Yet again we have finished a unit, and thankfully this is the last one before summer starts. This last humanities units was probably one of the most challenging for me, for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that I had to read probably one of the most famous and confusing books that I have ever read and public speaking was required in this unit which is not one of my strong suits. This unit was probably the most diverse unit I have ever done, as we showed our learning in many different ways.
Before we started the unit, our teacher came up with an interesting plan to create groups. That plan was to lock us in a room together and have us create a groups based on what we thought would be reasonable or fair. We generally split people up by making diverse groups with their skills and abilities.The book that we read was Lord of the Flies. I assume you figured that out by the title of this post. If you have not read LOTF I highly recommend it, as it is one of the best books I have ever read. It has one of the most interesting storylines to it, and shows off the true colours of human nature. It is very dramatic with times where everybody is civilized and others where people become complete savages. This book is so diverse that even with all of that going on it has fear, sorrow and even anarchy. If that interests you I highly recommmend that you go and read this book, as it is probably one of, if not THE best book that I have ever read. To make sure we were actually reading the book our teacher made us to do chapter tests. It wasn’t too hard as long as you read the book, plus you took the test as a group. Another thing that went on throughout this unit was a point system. Since we were put into groups, that essentially made teams. So each group was competing against each other to get the most points. You could gain or lose points based off of basic things like tucking in chairs or forgetting to hand in an assignment. It made it so that the team members had to rely on each other to succeed, and it made us more well behaved in class which was a plus for our teacher.
One of the other things that we focused on was Politics. Generally not the most interesting topic in the world but, I acutally enjoyed learning about it. We mostly focused on how different electoral systems worked. Some of them made sense, and then there were confusing and seemed like a dumb idea. We also talked about how a pipeline is trying to be built across BC coming from Alberta. In my opinion there are a lot of people who care about it but, theres probably even more who don’t care. The people that dont want it are worried about oil spills. That is completely understandable, but if it isn’t built then many people could lose their jobs, and the pipeline that has been there for about 70 years has never had a leak except for when somebody drilled through it.
Lastly the biggest part of this unit, the debate. As I said we were put into teams, and those were our debate teams, and at the end of the unit we had to debate against another team. We based the topics off of ideas from LOTF. To prepare we did these things called concept journals. To do them you essentially pick a topic like Humanity vs. Inhumanity. Then you essentially make an argument for one of the sides. Here is what I did for human nature:
Be it resolved that “It is human nature to be good at heart unless tempted by evil”. William Golding made this statement, as it is true and there are many examples of it all around us. Humans are constantly trying to make a difference in this world, they are trying to improve Earth itself, and the people on it. Progressively through history, the general population has shown more acceptance, kindness and love. A good example of that is the acceptance of LGBTQ, with San Francisco leading the charge. That example shows how most people are showing their inner kindness through acceptance. That is again showed the same way through the reduction of racism over some of the most recent decades. A different example is how we are currently trying to mend with First Nations, after we destroyed most of what they owned and part of their culture. Everybody who is not indigenous is currently trying to give back and support them, because humans are naturally good at heart and humans feel sympathy towards others. My last example of humans being good at heart is the fact that a lot fo people donate to charity. That shows that humans aren’t naturally evil or greed, although that doesn’t mean that humans cant be evil or greedy. One of the most common things that will make a person evil or greedy is money. Money can change a person into a monster. Money will make people sabotage peoples plans or even something like a sports game. Referees are constantly bribed in sports because getting money is more important to them than staying true to their profession. Even though humans can be greedy or unfaithful, doesn’t mean that they cant be good at heart. Ralph shows that at the end of Lord of the Flies, as he breaks down in tears in front of a Naval Officer because he had finally come back to reality and realized all of the horrible thing that had happened on that island.
For preparing for our debate we also listened to a debate podcast called Intelligance Squared US. It was actaully very interesting I highly recommend you to listen to one. Then we basically just studied our topic like there was not tomorrow. My group had to argue that it is human nature to put yourself above others. Here is the debate:
I thought that this unit went very well. I am very happy with the results, as I believe that my group had very strong arguments. It wasn’t perfect as I wish that I had said a couple different things. I felt that I have learned a lot and that I have grown a lot in this unit as I feel my public speaking has gotten a little bit stronger as well as my writing. At the beginning I was not to happy about having to debate but I am very happy that I have done it as it was a great expierence