June 2017 archive
Yeah, my class went to Las Vegas…you may be wondering “why would a group of grade 11s go to Vegas for a project?” Well let me tell you.
So this unit was an interesting unit. Our driving question was “How is fear used as a defensive, political and cultural tool?” And we went to Tucson, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada to answer this.
This unit was mainly focused on the Cold War, along with bits of the history of Las Vegas and the mob. With these two main ideas in mind we had to come up with a much more focused question that related to fear being used as a tool. From there we were expected to figure out everything we’d need to film on the trip to answer our question in a video essay.
One part of this project that I really struggled with was actually coming up with a question. Marley and I were originally working together, with the general idea of whether feared or loved leaders are stronger. With this we were planning on focusing on the mob, and how the fear of them was used as a tool to create the thriving city of Las Vegas. This was all going great until we actually got on the trip.
Once we were on the trip Marley and I realized that our idea in fact wouldn’t work. After lots of discussion and trying to figure out what we actually were going to do we decided our projects would be best if we went separate directions. The main thing that inspired my new choice was this display at the National Atomic Testing Museum about atomic culture. I decided to focus my project on how atomic culture evolved as the fear of nuclear energy grew.
Throughout the trip I found information and got interviews to help me complete this project at all the interesting and fun places we went.
an abbreviated itinerary
Once I got back to the school I made another change to my project…Maria and I decided to work together. It made sense though because both of our topics ended up evolving into the exact same thing, and we knew we could create a much better final product by putting our information, footage and skills together.
We ended up focusing on how fear of nuclear weapons and energy in general affects people view of nuclear power. This was quite interesting because throughout our research we found that it has an unwarranted negative stigma, and we hoped to be able to change this a bit for anyone watching our video.
The first thing we were expected to do when arriving back at school was write an essay answering our question. This took a few revisions but we eventually got a solid essay that helped a lot with our final product.
I’m actually really glad that Maria and I worked together because we both have a strong work ethic, but working with her is always really fun. We often have different ideas, but this just helps us form even better ideas. We work well together because we always bounce ideas back and forth until we figure out the best way to get things done. Along with that, Maria is a really good video editor so she took more charge in that department, while I took charge when it came to actually writing the essay. Our combination of strengths tends to go well together.
Once the essay was finished we moved onto planning our video. We made a rough video outline to figure out what shots we wanted where and what our voice overs would be. One place we went wrong with our video was looking at the essay a bit too much. We kept looking at it while writing the script which ended up making our video almost seem like an essay with some visuals overtop, rather than visuals with only a few words being needed to explain it.
When it came to editing the video we used some clips from our trip, along with others that we found online.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4RRLbrje3TU
All in all I really enjoyed the project and the trip. I think our final product was pretty good and am proud of what we managed to create despite both going through so many topic changes. Las Vegas and Tucson were both so much fun, and I hope that next time I’m in Vegas I’ll be 21.
Innocence and evil…seems pretty clear right? But how clear is it really? There is a grey area between innocence and evil, one that many people struggle to navigate. Finding that line where right turns to wrong is almost impossible.
In this blog post I had to pick a concept, create a question around it and then use various examples to answer it. If you couldn’t tell the concept I am going to be talking about is innocence and evil. These two concepts are usually very clear, and it’s often quite obvious what category things fall under, but in some cases it can be hard to tell. This lead me to the question: how does one define the line between innocence and evil?
During war times it’s usually impossible to determine a good and a bad side, which side is right and which is wrong. Both sides are always fighting towards the same goal: to survive. All they want is to win for their country, for their families. The soldiers may feel like their side deserves to win, and they are on the good side, but both sides feel that way. Both sides have to kill their “enemy” and keep fighting to the end no matter what. Which side one believes should win strongly depends on nationalism. In general during war, people cheer for their own country. Considering everybody is fighting for a reason, there can never be a clear evil or innocent side during war that everybody agrees on. This has to be determined by each individual, and their experiences are what allow for them to make this decision.
Some people may think that all soldiers in war are much closer to evil than innocent, because their main job is killing people, but they are usually just volunteers fighting for their country or were conscripted. Most of them don’t want to be killing and are just fighting for their country. Is that really that evil?
One example of a soldier who maybe isn’t innocent is Elijah from “Three Day Road” by Joseph Boyden. This novel was about two Canadian First Nations going off to fight in a World War I. One character, Xavier, didn’t enjoy killing people, in fact, for the most part he hated it. He lost sleep over seeing the dead bodies and knowing he possibly killed people. He is one of the soldiers who, despite killing people, isn’t necessarily evil because he just does what needs to be done.
Xavier’s friend Elijah on the other hand…well he is another story. At the beginning of the book he seems to want to kill as many people on the other side as possible to gain popularity among the other soldiers, but by the end it is all about the kill. He becomes addicted to morphine and spirals out of control. Be begins killing civilians along with his fellow soldiers, and scalps his kills to prove how many there were.
Elijah is a pretty clear example of evil, but it’s much harder to say with Xavier. He didn’t want to kill people, but he still did kill them. Elijah is and example of black and white, where as, to some people, Xavier represents the grey area.
Another example of when point of view determines the line between innocence and evil is in television and movies. In general, people tend to cheer for the main character no matter what. The connections made to the main characters throughout the movies and TV shows blur the line between right and wrong for people, as they tend to cheer for who they know, no matter what the character stands for. If movies were remade with the bad guys as the main characters, seeing their perspective would likely change people’s desired outcome, because it is all in the point of view. Seeing the villain as the main character or learning their view would gain sympathy for them and for sure make people understand them better. People tend to cheer for who and what they know, even if it isn’t always what they believe in.
What side of an issue you’re on also affects the choice between innocence and evil. In the book “Fallout“, by Todd Strasser, a trap door turns this line from metaphorical to physical. When the bomb is dropped only one family in this town has a shelter. This family wants to be alone, to save themselves and not let anybody else in. They know that their best chance of survival is to kept the door closed at all costs. Those on the other side of the door feel as though this is wrong and that they deserve a chance as well. When a few more people break in they realize that they want to keep everybody else out so they can survive. The second they crossed the line they switched from opening the door to closing it. Once they made it into the shelter their opinion on right versus wrong flipped and they tried to keep the door closed, even though they were the ones to pry it open. When they were outside they felt it was unfair to be locked out and forced their way in, yet once in they helped lock everybody else out. This is an example of how a situation can determine one’s opinion, and how seeing the other side of the situation makes them understand people’s actions.
Honestly, in any situation different sides of an issue develop different opinions on what is right and what’s wrong. Even during World War II, no matter how evil some of Hilter’s actions may seem to us, he believed that what he was doing was right.
In the play Macbeth the concept of innocence and evil is played with quite a bit, although mainly evil. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is actually innocent. He does what he believes is right and is very loyal. Once the witches but the idea of the possibility of him becoming king in his head though, it all spirals downhill. In the case of Macbeth defining the line between innocence and evil is fairly clear. Even Macbeth knows what he’s doing is wrong, he’s just too wrapped up in the idea of power to care.
This term in PLP we read the book “Lord of the Flies” and even in this book, no matter what the boys do, I don’t think they are evil, though many people may. The boys run around hunting pigs, chanting “Cut his throat! Kill the pig!” and they get way more into the hunt than they really should be. Along with that, one character Roger shows many signs of bloodlust and even kills another boy on the island. Many of their actions make them seem like they many be closer to evil than innocent…but what do you expect from 12 year old and younger boys. They’re still immature, they haven’t even gone through puberty. They’ve never gotten freedom from their parents, and they acted out. But this doesn’t mean they’re evil, they were just a bit too innocent to start. These boys don’t have enough life experience to be considered evil quite yet. My opinion would likely be much different if it were adults, but then again, if they were adults it likely wouldn’t have gotten that bad.
Many people likely have different opinions on evil in “Lord of the Flies.” Why? Because of how personal the line between right and wrong is. It depends on each person. And I for sure am not saying it’s okay to kill people when stranded on a deserted island, I know it’s wrong, but because it happened doesn’t automatically make the boys involved evil.
I decided to make a Venn diagram to show how much overlap there is between innocence and evil. Obviously the words in the middle are all very subjective and depend on every person individually, just like the line between innocence and evil. It depends on one’s upbringing, religion and personal morals. It’s almost impossible to state something that is considered good worldwide.
In some situations the line between innocence and evil is very clear and those who don’t seem to know it just aren’t making any effort to look. In these situations common sense and the knowledge of right and wrong draws the line. But in the grey areas it of course is much harder to find this line. This line varies for many people, and is often drawn by ones point of view and their experiences. There can never be a clear line between innocence and evil for the whole world to follow because nobody has the same experiences or point of view. The line between innocence and evil is very individualized, luckily, it isn’t all grey, and the black and white areas are what keep us in order.
The end of a school year in PLP means one thing…it’s time for an exhibition! Remember back in December how we had to create an immersive experience from pre-war Canada to the depression? Well this was like that…except completely different.
This exhibition challenged us just as much, if not more, just with less building of physical props, and more building our public speaking and thinking on our feet skills. You may be wondering, well what did you have to do? Well, let me tell you…
…A Debate!!! Actually no, not just one debate…a whole debate tournament! Yep, that’s what we had to do. We had teams, and a whole bracket.
At the beginning of this unit we were given 7 concepts, which we had to build on. We created charts of ideas around them, and were supposed to collect enough information to be able debate whatever we were given. We read Lord of the Flies which helped expand our knowledge of the concepts and added this to our charts.
The debate format wasn’t as formal as most debates. We didn’t have our topics until right before the debate, when we got 1 minute of prep time. Each team then got either 2 or 3 minutes to debate depending on the round. There was a timer setup on the app Board Game Timer and once each time said their point they’d press it and the other team’s time would begin counting down. This would go back and forth until both teams’ time was up.
My team “Debates R Us” was made up of Michael Fourie, Luciano Boniface and me. I personally think we worked pretty well together. We had a good mix of skills. For example, Michael was good at thinking on the spot, and Luc was good at speaking in front of the group. My role in the group was more ahead of time, preparing for the actual night. I helped a lot building up our concept charts and figuring out how much we needed.
One example of a chart
We filled out seven of these charts, but I figured I should just give one example because does anyone really want to see all seven? And we practiced debating. A lot. Along with that we watched lots of videos on how to win debates and how to public speak well.
One thing I think our whole class may have focused a bit too much on was in fact Lord of the Flies though. In fact, my group’s first debate ended up mainly being Lord of the Flies related, so I think we may have lost some of the audience there.
Next time I’d try to calm down even more before hand, and prepare even more. I’d practice arguing really hard topics, and I hope next time I’ll be better at thinking on my feet.
This assignment was actually really fun! I enjoyed debating even though it was quite terrifying. I hope to get to do something similar to this again!
All in all I think this project was very important and did a good job helping to increase my public speaking and thinking on the spot skills.
Well everyone, it’s been a long year, but it’s finally over (almost). Just one year of high school left! Grade 12 will be a crazy year, and (I never thought I’d be saying this but…) I’m actually feeling pretty prepared.
Grade 12 will be a pretty busy year, with trying to get as high marks as possible while working, saving up money for university and applying to universities. But I think I can handle it, I mean I managed to get through grade 11 in one piece. I’m actually kind of excited for it, it should be a fun year.
This year I’ve learned lots that will prepare me for next year. I managed to balance a heavy work load with my job and sports, and only had a few late nights. This year there was a lot going on… for sure the busiest year yet. I was in 8 academic courses (PLP, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Pre-Calc 12, French and comparative civilizations) along with 2 choirs. Plus I worked almost every weekend, along with some week nights. Some weeks I had as many as 30 hours of work.
The lack of free time I had this year really taught me how to work hard and get stuff done in the little time I had to do it. It has taught me the importance of time management. Obviously my time management skills still need a lot of work, like I need to learn to have less to do, but they are for sure improving. Plus, next year I’m taking two less courses than this year, they may be a bit harder, but I will likely have more time for each course which will be a welcomed change.
Budgeting my time will be very important next year, but I think I will be able to handle it. As this year went on I improved at not procrastinating and using my time wisely, as needed. Next year my skills at that will only improve, so I’m excited to see what I can get done.
Another thing I developed this year to help with school is even more of a love of learning. Ever since I was young I enjoyed learning, but it still sometimes felt like a chore, but this year my appreciation for gaining knowledge has grown so much more. One thing in PLP that helped with this is the openness of the topics. Being told, “do this”, “fill this out”, “answer these questions”, “take this test” isn’t the most inspiring way to learn, but PLP is different and we actually have choice in what we do. This has made me enjoy learning so much more, and it has reflected on all my courses. Enjoying learning helps makes doing school work actually fun, which will help motivate me to do my homework next year.
One really fun assignment I did this year was the my Canada video.
cEHnEHdEH…eh?
It didn’t exactly relate to what we were learning at the time but it was still a relevant assignment. I filled mine with jokes and made it quite personal, which I think helped me practice my skills of making my work seem like my own. I actually enjoyed making it, which made me put in even more effort and be proud of the final product. When you enjoy your project and what you’re learning your final product is a lot better, which is why I think learning how to love to learn is a very important thing I learned this year that will for sure help next year.
Another important assignment this year was the debate. I’ve never been very good at public speaking but this for sure helped me improve a bit.
Well That’s Debatable
The debates helped me practice thinking on my feet and speaking in front of a larger audience than I’m used to. These skills are very important in general, so I think it is important for me to develop them more, but am off to a good start. Thinking on my feet and being confident in front of large groups will help me next year in so many ways, and even more further in the future.
Along with that, this assignment had assigned groups which is always good practice. It’s interesting working with people you normally wouldn’t and it’s always good practice.
One assignment I’m especially proud of is the podcast blog post.
good luck🍀
Maria and I put a lot of hard work into this podcast and it was actually really fun. We got to hear about first hand war experiences from Helmut Lempke and then create a podcast talking about a relevant concept. One thing that we did in this project that was a bit different was not writing an exact script. We wanted our podcast to be more conversational and less formal, so we just had our general ideas and recorded our conversation about them. The lack of a script proved to us how much we actually knew about his stories. It was nice to show ourselves that we didn’t need to write exactly what to say before saying it. It was actually a really interesting and fun way to make a project and I for sure want to make more podcasts next year. I think this project turned out quite well and is a good example of one that I’m proud of.
I’m not gonna lie, I am very nervous for grade 12, and am not sure if I am completely ready, but I’ll face whatever I have to and work hard. I’m excited to see what I can do with what I learned this year, and expand on my skills. If someone asked me if I am ready for grade 12 I’d probably say yes, because that’s what is expected at this age, but I wouldn’t be sure if it was true. Answering the question “Why do you think you’re ready for the next grade level?” showed me that I may infact be. It’s hard to know for sure until the time comes, but for now I’m confident that Grade 12 will be a good year!
