Month: January 2019

 

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