Hi!

If you recall my last post spoke about the 1950’s and early 60’s and how they weren’t that fun for anyone involved. Well, the 60’s seemed to be just as bad. Because this is when the Cold War really went full steam ahead.

Well, almost. And that is exactly what we were studying. The 60’s seemed to be the closest to nuclear war the world had been at that point (I think we all know why I’m saying this in past tense) Our job was to come up with a thesis on a specific point in the 1960’s that caused the world to be on the brink of destruction, and then write an essay about it.

I decided to choose the assassination of JFK. This was a huge point in American history that I figured I wanted to do more research on and get a good argument for. And I did, it was very interesting

JFK Essay

The 60’s was a real time to be alive. One one hand you had the Cold War with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Wall, on the other hand you had your nice apple pie life, and on the other other hand you had social change. As an example, there was Stonewall.

Stonewall was a huge point in LGBTQ+ history, in which the police raided a gay bar and the people fought back. It led to a series of riots lead by two trans women of colour who just wanted a place where they could be themselves. It’s something I was very relieved to actually learn about because it’s not often that we get to learn about gay history and, personally, I like knowing about my own history.

But the Stonewall riots became a huge protest that, on most nights, got very violent. It got into the press, and for the first time people were opening their eyes to see that gay and trans people were there and they deserved rights, and they would fight to get them.

The media has such a big influence on people. A similar thing happened with JFK, when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him. It became aware that the Soviets were in their borders. Not Cuba, not Russia. In America. Even if Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t associated with the Russian government, people were still thinking about it.

Those two events were almost wake up slaps for America. Things are changing, some for the better and some not so much. People were opening their eyes.

This isn’t just a thing of the past. We always think that people in the past were blind but we see everything. We really don’t, sometimes you look at a piece of media and it really makes you think. I’m going to leave links to a few things that really did that for me, and I hope you get to thinking more.

Fahrenheit 11/9

John Oliver: Transgender Rights

Caster Semenya Looses Fight Over Testosterone Rules

Police Brutality

Read you later

Sincerely, Parker

So in case you haven’t caught up on my last post, we’re going a unit on the Civil Rights Movement. Well, we just finished it. The end product was a wonderful video that I made with Hannah

Okay, that was probably a lot to take in. So let’s take a step back. How did we get here? Now, I could go through every single historical event. But for those of you who aren’t readers, feel free to skip past these. It’s just a few bullet points of the ‘who, what, where, when, why’ when it comes to segregation.

Pre-1950’s:

• American Civil War 
  • Basically North vs. South
  • Confederates vs. Republicans
  • Led to the 13th Amendment
• Thirteenth Amendment (Dec 1865)
  • Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery
  • He added onto the constitution saying that all men were equal
  • The last state to ratify the amendment was Mississippi in 2013
• Separate But Equal – Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)
  • Plessy was on train, didn’t want to sit on black car
  • Court didn’t agree with him
  • Enforced laws about discrimination
  • “There is a seat for you, but it’s just separate”
• Jim Crow Laws (1896)
  • Laws after slavery laws
  • Based off of 1820’s song
  • Racist laws that made segregation a thing
  • Seperate But Equal
• De Facto vs. De Jure Segregation
  • Helped enforce the above two
  • Difference between laws being enforced by preference instead of by law
  • De Facto: Preference (water fountains) De Jure: Law (interracial marriage)

1950’s:

• End of School Segregation (1954)
  • School girl had to go an hour to her all black school
  • Sued the school board to be able to go to closer all white school
  • Went to Supreme Court
  • Smashed down on laws related to segregation in schools
  • Argued that it wasn’t equal because she had to commute an hour and the resources weren’t at the same level
• Claudette Colvin (1954)
  • Refused to give up her seat
  • Was arrested and kept in an adult jail
  • Happened before Rosa Parks, but didn’t have the same affect
  • She got pregnant so the NAACP didn’t want to have her be the face of the movement
• Murder of Emmett Till (July 1955)
  • ‘Winked’ at a white woman
  • Was lynched by white men
  • Got killed and his mother put his body on display for people tosee
  • Lost the court case
  • Men who killed him admitted it to Time
  • Still nothing happened
• Rosa Parks (1955)
  • Refused to give up her seat
  • The news spread quickly in Mongomery
  • Myth that she was tired is wrong, it was an act of protest
  • Sparked the bus boycott
• Bus Boycott (Dec 5, 1955 – Dec 20, 1956)
  • Led by event where Rosa Parks didn’t give up her seat
  • Black people in Montgomery decided to stop taking buses until they stopped segregation
  • Had white people join their side
  • Took over a year before the busses gave in
  • Made the busses loose a lot of business
• Little Rock Nine (1957)
  • Group of nine African American students who enrolled in an all white high school. Organizer: Daisy Bates brought the students together. Elizabeth Echford, Carlotta Walls, Ernest Green, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Beals, Jefferson Thomas
  • White protesters outside, military sent to protect
  • Little Rock, Arkansas, Deep South, America, Central High School (Little Rock High?)
  • 1957, September 4th, 3 years after the Brown v. Board of education ruling
  • Created a pathway for other black students, showed that they were equals and also deserved rights.

1960’s:

• Lunch Counter Sit-Ins (1960):
  • Group of kids sitting at lunch counters meant for white people
  • Were harassed and arrested
  • Didn’t spark legal action
  • Forms SNCC, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Comittee
• Freedom Riders (1961):
  • Fighting to end segregation on interstate busses
  • Got attacked, one bus blown up
  • First group were arrested, then young people showed up to take their place
  • MLK didn’t join them, not wanting to cause an outrage
  • Caused the prisons to fill up to prove they couldn’t be stopped
• March On Washington (1963)
  • For jobs and freedom
  • JFK at first didn’t support it, but then was forced to
  • March was very successful, showing that they were a large group of people who supported this
  • Biracial march
  • Civil Rights Act is passed
• Freedom Summer (1964):
  • Wanted to register to vote
  • Teach people how to vote
  • White people put in so many obsticals so black people couldn’t vote
  • Three men went missing because they tried to vote
  • Found dead in river after whole town denied knowing them
  • People helping others to vote
• Selma March (1965):
  • MLK wanted to lead March from Selma to Montgomery
  • First time the group was beaten by police and retreated
  • Second time, they were unprepared. Police stepped aside but MLK walked away
  • Third time they were more prepared and did the full march, wanting to prove that they could vote without racism from people who run the polls
  • To get LBJ to pass laws for legal rights to vote without complications
  • Afterwards, the act to let people vote with no issues is passed
• Black Power (1966)
  • More violent than MLK
  • More political
  • Led by Malcom X
  • Tied in with Nation of Islam (African Political Religious Movement)
  • Popular in prisons
  • Formed by members of SNCC because they were tired of non-violence
• MLK Assassination (1968):
  • MLK was shot in Memphis, Tennessee
  • Goes to support Black Sanitation Public workers on strike for better wages and better treatment
  • Gives the I’ve Been To The Mountaintop speech
  •  Was used to living under threat of death, shown by the fact that his plane was delayed due to a bomb threat
  • Stood on balcony and was shot from longe range
  • James Earl Ray had escaped prison and shot King and then charged
  • Many conspiracies about his death

Another thing we studied was the book Dear Martin. It’s about a boy called Justyce and his experiences with racism and police brutality in 2017. I personally really enjoyed it, and I suggest you go read it. Yes, you reading this right now. As part of our reflection on the book, and a few other things we studied, we had a Socratic Seminar.

A Socratic Seminar is basically a time where we reflect on the book, and then go deep into discussion on themes, characters, and relations to today. There’s two circles, and people sit like this:

I know, aren’t I just an artist. But we had a few of these. Some were on the book, others were on things like the Freedom Riders (see above) and the March from Selma to Montgomery (also see above).

Now we get into the meat of the project: the final product. We had to make another video, but this was a bit different.

We started the unit with the basic driving question: How Can The Acts Of An Individual Change A System? We got to look at some really cool people, such as Claudette Colvin and Little Rock Nine. The original plan was to choose a Canadian who had changed a system. Then… plans changed. We were put into groups, told us to think of a driving question and make a six minute video.

I know. I got paired with Hannah, and we got to work researching. We eventually settled on something that both of us are passionate about, and really impacted the Civil Rights Movement: music.

It was easy from there, just finding examples such as We Shall Overcome, which was the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, and Same Love by Macklemore.

Over all, I really liked this unit. It got us to look at the bigger picture of what the Civil Rights Movement represented, not just the historical events and people. We focussed a lot on the youth, and how much they did. It makes me feel like I could be that person, I can do something simple and change an entire system. We have people now that are doing that. Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Parkland shooting. Rahaf Mohammed, who escaped Saudi Arabia and is now an activist.

We have historical figures here in 2019, they will be remembered. All of us can be, if we just speak out.

Read you later

Sincerely, Parker

 

In our most recent unit in Humanities, we’re focusing on the civil rights movement. As you know, we already spoke about the 50’s, but we skipped past the civil rights movement so that we could go back into it later with more depth. Part of what we have to do is create blog posts, much like our ones from last round. It’s different this time, however, because we get to have more choice on what we make. All we have is a driving question, and we have to make a thesis around that and then show a final product. The driving question: how can the actions of an individual change a system?

One of the big examples we got in class was Rosa Parks. She refused to give up her seat on the bus because she didn’t like that she was bein oppressed. That spiked the bus boycott, which then caused the rules on the bus to change. Her actions changed an entire system. So I started thinking about how I could demonstrate that while also relating it back to today? What has a big affect on people and systems: the media. I had my thesis down. “

The Media Hasn’t Changed From The Past As Much As We Think.

How am I gonna tackle that? Well let’s look at a few examples here.

I think we all now who Martin Luther King Jr. was. Important civil rights activist, preacher, you get the gist. Seeing as he was a civil rights activist, the police didn’t like him much. He got arrested for being a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and his mugshot was later published. Though, here’s the thing. Some newspapers published the mugshot to make his skin look darker.

It was mainly newspapers with predominantly white readers that published the darker version, used possibly as a scare tactic. Because that’s how things were back then, men with dark skin were seen as more intimidating. But this would never happen today, we would all hope.

I’d like to draw your attention now to the OJ Simpson case. Anyone who was alive in the 90’s knows about it, and most people afterwards do too. The unsolved case, nobody really knows if he did it. But when he was arrested, it went everywhere. It was the 90’s, football was big. OJ was well known. And guess what Time Magazine decided to do.

That’s right. They darkened the photo (even worse than what they did to Martin Luther King) as a scare tactic. Unfortunately, it was printed along side other mugshots that hadn’t been altered, and Time got a lot of flack for it.

 

Example 2: What is being reported? The media is now people get most, if of not all, of their information. Read the newspaper, watch the news, check social media, get a text from a friend. It’s how things work. But there are people who control how it’s being put out, and what is being put out. Back to the 50’s, there was a common occurrence called ‘lynching’. This was when if a black person stepped outside of the social boundaries, they would get beaten, whipped and possibly killed. It was terrible, and brutal, and it was now a lot of white people kept their power in the south. There was knowledge that it happened, but no media ever spoke of it. That was until Emmett Till was lynched, and his mother did something about it.

She put his body on display for people to see, she was showing them that things weren’t right because her son had been killed for whistling at a white woman. Then and only then did the media pick up on it. She had to make so much noise that it forced people to listen to her. And the worst part is: no one was convicted. The men that beat and shot this kid went on trial and weren’t convicted. They later went to Time magazine and pretty much admitted to it. But the jury was all white men, the entire court staff were white men. So no wonder they weren’t convicted.

Let’s bring this back to today. White men beating up black kids and not being convicted. That surely doesn’t happen?

Of course it does. All the time you hear the headline ‘black man shot by police’, or ‘unarmed black teen brutalized’. This still happens, but we’ve almost because immune to it. So much so that we can put the word ‘another’ in there because it’s just become normal. I can be so sure that almost none of these cops have done a single night in jail because of it. Is it still being reported on? Yes, that’s an advance. But nothing is being done.

So we thought the 50’s were so bad with racism and bigotry? We’re just as bad. I am embarrassed that there are still things going on. But it’s just more hidden now. People are suffering and dying and we go about our day to day lives like it’s nothing. I still see racist cartoon sometimes. That is a fact. We learn about racist cartoons in school and people feel sick. But during the summer, Serena Williams lost a tennis game. Then this came out:

Just because we only see a portion of racism does not mean it isn’t still there.

The 50’s were racist, and we aren’t much better.

We’re back once again for another mPOL! Over these past few months, the question “how are you going to advance as a learner by the end of the year?” has come up a lot. Clearly it’s not the end of the year, as it’s January, but we’re already (almost) halfway through the school year. But how much have I advanced in these past few months? How can I continue to advance? For this we’re going to look at things such as my teamwork skills, wanting to expand my knowledge of things taught in class, getting involved and my management skills.

Lets start with teamwork. I feel like probably everyone has heard me talk about how I want to improve my teamwork in about every single mPOL I’ve done. I feel like this year was definitely my time to shine, as we’ve done nothing but team projects. Starting with our Manhattan Project² , I was definitely a team player in that. My other two team members were Ethan and Sam, and all in all I think we all contributed a lot into that project, making it very strong. Though I wasn’t in the actual video, I did a lot more behind the scenes things. I did a lot of the research, I wrote most of the script, as well as I helped with filming, B-Roll and audio editing. That project was something I’m really proud of, and it shows what we’re capable of when we Think Interdependently.

In this term and term 1, I also found myself doing more research outside of class on certain topic we’re working on. I’ve been wanting to expand my knowledge of things said in class, so I’ll find myself reading articles and websites to get a better understanding. An example of this would be during our 50’s exhibition, I got very interested in McCarthyism and the blacklist and everything surrounding that. I did a lot more research on that as we were editing the script, which made it hard to break down everything I wanted to say into key points for our portion of the exhibition. Even in the unit we’re doing now on the Civil Rights Movement, I’ve got a list of movies I want to watch that would help me get more of a historical perspective, and I’ve also been reading the additional resources Hughes has put in Basecamp. Getting a better understanding of what I’m learning is helpful because when it comes time to do a project or voice my opinion during class, I can know what I’m talking about and have some more background information.

I’ve also found myself working towards getting more involved in class. To draw upon the exhibition again, I got assigned to script writing. It was fun while we had to write the script, seeing as I got to write about Hollywood and do all that research. But once the script was done and Willa took over editing, I didn’t have much to do. This forced me to have to go up to people working on things and asking ‘how can I help?’ Because I did this I got to make things like the end video, help paint doors for the street scene, and work on other decorations. Even when we were setting up in the gym, I was making sure that, once I finished one task, I could move onto another one easily. I’m hoping to grow on this in the future not just with Team work, but with my own personal work. When I’m done an assignment, I’ll find myself looking at it and going ‘what else can I do’. This is helping me make sure I don’t just go for what’s expected, but do a bit more to make my work stand out. This is something that I’m planning on doing in term 2 and 3.

 

My last point here is talking about my management skills. I’m always working to improve my management skills, mainly with time management but also organization and making sure I can manage the tasks given to me. A huge help with this has been time blocking, in while I block out things in my day such as each class, the time it takes to bus home, how much time I get flake infront of the TV before dinner, etc. This has been a huge help because I have more of schedule, and it’s good to know that ‘alright, if I start doing Task A at this time for X amount of time, Task B can happen at this time’. It gives me an excuse to tell myself to get off the couch and do my homework, which I often need reminding of.

Another big help with this has been Things, where I can keep all my calendar stuff together. It gives me reminders like ‘hand in worksheet tomorrow’ or ‘bring camera for photography’. It doesn’t just help manage my school life, though that’s what I mainly use it for, it also manages my personal life. I check things every Sunday and go through what I did and didn’t achieve, and write it down in my weekly review to see what I can improve upon in the next week. It has a checkbox system, so when you complete and assignment you can check it off. And let me tell you, there is nothing more relieving than checking off boxes in things.

How I plan to improve my management skills is to work harder to time block. My time blocks are very loose right now, so I need to make sure they’re a bit more strict so that I know when I can do what. I also need to work on taking breaks, and reminding myself that I can take breaks. When I have a large task, I tend to start dreading it because it’s so big and I don’t want to spend all that time on it. Breaking a large task up into smaller chunks helps it seem more manageable, and I’m working towards doing that. Think of it like the Goal Ladders from What Do I Really Want. One step at a time, and then I’ll reach the top in no time.

So I hope you all enjoyed attending (or reading) my mPOL! See you soon!

Read you later

Sincerely, Parker

Heyo, it’s me. Back with another blog post. This time on the wonderful time that was the 50’s. Ah yes, good times. Dancing, beat poetry and the constant looming fear of communism taking over.

So we got to do a project on that time. We studied a lot, on things such as McCarthyism. McCarthyism was pretty much a period where a guy called Joseph McCarthy put a whole bunch of people on trial because of the Red Scare. Everyone was being accused of communism for tiny things, and a lot of people lost their jobs.

Our project was simple (not). All we had to do was create a walk-through exhibit showing off important bits from the 50’s, while also relating it back to our research on The Crucible and also also relating it back to today. The experience had to be interactive with the audience, and we had to save a minimum of five stations, making the whole experience 40 minutes. Simple, clearly. The best part was: we had two and a half weeks.

It started with plotting out the ideas for each of the six stations we had to do. Our final plan was this:

Scene one: President Eisenhower gives a speech addressing the people of America and talking about the threat of communism

Scene two: An American household. The husband has just returned from the war, the wife is the classic housewife with one child on the way and a baby already there. They talk about how the GI Bill has helped them so much, and how much consumerism has affected them

Scene three: The guide and the Audience go to a Street, where there’s a rally for pro-communism. They talk about how the government is bad and how they shouldn’t arrested. They move on quickly.

Scene four: The guide and the Audience run into a scene of military officers trying to recruit a veteran to go to the Korean War. They explain the point of the Korean War was to fight the Communists over there so we don’t have to deal with them here. The guides low-key get accused of communism and its revealed they were drafted for war and dodged the draft.

Scene five: Hollywood, Baby. The guide gets cast in a Hollywood production of The Crucible, with A Wonderful Person as the cameraman. They explain what the blacklist was, and why Hollywood was especially affected. They shoot a bit of the film, until the police come in and make the guide stand on trial on the grounds of being accused of communist practices.

Scene six: The court scene. The audience have been given pieces of evidence of how the guide is a communist. They face Joseph McCarthy, which eventually leads to the guide being set free.

Then there’s a video relating back to today, and how Trump is going on a Russian witch-hunt, much like it was back then.

We wrote the script, though we were still editing days before the exhibition. People worked a lot on props, such as making a white picket fence and doors:

Then it was performance day. And… the wall broke. See, the gym has a mechanical wall that separates it. Super handy for our thing, but… we couldn’t use it. We had to improvise, using barriers and curtains and the backboards for the wall and to make it easier the move around without exposing everything.

We hadn’t had the chance to do a full runthrough of our lines, but we were pretty sure it was fine. I got to shout at people for being late, call people idiots. Good time.

We actually have a video of our preformance that you can see here:

Overall, this exhibition was a great way to learn about the time period. We really had to use our historical perspective and go into roles of people who maybe didn’t believe what we believed. We had to immerse ourselves in the culture, and learn about every side of the story. I would definitely do this project again, it helped me learn a lot more than I would have normally

That’s all,

Read you later!

Sincerely, Parker

So, the Crucible is a play we’re reading in class right now. We’ve currently finished Act II, and it’s… quite a lot. The Crucible is set during the Salem Witch Trials, which went from 1692-1693. Fun Fact: Contrary to popular belief, there were no burnings during the witch trails in Salem. They were normally hung and stuff instead. The more you know about murdering people.

So, back to the Crucible. Let’s talk about Act I for a second. It escalates very quickly. It starts off with the Preist’s daughter, Betty Parrish, in bed. She’s sick after being caught doing witchcraft in the woods. Her friend, Abigail, insists they were just dancing. Though after the Putnam’s, who’s daughter is in the same state, come in, the story evolves into the fact that Tituba, the Parrish’s slave, was trying to summon a bunch of the Putnam’s dead babies to see who killed them. After everyone leaves, the story is revealed in it’s whole truth: Abigail and the other girls were drinking blood and trying to use witchcraft to kill off Elizabeth Proctor, who had earlier fired Abigail from working for her. But when everyone comes back in and they start pointing fingers, things escalate.

So naturally all of the girls start naming off other women in the village who have danced with the devil.

Alright, that was probably a lot of information. So, how does one communicate that to a classroom full of kids? Well, the language of Gen Z: memes. Yes, I made a meme to translate Act I. Because of course I did.

Ah yes, the classic meme of brain evolution, which also shows the escalation of the blame in Act I. See, memes work. Education kids with memes, word of advice.

Anyways, I’ll read you later

Sincerely, Parker

In class, we’ve been reading a play called The Crucible. If you haven’t heard of it, which is unlikely, it’s a play about Salem during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible had arguably gone down in history. It’s famous, and history has kept it that way. The Crucible was written in the 50’s, and yet is still popular today.

So, now we ask ourselves the question: What piece of media is going to outlive all of us and still be very recognizable? Boy do I have an answer for you.

The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is definitely going to carry on into the future. It’s such a big part of the culture in 2018, and it’s going to keep on being that way. The MCU has produced 20 films since 2008, when the first Iron Man movie came out. It’s most recent, as of writing this, was Ant Man and the Wasp, which came out in 2018. The fact that it’s remained so popular throughout ten years is helped by the fact that there were comics before, but it’s mainly due to the fact that they’re good movies, unlike DC (I would say no shade but I’m ready to throw shade).

Speaking of DC, let’s do a comparison. Why have the many, many attempts to get Batman not the big screen failed, but the MCU remains strong? How has that happened when they’re both superheroes? Well, it’s because Marvel has better writers, better plots, and better characters. The Marvel writers know how to make a compelling story, they know how to make you laugh, make you scared, and make you sad. DC, on the other hand, hasn’t grasped that. I can only hear Christian Bale scream about Rachel for so long.

Carrying on: The plots of Marvel movies are also more interesting, and have important messages in them. Let’s take one of my favourites, Spider-Man: Homecoming. In it, a young 15-year-old Peter Parker is trying to balance being a teenager at school and working as Spider-Man. A villain, who goes by Vulture, is illegally selling weapons and it’s up to Spider-Man to save the day, while also keeping his identity secret from his classmates, Aunt, and best friend. At one point in the movie, he lets being Spider-Man completely take over his life. He winds up putting a ship full of people in danger, and almost gets them killed.

This pushes the message of not letting something consume consume your life. Of course, it’s not going to be life-threatening, but the message stands. Peter let his duties as Spider-Man take over his life, and he almost died and got other people killed. He didn’t, however, because Tony Stark (Iron Man) came in to help. After that happens, Stark takes away Peter’s suit, ensuing this fight:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wE9ajn-lRr4

As you notice, there are some lines that really jump out. “I’m nothing without the suit” “If you’re noting without the suit then you shouldn’t have it at all.” Peter goes on to the end of the movie and defeats the Vulture without the suit. Another important message is shown there. Peter doesn’t need the suit to be Spider-Man, because he’s more than the suit. He can do everything he needs to without the suit and he still remains victorious.

Another important point is the characters. The characters in Marvel are so much more than just ‘here’s a strong guy, he’s a superhero.’ They’re people that are relatable and are realistic. They’ve got flaws, they go through hardships. Tony Stark, for example, is an example of a well rounded character. His character arc from the beginning of Iron Man, where he’s a billionaire who makes weapons, to the end of Infinity War is remarkable.

Tony Stark starts out with a very ‘holier than thou’ attitude. He thinks he’s better than everyone because he’s smart, he has money, and he sleeps with a lot of women. But even during the first movie his character realizes that making weapons isn’t what he wants to do, and he moves on to cut off all manufacturing of bombs at Stark Industries. But he doesn’t stop developing as a character there. He has his flaws, such as hiring a 14 year old to fight Captain America, but he realizes that he has flaws. He becomes a nicer person throughout all of the movies, and he can look back at his mistakes and see where he went wrong. He’s all around a good character with flaws and perks, like every normal human being.

So this is why I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to keep on going for a while. It’s widely popular, and it has good writing, good plots, and good characters, like every long-lasting piece of fiction.

That’s all for now

Read you later,

Sincerely, Parker

So we recently went to Oregon (again). This time it was to learn all about the Manhattan Project, which you can learn all about here! It was a really fun trip, although short compared to our other field schools. It also wasn’t as busy, which was nice. A lot of driving, though. So much time on the bus. So. Much.

One of our first stops on the trip was at Powell’s Books. For those of you who don’t know, Powell’s Books is the largest bookstore in the world. It takes up a whole block, has about three stories and every single book you could think of. We only got 45 minutes in there, and we took some great pictures of books that summed up our interests:

There was another picture of me with a book titled “All Of Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” But it has been lost to time and the fact that I accidentally deleted it.

But the book store was very cool. If I went back, I would totally get that mega edition of Deadpool comics I had my eye on.

We spent the night in Oregon, before heading up to the main event: Hanford, Washington. Can I just say: our hotel had a sponsorship with Chupa Chups. So, naturally, there was a large display of lollipops in the lobby, as you do. Our class took full advantage of that over the two nights we spent there. So, there must be a question on everyone’s mind: what’s the best Chupa Chup flavour? Allow me to give a list of every flavour, ranked best to worst (hint: root beer isn’t that great. Fight me, Willa)

That didn’t take me two hours to make.

Anyways, moving on:

We went to a place called Maryhill, Washington. Didn’t stay in the town for long, but we found the weirdest museum. Ever want to see a bunch of mini dolls, the Queen of Romania’s wedding dress and a forest fire in the same place? Washington Maryhill Museum has all of that! Seriously, it’s kind of weird. We had a task to find something in it that we found interesting and make a video about it. So, ask and yee shall receive:

Moving along, we went to the actual Hanford site! Twice, actually. The first time was on the Friday, where we got to learn about the history. That was really cool, because we learned all about what the town was like before the government came over and took it.

My favourite story is of the Bruggeman household. Pretty much they were German immigrants who moved to Hanford. When the government came to move them for the government facility, they said all American citizens have to move out. Naturally, being a German citizen… he didn’t move. His cookhouse, a little ways away from his house, is still half on the compound today.

We filmed a bit on location for the video, and then went to…

Have you ever heard of endless shrimp? It’s where, at Red Lobster, the waiters just don’t stop bringing shrimp unless you explicitly tell them to stop. It’s truly an experience. While most of our class was eating endless shrimp, we went to target! I got a giant skeleton!

The next day we went to the B reactor! This is where they actually made the plutonium to put in the atomic bombs. I didn’t get any pictures of it, but if you look closely on the walls, you can see where the scientists wrote down their math.

The rest of the day was spent driving, until we got back. Over all, it was a really fun trip! I’d definitely go back again, it was a really great way to learn about Hanford, and the workers who worked on the atomic bomb.

Anyways, until next time

Read you later

Sincerely, Parker

So we recently went to Oregon (again). But this time it wasn’t to learn about sea life and sleep on submarines. We were learning about the making of the Atomic Bomb (a kind of pointless name considering every bomb is made of atoms, making them all technically atomic bombs.)

So we made a whole video about the site that helped make the plutonium for the bombs, called Hanford. Hanford is a place in Washington, so we actually got to visit there to take shots on site! It was very interesting to learn about, and the video came out very well:

But anyways, lets get a bit of historical context so we can back track on the making of the video.

So, the Germans had just surrendered in WWII. Everyone is still fighting the Japanese, who refuse to surrender. Then FDR (President Roosevelt for those who are confused) died. So the next in line, Truman, has to step in to become President. And what does he get told on his first day?

That America’s been secretly working on atomic bombs and it’s his choice whether he wants to drop them on Japan.

Yeah, a kind of heavy decision to make after you’ve just been made President. So Truman had to deal with the burden of deciding whether or not to kill a multitude of people or risking losing the war. So Truman eventually decided to continue making the bomb.

The first Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th. To learn more about that, we did Newsreels on that. Newsreels were shown normally in cinemas, as a bit of a news update. We recreated a newsreel about the dropping of the bomb:

A lot of people worked on the Manhattan Project. To help us get a better understanding into the personal lives, each person in our class created a character card on someone who worked on the Manhattan Project. I chose Lilli Hornig, who worked at Los Alamos, the main site that actually made the bombs:

Now, onto the big project: the video. The purpose of our video was to give five facts about Hanford, all within a basic theme. My group, consisting of Sam and Ethan, chose to focus on working there. How did people get recruited? What was the deal with secrecy? We were all curious about it, so we went ahead.

We got to film on site, which was very interesting! We got to go to the B Reactor, which created plutonium to help make the atomic bomb, as well as learn a bit about the history of Hanford.

So in the end: How did the atomic bomb affect those working at Hanford? Well, it certainly changed their lives. They barely knew what they were working on but they signed up anyways. Even after the bomb dropped, they were so proud of being a part of them. Today, the decision to drop the bomb becomes more controversial, people wondering if it was worth the lives lost. But the people at Hanford hold it with pride, proud to have helped America.

Anyways, I’ll see you guys next time

Read You Later

Sincerely, Parker

Welcome back! This unit was… a lot, to say the least. We studied Lord of the Flies, for starters. We also managed to squeeze in debates at the driving question of “How Do We Organize Ourselves?” It delved into governments and society. So, obviously, I was hooked. To fully capture this unit, I’m going to need to break it down for you.

The Teams

So, first day: we had to get ourselves into teams. Sounds simple, right? Right…? Wrong. Seeing as Ms. Maxwell left the room for twenty minutes and let a bunch of rowdy, 15-16 year old teenagers try and sort themselves into groups. So much shouting. So… So much shouting. We had to write a reflection afterwards, and it turns out the whole thing was about human nature.

Click Here To Read The Reflection!

I got a team with Mimi, Ethan, and Kyle. We were a really good team! I think we worked well together. One big part of the teams was the Point System.

As you can see, it was based off of how good our team was at certain things. Charged iPad? Points. Were you a decent human? Points. We tallied them all up on board.

We got the third place, if I remember correctly. Good fun!

If you notice on the point system chart it mentioned quizzes. Yep, there were team quizzes. We read Lord of the Flies (more on that later) and did three team quizzes. Each person in the team answered at least two of the ten questions on the quiz, and we ad to work together to remember things like characters, plot points, and stuff like that. We never got 100% but we got close, with 9/10.

The Book

Next up: We Read Lord of the Flies! That book that everyone reads at some point in high school, about innocent British boys that resort to murder and savagery. The good, lighthearted stuff! For those of you who haven’t read it, it’s pretty much about a bunch of boys who survive a plane crash and try to figure out how to survive. Speaking of survival… The first day of the unit, we had to figure out what we would do. We were given the assignment of figuring out what we would do if we were in the LOTF situation. My group came up with:

• Figure out a group of leaders and different committees with diverse ages
• Find a source of running water
• Find where renewable sources of food are
• Build shelters
• Build equipment/tools
• Scope out what dangers are on the island
• Find out who has certain skills
• Find highest point and make good strategies for attracting planes

We were on the same page as Ralph, mainly.

So I’ve been throwing around Ralph’s name a lot. (Like once, but whatever floats your boat). We actually did analysis of these characters! So let me bring you along the journey of LOTF: Who’s Who?

SPOILERS FOR LORD OF THE FLIES AHEAD!

Let’s talk a bit about some symbols in the book. Personally, I’m a sucker for symbolism. It’s always so cool to look at something and notice the Easter eggs, or realize that ‘Hey, the Lord of the Flies could be Satan’. The good stuff. The character analysis website (that I made) talked about what those characters symbolized, but what about some of the other things in the book?

The Conch in the book is very important. Ralph uses it to call meetings, and it gives everyone a chance to speak. It represents democracy. So when it breaks after Roger kills Piggy (I dislike Roger strongly), any chance of democracy or reasonable solutions have been, quite literally, shattered.

The Lord of the Flies is really just a pig’s head on a stick. But Simon goes insane, and it starts… talking to him. Yeah, this ten year old boy gets scarred for life by a dead pig’s head talks to him and taunts him. The Lord of the Flies represents the evil inside of all of us. If you haven’t read the passage, you should. But the pig’s head says things like “There’s only me” and “We’re going to have fun on this island”. There’s a whole other theory about Simon being Jesus and the Lord of the Flies being Satan, but let’s not get into that.

I really liked this book. It was interesting, even if some of the descriptions were long. It showed human nature, and it’s oddly interesting to watch these civilized people turn into savages.

Government

How do we organize ourselves? Well, this unit helped us answer that. To start off, each team researched a different government. There was:

1) Constitutional Monarchy

2) Dictatorship

3) Democracy

4) Oligarchy

5) Theocracy

6) Anarchy

We got the boring one of Democracy to research. Democracy is very common, seeing as places like the US and Canada use it. How it works is it focuses on political equality of all citizens. It is a system of rule by laws. The rule of law protect the rights of citizens, maintains orders, and limits how much power the government has. No one can be discriminated against based on their race, religion, ethnic, group or gender.

We also looked at the charter of rights and freedoms. Really important learn, seeing as I, personally, like to know my basic human rights as a Canadian citizen.

The last thing we looked at was voting systems. Okay, this is… so much. Why is it so complicated? But we looked at this article to try and make sense of it. I got to research the most simple one: First Past the Post. Pretty much, say that three candidates run. People put in their votes, and Candidate C gets the most. Candidate C wins. It’s that easy, but no. It has to get more complicated. I can’t even understand why anyone would make them, but whatever.

Debates:

For those who know me: I’m very scared of talking infront of people. Drama performances I can do, because it’s less scary to be playing a character. But then we had to do debates…

So, for the debate, we had to incorporate anything we could from humanities. This rages from World War One, to Disruption, World War Two, and LOTF. Then we got our statement:

Be It Resolved That It Is Human Nature To Put Yourself 

And we were arguing pro. Yeah, we got to say that we’re all selfish at heart! Good times. We did a lot of research, and a few ‘impromptu speeches’, where people would get given a topic and have to rant about it for a minute or so.

Then came the debate. We had our opening statement down, and some strong rebuttal ideas. The thing is, there’s only so much you can do to prepare for a debate. We did it, and i think it went well! Sure, the other team had good points, but so did we! We made a podcast out of it:

So, all in all, I really enjoyed this unit! Lord of the Flies was very interesting to read, and I learned a lot of how the government works and debating. The debate was very stressful, yes, but I got a lot out of it, such as public speaking skills and my ability to form an opinion and stick with it. Side note: this may be my last humanities post for the year. So, until next YEAR,

Read you later

Sincerley, Me