Period 1: Genocide in Rwanda, Day 3 - Class Recap

My great friend Ryan, who I talked about in class today, and me. Summer 2007.
Welcome again to another Global Studies class recap blog! Thank you for visiting. Remember, if this is your first time here (or you haven't left a comment yet) please leave a comment on any post, so I know you have visited. With that, let's start the recap!

Soundtrack for today: "I Ka Barra (Your Work)" by Habib Koite. I picked this song because for one, I think it sounds amazing, two, Habib Koite is from Mali, a country in Africa, and three, I got this song for free when I bought this laptop last summer. Good reasons, right? No lyrics link, because none of us would be able to understand them, I'm guessing.

Agenda 12/9/08
Define Racism
Freedom Writers
Privilege
Power of Illusion
United Nations/Peer Review Rough Drafts

Homework: Continue to work in groups on revising drafts into one speech. Check blog!

Before I get to the class content, let me say a few things about the way class started today. Remember, I put you in groups to work on your speeches together, and I made those groups off of three different criteria: 1) At least two boys and two girls per group. 2) Try to have at least one person who had sat next to you previously. 3) If there were any things I noticed as being similar to someone else in the letter to me, I tried to accommodate that.

Thanks for being willing to go with your new groups! I didn't hear much complaining at all, which I was thrilled about.

One really important thing I forgot to mention: please really read carefully my responses to your letter to me (if you have not turned it in, please e-mail me it as soon as possible or turn it in to me in class). I spent a lot of time reading and having fun learning about all of you - thank you so much for all the work you did in writing them! They will definitely help me out in the future.

For starters, one thing that I heard a lot of was about how crowded the halls as Westview are. To help with that, I am going to try and let class out a minute or two early, when possible. I also heard some cool comments about dancing (I'm going to figure out a way to bring that in), listening to hip-hop (I'm a really big hip-hop/rap fan, so that works well), playing sports (everyone should know by now how big of a sports person I am), and also, what you want to do when you graduate (I think architecture was a big one, so I will look for ways to involve that in what I teach too). As you can see, the letters REALLY help me get to know you better and also plan interesting activities. Thank you for writing them! Please read my comments and bring the papers back to class on Thursday - I am going to want to have them back so I can refer to them throughout the year.

Also - if you made any attempt at all to answer the questions I put forth, you got a 10 out of 10, or an A+. I think starting the day off with a big ol' A+ is really a good way to go. :-)

Define Racism: After setting all of this up and having you discuss in groups, I asked you to think of ways which you could describe or define racism in the form of a concept map on the board. Some of what came up was: discrimination, prejudice, race, and advantage (or privilege) - which led directly into the rest of the class! Good job!

Freedom Writers: This discussion on race led to the Freedom Writers clip we watched, which can be found on YouTube below. I asked you to note the role that race plays in the relations of the students.



The clip from Freedom Writers that we watched in class today. Warning: some bad language.
After watching the clip (until the part where the students raise their hands because they have been shot at), I had to use the cards to get things started, but pretty soon afterwards, there was some really interesting thoughts about how race was affecting the lives of the students in the movie, and whether or not it was fair. I also asked you specifically about the white student, who must have felt somewhat persecuted. As one of the students in the film, Eva, says: "it's ALL about color." When someone has that mentality, it is incredibly difficult to not see the world as out to get them. However, should she? If all her life, Eva has only known white people to be (what she sees as) racist, why should she think otherwise?

Privilege: I then gave you the definition of racism that my friend Ryan uses, which is a "system of advantages based on race." I like this definition because it really makes sense when we start talking about privilege, and having advantage (or disadvantage) because of the color of your skin. We went around the class and read the Peggy McIntosh article (linked) "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." Though it took longer than I expected and I will probably change it up in the future, I think that it provokes some really interesting discussion about what people did and did not consider to be valid arguments.

I then asked you to write out a response to thinking about privilege, which I should have been much clearer on. The question I wrote on the board was: how has privilege affected your life? I also asked you to think about how our privilege or advantage is different than people in Rwanda, or respond directly to one piece of the article. Like I said, I know I wasn't very clear - though I am EXTREMELY excited to see what you had to say! I will get those back to you next class.

We then went on to talk about advantage and privilege being an aspect in both religion AND science. I think that perhaps we commonly think of religions as being discriminatory to other religions, but we often look past how "science" has been used to "prove" that some types of humans are genetically inferior to others. This science is called eugenics - it's a big word to know for the future.

Eugenics were used by colonial powers in Rwanda to say that because Tutsis had bigger brains (Scout talked about how her biology class went over this), were taller, and had longer "more European" noses and the Hutus were shorter and stockier, the Tutsis were put in power (which ultimately leads to a massive backlash and eventually genocide).

Power of Illusion: Continuing on from talking about the power of religion and science to discriminate and ultimately cause conflict, we watched the following clip from the documentary "Race: The Power of an Illusion" -



United Nations/Peer Review Rough Drafts: After this clip, I wanted to discuss your thoughts, though we didn't have much time because I needed to give you at least SOME time for your peer review. However, I did talk a little about the United Nations and the Security Council that you are trying to convince. Does race affect how other countries might see the conflict in Rwanda? How so?

Finally, we got to PEER REVIEW for a little bit of time. I will give you much more time in class on Thursday for this and for developing the group speech from the individual ones you wrote.

One note: though only half the class turned in a speech (that I am aware of - if you did not, please e-mail me ASAP), which is a pretty terrible turn in ratio that needs to be worked on immediately, I must say that just by glancing at the papers that were turned in that they look absolutely AMAZING across the board. THANK YOU to those who worked hard and for really taking the assignment to heart! I do so appreciate it - and you will definitely be well rewarded when you actually give the group speech. :-)

For those that have not turned in the speech - I will be outside the classroom tomorrow, during your passing periods, so please come see me for a blue pass to come work on the speech during your study hall period. You are not only being graded on your individual speech - your group and I will also be grading you as well, so it is crucial that you participate and get things done.

I know that we barely had enough time to go over everything for the speech. Just remember that your group needs to be developing a single speech, where each one of you talks for one solid minute, for next Monday. A really easy way to do this is to take the best part of each person's individual speech, and make it the group's by changing the wording around and such. The United Nations Security Council will be especially looking for conventions (meaning the format of the speech), coherence of points (do they fit well together and make sense), emotional pull, and persuasive ability.

Please use this blog entry as a forum to discuss ideas with your group members, if you want. E-mail them! Call them! Just make sure that you are starting to get a good idea of who is going to say what! If one person does all the work, they will be the only one getting the good grade. You will need to turn in one finished group copy of the speech on Monday, along with the colonization to genocide flow chart.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns! I will give you your rough drafts (if you have them turned in) back on Thursday to work with.

From now until the end of the break, I will be completely transparent (meaning you should know everything we are going to do) for this class. So here's what we are doing:

This Week:
Thursday - Peer Review/lesson on power of language and obedience.

Next Week:
Monday - Prep for speech/give speech/debrief from speech.
Wednesday - Hotel Rwanda - watch and respond to powerful scenes or ask questions.
Friday - Finish Hotel Rwanda and reflect on lessons learned from Rwanda.

Have a wonderful evening! I will be at the Blazer game from 6 to about 10, so I will not be able to respond to or post comments until after that. Please come see me tomorrow in school if you need me, as well! I am always here for questions, advice, concerns, complaints, anything! Good luck on making these group speeches, amazing students! See you Thursday! :-)