Tag Archives: Mr. Hughes

We Love Cults.

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Over the past little while, we have been looking at different events in history. We started by looking at turning points, and how the world was experiencing difficult times, especially in the 60s and 70s. Events like Vietnam, Watergate, and the Munich Olympics, changed a lot of opinions about the world, and the state of things. From discussions we had around these events, we were able to look at people’s responses to these tumultuous times. Specifically, we moved to looking at New Religious Movements, and their boom during these years.

I should take a little bit of a pause here to explain what I mean by New Religious Movement. It is a long term, and so I will now refer to it as NRM. An NRM is basically what scholars call cults. Cults is a very loaded word, because cults became a word to describe any religious group you didn’t like. NRMs are often offshoots of mainstream religions, or groups who have non-mainstream beliefs. They often have very fervent devotion, and a charismatic leader. There are a lot of other requirements for these groups, but I think it would make more sense to explain through the lens of a specific NRM.

That NRM would be the Children of God (COG), or The Family International. They have had many names over the years, after bad press and reforms, but COG is their most well-known name. This group was started by David Berg, a preacher in California. While there, he recruited hippies in the area to form COG, which was based on Christianity, and other prophesies of David Berg. COG was an end-time NRM, and 1993 was the year when the world would end and Jesus would return.

There are a few key characteristics that most NRM groups have, and to go further into why COG fits the definition, I’ll take you through each one.

Charismatic Leader

David Berg was this charismatic leader for COG. He formed COG as a sect of christianity, so it was easier for him to gain fervent believers. He referred to himself as Moses David, and was supposed to be God’s end-time messenger. One aspect of Berg that made him interesting to me was how isolated he was from his followers. Unlike some NRM leaders, he was a recluse. He didn’t go visit with his members and interact with them with a physical presence. Few of his followers ever actually met him.

Instead, they had two way communication through the Mo Letters on Berg’s side, and camcorder video on the follower’s side. The Mo Letters created the rules for the COG, and were the published form of Berg’s prophesies. The followers filmed the goings-on of the group to send to Berg. Everything from parties, dinners, and sex tapes. It was a really fun time.

Transcendent Belief System

As I mentioned before, COG was an offshoot of Christianity, so it was easier for members to join. The concept of a missionary church, which was not a new idea, appealed to a lot of people. They wanted to spread the message of God, and this seemed like the best way to do it. The main goal of COG was to conquer the world for Jesus, so when the end came, they would be saved. Members of the cult saw this as the best form of Christianity, and were very enthusiastic about their mission.

Systems of Control

As a missionary organization, isolation was a big part of their group. Members lived communally, in small houses where leaders of the movement were the heads of households. People were encouraged to get rid of all their worldly possessions, give the money to the group, and devote their lives to conquering the world for Jesus. There were very strong groups in Costa Rica, where in one small house they had over 30 people.

You were cut of physically from your past, but you were also isolated within your community. Being a missionary, even if 50% of the people talk to you, is isolating. It creates the divide between us and them, COG being the ones who are saved and the ones you can’t reach were under the control of the devil.

Even if you did want to leave COG, it seemed as though there was nothing left for you in the outside world. Children and teens didn’t go to school; instead, they spent their days as missionaries as well, going door to door and asking people to pray with them. Long time members had given up their careers, houses, and money, so they felt like there was nothing to go back to. There was also the idea of divine punishment, that if you left something terrible would happen to you because you were abandoning God’s goodwill.

Systems of Influence

The biggest form of influence was the Mo Letters, which controlled every aspect of the groups lives. They were comics, religious in nature, and people read them all. These letters controlled everyday life for the group, down to how much tea they could drink. Not following the rules laid down by the group lead to severe repercussions. There was no questioning leadership. Your time was managed, you went to all the group activities, and if you asked questions you were severely rebuked. There was a lot of fear. All the rules were straight from the top.

After years of following Berg’s writings, no one questioned when they became more intense. Berg had different ideas about religion and sex. He promoted sexual sharing, where members were allowed to have sex with anyone else in the group. People were already following what was in the Mo Letters, so they felt it was their duty to follow through with these ideas. There was no concept of consent. If you said no to someone, you were seen as though you didn’t belong. Children knew about this, as well, and it created a bit of strife in families.

Berg also came to the conclusion that witnessing wouldn’t be enough to save everyone. He decided that he would deploy flirty fishing, where women would perform sexual favours and whatever else to get more people into COG and win them for Christ. Some of the houses basically became brothels. You didn’t complain, because you were doing what you thought was God’s Will.

Why People Joined

The 1960s and 70s were a very tumultuous time in the United States. The peace-loving hippies were looking for a cause, and David Berg gave them just that. It wasn’t unrealistic for a lot of people to believe that the end of the world was coming so soon. It seemed like a long time away from them, and they just wanted to help save as many people as possible. This group gave people an easy answer on how to save humanity, which was exactly what they were looking for. And again, it was a christian group. Having branched off of a established religion, it was a lot easier to convince other christians to join. There was a direct way to get more people to support their cause, so why not join?

COG, now known as The Family International, still exists today. They are no longer under the leadership of David Berg, as he died, but his wife Maria took over. They spread Jesus’s message of love all over the world, and are the most successful NRM to emerge from the 60s era of counterculture.

Book Reviews but make them School Related

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Quick spoiler warning. I’m going to be going into detail about the Chaos Walking series, with spoilers. So, if you haven’t read the books, and intend to, maybe don’t read this.

Over the, well the weekend, I read the entire Chaos Walking trilogy. Amazing series, BTW. Definitely would recommend. It is also very much intertwined in what we are learning right now, so thats super fun.

The premise of the second and third novels are primarily what I am going to focus on, but I’ll touch on the first book as well. These two are the ones that directly deal with the idea of terrorism, and a sort of civil war in this world. There are a lot of parallels between the terrorism we’ve been learning about, and they ways that the characters in the books go about terrorism, which is pretty cool.

I am not sure if you could call what happened in the first book terrorism. They definitely use fear, and have a political goal, and since there is no media, they use word of mouth. I am still hesitant to call it terrorism. I am, of course, referencing the people of Prentisstown, and the ‘army’ they have. In actuality, they are only a few hundred men, but the threat of violence is enough for the people of New Haven to give up their power, as well as cause most of the rest of the population of their planet to flee their homes to New Haven, which was obviously not a great idea. Their ‘army’ did kill people, but not exactly terrorism. I still think it’s important to mention, because it sets up the rest of the story.

The second book is really where we get into the idea of terrorism, and people are directly called terrorists. As the old mayor takes control of New Haven, there are obviously people who don’t support them. Specifically, a lot of the women do not support many of his actions. There is more in the actual book that explains this deeper, so go read that. Anyways, this group of women slowly leave the town, and set up camp. This would be fine if it weren’t for the two people in charge.

On one hand, we have the Mayor. He has like, mind powers, and lots of weapons in the town. He also was part of the group that killed all the women from their old town, which makes him pretty scary. Him and his army occupy the town.

On the other hand, we have Mistress Coyle. She was part of a fighting faction in their old war, and has a lot of power and influence. She is also a healer, but not a doctor. There is a lot of sexism and a strong gender divide in this book, which is important. Sucky, but important. She wants to liberate the town from the Mayor, and will do anything to reach her goals. Her group is called the Answer.

Mistress Coyle, and the Answer, are who we’d call the terrorists in this scenario. The word terrorist is specifically used to describe their group, so I don’t feel bad about using it. The Answer is kinda seen as the good guys, but it is not as black and white as that. The book does a really good job of showing that neither side are good guys, and they both do really bad stuff.

The Answer’s main terrorist thing is their bombings. They have suicide bombers, as well as planted bombs in civilian-occupied areas. They bomb storefronts, symbols, and all the in-between. The Mayor uses that to demonize them, and to gain more support for going after them.

In the last book, it gets a bot more complicated. Theres a whole other army of aliens, who don’t like humans, and they have battles and stuff. It’s not super important. What I think is important is how it ends for both of the leaders.

They both die.

Of their own terms.

They believe in their goals so much that they are willing to die for their cause. The Mayor less so, but still.

I think these books are a really good example of terrorism, and how there are no heroes when you’re killing civilians.

 

People want to believe the best in elected officials

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This post is the same vibe as my last two posts. If you’re interested in more info about the project as a whole, check them out.

We’ve moved into the sphere of music, and how looking at historical events through the lease of music can shed light on a topic. Part of that was to analyze a song, of our choice, and see how that fits in. The idea I found for this particular song fits with other things as well, but for now we’ll focus on the song.

People Want to Believe the Best in Elected Officials

Today, we may not have this exact worldview. Through abuses of power, and outright lies, we have kind of lost that. But in the 1960’s, this was not the case, especially in America. When your president tells you that you have to do your part, you believe him. That’s exactly what Charlie Boy by The Lumineers is saying.

And Kennedy made him believe
We could do much more

Play the bugle, play the taps
Make your mothers proud
Raise your rifles to the sky, boys
Fire that volley loud

This is referencing the Vietnam War, and how so many young men went to fight, because they believed it was the best thing they could do for their country. They thought that the war was important, because their president, the person they trusted to run their country, told them to. Of course, thats not how we view the Vietnam war today, nor how the song continues.

News was bad on Upland Ave
Metuchen mourn our loss
Sons rebelled, while fathers yelled
And mothers clutched the cross

So many of the young people who went into this unwinnable war never made it back home. So many people want to think that people in power always do what’s right, but thats impossible. We can’t think of political powers as heroes, because the mistakes that they can make can be devastating.

History Happens on the Subatomic Level

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Y’all. We are so close.

Like I’ve mentioned in my last blog post (at least I think it did), our last little bit of learning before we take-off into the world is structured a little differently. We have topics that we’re looking at, and ideas that stem from them. That was a really bad explanation, but we’re going with it.

This post is about an idea that I had a little while ago, and my brain continues to make connections as we continue learning. I have a few examples, somewhat odd, but its what I’ve got.

History Happens on the Subatomic Level

This might not make a lot of sense, but I’ll break it down for you. The thing about historically significant events is that a lot of people don’t know how significant they are until after the fact. People are just living their lives, and they happen to be where all these crazy events happen.

First example, the umbrella man. If you are at all versed in conspiracy, which I’ll come back to later, the umbrella man is a prime example of this. Basically, when JFK was shot in Dallas, Tx, there was a man on the grassy knoll who was holding an umbrella. This was seen as odd, because it was actually a nice day outside. People latched onto this oddity, and created a myth around this man, and his involvement in the assassination. In reality, he was just a man who was there protesting something that JFK’s father had done. He was one tiny part of what happened that day, and he couldn’t have known what would spring from his innocent action.

The other example is a wee bit less innocent, but important nonetheless. More important, one might say. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the following ‘quarantine’, submarines were deployed as a precaution by the cubans, supplied of course by the USSR. These submarines had nuclear warheads, and were ready to strike should the US make a move. One October day, a US Navy ship tried to contact one of these subs to get it to come up by dropping a short ranged grenade on them, as they were too deep to contact any other way. Thinking that this meant that they were at war, the crew aboard the submarine readied to fire their nukes. One captain refused to fire the nukes. This meant that they were not unanimous, and could not fire. This one decision may have stopped WW3.

No one really knows what will come from their actions. They might have ideas, but every decision comes with a consequence, and even small ones can have a large impact on the future. Some of these small decisions lead to conspiracy theories, like that kermit the frog was involved in 9/11. Others stop all out war. It’s a fun time being alive.

What makes a legend?

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In honour of Bonnie and Clyde’s murder anniversary, which is in two weeks, I thought I would elaborate on an idea I had while researching them! 

Bonnie and Clyde were Glamourized by the Media

First, what you have to understand is the era in which they were outlaws. This was the 1930’s in America, also known as the Great Depression. People were not doing great. They were tired of hearing about how bad life was, and how much worse it was going to get. 

Enter Bonnie and Clyde, a young couple who took life into their own hands when they started robbing banks and killing people. Side note: it was only Clyde who was charged with the murder of 13 people, but you can’t tell me Bonnie didn’t kill anyone. Anyways. 

Their exploits were published all over the country. Conveniently, in a car that they abandoned, pictures of the daring couple were left behind. Next thing you knew, their faces were on every newspaper across the country. 

People were obsessed. They likened the young duo to Hollywood stars, creating a legend out of some criminals. Everyone wanted to hear about them, rather than how bad the world was doing. If the country hadn’t been suffering like they were, who knows what would have happened to Bonnie and Clyde? Maybe they wouldn’t have had to turn to crime?

Anyways, people were obsessed. These were the great heroes, bringing back the ways of the old west. However, nothing lasts forever. 

In May of 1934, the FBI were brought in because the pair had stolen a car. Yup. Not because they had killed 13 people and had committed several kidnappings and robberies. They stole a car and so they FBI had jurisdiction. 

This was the beginning of the end for ol’ Bonnie and Clyde. They were ambushed fleeing a safe house in Louisiana, and shot dead in their car. 

The public were shocked. Not because of their deaths, no. that was pretty inevitable. They were shocked at how ordinary they pair were. They were not the young starlets the media made them out to be. They had limps, scars from old bullet wounds, and Clyde even had missing toes. 

The media took this ragtag couple, and made them into legends. They altered public perception, and in doing so, immortalized them. But at what cost to them, and the public?

SLC’s the Eighth: tPOLs

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It’s that time of the year again, where we reflect on all that has transpired, and prepare to move into the next year. PLP is a program focused on growth, and this year I have strived to go further than I have before. From leaving my comfort zone on Field schools, to running a class project, everything this year has pushed me farther along the path to success. For this tPOL, I’m going to draw from three different projects that really stretched my thinking, and reflect on how they have prepared me for the future.

What skills did you use and what skills do you want to continue to develop?

One thing that has definitely been a challenge over the past few months is learning online. It has not been easy, even for PLP. PLP was definitely quicker to adapt than some of my other courses, but having no contact, really, with a lot of the teachers has been extremely difficult. Being in PLP, though, has definitely been an advantage. I was able to use skills that I developed in this program, that made the switch a lot easier. From being comfortable on a device, to just straight up having applications on our devices, made online work seem more accessible. Even with all that, it’s still a struggle to motivate yourself to get things done. I’ve had a very hard time with exactly that, motivation. With school, and work, it is hard to get everything done. So I’ve had to use a lot of skills from our PGP course to help. Making to-do lists, tracking habits, it’s all really helped. The ideas that we’ve learned from that over the past two years have been incredible beneficial in this crazy time.

Did your goals for your work change as you worked on it?

Speaking of habits and PGP, I want to talk about our most recent PGP project, and how my ideas, and goals, changed as I worked on it. So, basically, as a summary of the project we were reflecting on all that we had learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Now, I started out wanting to make a little, like, vague habit tracking book, where you could have a physical place to mark off what you have done. But the I took another look back at atomic habits, and looked at the laws, and saw how I could incorporate more of those ideas into my journal. And once I had done all of that, I was pretty proud of myself. I took a flimsy little idea, and turned it into something I am really proud of. It became something that anyone, whether or not you had read the book, could use to help them with their goals.

What problems did you encounter? How did you solve them?

The final example that I’d like to bring up is the Macbeth project. This was probably one of the most difficult projects that I’ve ever done, and not even because of the subject matter. That was confusing an a whole other level. The difficult part was being the producer. I’ve always struggled with group work, because I find people weird and confusing, but this took it a step higher. As producer, I had to work with everyone, and not act superior, but also be their superior. We have some strong people in the class, and so already when roles were chosen there was a bit of strife. Add to that the fact that we basically had two and a half weeks to write, prepare and film the movie, well, I started stress baking. It was difficult to try and work with others who were very set in their ways. Our key creative team, though, did pretty well under the circumstances, though. We tried to solve disagreements in a calm manner, and spent a lot of time working through tough patches. We were pretty adaptable, and when everything started to fall apart I tried my darnedest to keep it together. Overall, I learned a lot about myself, and the other people in the class.

And that concludes my tPOL. Thank you for listening to me, and I would just like to leave you with a question: How have I demonstrated teamwork in the past, and how have I progressed since then?

Think and Create: Essay time

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These think and create posts are harder than you’d think. We cover a lot of content, but it’s not always easy to find, or rather, come up with a feasible connection. I came up with this idea, actually, after talking to my grandpa about school when he was a kid in Vancouver, around the 50s. Drawing from his experience, the book Dear Martin, and our discussions in class, I have written an essay on segregation within unsegregated schools. It’s an interesting topic, one that I have found interesting opinions on.

Essay: Self Segregation 

       Throughout history, people have been judged by the colour of their skin. When you picture a racist, though, you can’t fully have an idea of what they look like. It’s not always white men with pitchforks in KKK get up. It can be parents, people drilling into their young child this idea of segregation. Sometimes it’s not even on purpose. Hate is easy, jointing a mob mentality can bring you closer with your peers. When people get to high school, in unsegregated schools, they sometimes segregate themselves, on purpose or not. It can be hard to notice, but from the 50’s, till today, it’s still there. 

In Dear Martin by Nic Stone, the main character is pushed in this direction of ‘self segregation’. He has internal struggles when he wants to date a white girl, for example. His mother, growing up in a time when it was very frowned upon for an African American man to be with a white woman, drills this idea into his head, until he makes decisions to push this girl away for his mother’s sake. Also, when his best friend is shot, he seeks comfort in his old, bad neighbourhood, wanting to be around people he thinks will understand. He separates himself from his best friends white friends, for other people like him who are bad influences. In both scenarios, he does understand the risk, but the racial pressures set upon him urge him towards a stereotype that will do him no good. He tries to do better, but this separate idea always comes to his mind. 

Although in the 1950’s in Vancouver schools were not segregated, people still divided according to race and ethnicity. In one example from Frank Ward, who went to a mainly white school with some people of East Indian descent, there was a very large culture barrier. The white boys and East Indian boys formed tight cliches, avoiding each other, but often getting into brawls. While this was surely discouraged by the teachers, the brawling part, it helped maintain the divide of culture, and this idea that a non-white man couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be with a white woman. Whether drilled into them by their parents, or the media, this idea would have shaped not only the boys in the cliches, but the younger students and siblings. It can be hard to change a behaviour you’ve never been told is wrong. 

After the Brown vs the Board of Education case was settled, and the United States declared that ‘separate but equal’ was not fair, integration of African American students into white schools began. Or it sort of did. There was nothing to say how soon this desegregation was to be done, and so it was up to the schools and communities to sort it out. One school that did integrate, though painfully, was in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine African American students were enrolled to go to the school, but of course this was absolutely appalling to the white folk. There were riots and death threats as the children tried to enter the school, and the POTUS ended up having to send down the 101st Airborne Division to help them enter the school, but once they were in the school, they had no further help. The 9 students endured terrible abuse at the school, forcing upon them that they were not welcome to attend a school which the law said they could attend. They suffered for years because of this idea of segregation that had been drilled into the white children’s heads, that African American people were not people, and they had no respect for them.

This idea of segregation has done terrible damage to the world and its people, but it doesn’t seem to ever end. The stereotypes that were introduced then still impact our world today, shaping the minds of young children who know no better. Though having a rallying point is strong core of many communities, one so deep in hate should not be allowed. It can be hard to undo the past generations hate, but it is every generations job to learn about what happened before, and make sure it never happens again.

It is very hard to write an essay after being away from school for months, not to mention being in a room that smells like paint (long story). Essays are sometimes hard to do, but I felt is was a medium I could express these ideas on well. This is a very interesting project we are working towards, and each day teaches us more about the mistakes people have made and how we have to learn from them.

Think and Create: Statistics

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When your teachers give you a project with basically no criteria, it can be difficult. It can be even more difficult when you are stuck at home and haven’t seen your friends or teachers in over a month. But we soldier on, and keep doing blog posts!

We’ve just started a new project about civil rights in America, and African American and Canadian people in their battle for this. So to start it off, we’ve been assigned something similar to the this week I learned posts from our last project, except we have basically no criteria.

For this week’s Think and Create post, I was interested in, well, statistics. We mentioned a few times in class how there isn’t as huge an African Canadian population in Vancouver as some other places, but I was interested in the specifics. I made some infographics to help inform us of those specific stats using data from Statistics Canada, which had data only from 2016. Hope you learn something!

In the Middle of the Desert at 5am

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One thing I don’t think people talk about enough is the fact that there is a huge cultural difference between the different parts of the United States of America. It’s not that surprising, but actually experiencing it is a whole other thing. Before this trip, I had only been to the west coast of the United States, which is similar enough with culture to Canada’s west coast. This trip was something truly different.

First of all, I had no idea where New Mexico is. No idea. I knew it was kinda south, but I definitely couldn’t have pointed it out on a map.

 

The trip was the destination for this project, but before we went, we had to learn about where we were going. I can honestly tell you this is the most informed I’ve ever been on a trip.

This project kicked off in the middle of summer vacation, I kid you not. We were assigned summer readings. Our class had one book to read, and I quickly made the connection between the book and the New Mexico Field School. Knowing this, I was enticed to read the book, to get a head start on the new school year. It was difficult at times, because the book, Age of Radiance by Craig Nelson, had some very scientific knowledge that I did not have. At times it was hard to follow, but making notes helped a lot.

Reading the book, though confusing at times, was hugely helpful in understanding what we were going to be doing on the trip, and in the learning before hand. I had that insiders knowledge, and I think that made the trip, and the project, the success that it was. If I were to go back and do it again, I think I would try and do more research while I was reading the book, and have a better understanding of each thing they talked about.

The next ‘milestone’-ey thing that I thought was really helpful, or interesting, was the Manhattan Project Character Card. This is something that the teachers had very strict guidelines for. They were also not present while we were doing this milestone, which made things, well, interesting.

Us, as a class, had to pick the 16 most significant people to the Manhattan project, and each person in the class was assigned one of these people to make a ‘character card’. Except it wasn’t make, it was fill in a very restrictive template. Some people fought this more than others. I thought having a template pre-made would make things easier, but it didn’t. The template had a very small area for us to explain who the person was, what they did, and why they were significant. It’s that word again. Significant. This is what the entire project was on.

How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world in a historically significant way?

This milestone helped us have a better understanding of the driving question, stated above. Why were these people significant, and why were they more significant than someone else. My person, Klaus Fuchs, had a very interesting story, which you can read all about on the card!

Now, we come to the final product for the trip, our books. In grade 8, and grade 9, for field schools, our teachers made book templates in book creator for us to fill out during the trip. They had photos, videos, audio clips and text. Our job was to make a book that answers the driving question, using the trip to gather evidence.

At first, I thought I had a good idea. I was going to follow a theme inspired by —. It seemed like a good plan, and was commended by the teachers. Once I did it though, I was not pleased. I had all the content I wanted, the information was, I thought, pretty solid. I just HATED how it looked. It was awful.

It took me a while, but with help from my friends, I scrapped that entire theme and started again. I kept the content, which took a while to collect and I was very proud of, but I changed everything else. Also remember, this was during the trip, at the airport. I have a post all about how I used efficiently, but that’s not the point. I realized that I could do another theme, which I am very pleased with.

I’m very happy with my book. If I were to go back, I would definitely have done the newspaper theme the first go around, but it worked out just the same. I think the time I put into it really shows. Something about this really sparked my interest, so I wanted to do a good job. There were maybe more opportunities for long and well edited videos, but I did my best to capture everything I needed, and was flexible with my ideas.

And now, drumroll please,

This was probably the coolest field school I’ve ever been on. We had long days, jam packed with learning and other things, but it was amazing. I also got a lot of patches, which is some good I collect and am really happy about!

As I said, this trip was packed full of crazy stuff. So I’m just going to talk about a couple places we went to, the ones that I think best describe our trip.

Los Alamos Historic Sites Walking Tour

This was the first stop on our trip. And honestly? It really was a great first introduction to New Mexico, and The Manhattan Project. Our guide, Aimee Slaughter, was amazingly knowledgeable about, not just the Manhattan Project, but of the history of the area. She told us about the Pueblo people, the First Nations who lived in Los Alamos before the Manhattan project, and how they all tied together. She told us a really cool story about someone who lived on the land before, worked in the town, and has relatives there today. That story is in my book.

National Museum of Nuclear Science and History

One thing about learning about radiation is that it’s kinda scary. It’s this awesome power that can blow up cities, but it’s also everywhere. We did an amazing workshop with David Gibson about radioactivity. We got to use geiger counters and everything. I thought it was cool to know that radiation is everywhere, because atoms are constantly decaying and letting off radiation, but that doesn’t hurt you. It’s called background radiation!

Meow Wolf

There are no words for this. It’s like a trip of hallucinogenic drugs, but you are definitely not on drugs. There are secret passageways, slides through washing machines, portals with doors that open with hand prints, like honestly, you kinda have to go there. You could spend hours exploring that place.

Trinity

On July 16th, 1945, the first ever atomic bomb was dropped in the middle of the New Mexico desert. This one event completely changed the world, ushering in a new age of science, technology, warfare, and so much more. We got to go there. Where it all happened. It was so cool. Jesse and I spent a while conducting interviews of people, just regular people, to see why they were there. Everyone had their own reasons, but the core message was the same. This is where it happened. This is where the course of the war changed. This is where the world changed.

This was an amazing trip. We’re not that far away, and yet, there are so many differences between our culture, and the New Mexico culture. Though we have different food, and different ideas, there’s one thing we can all agree on. There was a time before the bomb was dropped, and a time after.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

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PLP 11. Wow, I’m old. Since coming to this program in grade 8, I’ve learned so much about thinking flexibly, and on the recent Albuquerque, New Mexico trip, I did just that. It was 6 days of waking up ridiculously early, learning about bombs of all things, and collecting evidence.

For the Albuquerque trip instead of, as many of our field schools are, just collecting everything you can on the trip without knowing what the final product was, we did actually know what we needed. It was still a race to get information, but we knew specifically what we needed. See, for this project, we were making a book. I talk more about it in the Albuquerque trip post, but basically we had to use this book to prove that the atomic bomb was a kind of turning point for the world, that there was a time before the bomb was dropped, and a time after. Which it really is. The world has never been the same. But more on that in the other post.

For the trip, I knew a moderately vague outline of what I needed for my project. I had what goes where, all that, but I wanted to collect as much as possible so I would have it when making the book. The first thing I decided was to ask Emily if I could use her mic. PLP has lapel mic’s, but Emily’s you can just hook up to your phone, and record holding it. At first when I asked, she said she wouldn’t have room, but I said I could pack it. And I am so glad I brought it. It didn’t only help me, either. We did a lot of media sharing on this trip, between classmates. I think that decision was a huge help in all of our projects. Maybe if you didn’t get exactly what you needed, someone else did, and you could share.

Another thing that I think was a bit of a risk was talking to strangers. When we were actually at the Trinity Site, Jesse and I went around to people who had come to the site and ask them why they came. It was a risk because we didn’t know exactly how those interviews would work out. Originally, I was going to ask people about their opinions on nuclear power, but some people might not have answers. I had to adapt my book to what happened, and boy, did it pan out. I got some amazing interviews with people who came to the site. Most people wanted to come here because it changed the world, and that’s exactly what our books are about. How this one event changed the world forever.

Another thing that I did on the trip was to take advantage of time. The first draft of my book had the content I wanted, but the theme looked like literal garbage. I knew that due to the early mornings, I wouldn’t have tons of time at night to edit, because we needed as much sleep as we could get. So while driving, and even on the plane, I edited. I used the extra time, so I wouldn’t have as much work to do on the trip. Also, but constantly adding things to my book and editing it, I knew what I still needed to collect from the sites.

Overall, this was an amazing experience. Talking to so many people, it was amazing to hear how this still impacts people today. I learned so much, so much of it that I wouldn’t have been able to learn in a classroom.