My First Winter Exhibition

My name is Eloise and I’m in grade 8 in my first ever PLP exhibition. We made a triptych to answer the driving question “What can we learn from the past and why does it matter to us today?” Keep reading to find out my point of view!

Power play Post
Building up to the exhibition we had to do a project on medieval times. This project made us read a book, make art, and learn about Medieval worldview. This played a crucial role in our tableaux because it made me learn how lucky we are to get to live in a place where we get the opportunity to learn.

Renaissance
Leading up to our Renaissance artwork, we had to learn about golden age inventions, witch trials, ethical judgements, and Renaissance worldview. Once we had this knowledge, we made an artwork choice chart to help us create our artwork. This chart was much harder than the medieval chart since felt i understood the Medieval times much better. Once we had our chart we started to make our abstract art using SUPERIMPOSE

Once we completed the art we wrote a describing paragraph of the renaissance artwork taking the feedback from medieval times paragraph. This is my describing paragraph:
What can we learn from the Renaissance? What did they do better? Learning about the Renaissance worldview showed us how we can be more engaged to learn to improve the future. In my artwork there are Christians buying indulgences. I chose this aspect since Christians believed that if you paid for indulgences, you would be forgiven of all your sin and go to heaven. When they made indulgences they were thinking about the future and how it would have a lasting effect on their religion. Martin Luther nailed his ideas to the wall and these ideas were the start of the reformation which caused Catholics to divide into two groups. These groups are still here today. I think Martin Luther hoped what he wrote would have a lasting affect on society and the future. The word press was one of the biggest inventions of all time. It provided opportunity to learn and made stories spread world wide because it was affordable to make books. This affects my worldview because the WordPress allowed knowledge to be spread to more people. This is why I think we can learn from the Renaissance to be more engaged in the future.

 

The Day of the Winter exhibition

As soon as the clock hit 3 we rushed to the gym, we set up the black curtains, blue mats, and we moved all our props. Once it hits 5:30 the doors open and we start to perform our triptychs. As the exhibition went on there were some struggles that made it more difficult like changing the costumes, moving the props, getting the audiences attention, and having tired legs. Of course there were a lot of positives to the night like having fun, feeling happy after a good performance, seeing other grades work, building on team spirit, and personally I was happy with how i read my script!This is a video of me performing the script:

Once it hit 7:00 everyone high fives each other and helped clean up!!!

Our Triptych

We made a digital tableau with 7 aspects of worldview, then we created a real life version. What are those aspects? Read the next paragraphs to find out.

Our medieval tableaux: Danny is an apprentice to Isaac and characterizes knowledge because apprenticeships were how they learnt. Griffin is a king to depict society because kings ruled over the lands. Elsa is paying taxes to Eloise which displays economy since they gave a lot of their resources to the king. Isaac is holding a sundial showcasing time because sundials were one of the only ways they kept time. The cross conveyed belief since Christianity drove the crusades. Griffin is holding a staff to represent values since people value having knights who had weapons to protect the land. Finally we have a river to indicate geography since in Medieval times you would be considered lucky to live near a river because it’s good for growing crops.

Next up is our Renaissance tableau. Griffin is the Catholic Church displaying society because the church held great power. Danny is reading a book to show knowledge because the WordPress was invented in the renaissance. Elsa is buying indulgences from Robin to distinguish the belief that Christians believed you would be forgiven of all your sins. For values we have Isaac praying because people valued the churches words and would listen to them with open ears. We have a clock to symbolize time since the clock was one of the biggest inventions in the golden age. Economy and geography is illustrated with a port since Italy’s location had a many ports which allowed increased luxurious trade.

Last we have our contemporary tableau.  We have Griffin as an Apple Store to represent society because apple is one of the biggest ways society communicate these days. To convey belief we have Eloise (me) as a scientist since today we act with facts and proven solutions. To portray values we put in an iPad since we value having knowledge at the tips of our fingers. We indicated knowledge by Danny reading Wikipedia which shows how much knowledge we get from websites. To depict time we showed Elsa checking her watch since now we are lucky to be able to look at our wrists and know the time. Lastly to define economy we put a taxi in because today gas cars affect our economy and we are trying to switch to electric cars because it’s better for our climate.

Why does the past matter to us today?

After learning about worldview, I think learning about history lets us understand how societies functioned in the past and we can better understand how they function today. It also helps us understand how we can build from what they started.

 

We can Learn from The Past

Why do we learn about the past? Why is it relevant today? As part of this project we learned about medieval times through reading The book of the Lion and made medieval artwork. It showed a medieval worldview which made me understand we are lucky to live in a place where we get opportunity to learn.

The Book of the Lion
First we read the book of the lion, to teach us about medieval worldview. The book of the lion is story about a young English man named Edmund,  he was saved by two knights who made him fight for the Lion’s Heart crusade in the Holy Land. We read this book to learn about Medieval Worldview and why it is still relevant today. My opinion on this book is that it had the right information but, it didn’t share it in the right way. I found this book hard to read and very boring with barely any moments that kept me hooked. If you’re trying to learn about worldview this is your book, if you just want a fun read as well I would not suggest it.

 

Medieval Times
Before I go on, what is Medieval times? After the fall of Rome the Catholic Church became the most powerful and leaders would get a lot of power from it and this lead to the Crusades which was a big part of the medieval times but, who and what were they? The Crusades were Catholic Knights and would go to the holy lands to spread the word and fight for Christianity. They were told if they fought for crusade all of their sin would be forgiven and could come back with Muslim treasure. If you want to learn more about medieval times click here.

Medieval artwork
After we finished the book we started the process of our final project.  We made medieval artwork of ourselves in paintings and included objects in the background that relate to medieval worldview. We couldn’t just go straight in to making the artwork we had to plan it out and have a reason for each object. So we made artwork choice charts:

 

Artwork explanation

After we finished the choice chart I started the artwork using superimpose and combined all of the images together. I put a king, farmer and an apprentice in my artwork because in medieval times, having an apprenticeship was a common way to learn. This shows that I can learn from my elders experiences.In the medieval times kings ruled at the top and farmers and peasants were on the bottom. Even if a farmer was more intelligent than a king he would have to stay in his role. This makes me learn to not judge a book by its cover and how important it is to hear everybody’s opinions. In medieval times you were considered lucky to live near a river so I put a river in my artwork. This affects my worldview because in medieval times most people would have to travel to get water and now we can just get water from a tap. I learnt, how grateful and lucky I am to live in a time period where engineering has evolved enough for us to get safe water. I have learnt so much about medieval times and how it connects to our learning.

Reflection

After completing this project I realize it’s important that we learn about the past so we can relate it to the present day and avoid making mistakes in the future.

Conclusion
Looking back on the project I learnt several key things , first and most important I can learn from my elders, second to hear every bodies opinions and last to be grateful for what I have.

 

It’s the Start of Seycove

I have read The Outsiders.  I have done role sheets, I have questioned my worldview, I have created lyrics and I have created a music video. I did all of that in one Humanities project and I’m going to show you how I did it. First the driving question “How can a text help me understand myself as my worldview is changing”. So by the end of this project I answered that question.

Outsiders the Book

We read a Book called “The Outsiders” to learn about western worldview. The book showed us different types of people and how they think. For Ponyboy I was surprised because he smoked at the age of fourteen which now the average smoker first tries it at the age of 18. If you want to learn more about The Outsiders you could read the book or watch the movie.

Discussion Role Sheet

Every Friday we would meet up with our assigned groups and share our role sheets we made about The Outsiders. The role sheet took a lot of time and every time I would get feedback even if I thought it was really good. I took this feedback with a growth mindset and  progressed through this stage of the project and I am proud of my sheet.

Song

Have you ever listened to  “It’s the end of the world and  I feel Fine” song. Well if you haven’t, click here. We changed all the lyrics to this song talking about our experience from elementary school to high school. We had our lyrics ready to make a song then our teacher said this is a group project and I felt relieved when she said that. My group was Cece, Isaac, and Griffin (click on their names to see their blog). So we decided to combine our lyrics to make one final draft of our song. Now we had to make the video to the lyrics using IMovie and connect them to the lyrics. Check out our video below:

In this project I learn that that are many world view and not just mine.Though I understand what worldview is my worldview is always going to be changing as I progress through high school and the rest of my life.

Why the Haudenosaunee’s Great Law Of Peace is more relevant today than ever

The great law of peace was written centuries ago but is needed now more than ever. I’m here to explore the three top reasons why the Haudenosaunee’s laws can help the world we see today.

Before we get started what is The Great Law of Peace? Is it a suggestion? Is it a real law? It is neither, The Great Law of Peace is a cultural law that you can’t get arrested for but it holds powerful meaning. It states you should have a mind filled with peace and never make decisions with fury or anger.

Number 1 : Wars

Hitler, Putin, Trump all of these leaders could have benefited from The Great Law of Peace. Now how could each leader benefit from The Great Law of peace? Donald Trump’s policy was that he increased military spending and solved a lot of problems with violence. If he had listened to The Great Law of Peace and learned to make the decisions that aren’t about him and just think about the countries future generations, the USA could be thriving. Putin is trying to take away a lot of Ukraine’s land and making a legacy for himself. The Great Law of Peace does not stand for that. If he realized violence wasn’t the key, thousands of soldiers and civilians lives would be saved. Hitler was the leader of Germany in the 1930s, and had a lot of divisive policies. He was responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Jewish people. If Hitler just listened to the meaning of The Great Law of Peace he would be bring communities together and millions of lives would be saved.

Number 2: Climate change

Everyone is focused on self interest and making the most money. Today we live in a capitalist society. This means companies are focused on making profits as quickly as possible. What they’re not thinking about is how much impact they’re having on Mother Nature. The Great Law of Peace states “always view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground.” This means giving up profit today to look after our future generations.

Number 3: Patriarchy

Our society is still considered to be a patriarchy. Some examples would be the usage of the family name of the man after marriage and the gender pay gap. In Haudenosaunee’s society the clan mother was the head of clan. She played an important political and social role, which included choosing and advising the hoyaneh, making major decisions for the clan, knowing and keeping the Great Law of Peace, assigning names to clan members, influencing decisions, ensuring that the way of life continued and that children were raised in the customs of the longhouse, providing guidance when there were questions or disputes. With increased violence today we could benefit from a more matriarchal society.

Do you think we could benefit from The great law of Peace? What’s your opinion? Make sure to put them down in the comments.