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Sexist Sunglasses – Weekly Reflection #3

Sexist Sunglasses – Weekly Reflection #3

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts this week. Last time it was about fashion and today I’m wondering if the years of ignorance has made society blind to sexism. In this post, I wanted to talk about my thoughts on sexism in media, using a few music videos as examples and looking at parts of William Shakespeare’s, The Taming of The Shrew.

Every morning for the past week, our class has listened to a different song, trying to understand whether its lyrics and music video are sexist or not. It has sparked some very interesting conversations amongst my classmates. One of my classmates brought up an interesting point that became the inspiration for this post. In response to one of the music videos, we watched (unfortunately I can’t remember which in particular) they expressed that they thought society had become so used to sexism in media that it was hard to even notice it. After that I began to wonder;

Is society so numb to sexism that it becomes unnoticeable in pop culture?

I’m going to be calling this ignorance to sexism in media the “sexist sunglasses” both for the purpose of simplicity and because I think it sounds cool. Here are a few of the music videos we watched in class.

Cherry Pie by Warrant. The song describes a woman sweet like cherry pie. She’s blond, already a stereotype of beauty and ditsy, dancing on screen. Now looking at it, there’s nothing wrong with a woman dancing in a sexy outfit. However, her appearance on screen is solely for the man’s pleasure. With lyrics like “she’s my cherry by” the use my the work “my” portrays the woman as the man’s property. Class conclusion: Sexist but the song slaps.

Now, women being objectified by men is not a modern idea. Not at all! Let’s take a look at The Taming of The Shrew by Shakespeare. A play written about the transaction of marriage between a woman considered to be a shrew and a man who in many ways is even worse. Kate (the shrew) has found her betrothed, Petruchio. After the wedding, Kate is ready to celebrate, but Petruchio denies her the pleasure, saying to all that he must go and that kate must come because they are married and once a woman is married, she is her husband’s property.

“But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.”

– Petruchio, Act 3 scene 2

After a few men try to convince them to stay all that can be said by Gremio is “Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.” Gremio found the whole situation funny and Shakespeare’s audiences would have to. Not once did anyone considering the mistreatment of Kate. Because those were the sexist sunglasses of Shakespeare’s time.

Characters in The Taming of The Shrew don’t think twice about Kate’s treatment and laugh/enjoy the jokes Petruchio makes at her expense.

Timber by Pitbull ft Ke$ha. This one was a bit harder for our class to come to a decision on. This is also where I started to think more about society’s sexist sunglasses. The song was written in 2013, I was 10 at the time. I remember vibing to this song at school dances. As a more mature (maybe immature honestly) child, I knew what “twerking in their bra’s and thongs” meant. But I never at the age of 10 or 11 thought “Hmm I wonder if this is derogatory and sexist to women?” Probably because my goopy child brain didn’t have the capacity to understand those concepts. Now here I am in grade 12 revisiting this song from a whole new perspective. Like I said it was difficult for us to reach a conclusion on this song at first, and this is where those sexist sunglasses come into play. Many of my classmates, at the age of 10 or 11 remember jamming to this song, knowing the words by heart and to this day never thinking twice about what it could have meant. This song, like cherry pie, is clearly sexist. “I have ’em like Miley Cyrus, clothes off. Twerking in their bras and thongs” is a lyric that doesn’t just objectify women but objectifies another music artist. “She say she won’t but I bet she will” another line in the song that suggests by the end of the night the girl will be sleeping with him, despite refusing earlier. There are many more examples in the song, not including the music video where women twerk on screen more than the actual artist is on screen.

Can we… No. will we take them off?

Now, these sexist sunglasses play a big role in the songs I shared with you when we question whether or not we are willing to take them off. Are we going to stop listening to pop music that objectifies women when it’s some of the most common music on the radio? Probably not. Were Shakespeare’s audiences willing or even aware that they should feel some sympathy towards Kate? From what I’ve learned so far, I’m doubtful. We’ve become so used to the idea that women are portrayed a certain way in media, that it’s hard to notice when it becomes a problem.

What Is Sexual? – Weekly Reflection #2

What Is Sexual? – Weekly Reflection #2

Wow, do the weeks ever go by fast! It feels like just yesterday since I wrote my last weekly reflection. This week has been another jam-packed one! (This will likely be the case every week!) Our class dove right into; Shrew You! our newest project. We began reading The Taming of The Shrew, by William Shakespeare, where we started looking into the roles of women throughout history.

I am a lover of fashion. The fact that you can identify a time period by the clothes people are wearing is very cool! Clothing has changed a lot over the years, especially for women. What’s considered appropriate for women to wear fascinates me. In this post, I will be exploring the continuity and change of women’s fashion throughout the centuries, in order to try and answer my longing question; At what point in history did women’s fashion become sexualized?

Bodice
Farthingale

Women in the Elizabethan era sported long elaborate dresses that covered the feet almost completely. A bodice around the chest flattened the breasts and tightened the waist creating an almost masculine look with broad shoulders and thin waists. A farthingale was worn around the bum to create a wide look. A small chest and a big bum creating a stylish and attractive look.

Fashion trends of the time were set by the wealthy. To ensure the elite were the only ones wearing fine clothing laws were set to stop commoners from wearing certain materials. For example, only higher ranks could wear gold cloth and only royalty could wear purple. Different cloth and colours held different statuses. In an era where a woman’s main purpose was to be married off, clothing that portrayed wealth was appealing to potential suitors.

With the launch of the feminist movement in the 20th century, women started advocating for their rights to self-determination. Along with this came a shift in women’s fashion. Flapper girls of the 20s rejected the corset, sporting loose boxy dresses that came up to the knees. This was risky for the time period.

WW2 hurried women’s fashion in the “boyish” direction. With women entering the workforce there was a need for practical clothes and jeans earned their place in women’s wear. However, post-war society kissed jeans goodbye as women regressed back to their traditional gender roles and began to accentuate their femininity again.

Women’s fashion has shifted greatly over the centuries. Notably shifting the most in the 20th century with the rise of the feminist movement. Though the style has changed a lot, one thing remains unchanged. Women are repeatedly sexualized for what they wear and what parts of their body they chose to show. So, do we regress back to the full coverage dresses of the Elizabethan era? No! Women should have the freedom to express themselves without receiving pointed looks from “intrigued” onlookers. Women should be able to wear what they want without others putting them down. Shoulders are not sexual, ankles and knees are not sexual and a women’s stomach isn’t sexual! The sexual appeal of those body parts has been decided by those who believe it is their business to control women. In history, a woman’s appearance has been the source of a man’s pleasure. As such, society has pressured women to cover up for their own safety. That’s because if she were to reveal too much skin, for example, she would be considered the cause of a man’s distraction and the onus would be on her to change her behaviour. Has a boy ever been sent home from school because he became distracted by a girl’s revealing clothing? No! Instead, we have been subject to years of women being told to cover up, so men wouldn’t be tempted by their own inappropriate thoughts. When are we going to teach people to stop objectifying women’s bodies and understand that a women’s appearance isn’t for their pleasure?

Work Cited

Cartwright, Mark. “Clothes in the Elizabethan Era.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, 31 Oct. 2020, www.ancient.eu/article/1577/clothes-in-the-elizabethan-era.

Monet, Dolores. “Renaissance Fashion: Women’s Clothing in Elizabethan England.” Bellatory – Fashion and Beauty, 26 Apr. 2020, bellatory.com/fashion-industry/Renaissance-Fashion-Womens-Clothing-in-Elizabethan-England.

The British Library. “Clothing in Elizabethan England.” The British Library, www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/clothing-in-elizabethan-england#:%7E:text=Working%20women%20wore%20fitted%20bodices,front%20to%20show%20an%20underskirt.&text=A%20fashionable%20Elizabethan%20woman’s%20wardrobe%20was%20complex. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020.

Webb, Ali. “The Evolution of Feminist Style.” CR Fashion Book, 26 Aug. 2020, www.crfashionbook.com/culture/a22736609/feminist-style-evolution-history.

 

Marking History – The History of Deep Cove

Marking History – The History of Deep Cove

When you talk about history most people think, American history or world history. However, history is a process of interpretation and taking perspective but most importantly, understanding that history can be as small as a single-family. Welcome to my Marking History reflective blog post!

Driving Question:

How can we as historians uncover and share stories about our community?

Like our driving question implies, we as historians set to uncover and share stories from our Deep Cove community. In partnership with the Deep Cove Heritage Society, our grade 11/12 class worked together to revamp the Deep Cove historical walking tour. We created a pamphlet and a custom google map!

The Pamphlet

The Google Map

With the new quarterly school system in place, I’m taking two courses for 10 weeks and then switching to another two. This happens 4 times throughout the year. PLP has adapted well and is managing to keep things interesting. For these past five weeks, we’ve been working on a project called Marking History. I have to say, it’s been the perfect starter project to adjust to such a short work period. Doing a class project allows you to focus on your own work while still contributing to a bigger product. To complete this project we were split into two groups, the eagles (in charge of the google map creation) and the wolves (in charge of the pamphlet creation).

Contributions

As a member of the eagles group, (the cool kids who came to school Tuesday and Thursday) I along with other Eagles members was tasked with making our Google Map. Each person in the class, wolves and eagles had a stop on the walking tour they had to write about (21 stops in total). Our job as the google map curators was to take everyone’s write-ups and make that google map pop!

The Moore Family Home

Like I said at the beginning of this post, history can be as small as one family and that’s the information I tried to contribute to our walking tour! My stop (stop #2) on the walking tour tells you all about Deep Cove’s first permanent residents, the Moore family. As a historian, it was my job to take historical perspective and tell you just how important the Moore family was to the development of Deep Cove and its history today. My historical marker description includes two written narratives; one for the google map and one for the pamphlet. The google map also includes an auditorial walkthrough and a digital enhancement.

Written Narratives
Google Map Narrative – click to enlarge
Pamphlet Narrative
Auditorial Walkthrough

 Digital Enhancement

The Creation Process

We were limited to 150 words for the pamphlet and 300 words google map so writing the narratives wasn’t too time-consuming. We were also working with some great resources, Echoes Across The Inlet and Echoes Across Seymour which were filled with wonderful histories of the Deep Cove and Seymour area. There were so many moving pieces in this project that I had to do a lot of revisions. Revising word count and making sure my texts included more than one historical perspective were the two biggest ones.

My idea for the digital enhancement came to me pretty easily. Because the Moore family rowed a boat filled with all their belonging from Vancouver to Deep Cove, I thought it would be meaningful to make a timeline with the theme of rowing a boat between the two locations. I believe my design process showcased my ability to create a more engaging text which was a crucial takeaway from the overall learning.

My role for the google map creation was route planner. I was in charge of creating each pin and the route people would take during the tour. I quickly learned while creating the google map route that the program we were using wouldn’t allow me to make 21 stops on the route, which was the number of stops we needed. In the end, we decided to scratch the route idea and stick to markers on the map. My classmate Adlih later discovered that we could make custom icons for the stops which had been a previous problem we faced. This meant I could create the numbered icons you see on the map now. I spent a good amount of time creating individual PNGs for the stops, all different colours and numbers (obviously). My desktop was quite cluttered after that but I think it was well worth it and gave our google map a deserved aesthetic.

I think my biggest strength during this project was trying to look for ways to help the project where it was needed. We were on such a tight schedule that I didn’t want to do my part and call it quits. I was always asking Emily, our lead curator if there were ever ways I could help and I think it benefited the final product as well as my own learning during the project. My biggest weakness was not diving deeper into my story. The Moore family’s story isn’t very broad and I felt like I hit a roadblock early on. Next time I do a research project like this, I won’t just limit myself to telling the story at face value but instead, do some even deeper research into the impact it had on modern-day.

In conclusion…

This project taught me to step back and look at history from a non-biased lens and overcome my current concerns, beliefs, and values to understand people in the past. My digital enhancement, written narratives and auditorial walkthrough gave me the opportunity to sharpen my skills by creating engaging and meaningful texts. It was really refreshing to focus on something so close to home instead of learning about world histories that I generally feel disconnected from. I hope to revisit the Marking History project in the fourth quarter so that I can work on my shortcomings and become a stronger historian!

 

Weekly Reflection Oct 12th – 16th

Weekly Reflection Oct 12th – 16th

It’s good to be back at school after it closed in March due to the Covid-19 lockdown. Starting off the school year was new and exciting but with each new school year comes new tasks for PLP students to take on. For example, THE WEEKLY REFLECTIONS! That’s what you’re reading right now. Every Sunday night I’ll be sitting down to reflect on my accomplishments and failures this week and hopefully learn something from them!

The Big Crazy Switch

This week has been jam-packed. The class finally wrapped up our Marking History project. After 5 weeks of hard work, we were ready to send off our pamphlet and custom google map to The Deep Cove Heritage Society. Adlih and I worked together on some last-minute problem solving for the google map. She had discovered that there was a way to make custom markers on the google map so I began making custom numbers for each stop. My desktop was quite messy after creating them all.

I’m working on a final reflection post for the Marking History project but for the sake of this weekly reflection, I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts. The project felt like a real success to me. I love working with the whole class on something big because you really get to see everyone’s efforts shine. Since we are a grade 11/12 class it was also a really good way to get to know each other. I’m proud of the work I did on my own as well. In five weeks I wrote two write-ups, recorded an audio version of my tour write-up and designed the route and number tags you see on the map.

If there is anything this quarter system has taught me, it’s that I can adapt well to tight deadlines.

This week we reached the end of our 5 weeks in the hybrid school model and on Thursday we switched to full time in the afternoon. Now we are starting a new project with Ms. Willemse. We started this new project talking about the women’s suffrage movement and discussing how far is too far when it comes to jokes in the media. It was a captivating way of introducing the project and needless to say I am very excited to see where this goes.

Since the new switch to full time in class afternoons I’ve been a bit stressed out. I’ve received a lot of homework with the start of this new project on top of a big project I’m starting in another class. I’m confident I’ll get it all done and I’m trying my best to stay focused on one thing at a time but it can be pretty hard when you’re being pulled in so many different directions. My biggest strength right now though is sticking to one task at a time and taking breaks so as to not overwork myself. I’m excited to start the new week because that usually helps me feel better when I’m stressed out. I’m also really looking forward to exploring our new Social Studies/English project!

Trying to Stay Motivated

Trying to Stay Motivated

Being motivated to do things has always been something I’ve struggled with. When I find something new and exciting to do I get motivated but eventually that motivation fades. I took up embroidery over the quarantine but that’s a faded hobby now. I look back at my supplies and think, I should get back to that one day. Then I never do.

While searching James Clear’s website for interesting articles to write this blog post about, I was intrigued by his articles on motivation. Like I said, I struggle with staying motivated, so his article titled, Motivation: The Scientific Guide on How to Get and Stay Motivated piqued my interest.

In his article, he talks about habitual rituals. Habitual rituals are routines you do before the actual task. It’s like a cue to start reading, writing or starting your workday.

With the quartine in effect, I’ve lost all sense of routine. I don’t go to a physical school or to after school activities and my life has become a mess that I’ve been ignoring. I need to find a balance between school and personal life when all of it is happening in my home. So I’d like to start some routines, some habitual rituals, and hopefully bring some structure into back into my life.

The Plan

Before I can come up with a plan I need to asses my life right now. My current routine looks like this.

8:30ish – wake up/morning routine

8:40ish – go back to bed and look at my phone or fall asleep again

9 or 9:40 – get up and find something to eat

10:30 – start doing homework or attending online classes

Then my homework ends up taking me almost all day or what feels like all day because I get distracted on top of the fact that I am a slow worker. When the day is almost over I lose my motivation to do personal fun things and that’s where the problem lays.

I don’t want to overwhelm myself with new routines so I’m gonna start simple. I need to start my day sooner so this is how I want it to go.

8:30 – wake up/morning routine

8:40 – leave my room and close the door behind me

This will become my cue telling me;

This is what I do before I START MY DAY.

It’s simple but after that, I can get something to eat and come back upstairs to start my workday. Hopefully starting my day earlier will make it end earlier too.

Time Blocking and Power Hours

I’ve gotten back into the habit of time blocking. It helps me process all the work I need to do that day and stick to a schedule. Motivation is hard to muster when so many decisions have to be made. So setting a schedule puts all of that on autopilot.

My teacher mentioned that she’s been working on a power hour system, 1 hour of work, 1-hour break and repeat. I thought I’d try that myself. In about 10 minutes I’m gonna take a break from writing this post to read a book for the book club my friends and I started. We’ll see how this power hour thing turns out but so far I’ve been working really hard on this post in anticipation of my break. I don’t feel dragged down from the hours of work I need to spend on this post because I get to have a break soon.

Staying Motivated

I don’t want to overwhelm myself with new habits and routines because as James clear said in his article, the key to getting motivated is to make it easy. Keep things in the optimal zone of difficulty so that it feels challenging but manageable. I want to work on starting my day earlier so that hopefully, it leaves me with more time during the day to do the other things I love. Once I get this habit down I will be adding new things into the mix but for now, I’ll stick to simply waking up early.

 

Art on Ignorance

Art on Ignorance

The civil rights movement and the events that happened prior have been something I felt I didn’t know enough about. Naturally, I was intrigued when my social studies teachers introduced it as our next unit. In case you are unaware, I am what most would call white. My skin is pale like my mother’s and father’s. However, the term white has more meaning than just the colour of one’s skin.

White people are privileged because of years of racial injustice. For over four hundred years since the beginning of slavery in America, white people have held themselves above African American people. The New York Times started an outstanding project called The 1619 Project to shed light on the true history of African American people in America. The articles I read from the project got me thinking about the world I live in today and how we got here. America’s economic growth can be traced back to the hard work of thousands of enslaved people. I started looking at the things around me and saw the history within the food I ate, the clothes I wore and the music I listened to. I believe I’ve been ignorant about this topic for too long so to show my understanding I created an art piece about ignorance.

The drawing I created highlights three things. America’s sugar industry, Cotton industry and American music. I read some really great articles on these subjects and that is how the idea for this drawing came to me. All the things you see in the image are things I and billions of other people enjoy every day. But what about the history behind it all.

America’s Sugar Industry

Sugar Cane was introduced to America in 1491. At the time sugar in Europe was a luxury. No one ever predicted sugar would become the mass-produced product it is today. In 2019 Florida manufactured 17.06 tons of sugar. In this article from the 1619 project;

Americans consume as much as 77.1 pounds of sugar and related sweeteners per person per year, according to United States Department of Agriculture data. That’s nearly twice the limit the department recommends, based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

– 1619 project article by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, New York Times

The production of America’s “White Gold” was a treacherous process. It is safe to say that its success as a regularly produced good is because of the enormous amount of enslaved labourers who had no say in doing the backbreaking and dangerous work. Sugar cane stalks had to be harvested and refined the day of harvest otherwise it would spoil. Adults and children worked in factory line assemblies near boilers, open furnaces and grinding rollers. The factories ran night and day to achieve the highest efficiency at the cost of its workers.

In my art piece, the woman lays in her bed enjoying an abundance of sweets that are so easy to obtain today. I hope that people, including myself, will recall the sacrifices made for the success of sugar today.

America’s Cotton Industry

Cotton in the 19th century was America’s largest and most valuable export. Its success, like “white gold”, came from enslaved labour. All-day, African American men, women and children picked cotton by hand and tossed it into sacks that hung from their necks. At the end of the day, those sacks were weighed, and if they were too light, the workers were beaten. So much cruelty was shown towards the enslaved, all to make a profit. The influence of cotton plantations is still recognizable today. Cotton is everywhere. It’s in the clothes we were and the bed sheets we sleep soundly in. The women in my drawing is laying in her bed with the cotton bed sheets wrinkled around her. In her bliss, she doesn’t know about the history behind those sheets she lays so comfortably in.

“American” Music

America is known for this musical sound that it has. Rock and Roll, Jazz and Pop music has been chewed up and spat out by some of the most famous American singers and songwriters. The 1619 project has a great podcast and article on the topic and that is why it became one of the focuses of my art. The sounds that have become known as American music have a much deeper and darker root then I think most people realize.

Click here for a great article on the Rolling Stones and how rock and roll become white.

My dad loved sharing the music of his time (growing up in the 50s) with me. We spin records in our living room and he shares all the stories he knows about each album and artist with me. One thing he told me about was about the stolen music that white artists would take from African American blues singers. Though stealing was not always the intended purpose.

In 1830 an actor named Rice was touring with a theatre company in Cincinnati. While there he ran into an old black man singing while grooming a horse. Rice took the tune and tried to make something of it, but something wasn’t working. So the night of one of his shows, he painted some melted cork onto his face and preformed that stolen tune. That night the blackface minstrel shows would go on to become America’s entertainment and define how white Americans interpreted African Americans.

Since then music has evolved into this melting pot of genres, but all of them, whether the artists knew it or not was influenced by African American singers. The enslaved found ways to be free through music and art. None of which was composed but instead built from exhaustion, hope and feelings. As Wesly Morris from the new york times’ 1619 project said in his article;

I had to laugh — not because as a category Yacht Rock is absurd, but because what I tasted in that absurdity was black.

So what’s my goal?

My goal with this art project was to teach myself and others to look at the things around you differently. To see the things in your home and all around you and to truly know the history. The art I chose to create wasn’t just some random idea I had. It derived from how I felt before starting this project. I didn’t know a lot about the civil rights movement before this and I still have a ways to go. But I am approaching this unit with the willingness to learn as much as I can.

They are always watching – TWIL III

They are always watching – TWIL III

1945, the war is over. Your husband is home, you’re starting a family, moving into a beautiful home in the suburbs. It’s a dream! Yet under it, there is a fear, a paranoia.  Communism is skyrocketing, and the West is doing all it can to contain the spread. How can you contain something without knowing what needs to be contained? That’s where spies come in! Que espionage music! …Where is my music? What, espionage didn’t start during the cold war? There were spies during the Elizabethan era? Let’s explore some more about spies during the Elizabethan era and how it connects to the Cold War.

Queen Elizabeth the first was the protestant queen of England and Ireland in the 16th century. Plagued by threats from her homeland and Spain, Elizabeth and her council hired a sophisticated group of spies to keep her safe. Because of her religion, many Christians were plotting to replace her with Mary Queen of Scots.

Sir Francis Walsingham ran an extensive spy network for Elizabeth. His spies were instrumental in deciphering letters written to and from Mary Queen of Scots which was later used as evidence in her trial. There are many stories of spies during Queen Elizabeth’s reign and she was well known for her spy network.

Shakespeare includes some hints of espionage in Macbeth. At the end of act three scene four, he says to Lady Macbeth, “there’s not a one of them in his house. I keep a servant fee’d”. Macbeth keeps spies in his subjects’ houses to ease his present paranoia.

Though spies have been around for a very long time, their importance grew again during the cold war. There was no fighting during the Cold War, hence the term “cold”. Instead, major superpowers were racing to become the most powerful. There was a space race and a nuclear arms race happening and during all of this, America wanted to know what was going on in Russia and vice versa.

The rise of spies on the west started with a man named Igor Gouzenko. Igor Gouzenko worked at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. When he defected from Russia and became Canadian, he started telling Canada top-secret Russian information. He had stolen many Russian files and smuggled them back to Canada. Two other well-known spies were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were Americans, convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. They were accused of giving the Soviets information about radar, sonar and jet propulsion engines along with nuclear weapon designs. The couple was executed and for many years it was debated whether their sentence was fair.

I’ve taken what I have learned from this lecture and my external research and I wrote a short fictional story to reflect on my learning.

For years spies have been around. Even before the Elizabethans. Knowledge is power and can determine where you stand on a political platform. Learning about the Cold War has taught me that governments can rise to power without directly fighting and that times have not changed so much since Shakespeare was around.

Those Above Us… Control Us?

Those Above Us… Control Us?

If I told you, everything I wrote about on this blog was the flawless truth, the hard facts given to you straight. You probably wouldn’t believe me. If I started writing things like “you could fly with these 5 simply brain exercises” you’d think I was full of it. Why is that? Well, it’s because, I am not a reliable, high power who has a great influence on you. I’m just some kid with a blog. That’s what I want to focus on for this post. How do beings with great power influence others?

We just completed another lecture in class, this time focused on social change in the 1950s. A subtopic of the lecture that piqued my interest was the rise of television. As Television rose in popularity, the ability to access information quicker and easier did as well. The world was on TV and families were eating it up. Unfortunately, when the wrong people got control of this power to broadcast their ideas and worldviews, the public started absorbing the wrong information.

America was flourishing after WWII. The economy was booming, people were buying homes, spending money, going to school. It was the dream and if the dream is paying off for you as a country, you’d want everyone to follow would you not. So why not start showcasing this perfect world. But the world wasn’t perfect, early television shows all had the same message. It showed you the same white American family, a husband and a wife was 1 and a half kids who were mischievous but not rebellious. With the constant showing of this “ideal” life, that is what people started to believe. Because someone higher, with a lot of power, has been sharing that world view.

I wrote this poem as my artifact for what I learned. I used themes from Macbeth and from the 1950s.

The Elizabethans thrived in a world governed by the chain of higher command. All over the place, powerful people were telling less powerful people what to do. In Macbeth, the witched are not respected, yet Shakespeare writes them as these powerful beings of the underworld. When the Witches tell Macbeth his future of being the king. His vaulting ambition gets the best of him and he stops at nothing to get what he wants. Some people might argue that it was Macbeth’s own doing and that he could have chosen to ignore the Witches. I don’t believe that is the case. Once the Witched put the idea into Macbeth’s head, he became unstoppable. Macbeth blames it on his ambition but if that idea had not been brought up to him, I don’t think he would have even thought of it.

It’s true our society listens to those above us. At times that can be a bad thing. If those people above us are trying to feed us false, doctored or racist information and we don’t see that, then we are only making the problem worse. Shakespeare’s Macbeth aligns very well with this concept of higher power and you can see a lot of similarities between the two. The consequences of Macbeth’s actions are just starting to reveal themselves and we are just getting into the exciting part of the 1950s. I’ll be here again next Monday with more that I learned!

no references

mPOL… 6 and counting

mPOL… 6 and counting

My 7th mPOL, wow I’ve come a long way. I was looking back at my old blog posts for inspiration and that was a bad idea. I’ve come really far in reflecting on my learning since Grade 8. I know what you might be thinking. “If it’s been that long, it must be so easy to write these posts”… no, it’s not. It’s still equally as difficult. But I do it for you guys… whoever you are.

I wanna start by talking about something I am proud of because I feel like all the mPOL prompts are about things you felt didn’t go as well. I don’t just want to critique my learning but I also want to celebrate it.

This year we did a poetry unit where we studied the 1950s Beat Generation and got to experiment with some of our own poetry. I had so much fun with this project and I felt challenged to write longer poems using different poetic devices. As you may have gathered by now, I am a very artistic person and this unit was an amazing time to put my own personal flair into a project. Although it was an individual project I got to collaborate with my classmates and I learned so much from their writing styles. I was able to improve my own literary and writing skills by observing other people’s processes.

Now, all though I’ve had a good year academically, not all the work I’ve done this year has reached my standards. Because I was away for a lot of the Lord of the Flies unit I wasn’t able to produce something to the best of my abilities. I wish I had a better understanding of the literary side of the book because that is the part I find the most interesting. Over the years I’ve gotten a lot better at gauging my level of work in any situation. I understood that I was away and that I wouldn’t have as much time to complete the project but that was no reason to get down about it. I just did the best I could and looking at it, it didn’t go terribly.

This year we have learned a lot of new and very interesting things. The Manhattan Project project had so much content that I found really captivating and I found myself constantly wanting to know more and to do my own research. That was one of the first units we’ve done where I have retained more than 60% of the information. It makes me feel really smart whenever the Atomic Age ever comes up.

Although the Manhattan Project project was one of my favourite units content-wise, it had its downfalls. After unsuccessfully reading The Age of Radiance for our Manhattan Project project, I made it my new goal to finish Lord of the Flies. The book was small so it made my goal very attractive. I tried to read a little bit every day and I read a lot of the book on my long flights to Cambodia. I managed to finish the book in time for our test which helped my confidence going into it. To allocate my time better I kept the book around me all the time. I also put reminders into Things and tried to read before going to bed.

I am a slow reader and I get lost easily so I always have to go back and reread things. I found that doing external research or using spark notes helped my comprehension and reduced the amount I had to reread. Since then my reading habits have gotten a lot better. I’ve been able to finish books both for school and for personal enjoyment. I completed Atomic Habits and I read The Outsiders on my own time!

Having now read Atomic Habits, a book about forming new habits and sticking to them. I have even more knowledge to help keep up with my reading. It’s kind of a win-win situation because now that I am reading more. I’m also learning new words, new sentence structures and new writing styles.

Recently we read one of our classmate’s blog posts and left a comment about it. I read Logan’s blog post and I was very impressed by his vocabulary. His posts were very captivating to read because of it. I would like to try and include some more alluring vocabulary into my future writing to challenge myself and learn new words.

This year has been really focused on literary skills. I’ve done a lot of reading and a lot of writing. It’s been challenging but at the same time, very enjoyable. I love working on my literary skills because I always feel like I can improve them. During the manhattan project we read a non-fiction book, and all though I didn’t finish it, I was opened up to a new genre that I have come to enjoy. In the Lord of the Flies unit, we did a lot of analysis and writing. I want to continue to develop my analysis skills because I think its a skill that can be applied to a lot of aspects of literature in order to gain a deeper understanding of a piece of media. Our current Project, Hide Your Fires is another great opportunity to practice my analysis skills because Shakespeare’s Macbeth is full of metaphors, themes and paradoxes for you to pick apart. I look forward to flexing my newly developed skills in this project and any future ones.

It’s been a good year. I’ve managed to maintain a really good work ethic and I don’t feel like one part of my life is taking over more than another. My school work has been challenging but not to the point where I feel like I can’t handle it. I’ve been reading more which makes me feel really good and I think it will help with my school work in the future and I’m genuinely proud of all the work I’ve done this year. Since grade 8 I have felt like I’ve been working on the big things everyone tries to master. The time management, the work ethic, the comprehension. I think I’m starting to reach a place where those skills are starting to settle and I can focus on the little things like spicing up my vocabulary and managing my school work when I up and leave to Cambodia. I’m excited to work on the little things for the remainder of the year and I cant wait to see how those tiny changed affect the bigger picture.

The Week I learned

The Week I learned

This week I learned that Macbeth is a very sexual play… the end

I’m kidding, my teacher would be pretty upset with me if that was all I learned this week. In this unit, we are studying Macbeth and the 1950s. With act 1 of Macbeth finished and a lecture on the Cold War out of the way, we already have so much to dive into. Our big idea for this project is Appearance vs Reality. How does appearance deceive or reveal reality? There are so many aspects of Macbeth that mention appearance vs reality and the war is all about deceiving your enemies.

I want to start this project off with a good understanding of what Appearance vs Reality is because it is our main focus of the project. In this post, I will be looking further into that.

Act 1 of Macbeth is built upon appearing as something you are not. Macbeth’s ambition draws him towards being king but one thing lies in his way. The current king. However, he is still a loyal servant and trustee of the king and he finds himself in quite the dilemma. Lady Macbeth thinks the answer is clear. She wants Macbeth to be king and is prepared to kill Duncan herself. She even goes as far as to rid herself of her womanly qualities so she may be killed with the ability to kill like a man. At this point, Lady Macbeth has told Macbeth to leave the killed to her. All he has to do it “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” (Lady Macbeth Scene 5, Act 1).

I created this image which represents my thoughts on appearance vs reality in this section of the play.

Macbeth has found it quite hard to hide his dark desires to kill the king. In scene 4 of act 1, Macbeth calls upon some supernatural help saying “Stars hide your fire, let not light see my dark and black desires”. In the image I made I represented his dilemma with all the things running through his head. The influence of the witched can be seen in the back and at the forefront, his wife who is controlling him in many ways.

How does this connect to the 1950s? Well, politics is politics. Whether it happened in 1040 with Macbeth or in 1947 in the beginnings of the Cold War. Like I mentioned before, during the war, especially a cold one, knowledge is power. So you need to keep those thoughts to yourself. It’s all about appearing as though you are something you aren’t. That you are on someone’s side when in reality you have plans of your own.

Nearing the end of World War Two, President FDR (USA), Winston Churchill (United Kingdom) and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union) gathered together at the Yalta Conference to discuss the division of Germany. Although they appeared to be working together the Soviet Union and the USA were not friends. They had a common want to end the war but after the war was over. Russia had plans of its own. In Macbeth, Macbeth must hind his thoughts of killing the king behind the wall of a kind and welcoming host. Russia must work with people they are not truly allies with in order to get own with their own business.

At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 President Truman, the new president of the united states was informed that they had officially detonated the first atomic bomb. This technology was the superweapon that would win them the war and potentially any other conflict from then on. Truman was able to use this as leverage against japan calling it a “powerful new weapon”. Because Truman didn’t trust his soviet partner he left the weapon unspecified. But having had a spy amongst the research team, Stalin already knew what it was the US possessed.

The 1950s and Macbeth have a lot of similarities in terms of our main idea of appearance vs reality. When we started this project I wasn’t too sure how we were going to be able to make connections between the two but after writing this post I can see many. I’m excited to continue comparing the two throughout this project. That’s what I learned this week!

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