For this project we have been learning about the cold war and specifically the effects of nuclear warfare. The driving question for this unit is how is fear used as a political cultural and defensive tool? What evokes more fear than a nuclear bomb? We have read and watched a large selections of media about nuclear warfare. We read fallout which is a fictional depiction of the possibility of a nuclear fallout scenario of a bomb being dropped. We also watched The War Game a documentary of the world wide effect of full scale nuclear warfare. This helped us understand the effect of the bombs not from a physical sense but a cultural sense. So these examples can easily be related to how fear is used as a cultural political and defensive tool?

For our video project we had to relate that question to something on the field study in Nevada and Arizona. Nevada and Arizona is home to a large portion of the US nuclear program so we could of done something on that but we decide to take a different spin on it and talk about the most famous city in Nevada Vegas.

So me and my partner Nash made the statement. Las Vegas Casinos fear of becoming irrelevant as you can gamble anywhere has lead to a change in vegas to focus on shows and attractions. This project was a video essay so the first step was writing an essay.

https://docs.google.com/a/seycove.ca/document/d/12KZUVUqmGzDKYWeMWJSUMmOwu9SCPlmGpgTom2lcw7E/edit?usp=sharing

 

So we took our essay and made it into a video. So our base idea was to follow the story of our essay and create interesting visuals.

Our video turned out ok it had its flaws and its ups and downs. It had great info and a strong message but the video entertaining bit seems a bit underwhelming. That is a little bit of miss fortune on our side as Nash’s phone broke and we lost all our photos and videos from the trip.

Finally our Video

The BC Green Party decided which of the other two major parties will be the next majority government. This power possessed by the Green Party was too great for the amount of votes they received. The Green Party received 16% of British Columbians votes and won three seat which is unproportional but they still received too much power.

All though the Green Party only won three seats they could make the difference in which of the other two major parties received majority government. Now for the NDP to entice the Greens to join a coalition they will have to change some of their values and perspectives. These new values and perspectives might not be what the voters originally voted for either. “The Greens went into negotiations with the other two parties making three key demands: getting official party status in the legislature, an electoral system based on proportional representation and political fundraising reform.”- Dirk Meissner thestar.com Making demands on these three massive issues and having expectations they will be meet shows how much power they posses. These ideas and perspectives are too much of a demand for how little votes they received. They will probably receive this power anyways and this shows one of the many flaws of the distribution of power in BC’s political format.

 

This is a perfect example of a system granting too much power because of a loophole or technicality. These three seats that the green party holds gives them more power then whichever party they decided not to align with. The liberals won the popular vote in BC but its looking like they won’t have a thing to show for it. Even in LOTF a book choke full of irrational decisions Ralph was smart enough to grant Jack power because he received some votes but not nearly enough to win. “Ralph looked at him, eager to offer something. “The choir belongs to you, of course.” Even on a mindless island their form of government seems more rational than ours.

The ironic thing about this is that the green party is pushing for political reform. They know that if this political system is to continue people will get frustrated with the government and lead to disapproval. Similarly to Macbeth his corrupt way of gaining power made others frustrated. Macduff was set on killing Macbeth as he disapproved of how he achieved power. I am not saying that people are gonna kill green party members but I am sure people will be upset with the amount of power they posses.

Another shining example of the flaws of the first past the post system is Donald Trump.  Trump was able to acquire presidency with under 50% of the popular vote. So less americans wanted him as president then did.

America and Canada pride themselves on their democratic values, where everyone has an equal voice on who is granted power. But these examples directly challenge that as power is being granted through loopholes and technicalities.

 

 

Welcome to possibly my final installment of my learning portfolio. Hopefully you can see my evolution as a learner throughout my grade 11 year. I have enjoyed this year in PLP as a have learned a lot.

I have been asked to answer one question. Why do you feel your ready to advance to the next grade level? I am ready for the next grade level cause of my improved academic and intangible skills.

My academic skills have improved such as my writing which I explained in my last SLC.

SLC Spring 2017

Also my ability to think critically and in depth such as in our debate project.

Arguably the Best Project

Problem solving skills such as in our conscription project.

Conscription is Not Fair! Conscription is Not Fair!

Or my creativity in the Halifax Project.

Kaboom!

I have learned all these skills and feel prepared for next year because of that.

Finally my goals for next year is to continue to work on my time management by using class time effectively. Also I would like to organize my school work more efficiently so I can easily refer to previous lessons. If that be naming things in my iPad and putting them in folders or organizing my binder.

I don’t know if i’m doing PLP next year so I would like to say my experience has been worthwhile and much more. I have learned things about myself through this program about my capabilities and my strengths and weaknesses. This program I have felt has help prepare me for my future endeavors in academics. It has taught me to think on feet, go beyond the basic and enjoy learning.

Debating one of the most entertaining things you can do in an english or a socials class and PLP took it to whole another level. Our debates were on concepts such as “Is it necessary to question authority in society?”. These question as you can see are very broad so you could take it a million different ways.

To help us understand the 7 topics we will be debating we read one of most famous concept books of all time Lord of The Flies (LOTF) which covered all those topics.

 

Power and Authority – Jack and Ralph how they used and gained their power and authority.

Humanity and Inhumanity – Roger wanting to throw rocks at a little boy but doesn’t because of his humanity gained through civilization.

Violence and Destruction – Killing of simon and piggy because of reckless and immature actions.

Human nature – When things get difficult the boys turn back to their savage human nature.

Civilization and Savagery – Jacks society represented savagery, Ralphs would represented civilization.  

Innocence and Evil – All boys lose their innocence throughout the book because of the tough positions they were put in.

Individualism and Community – Jack running off and hunting instead of helping Ralph and Simon build a shelter the more important task.

Clearly LOTF covered all these topics and gave us a good baseline of understanding but that info and arguments are not gonna win you a debate especially if the judges haven’t read LOTF. So we had to create and think of different ideas on a sheet with our debate team.

Arguably the Best- Maria, Michael, Chris

We didn’t manage to use a lot of our ideas but doing this sheet helped us get into the right mindset for our debate. We also practiced by promoting each other topics like is “democracy the right best balance of power and authority” and one group member would argue pro the other con. This also helped us thinking on our feet and preparing for the real event.

 

Ok, so i’ve told you what’s happened before the debate but how did the actually thing go. Well many people packed into the flight room as we started our PLP “Battle Dome” bracket style debate tourney. Each team was prompted with their question such as “Be it resolved everyone has a greed for power” or something like that. The teams were then decided which was pro and con and then the frantic one minute prep began. After the prep the teams would have 3 minutes of running time to plead their case however they pleaded. For that topic we got the con side so we decide to define the question a bit “Be it resolved everyone has a greed for success”. So after we established that main idea we were able to counter their arguments by saying that the power they gained was just cause they wanted to succeed. We also made our own points that everything someone does is for self satisfaction and gain and their is no underlying desire for power.  For all our debates we took the same approach redefine the topic a bit so it was easier to argue. Our team managed to win the tourney as we had good battles against all three other teams.

Michael and Maria were great teammates as they could speak well and had great ideas. Michael was able to bring up relevant points that were powerful. Maria’s strongest moments is when she took a personal spin on the arguments and those were really powerful.

 

This project was great as it was engaging didn’t take ridiculous amount of production but more thinking and the end result was entertaining and fun.

 

How is fear of nuclear/radiation used today to influence/manipulate/affect current events?

 

In class we watched a movie that tugged at the fear of nuclear disaster called “China Syndrome”. This movie was a fictional depiction of a nuclear disaster but two weeks later the Three Mile Island accident happened, a real nuclear reactor incident sent the movie into fame.  “You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” – Robin Williams

 

 

The three mile island accident is eerily similar to China Syndrome. Although china syndrome was completely fictional and random, a stuck indicator led to human error within the movie and the three mile accident. Pennsylvania was mentioned in both china syndrome where the three mile island happened. Because of those similarities the movie gained amazing traction and was the hot topic of the day. This spooked many people and led many people to begin protesting nuclear power. Among those protester was the lead actor Jane Fonda who was the topic of New York Times “ Did Jane Fonda Ruin Nuclear Power?”. Clearly The movie China Syndrome affected the general population of north america and their opinion on nuclear power. So Jane and others protesters were able to slow the nuclear movement in the 80’s but how are people using fear of nuclear today?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16wwln-freakonomics-t.html

 

http://freakonomics.com/2008/08/20/did-jane-fonda-ruin-nuclear-power-a-guest-post/

 

What current events are manipulated by the fear of nuclear radiation? Maybe the headline “Nuclear War has Become Thinkable Again We Need a Reminder of What it Means” will spark your interest.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/17/nuclear-war-has-become-thinkable-again-we-need-a-reminder-of-what-it-means

 

North Korea and USA are in a heated conflict with nuclear weapons being the center of attention. Just the threat of nuclear war has brought the global news into an uproar with unlimited articles and videos following the topic. The reason why there are so many articles and videos is because people are afraid of nuclear and they want to know more.

 

With North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that can hit UN allies such as South Korea people are on high alert similar to the cuban missile crisis. People are frightened by the slightest potential of nuclear war and will began to clamor towards a solution of a nuclear free zone. North Korea is using just the fear of nuclear war as bargaining tool. North Korea might not even be able to get a nuke off the ground but they gain power with every demonstration successful or not. What they will do with this power has yet to be seen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-missiles-sanctions.html?_r=0

Is North Korea going to trade its nuclear program to cash in with USA and gain some major relief efforts to reduce the famine and sanctions placed on the country. And they will cash in big because North Korea’s economy has been able to survive all the sanctions the UN and the USA could throw at them and continue to develop their nuclear program. Or just hold on weapons to use as a stick to throw around in other international affairs. North Korea is using the fear of nuclear to try to get a position at the global political table.

What does Canada mean to you? When you ask this question you will probably get responses on diversity, nature, family or culture but what separates canada to me is the opportunity you have to succeed in this country. That’s what our video focuses on.

To create this video we had to ask ourselves that question and undeniable opportunity is what we wanted to focus on. It all came back to the thought and knowing of if we wanted to be someone or have something we could achieve our goal because laws or people in canada wouldn’t get in our way they would actually help us. Canada for the most part has a good healthcare and education system and with those two things people have the opportunity to be what they want and do what they want. This is what also separates us from other countries such as the USA. Although america calls themselves the land of opportunity how can one have an opportunity when they have inadequate education and the constant fear of not being able to pay medical bills? That’s why I think canada embodies opportunity it gives everyone a chance.

The actual creation of video took place at a beach close to Nash’s house which represents canada beauty as well as anywhere. We wrote a short script and both read it out with our on variations on it. Then we spliced the videos together with some old clips of me and Nash to tell one story of the opportunity we have here in Canada.

We had trouble with editing the video down to 30 seconds but we managed to do it. The video started at around 4 minutes so only the best of the best made it to the final cut. Im very pleased with the video as its short and sweet and tells a story and gets across a message that is important to me.

(Rough Draft)

Nash was a great partner to work with on this project as he has lot of experience with filming and video creation so our video ended up looking really professional. We also have similar values so it was easy to create a video that appealed to both of us  and our view of Canada. Nash also wanted to take a shot at doing a Nature Video which i’m sure would look great and is an integral part of Canada.

As always there is room for improvement but I’m pretty content with the creation of this video.

Macbeth what a play, what a guy, and what a show of failures and experience. Like Macbeth our class started with high hopes. We all had great visions of a well created student film. Did this happen? No and yes, like any project there was good and bad. The individual scenes we did film looked professional and well done but we didn’t manage to film all the scenes. Even the scenes we did film was a long stretch from the original plot line of Macbeth. All that said it doesn’t mean we did not learn anything.

First I learned why there is HR people which I thought was kinda useless job, I thought wrong! That is where this project fell through was communication and personal management. We had the skills and tools to complete the job we just weren’t organized enough to pull it off. My initial approach to this project was to treat it like a job situation play the good soldier and due what you’re told to do. I was the lead actor so I viewed my role was to just act and for the most part that’s what I did. But the voices of leadership were a little inexperienced and working with a bunch of high school kids as crew members so they were bound to fail. By the end there was too many voices myself included trying to get their opinion across and things just went downhill from there. No one trusted each other to get the job done and no one was getting paid so no one felt the responsibility of the project and it just fell through. I did learn the importance of group work especially in a large project like this. When every you are organizing something you have to be able to see how much people value there time and get them to commit as little time as possible to a project to keep them happy. I also acted so my acting also improved slightly. I could of been more diligent about memorizing my lines but what scene we were going to film was always up in the air and the script was constantly changing. I did have fun acting and would be willing to do it again for another group project. If we were to do a project like this again I would like to take more of a leadership role and try my hand at organizing this group of hooligans.

If you wanna get a feeling of how done people were done with this project you can read my rant review of this project right after we finished.

All that said I learned a lot and enjoyed making this project sometimes…

Helmut Lemke creates a vivid visual image of digging a foxhole on the frigid eastern front. The ground too tough for his spade to make quick work he has only managed to dig four feet. Helmut stationed in this position to delay the advancing Russians. He peeps out of his hole to see grey dots in the distance knowing the mechanical beasts of the Red Army approach. Knowing he is outclassed by the heavy machinery he decides to retreat. Helmut takes action and hurdles out of the foxhole and begins to sprints back to the front line. Then he wisely drops to the ground and roles over couple times only to hear the crack of a rifle and dirt fling up from where he rested seconds ago. That was a narrow miss and like many of his stories it was seconds and inches between life and death. Helmut is a German World War 2 Veteran with amazing stories that make you ask so many questions.

If there is one person you would want to talk with to gain perspective on the Second World War it is Helmut. You could tell when he walked into the room his presence was one that emanated experience, stories and great fullness. Helmuts stories where interesting, descriptive and thought provoking. He talked with such amazing description similar to your grandfather’s best stories. As you listened with your eyes and ears open, your eyes began to lose purpose as you got engulfed in his legends. You no longer felt the need for your eyes as they closed and your brain started too replace the images in your eyes. Hypnotized by his stories, questions started to arise about why these stories happened.

Helmut began to mention the brutality of the Red Army to the German forces. He then continued to describe that their reasoning was because of the Germans brutal treatment of them especially the S.S division. That’s what brought me to my concept, which is the ethics of vengeance.

Is it ethical for someone to die who has killed one of your family members? That is tough question about the ethics of vengeance. That question has been debated since the dawn of civilization. During the second world war there were many unethical war crimes but I will focus on one that takes the form of vengeance. It was unethical for the Red Army of Russia to torture German soldiers despite the German war crimes against the Russians. I come to this conclusion because the Russians passed that often hazy line between justice and revenge. Helmut discussed the Geneva Convention and one off the first thing he said was that the men who are being tortured on the battlefields are average people. That’s were I think many of the Russian soldiers got influenced, as they perceived the enemy people as a government or a set of ideas instead of normal people who might not agree with those beliefs.

The average Joe of the German army which was most of their army were the ones suffering against the Russians. The German army had an estimated 12.5 million soldiers fight in the war. Many of them were like Helmut farmers or factory workers who believed in their country but not necessarily in its leaders actions especially Hitler’s ladder actions. Helmut spoke about the Russians as they were horrible beasts. Saying that you might as well die fighting then be captured because you will be sent to Siberia to die. Helmut like 8.8 million others were part of the Hitler youth where they were trained to fight at young age to be drafted to fight in the war.

The Germans who committed these war crimes were often those of high ranking officials not the soldier on the front line. The Germans arguably more brutal then the Russians deliberately starved 3.1 million soviets prisoners of war. But the mastermind behind this project once again was a high ranking official Herbert Backe not the German soldier.

Germany portrayed as a fascist country deployed the vision of hatred toward communism. Which once again Germany began to dig their own hole. Hitler would turn the country fascist not by choice but by constant influence by forcing teachers and other influencers to be fascist supporters. He also had total control of media outlets spreading propaganda about the beauty of fascism.

But these brutal acts by the Germany were then equally matched by the brutality of the red army. The Red Army has been estimated to rape up to 2 million German women. A staggering number which Russia refused to accept as a war crime just a result of the revenge for the German actions and the rewards of the victor. The reason to take brutal actions on the Germans had no moral Reasoning’s other than an act of revenge, which we already established as an unethical act.

Germany took unethical actions upon their Russian counterparts but that did not give permission for the Russians to commit the same sinful acts. Although Russian soldiers took those actions upon the innocent the reasoning might be because they had no where to place their personal vengeance so they took matters into their own hands. The combination of anti-propaganda and government ideals led ordinary Russian people to commit atrocities in the name of justice but in reality it was revenge.

Nash and I also created an audio podcast to help us brain storm our ideas and get someones personal opinion on the concept. This was an effective way to get our opinions across because when you are talking about a grey topic like ethics it makes it easier to explain yourself when you can add emphasis. Credit to Nash for editing the podcast and making an interesting piece of cover art. You should also check out his blog he had an insightful take on the concept of time.

Thanks Helmut for sharing your momentous and intriguing stories

My Canada is place that I am proud of. When I was in elementary school they would play the national anthem the first Monday of every month. I wouldn’t just stand and listen to the anthem I would sing it loud and proud because I am proud to be canadian. Canada is a land of opportunity our public education system is one of the best in the world. Canada is a land of diversity we don’t force people to assimilate and adopt a canadian set of views we accept all cultures and they thrive within our borders.  Canada is place of community where no matter someone’s race religion or ethnic background they are all Canadians and we all work towards the common goal of prosperity and safety. My father had an opportunity to compete for Canada in the Olympics and he had never felt happier to be canadian. The elation that my father has when he talks about that moment fills me with the belief that Canada gave him an opportunity to be great and he seized it. That’s all you can ask from a country is to be safe and give you an opportunity that’s why i’m proud of My Canada.

Welcome to another instalment of my learning portfolio.  Hopefully you can see my evolution as a learner during my grade 11 year. I have had an interesting year so far in flight as I have had my fare share ups and downs.

To demonstrate my learning I have chosen three pieces of work.

Starting of with the good news, I will show the piece of work I am most proud of.

http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2016/12/17/conscription-is-not-fair-conscription-is-not-fair/

This piece of work was most welcomed by others. I received positive feedback from teachers, peers and parents. This project taught me about conscription and about other key parts of World War 1 in Canada. This project also taught me some intangible skills about presentations. Our group was given a pretty mundane topic relative to the other groups but we still had to find a way to engage the audience. We were able to create a plan to raise intrigue of the audience by choosing the most energetic event of our topic and making that a focal point. Of course that focal point was the conscription is not fair rally. I learned that you can easily manipulate an audience to be more receptive of your presentation by focusing on key points that engages the audience.

My second piece of work is the one that best demonstrates my growth as a learner is my soldier diary’s. My first diary I attempted to make an immersive vivid picture of my soldiers life but fell short in some areas. I didn’t add enough descriptive word so through out the journal entry I was telling where in my second attempt I was showing.

http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2016/11/25/arthur-courtenay-williams/

“My mind drifts while I am in the sky, thinking about a dog fight over seas in the battle of Vimy. I have become adept at the aerial combat moves which I will use to eliminate the enemy Air Force. I imagine the same battle over and over again.”

I could of changed it to sound more like…

“My mind drifts as the frigid air pierces my wool scarf and burns my face cold. I drift to thinking about a dog fight over seas in the glorious battle of Vimy. I practice the same ariel move over and over, ease of the accelerator and tense my forearms as I pull the control stick towards myself. I imagine the same battle over and over again.”

Show not tell

Thats what I did when I created my second soldier post. This shows I learned as a writer to be more descriptive to increase immersion.

http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2017/02/09/448/

My third piece of work shows my ability to have a growth mindset. That was my Kaboom project about the halifax explosion. When I was doing the project I failed to see the value in what we are learning but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything out of doing the project.

http://www.blog44.ca/christopherr/2016/12/05/kaboom/

“This was a very successful project in a video making point of view, but I didn’t really understand the learning outcome of this project just seemed like useless information about a disaster. I didn’t receive any context that would help me conceptualize the war other then some ships had a lot explosives and the Halifax harbour was poorly managed. So all in all I learned how to be a news anchor and about a human disaster.”

This was my description of what I reflected on my project on my other blog post. As you saw from my attitude I had a negative view of the project. Despite my view I stuck with it and put some effort in and in the end I soaked in a lot of information about film making from Toms dad and my classmates.

Finally my goals or in my case goal. I have decided to make one goal not to make things easier just to make sure that that goal gets done. My goal is for the rest of the year to read 5 books outside of class. This is a small achievable step on improving my English. I am hoping for a snowball effect. Maybe it will spark an interest in reading more literature and inevitable improve my english.

Another SLC in the books see you in couple months. YES!