secrecy with which most cults operate. So I would write the definition a little more like this: “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, who operate with a fair amount of discretion.”

I then started researching differences between cults and religions. Many people stated that cults are harmful whereas religions are not, but I disagreed with that. Not all cults are harmful and there are many harmful religious orders, such as religious hate groups. 

I even found one article that claimed that religions receive tax breaks while cults do not but this argument seemed a little basic and I wanted to find something about their practices that differentiated religions and cults. 

Eventually, I came to a realization: We see churches everywhere in most societies, but where do cults practice? I wasn’t too sure. I also realized that most religions have public information via websites and other medium but cults are harder to find out about than that. 

I then began to research the secrecy of cults and I came to the conclusion that what separates  a cult from a religion lies in the degree of secrecy that operate. 

Here is my paragraph proving this point:

Religion is everywhere. From the church down the street to the Vatican to online sermons, it is hard to find a place without religion. But what separates common religion from becoming a cult? It’s simple: Cults rely on secrecy and discretion while religion is dependant upon openness and transparency. Think of most churches. They usually have informational pamphlets as well as signs promoting upcoming services and events. In addition, most religions’ holy texts are readily available and their core beliefs can be found online. In contrast, most cults are more private about their views and actions and practice their beliefs discreetly. Churches can be seen on many street corners, but no one really knows where most cults operate. For example, many people often consider Scientology as a cult but this is a misconception. Churches of Scientology are very public and the holy texts of Scientology can be found easily. Most Scientologists welcome the media and appreciate attention towards their beings. Cults however, shy away from the media and prefer to stay in the darkness. When Jonestown was visited by American reporters, Jim Jones was mortified and his followers ended up killing the reporters before they could return to the the United States. It is this type of secrecy that separates most cults from commonplace religious orders and keeps us assured that our local church is not a harmful sect. 

Resources:

What is the definition of a cult?

What makes a cult? | Rick Ross | Opinion | The Guardian

The Seven Signs You’re in a Cult – The Atlantic

Cult – Wikipedia

Difference Between Cult and Religion | Difference Between

What’s the difference between religions and cults? – Quora

The 20th century was a time of immense change. Many factors lead to social and political changes around the world. Perhaps the country that experienced the most change in the 1900s was the Unites States. Assassinations, rights movements, terrorism, and political scandals altered the path of the free world and changed a stable country into an unpredictable land. 

In his 1989 hit “We didn’t start the fire”, Billy Joel explains that despite the radical change of the 20th century, it is no different than any other time period in history. In the song, Joel lists off key events and prolific people which altered humanity from 1949-1989. Joel also tries to explain that his generation actually worked to make progress on the failure’s of the previous generations. 

Ok so now that you have some background knowledge, it’s time to get into the project. For this assignment, we all picked a single lyric from the song “We didn’t start the fire”. We needed to research the lyric and it’s significance, and then use it to answer an inquiry question. 

At first I wanted to research the lyric “punk rock begins”, but as it was already taken I decided upon “Brooklyn’s got a winning team”. This lyric refers to the Brooklyn Dodgers, a baseball team who had seen little success throughout the early 20th century but still had a massive fan base. The team finally won the World Series in 1955 which inspired the lyric in the iconic Billy Joel song. 

Some people would argue that the success of a sports team is not important and shouldn’t be placed in a song about influential events, which gets me to my inquiry question: How was the Brooklyn Dodgers’ growing success in the 1940’s and 50’s significant to societal change?

Although the Dodgers won as a team, their impact on society revolves around one man: Jackie Robinson. In the 1930’s and 40’s African-American athletes were not allowed to play Major League Baseball. Instead, they were forced to play in the “Negro Leagues”, a league specifically designed for black athletes. Players in this league earned next to nothing and were the victims of horrific racial abuse. 

In the early 1940’s, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey looked to change all that when he drafted Robinson and placed him in Brooklyn’s farm system (a minor league team whose players are technically owned by the Dodgers). However, this proved to be troublesome for Rickey. Brooklyn’s Spring Training field in Jacksonville, Florida refused to let an African-American athlete onto the field. However Rickey, who was a devout member of the Methodist Church and advocated strongly for social justice, didn’t give up so easily. Instead of continuing to play in Jacksonville, Rickey tried to move the games to Sanford, however their stadium refused as well. Rickey finally found a stadium in Daytona Beach which would house the team’s Spring Training games. All this solely because Rickey believed in Jackie Robinson. Many people would have overlooked Robinson simply due to the colour of his skin, but Rickey ignored that and saw the standout athlete, and more importantly, standout person, that Jackie Robinson was. 

Robinson endured much abuse while playing in the minor leagues. He constantly had boos and catcalls directed in his direction, and fans sometimes threw things at him. However the fans weren’t the only ones who were critical of Robinson. Some of Robinson’s own teammates refused to take the field if Robinson was on the team. Opposing pitchers tried to hit him in the head and runners tried to spike him with their cleats. He received death threats in the mail and restaurants and hotels refused to give him service.  Despite the abuse, Robinson was extremely level-headed. He never retaliated and kept on playing with the team. His strength of character and will was amazing and is a testament to his determination. The fact that he could keep playing when other players were trying to injure him and fans were saying he should be murdered shows his courageousness and passion. He knew he had a message to prove and he would not rest until he had shown people that the colour of his skin did not determine his worth. Jackie Robinson was truly one of the most brave people the world has ever seen. 

On one iconic night in 1947, Robinson finally got his chance, as he was called up to the big leagues. Robinson was met with boos and jeers, yet he didn’t let it dissuade him. He ended up having a great season with the Dodgers and won the Rookie of the Year award (which is now named after him). Robinson breaking the colour barrier was a momentous event for people around the United States and changes the course of sports forever. 

Now the Dodgers were known as one of the most unlucky teams in sports. They made it to the World Series 5 times in the next 6 years yet fell short to the New York Yankees in each one. One of the catchphrases that followed the team was “there’s always next year”. 

Some fans argued that the Dodgers’ bad luck and lack of success stemmed from Robinson’s presence on the team, but manager Rickey laughed off these claims. Infamously in 1952, the Dodgers were a whopping 14 games above the Giants who were in second place, when a fan released a black cat onto the field as a jaw towards Robinson. From that point on the Dodgers went into a downward spiral eventually losing the pennant to the Giants. So you get the idea, the Dodgers were extremely unlucky. 

Yet the hapless Dodgers, like Robinson, never gave up.  Despite their core players getting older and slower, they came out firing every year, and the fans loved them for it. In 1955, the Dodgers finally achieved their ultimate goal, defeating the Yankees to win the team’s first ever World Series. It was a unifying moment that was enjoyed by Dodgers’ fans of all races and walks of life. Famously, Dodgers’ infielder Pee Wee Reese hugged Jackie Robinson, a moment which seemed to symbolize the unity of the team’s success. 

This was not just a victory for the Dodgers, but a victory for African-Americans throughout the country. The only team with a black player had just won the World Series. Robinson was no longer booed, but received ovations every time he stepped up to bat. 

Robinson did not just break the colour barrier of baseball. While he was in college he had a brief stint in the militaries. One day he was asked to sit in the back of a military bus, but he refused. Robinson was put in trial but was later honourably discharged. Shortly thereafter, the army was integrated, and Robinson played a large part in that. 

So how did the Jackie Robinson and the Dodger’s success change society. It showed people around the world that in the face of horrible prejudice and discrimination, people can still fight and change the world. The Dodgers unified fans and brought together different types of people people all rooting for a common cause. Robinson and Rickey integrated the Major Leagues and Robinson helped integrate the army. 

It was moments like these that aided in the success of the civil rights movements and Robinson was one of the pioneers of this movement. Through his charisma and determination, he showed that racial prejudice may be a setback, but it is not insurmountable. Jackie Robinson proved the racists wrong, and for that America owes him one. 

This is a photo album/timeline that I made illustrating the Dodgers’ and Robinson’s effect on the world:

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Brooklyn_Dodgers

https://www.biography.com/people/jackie-robinson-9460813

https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/robinson-jackie

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bb9e2490

Welcome back to another history blogpost. This one deals with a very prevalent issue in this day and age: Terrorism. 

Let me backtrack a bit. So about halfway through the term, our teachers changed up our remaining assignments. Instead of continuing with the baseline, honours, and challenge assignments for every topic, we would now have just three assignments for the rest of the year;  a discussion we would have to lead, and two research blogposts. This made me very happy as these new assignments played to my strengths. I enjoy leading discussions as well as researching and gathering information, so I was rejuvenated by the way the term would play out. This post will focus on the class discussion, or facilitation Friday as it is known. 

The Preparation:

To start off the process, we all signed up for a decade (from the 50’s to the 90’s), and a specific topic within that decade. Then every week from Monday to Thursday we had lectures and also watched the CNN series about different decades in American history. I found this very engaging as the documentaries are extremely informative and interesting, and gave us a good insight into our topics. 

So where does the facilitation come in? Every Friday, everyone who had signed up for a certain decade would present. So for example on the first Friday, all the 50’s people presented. Well I guess presented is the wrong word. Basically what we had to do was first provide some insight into our topic (with some visuals to reinforce our message) and then lead a class discussion. The facilitator would pose a question and then other people would take turns answering it. 

My topic ended up being terrorism in the 1970’s, something that I didn’t know too much about. When I think of the 1970’s I think of music or Watergate, but I definitely don’t think about terrorism. However, after watching the CNN documentary and doing extensive research on the subject, I found out that there was a lot more terrorism in the 70’s than I initially thought. 

First there was the constant IRA bombings in the UK. I actually already knew about these bombings because of my Irish heritage. Interestingly enough my grandma was from Ireland, and my grandpa was Northern Ireland so I guess they would disagree about the legitimacy of these bombings. But anyways I also knew a fair bit about this topic from a movie I saw last year, In the Name of the Father. 

There were also major terrorist attacks in Germany, as well as a spree of hostage takings on airplanes. 

At first I contemplated presenting about all three of these topics but I realized that if I did that I would only be able to skim the surface and I wanted to delve deeper into a topic. Since I already knew a bit about the IRA, I decided to focus on something that I knew very little about: the Munch Massacre. 

The Facts:

The Munich Massacre was a hostage taking that occurred at the 1972 olympics in Germany. Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. The hostages were eventually killed. 

A few days prior to the olympics, a Palestinian terror group known as Black September infiltrated the Israeli athletes’ quarters and took 11 hostages. Shortly after the crisis began, the group demanded that 234 Palestinian prisoners be released immediately. The group was helped by Neo Nazi supporters in Germany. Israeli police trained in dealing with terrorism quickly offered to step in but German forces quickly dismissed their offer for help. However many German authorities claim that this is a rumour. 2 hostages were quickly killed after one tried to escape, and a bullethole riddled corpse was placed by the bound hostages to serve as a warning.

German forces offered the hostage takers an unlimited amount of money but they refused. German police then attempted to infiltrate the quarters, but quickly retreated. Finally as the hostages were being transported to an airstrip, German police attempted a rescue. These were regular police officers with no training in dealing with such matters and this quickly became apparent. After a standoff on the airstrip the 9 remaining hostages were eventually killed along with 5 of the Black September members. 

This event was terrifying. It left civilians shocked and rattled. Interestingly enough the only Arab leader to publicly denounce the attack was King Hussein of Jordan who stated that the attack was “a savage crime against civilization”. Part of what caused the widespread fear was the fact that the event was televised globally. 

The Presentation:

These are the slides that I presented throughout my facilitation:

Throughout my presentation I asked a few key discussion questions all leading up to the final question: Is fear the greatest weapon of all?

I thought that the discussion went very well as everyone had great ideas and weren’t afraid to share them. People also weren’t afraid to disagree with each other and they seemed genuinely interested in the topic. 

Most people agreed that fear is the greatest weapon as it is very crippling. I brought up the point that people who live in fear cannot experience true freedom and I think that most people agreed with that. 

In all, I really enjoyed learning more about one of the most infamous events of the twentieth century and I also enjoyed leading the discussion. I look forward to more engaging debates next Friday. 

Welcome back to my blog. Now that we have English 12 behind us, it’s time to focus on history. This term I will be posting around 5 blogposts or so, reflecting on things that we have done throughout the last few months. 

To start the term, we were introduced to how our work would be structured for the rest of the year. For every topic, we would be given baseline, challenge, and honours assignments to illustrate our learning. We would stitch together these assignments in a blogpost centred around the themes of the topic as a whole. This was part of a new system that we were the guinea pigs for. To be quite honest, this new system made me extremely stressed out. I have been attempting these past few terms to maintain a 95% average in order to receive an entrance scholarship for university. Since I am applying with history 12, I am trying to get above 95% in this class, which would require a lot of work considering the new system. In my opinion, giving a group of grade 12 students extra work makes it very tough to hand in our best quality work. Being the perfectionist that I am, I cannot really hand in work when I know that it can be improved, so I have spent a lot of time this term revising and re-revising assignments and projects. Luckily, we had a lot of time to do some of this work over spring break, however I was away the whole break, so I started out a few assignments behind and I feel like I’m still catching up. Again, this is just my opinion, I know that everyone learns in different ways and this new system may work for some of my classmates, it just didn’t work for me. I see the potential in this system and I think that it could work for a younger grade. 

Our first topic under this new system was political ideologies. An ideology is “a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power”. 

So to start the topic we had a brief summary of different political Ideologies such as socialism, communism, fascism, and all the other things that people argue about. This was done in a lecture style fashion and we were tasked with taking notes. However, we had to take notes in a different style for every lecture that we had throughout the term. I didn’t really see the point in this since the reason for taking notes is retaining knowledge and I feel like I have been in school long enough to know what style of notes works best for me. So it seems counterintuitive to me to have to take notes in a style that doesn’t help me retain knowledge. I know that different types of note styles work for different people, but since I already knew what style of notes works best for me, I would been more efficient if I could have done all the notes in this style. 

But back to the Ideologies. So I took the notes for Ideologies in the first note style which was standard. This is my favourite type of notes so I was able to make simple, organized notes which gave me a solid understanding of the topic. These notes were the baseline component of the Ideologies theme. These are the notes that I took:

For the challenge component of this topic, we needed to create a movie trailer about a specific ideology, however, I talked to my teachers and they said I could write a short story instead. I decided to write a short story about a person living in a fictional totalitarian society. In my story, I wanted to illustrate the blending that occurs between different ideologies as well as the struggles that people can face under different political ideologies. Here is my story:

****

The Time of Reckoning

My shoulders ache. My calloused hands sting incessantly. The clanging of the factory has deteriorated my ears to little more than useless tunnels into an empty soul. The foreman turns his back and I rest momentarily. This is what society has become. They call it communism but it is anything but that.

I remember when I first heard of communism. The leaflets were passed around from neighbour to neighbour, and when one finally arrived at my doorstep my eyes scanned the Manifesto eagerly. It seemed like such a perfect system, no social classes, no divide, only equality. 

No one saw the problem until it was too late. A communist society must be regulated by the government. And therein lies the problem for my small town; the government is corrupt. We labour day in and day out and for what? The leaders go home rich while we suffer in pathetic slums. 

It’s a joke really, that they still call it communism. It may have started that way but it quickly turned closer to fascism. We know what it is now. Most people call it totalitarianism. 

The state controls everything, but who controls the state? A handful of officials who were “democratically elected”. It’s easy to win an election when you count your own votes. 

We have all come to terms with it now, living in a totalitarian state. Every day is a nightmare, we are free citizens yet we live as slaves. But the leaders will pay eventually. They always do. 

There are already murmurs of Revolution. They spread through the streets like wildfire. Oppression and corruption never lasts. 

I snap out of my daydream but it is too late. The foreman’s whip cracks across my back and I fall to the ground. The whip lashes again and I scream in pain. The foreman gives me one last kick for good measure then walks off. 

I may be down, but I stand up. I always do. The time of reckoning is near. 

****

For the honours component of this topic, we were tasked with creating a new visual to represent the political spectrum. I actually quite enjoyed this assignment as I am very interested in politics and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the political spectrum. The way the most common political spectrum is drawn has its problems. A line with communism and fascism at either end seems conclusive. What I wanted to do was make the spectrum into a circle instead of a line. Each ideology would be across the circle from its opposite. I also feel as though a circle illustrates the blending that occurs between people’s political views. I placed communism next to fascism which is very different than most people would do. Although they are usually portrayed as polar opposites, many fascist governments become communist and vice versa. Look at Mussolini’s Italy or Stalin’s Russia. Is either really truly communist or fascist? I don’t think so. 

Here is my new and improved political spectrum:

In all, learning about ideologies was a good way to start the term and gave us the background knowledge that would be necessary for future topics. Understanding ideologies is key to understanding history and the motives of past leaders, so we were now ready to continue learning about the 20th century. 

Continue reading War and Peace

Welcome back to another blogpost. Similarly to my last post, this post will examine looking at past events through different lenses. As you probably remember, these lenses are Historical Significance, Evidence and Interpretation, Continuity and Change, Cause and Consequence, Historical Perspective, and Ethical Judgement. However, instead of applying these lenses to famous historical events, they will be applied to things that have happened in my life that I have deemed significant. Ranging from my birth to an event that occurred last week, these stories all mean something to me for different reasons:

This is a book that I made including photos that tell the stories of the four events. For more clarity, read the descriptions that I have written about the event while looking at the photos.

The first significant event is my birth. I was born on September 17th, 2000 at the Children’s Hospital, surrounded by myparents and a select group of family members. Luckily, everything went smoothly and after not too long (22 minutes after my birth), my mother was holding not just me but my twin sister as well. This event is not only significant for me, but also for my family, since I was not only my parents’ first child but my grandparents’ first grandchild as well. It is when my parents stopped being normal adults and started being parents. It is obviously a milestone for me as it is when my life began. The evidence I have pertaining to my birth lies in the stories I have been told about it. I have heard accounts from different family members all describing the sequence of events that occurred. I also have access to photos from that day and I can always check my birth certificate for more information. I can’t speak to what changed in my life when I was born (since nothing happened before my birth), but I can speak to the changes in my parents’ lives. From that day on, they were always thinking about me and my sister, and that continues today. Since the time I was born my parents have had not their own, but my best interests at heart and for that I am truly grateful. The consequences of my birth were me beginning my life and my parents beginning their journey as parents.

The next significant event is when I learned to ride a bike. Correction- when I learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I don’t have a very good memory of this event as I was quite young, but as I remember the story is as follows: I always rode my bike with training wheels even though I probably could have learned to ride without them. Then one day, my friend invited me to his birthday party, which just so happened to be a biking party. Now I really wanted this cool new bike helmet, but it was a helmet meant for pretty serious mountain bikers. So my parents told me that they would only buy me the helmet if I finally took my training wheels off. Reluctantly, I agreed and without much trouble began riding my bike without the training wheels on. I think that I knew deep down that I didn’t really need the training wheels but they were a sort of security blanket for me and I felt comfortable with them on. This event was significant for me as it showed me that sometimes we have to go outside our comfort zone to achieve a goal. The evidence of this event lies in my own memories of what happened. It also didn’t just change the way that I rode my bike but changed the way I thought about advancing in life. We cannot get complacent and must take risks in order to “remove our training wheels”. The consequences of this event were me becoming able to ride trails and also receiving the snazzy helmet that I had my heart set on.

To gain a different perspective of this event, I interviewed my mom who was right there beside me when I learned to bike:

Although the main points of our stories are the same, my mom has a slightly different recollection of the event than I did. For one, I had no idea that before that time, I had been riding my bike with the training wheels barely touching the ground, rendering them useless. In other words I had already been biking without them, which would have made me less nervous when I was going for what I thought was my first ride without them. But my mom also remembered that I didn’t know that I could do it which isn’t quite true. I actually knew deep down that I could do it, I just wasn’t very confident. These differences illustrate that different perspectives can change the facts of a story. Neither me nor my mother were lying, yet our stories were different. This proves how important it is to examine a past event from all angles and perspectives.

The third event I chose was my first trip to California when I was 7. This was quite significant for me since it was my first time travelling any farther than Portland, and the first memory I have of travelling at all. It was also my first time on a train, as well as my first time on a plane. We did many exciting things on the trip: went to the beach where I tried to surf and boogie board, spent a few days at Disneyland, went to the La Brea Tar Pits, the Getty Museum, and the Venice Beach Boardwalk. The evidence of this trip is my memories as well as the countless photos that my mom took throughout the trip. This trip changed my world view, it showed me that there was a much larger would waiting to be explored and that the world was a lot larger than my small community. The consequences of this trip were my views on Los Angeles and California as a whole. It went from a place that I didn’t know much about to a place that I wanted to go back to. In fact, I loved California so much that I have traveled back there with my family five times since my first trip when I was 7.

The last event I will talk about occurred only a week ago, but is extremely significant none the less. Last Thursday was seniors recognition night for my high school basketball team. This event was very important to me as it marks the final stretch of my basketball career- there are only a handful of games left. It was very nice to receive recognition for all the hard work I’ve put in over the years. The evidence for this event was captured in my memory and the memories of all the fans who attended the game. There were also many photos taken which could serve as primary sources. This event marks a serious change in my life, the end of my high school basketball career. It serves as the conclusion of not only my 5 years of high school basketball, but my 5 years of club ball as well. I have been playing basketball for 8 years and the end of my competitive career of this sport will be a major change in my life. As for consequences, they are still to be determined as the event occurred less than a week ago.

Well, those are 4 significant events in my life. Through the past few weeks I have really learned that history is not a list of facts, rather it is a multitude of perspectives. Facts can change depending on what lenses you look at an event from. The closest we can get to finding out what actually happened is when we consider all perspectives, and even still, there are many events where the truth is left open for debate.

Recently we have begun History 12 in PLP. Our first assignment involved studying different historical lenses. These were Historical Significance, Evidence and Interpretation, Continuity and Change, Cause and Consequence, Historical Perspective, and Ethical Judgement.

We spilt up into groups and each presented to the class, teaching them about a specific lens. I teamed up with Tom, Alanah, and Michael Sutherland and presented about historical perspective. This is the script we used:

We also had to create a visual demonstrating all 6 lenses. This is a flow chart I created outlining the different historical lenses, what they mean, the steps to take in order to view events through these lenses, and the relevancy of the different lenses:

Next we were tasked with applying theses lenses to an important 20th century event. I tried to be a bit creative with my choice and ended up choosing Beatlemania, and more specifically, the Beatles’ 1964 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Beatlemania and the Ed Sullivan Show:

“We’re more popular than Jesus”
-John Lennon, 1966

Beatlemania was a period from 1963-70 where the Beatles quickly became the most popular band in the world. They had trouble travelling without being surrounded by fans and their shows were filled with them sounds of people screaming in awe and anticipation. The culmination of all this hype, perhaps, was an evening on February 9th, 1964, when the Beatles made an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. This evening showed that the Beatles were not just popular in Europe and the UK, but in America as well.

Historical Significance:
The Beatles’ appearance on Ed Sullivan was very notable at the time. The Beatles were making headlines everywhere and 73 million people tuned in to view the show. This was the most people to ever view a program in television history. People of all ages tuned in to see whether this famous band was worth all the hype. This performance left lasting consequences as it caused the Beatles to grow immensely in popularity. Newspapers began discussing Beatlemania and this caused the Beatles to re-appear on the Ed Sullivan Show twice more before their return to England. This appearance also made the four Liverpudlians even more recognizable, as they couldn’t go anywhere, UK or America, without being swarmed by admirers. In fact, Life Magazine reported that “A Beatle who ventures out unguarded into the streets runs the very real peril of being dismembered or crushed to death by his fans.”

Evidence and Interpretation:
There is not much room to interpret what happened that night on the Ed Sullivan show as we can still watch footage of the show today. The shows illustrates the height of Beatlemania; constant screaming, fainting, and an overriding sense of hysteria from the audience. In this case, the primary sources tell the story of how the night unfolded:

Continuity and Change:
This event marked a massive change in society. Although Elvis and Frank Sinatra had achieved great popularity, they were nothing compared to the Beatles. This is partly because the baby boom meant that there were many more teenagers during the Beatles reign than there had been for the formers. Before this time, most bands, even popular ones, did not require security, but the Beatles changed that. In fact, they were almost trampled during their arrival at a British Airport.

No one had ever seen the mass hysteria that surrounded the Beatles. Since the Beatles’ appearance on Ed Sullivan, things have been relatively continuous in terms of popularity. The Beatles still obtain great popularity today, over 40 years since they stopped touring. In fact, the Beatle generate over 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify, an extremely impressive number. Although the Beatles were the first to generate this sort of popularity, they certainly weren’t the last. Artists like the Rolling Stones, U2, and Michael Jackson rival the Beatles in popularity and mass hysteria caused.

Cause and Consequence:
What caused Beatlemania, and the Beatles’ insanely large audience on the Ed Sullivan Show? For one, it was the hype that already surrounded the band in the UK. Many Americans had heard of the Beatles as the band that sent Brits into a frenzy, but they had never really heard their music, or seem their faces. This made many people tune in to the show to see for themselves if the band was special, or simply overhyped. Also, the Beatles’ popularity was obviously greatly due to their music. Never before had there been a band whose music appealed to such a variety of people. This musical talent created a large fan base of adolescents and adults alike. Without their large popularity, the Beatles would not have received such a large audience on the Ed Sullivan Show and may not have been invited to perform on the show at all. There were many consequences of the Beatles’ performance on Ed Sullivan, some intended, some unintended. The Beatles were definitely trying to generate popularity and create record sales as they were trying to make a living, but they did not intend nor did they want the level of attention that they ended up receiving.

Historical Perspective:
At first when we think about Beatlemania it does not seem that impressive. We see the same sort of frenzy surrounding current artists like Justin Bieber and One Direction. It just seems like another band who achieved great popularity and captured the hearts of many teenage girls. But when using a historical perspective, Beatlemania becomes a lot more impressive. The 73 million people who viewed the Beatles on Ed Sullivan were 3/4 of the adult television audience at the time. That means that 3 out of every 4 people who watched TV that night were watching the Beatles. We also must consider how impressive Beatlemania was at the time as it was one of the first phenomena of its kind. So when we view Beatlemania not from a present perspective but from the perspective of a 1960’s British or American citizen, it becomes a lot more impressive.

Ethical Judgement:
Did the Beatles really deserve all the attention they received? Many music critics argue that the Beatles were extremely talented musicians and worked hard to achieve their fame. But others disagree. The money and effort that was spent promoting the Beatles may have been better off used elsewhere. Also, there are many other people who deserve recognition. Many people think that occupations such as doctors, firefighters, and teachers, people who work to improve society are much more deserving of fame than a group of musicians.

Well, there you have it, a detailed account of Beatlemania and an analysis of it through different historical lenses.

*I used many sites for research including the following:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/29/beatlemania-screamers-fandom-teenagers-hysteria

The Beatles American Debut on The Ed Sullivan Show 1964

https://theconversation.com/beatlemania-hit-50-years-ago-but-why-did-it-drive-girls-so-mad-22758

https://www.popmatters.com/115702-beatlemania-the-defiance-of-a-generation-2496119961.html

 

Happy new year! Our newest unit in PLP has involved studying dystopias and utopias. So of course we read the most famous dystopia novel of all time: George Orwell’s 1984. After finishing the novel, we were assigned a mini-project. Working in a small groups, we would have to pick a character and draw them on a life-sized piece of paper. We would then have to cover the body with meaningful symbols that represented the nature of the character. We then taped the character to a green screen and animated a small part of the body. Focusing on the character “Big Brother” we decided to animate his head. Here is how my group’s (Nash, Jayden, Zak, and me) animation turned out:

Here are the meaningful things on our body that we feel represent Big Brother:

1. The head:

We knew straight from the start that we wanted to put a famous dictator in place of Big Brother’s face. We felt that it was the only thing that would truly represent the suppressive nature of society in 1984 especially since Big Brother is the face of that society. When deciding which dictator to use, we focused more on Big Brother’s physical appearance. His most defining feature is his moustache, something shared by an extremely famous dictator: Adolf Hitler. In fact, Big Brother’s moustache is the first thing mentioned about him: “The black-moustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own.” (Chapter 1). As made obvious by Orwell, Big Brother has an intense, menacing stare, one that we thought would be perfectly represented by the scowling face of Hitler. Hitler was also able to brainwash people similar to the way that Big-Brother does. This passage in Chapter One shows the full effect that Big Brother has on audiences:

“But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone’s eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like ‘My Saviour!’ she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer.
At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of ‘B-B! … B-B!’ – over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first ‘B’ and the second – a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.”

2. The security camera:

The security camera our portrayal of Big Brother is holding represents one of the common slogans of 1984: “Big Brother is watching you”. What better to represent this slogan than to have Big Brother hold a security camera? We also chose to include this image because the telescreen that transmits Big Brother’s image is essentially a security camera: “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.” (Chapter 1). On the telescreen, Big Brother’s face reminds citizens of the constant surveillance and monitoring of the Party, making it much like a security camera.

3. The muscles:

The muscles we added to Big Brother serve little point other than to remind viewers of his strength and power. He represents a powerful government so it seems only fitting that he be powerful himself.

4. The batteries:

We decided to include batteries on Big Brother as he is commonly seen on a telescreen. This makes him seem almost artificial, like he needs batteries to run and function. The batteries also remind me of a recurring question I had while reading the book: Is Big Brother a real person or just a symbol, a figurehead of the oppressive government? Part way through the novel, Winston also wonders the same thing: “Does Big Brother exist?’
‘Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.’
‘Does he exist in the same way as I exist?’
‘You do not exist,’ said O’Brien.” (Chapter 2).
The batteries remind us that Big Brother may be an artificial creation, not an actual living and breathing human.

5. The slogans:

We included the three slogans of the Party as tattoos on Big Brother’s body. These slogans reveal the true nature of the Party, and the piercing stare of Big Brother seems to be scream out these slogans. Winston, like everyone else, is constantly reminded of these slogans: “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Chapter 1).
In fact, the very image if Big Brother is enough to remind Winston of these slogans: “[Winston] takes a coin from his pocket and looks into the face of Big Brother. He cannot help but recall the Party slogans: “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
These slogans go against everything that we value in today’s society: peace, freedom, and knowledge. It would seem only fitting that the figurehead of the Party, Big Brother, would have its slogans tattooed on his body.

So there you have it. Our representation of 1984’s Big Brother.

 

 

 

Well we thought that the Macbeth movie experience was over, but we were very wrong.

Our last unit in PLP was all about horror. From books to movies to what makes them scary, we learned it all. The driving question of the unit was: How does horror reflect and comment on our society?

Our first task of the unit was reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. We would have to analyze what makes the story scary and understand the key themes of the book. While Frankenstein is considered a classic, I did not thoroughly enjoy it. The language seemed outdated and it quite honestly wasn’t scary at all. I was able to realize however, why Frankenstein was scary to readers at the time it was written. A book about a Monster and the science of necromancy would have shocked the predominantly religious readers of the 19th century.

Next we watched two classic horror movies: The Exorcist and Halloween. The Exorcist was exactly what I expected, a lot of gross scenes filled with vomit and blood. But as for actual horror, I did not find this movie particularly scary. Yes, it is very suspenseful, but that doesn’t make it horrifying. I just couldn’t picture this happening in real life, which takes away all of the horror for me. Similarly, Halloween was full of suspense and cheap jump scares, but it is not actually horrifying.

In the following weeks we read another book, went to a haunted house, and most importantly, learned about the elements of aversion. These are basically the main things that make horror scary and little did we know that we would have to master these for the project that lay ahead. These are my notes on the elements of aversion:

Finally, we were ready to learn what our project for the unit would be. Want to know how to take the enthusiasm out of a class? Tell them that they have to retry a project that has already failed massively. That’s right, we were assigned Macbeth 2.0: horror version. We would once again have to make a movie as a class with little to no guidance and see how bad it would be. Despite our hesitance to begin this project, we mustered up as much optimism as we could and dove headlong into making the movie.

The first step was applying for what position we wanted to be. Just like in Macbeth I applied for screenwriter. Writing is my biggest strength and it seemed like the job where I would fit the best. Much to my surprise, however, I was assigned the job of editor. Having basically no editing experience I was pretty shocked by this decision, but thought of it as a way to learn some new skills. The one thing that made me upset was the fact that I would have to work on my own. Every single other department had at least two people to share the work, but I would have to work alone. Having just one other person to help me would have lessened my workload immensely.

At first there wasn’t much for the editor to do. I tried to learn as much about editing as I could but as far as actually editing the movie, I couldn’t do anything until I had some footage to work with. I also read over the script and storyboards to help me better understand the story. To be honest though, most of what I did over the first week was watch the project deteriorate in front of my eyes.

There were several things that made this project a failure right from the start. For one, no one paid attention to the storyboards at all. This was extremely frustrating as it made filming take an extremely long time as we all tried to figure out the shots. It also made editing extremely difficult as many of the shits did not match the storyboards I had been given. There was also too much indecisiveness. We would spend such a long time haggling over small details that our time was often wasted. Also, almost every person in the class has a lot of extra curricular activities. This mad it difficult to film outside of school as we were constantly missing people that we needed. This is no one’s fault however, as we all have other commitments that we cannot miss.

In the end, our movie had good parts and bad parts. However, there was one main problem, it didn’t actually fulfill the criteria. Our movie was meant to answer the driving question of the unit about horror and society, which it clearly didn’t. So there’s not much I can say about our answer to the driving question, because we didn’t really have one.

In my opinion, there were also a lot of good things about our movie. I though most people worked really hard and it showed. Making a 25 minute movie in under 2 weeks is almost impossible, and I think we stood up to the challenge quite well. We spent so many hours of our own time working on the movie and that hard work really showed. The acting was really good considering most people had little to no experience, and the sets and costumes were excellent as well. The script and storyboards were very strong and the cinematographers did a really good job getting some great shots. So even though our movie may not have been a success, we all poured everything we had into it, which in my opinion, is what really matters.

As for my contribution, I worked really hard on not just the editing, but the project as a whole. Since I was there for all the filming sessions, I often found myself having to step into other roles. This was frustrating at times but I knew it had to be done.

As for the editing process, I poured hours of my own time into the movie. From editing until 2 am to waking up at 6 am I can’t even count how many hours editing the whole movie took. This was not only because it was insanely long but also because I wasn’t extremely familiar with iMovie.

Well, here’s the movie. Although it might not fulfill the criteria, it still took so much work and I think that is evident: