Week of 12-1-14

When going through the various sources for my annotated bibliography, I read about the motivation behind the activism career of Mary Church Terrell, the woman I'm studying about. Apparently, the initial inspiration to become an activist was the lynching of her childhood friend, Tom Moss. This made me think of the current events that are being referred to as "modern-day lynchings." Most of you probably know what I'm referring to - Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, the list goes on. When I was looking into case after case of black civilian shootings by white police officers, I saw something that stuck out to me. It was a post on Twitter.

It made me start thinking. All of these people that we've chosen for National History Day, all of the people that we're learning about in American Studies, they all succeeded in making a difference. So what's going on? Why hasn't a single officer been convicted of a crime? Even after witnessing the outrage of the country at the verdicts of previous cases, each jury either finds the officer not guilty or doesn't indict. The jury for the Trayvon Martin case had only one non-white member. 75% of the jury for the Michael Brown case was white. In Eric Garner's case, there was actual video footage of the police officer using an illegal chokehold to take Garner down, despite the fact that he was largely outnumbered and could be heard on tape saying "I can't breathe" eleven different times. I don't know how it's possible to find that officer not guilty of anything, and clearly the trials for Martin and Brown were ruled by predominantly white jurors.

All over the US, people have been taking to the streets to protest. It's a present-day version of the time period we're studying for NHD, with protests and marches and all kinds of issues that turn ordinary citizens into activists. We just need to be as successful as the leaders we write about in our endeavors to make a difference.

Week of 11-10-14

This week we've learned about the assimilation programs that were forced on the American Indians. What stuck out to me was the irony behind the situation. They are being forced to fit in with the so-called civilized life - their goal is to be exactly like the white people, to replicate the lifestyles of the "superior." At the same time, they will be treated as inferior even if they reach that goal. They will never actually be white, because that's physically impossible for them. It reminds me quite a bit of high school, actually - no matter how hard you try to fit in completely, it's impossible, because no one is 100% normal.

Last week I talked about how Emily Dickinson had to stand against what everybody else was doing in their religious lives. And out of that difference, a lot of great poems were born. It seems to be a recurring theme that the details that make a person an individual are what creates the greatness in them. So going back to the American Indians, it seems to be that those customs and traditions are things we should be celebrating, just as Luther Standing Bear said. The way I see it, we haven't done a very good job learning from our past. Yes, the US is better than a lot of places for accepting differences. But we should be promoting them and celebrating them, not just accepting them.

I recently watched Belle, a movie about the true story of a mixed-race girl being raised in a white relative's family in eighteenth century England. When explaining why she was breaking off her engagement with a man of high social status, she said, "My greatest misfortune would be to marry into a family who would carry me as their shame." This is the crux of the matter; we need to stop carrying our differences as shameful, as things to overcome, and make them into things we aspire to.

Week of 10-27-14

This week in American Literature, we had to pick a poem and analyze it. I chose It's all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickinson. When I made the connection between the clover that she talks about and the Holy Trinity (the number 3 shows up a lot in that poem) I began thinking about how big of an issue religion was for Dickinson. She struggled with it quite a bit, and felt pressured to join the church as all her family and friends professed their faith and became full-fledged Christians. But Dickinson never did, and that suggests a strong sense of self. There's an anonymous saying that goes, "Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone."

That's what I think Dickinson did, and that's what I think a lot of the people we're studying for National History Day had to do. Even if some people had had the same viewpoint for a while, it takes courage to be one of the only ones expressing it. Starting the bandwagon moving is the hardest step. Looking at the women's rights movement, the notion had existed since the founding of the country with Abigail Adams. That means it can't be that foreign of a concept. But the people who decided to do something about it are the ones who stood up and turned it from a concept into a cause.

It takes a lot of strength to stand against what everyone else is doing. Dickinson wrote many poems about that struggle, and it's not hard to see it taking place in the time period we're looking at for NHD (1870 - 1917). The year Dickinson's father, sister, and future sister-in-law joined the church, she wrote in a letter, "I am standing alone in rebellion." This is the same sentiment expressed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony when they wrote "But standing alone we learned our power..." This idea, that strength and courage reside in standing up for what you want regardless of how popular that is, seems to be one that many people still struggle with today. And based on how long that's been true, I'd say it's not about to change.

Are you comfortable with standing alone? Is it easier with other people? Or are you more likely to purposely stand against the social norm?

Week of 10-6-14

We are about to start our poetry unit in American Literature, and I'm actually a little bit excited about it. I know a lot of people really hate poetry, but I think there's a lot more to analyze than with prose. We've already looked at The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, which is the perfect example. There's repetition, in the line "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'" But there's also the author's decision to only end every stanza with that line towards the end of the poem. To me, there's just so much you could read into that - maybe the narrator is losing his mind until this is all he can think of, or the idea of never seeing his wife again is overwhelming him the more he thinks about it.

We were also given that very long packet, chock full of poems. It's daunting because of the size, but it's also, in my opinion, better than the readings we've had in the past. Because there are so many poems, we have options of what we want to analyze or close read -  and you could probably find one that you either relate to or are interested in. There are also so many different styles and topics of poetry that it's very easy to connect with as a category of literature, so I'm hoping we'll be able to choose some of our own. Are you dreading or looking forward to this unit? Do you like poetry?

Week of 9-29-14

Yesterday we had our first unit test of the year. It was open note, so there wasn't very much memorization, and I didn't feel like I needed to study facts and dates. While I really enjoy having that kind of test, I also know that I was not all that happy about having to take the notes that made that test possible.

I know that almost every teacher lectures sometimes. But for me, personally, I can't really understand the material we're learning by sitting in the same place for an hour, writing down the important information and listening to a lecture. I prefer to do interactive activities - group work, maybe, or a discussion. Debates really help me understand the different views and perspectives of the people we're studying, because I can get involved in what we're learning

Can you learn well from note-taking? Do you think having open-note tests is worth it? I know some people are auditory learners, some are visual, and some are kinesthetic. I feel like in order for a teaching method to be successful, you have to address all of those preferences. But maybe that's just me.

I know notes can be helpful at times, but I'd like to see some more interactive classes in the future. How do you feel about it?

Week of 9-22-14

We've done a lot of work with OPVLs these past weeks. In class we talked about value, and how it depends on what you're looking for - in the example that Mr. Hoffman gave, we discussed how a historian probably won't care about leisure activities in Canada if what they're looking into is slavery. In other words, information changes based on your perspective. This human tendency of selectively intaking information can cause miscommunications between people. I know there have been a few arguments between my own friends that started because people only hear what they want to. Someone is in a bad mood, feeling sorry for themselves, and all of a sudden anything you say to them is taken as an insult.

Have you noticed this? When someone is feeling defensive, everything you say is like lighting a fuse. This obviously can have an effect on our personal, everyday lives. But it can also change our view of the past. Everyone has an opinion, including historians. Sometimes you can figure out what that opinion is based on what they read into the facts. How much do you think this affects the information we're given? I personally think there's a huge difference between learning information from actual documents, as long as you study a good variety, and reading a textbook. No matter how unbiased the authors try to be, they are always putting their own spin on the facts.

How much do you think what we're learning is affected by bias? Do you think your understanding is more affected by the bias of the people giving you information, or your own bias when you hear it?

Week of 9-15-14

For one of our journals this week, we were asked to consider what keeps America united. The fact that this is a question that warrants consideration says something big about the US. When our political parties were first created, the Founding Fathers warned against it. John Adams said in 1780, in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties..." In my opinion, he was right to dread that. It seems these days as though the Republican party will automatically disagree with the Democratic party and vice versa, regardless of the issue. There is an automatic compulsion to take the opposite viewpoint of the opposing party, and it's tearing our country apart.

That said, there are things that bring our country together. The problem is that none of them are positive things. It feels as though we only unite in the face of tragedy. School shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters appear to be the only thing capable of bringing us together as one. Even then, our political parties think the best way to deal with this is to divide and conquer -  only I guess they forgot that in order to conquer you have to come back together, undivided.

I feel like in political debates, it has stopped centering around what people actually think, and depends more on which party they agree with. Maybe I take an exaggerated stand on political parties. Do you think I'm being pessimistic? Obviously at our age, we might not understand politics all that well. But it definitely feels like our country is being split down the middle by political parties.

How do you feel about them? What do you think are the pros and cons of having this system? Post a comment and let me know.

Week of 9-8-14

          Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." It's the basis of my upcoming essay, and it's gotten me thinking about what people are really scared of in life. In my opinion, fear can be categorized into three kinds: fear of what someone else's fear will cause, fear of the unknown, and fear of pain. Think about what you're scared of, or the fears of the people we've been studying (and I mean real fears, not getting bad grades or being rejected by your crush). War. Slavery. Being flogged/whipped/beaten. Death. The death of a loved one. Being alone or separated from your family. All of these fit into one of these three categories.

          The first type of fear is what FDR referred to. We need to be scared of other people's fear, and more so how they respond to it. Conversion, slavery, war; all things that might not exist if we as humans weren't so fearful. Having heard (or read, in our case) Jonathan Edwards' sermon, it's clear that in the Puritans' minds, conversion is directly linked with fear. In fact, the way they went about their conversion process was by threatening everyone with Hell and endless misery if they didn't become Puritan Christians. In other words, they scared people into following their religion. One could argue that slavery was borne out of various plantation owners being scared that not having slaves might put them at a disadvantage. Even war could be viewed as a result of fear. The people are scared either of God's wrath or of not having the land and resources they need, so they act on that fear by fighting with the opposing side.

          The second kind of fear is fear of the unknown. A lot of people are afraid of death. We don't know what comes next, or even if something does. I don't view this as something worth being scared of - it's inevitable, and it's actually strikingly similar to being afraid of the dark (meaning that we don't fear anything specific, we just don't like not knowing). If you knew what would happen, then you would know either to be scared of those events or not, but you wouldn't be scared of dying. The same goes for being kidnapped. If you think about it, are you scared of the actual act of being taken? Probably you're scared that your kidnapper's motivation (which is most likely related to fear) will cause him/her to do something bad to you, and you're scared because you don't know what will happen to you. Here, again, are the first two types of fear.

          The first time I heard that quote about fear, I realized that I agreed with it completely. I soon added fear of the unknown, but because that's not a rational fear I thought FDR had hit the nail on the head. There were only two kinds of fear, and I assumed all pain was somehow caused by someone else's fear. But then I thought again about death. Pain can only be caused by someone else's fear if someone has put you in that pain. If a loved one dies, or if you don't have enough money for food or housing, that is a pain that no one has inflicted on you. It just happens. If you're scared of a loved one's death, you know what's going to happen when they die, so it's not unknown. And even if humans didn't feel fear, the loved one would still die, so you're not scared of fear. This is the third kind of fear. You're scared of missing them. You're scared of not being able to talk to them any more. You're scared of the pain you will feel when they're gone.

          My thoughts on fear have grown a lot since first hearing what Roosevelt had to say about it. But I still don't know if I have it right. Do you think all fear can be shelved into these categories? What other categories do your fears fall into, or what categories am I missing? Post your comments below.