💡It’s The End Of The World As We Know It pt.1💡

    It’s been a exactly 45 days since the topic in question was raised. “How has the transition from elementary school to secondary school challenged your worldview.” In saying this, 45 days seems like a lot, especially considering the fact that we’re talking about a humanities project. This may be true but as the days have gone by practically squeezing the life out of me I haven’t really noticed how fast time goes by when you’re sincerely invested in a topic. Moving on. I can envision the moment myself and all my peers stumbled into our familiar classroom to the shocking sight of our teacher Ms. Willemse rocking it out to REM’s “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It.” On that day, January 10th 2019 we grazed the subject of worldview once again. On the off chance that you live on the moon and have not come across one of the 28 posts on our previous project surrounding worldview go read mine!

  We started off this project with a bit of research on the infamous fall of Rome. We learned about 8 factors that helped the empire to collapse and make a gateway for Feudal Europe. After researching and presenting what we know, we made a question board. We had been given the project overview and had tons of questions such as; “what is feudal society?” Or “How does this relate to the fall of Rome?” This was not only a question board. It was split into three sections know, need to know, and goals. I set the goal to use my creative and logical instincts to complete this project. For the most part I succeeded. In PLP we use the know, need to know, and goals board to get a better understanding of a project. At the beginning of this particular project I felt as though this method really help me grasp the idea of what we were setting out to do.

  Our next step in building knowledge was learning all about the crusades in Europe. After the fall of Rome, Europe seemed to fall into a slump, forgetting all of the knowledge passed down by the fallen romans. We started reading a novel entitled “The Book of The Lion.” The novel, although short, taught me about some of what happened to those who fought in the crusades, who travelled to the holy land, who brought back knowledge, resources, and disease. During our readings we had three assignments, one per week. Connector, illustrator, and investigator. Each one had different requirements i.e. Connector; connect a part of the readings to a real life event, book, or movie. Illustrator; sketch a scene from the book that you think is important to the plot line. Investigator; do a bit of research about something in the book that you find interesting or is important to the story. In doing these we learned some valuable stuff individually and in our groups. Especially in the case where we are able to connect all three during discussion!

  Our next assignment was considered a milestone. After reading the novel, watching documentaries, and taking past knowledge into account we set out to write our own paragraph answering the following question. “How did the crusades encourage a cultural exchange to shift worldview?” At first I asked myself how. As my thoughts on the question grew more complex I started writing. The requirement for the paragraph was that we were to show how either the muslims worldview shifted due to the crusades or the same for the Western Europeans. I went with the Europeans because of the vast shift in every aspect of worldview. (again read my previous post) This paragraph helped me to understand how the transition in cultural exchange vastly boosted Europe out of their slump and into the renaissance period. This realization gave me ample opportunities to understand how this whole lesson relates back to the driving question.

 I felt it best to write this reflection in three parts so read the pt.2 post coming out shortly!