Dear students,
Thank you for yet another good class yesterday. I always enjoy hearing what everyone has to say about the world! With that, let's get right on to the recap:
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is genocide inevitable?
Soundtrack: "Where is the Love?" by The Black Eyed Peas. Again, this song was suggested to me by Aaron - it helped that I already have the song and love it. Some very interesting lyrics in this song. Definitely worth thinking about.
AGENDA 1/23/09
Debrief Week
Rwanda Quiz
Visual Metaphor Presentations
Assessing the class
Healing Rwanda
Next Semester
Homework: Check blog!
If you are reading this, thank you for doing your homework! :-)
Debrief Week: We started class by going over everything on the board as usual, and pointing out that Lauren's poem on genocide is now hanging up on the side. The visual metaphor posters should be on the back wall soon as well.
We also talked a little bit about Martin Luther King Jr. day and the inauguration on Tuesday, with the question being: do we have equality in America now? After a somewhat slow start, the class really had a lot to say, especially when we started questioning if we could ever have a Asian, woman, or gay President. Certainly a lot to consider. I was very glad to have the discussion! These sorts of questions will always be relevant.
Rwanda Quiz: Thank you for your diligence during this. Judging by our going over the answers after it, the class seemed to do pretty well. I will be grading them today and tomorrow and get them back next week.
Visual Metaphor Presentations: I really enjoyed these! It was incredibly interesting to see the kinds of connections you were able to come up with. I know that this assignment was a little difficult to get a hold of at first, but when you did, I think that you really got a lot out of it. I mean, some of you had connections for every single pillar of colonialism! That was pretty amazing. I will have these graded by the next time we meet as well.
Assessing the Class: I am very much looking forward to reading these too! This is the type of feedback I really need as a teacher. Also, when we go over it all as a class, we can really see what everyone thinks is working and what isn't. I'm planning to turn this into a PowerPoint so that we can all check out everything.
Healing Rwanda: To show you how much I over-planned, I allotted a full 30 minutes for this and we did not get to it at all. That's okay - we had very valuable other things to do, but I am sad that we will not get to go over it as a class because we are moving on. However, you can check out the entire article I was going to go over (I cut it up into snippets) here: Orion Magazine - Healing Rwanda
I highly recommend you skim the article, if just for personal curiosity. It is a very powerful look at the rebuilding process.
Next Semester: I believe I talked a little bit about this, but come next Wednesday, we are moving on to talking about Somalia for a little bit. After that will be a unit on Nigeria that Mrs. DeFrance and I are currently trying to figure out the logistics of (there is a lot to think about!). Further on down the line, we will be moving on to the Middle East.
I also am introducing a new participation based assignment: the Daily News Brief. I gave an example of Afghan girls getting acid thrown in their face just for wanting an education. That article (which I was going to project but ran out of time) can be found here: CNN.com - Afghan girls maimed by acid vow to go to school. I used this to show what lengths some people have to go to just to get to have the education that we so freely enjoy.
Remember, Russel, you are the first to go with an article next Wednesday. It can be anything that is currently going on outside the United States. A good place to start finding something are the links on the right side of this page - BBC.com and CNN.com are usually good bets.
Finally, I have added a link at the bottom of the blog for a random picture from Airliners.net, which should show you some exotic planes from all around the world. Since I'm a huge fan of airplanes, I couldn't resist.
Have a wonderful long weekend (remember, no school on Monday) and enjoy the Blazer game tonight against Washington (7PM, CSN). Here's a picture I took of Jerryd Bayless signing autographs after a game earlier this month to get you excited:
See you next Wednesday!
Mr. Fritz,
ReplyDeleteI cannot even believe that Sam Adams is not going to resign. Any public office holder that lies breaks trust with everyone and for him to go on today like nothing happened is outrageous. Even though he only "kissed" the kid when he was 17 is still a crime. I think that this is quite ridiculous that a whole city will still stand behind someone who holds the highest civilian public office in the city, who committed a crime and lied about it to get elected. And I do not think any of these things just because he is gay, it is because he blatantly committed a crime, and blatantly lied about it to get elected! What are your opinions on this?
Zack,
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly an interesting debate, to say the least. However, a few quick things here: So far, no actual crime has been committed (as far as we know). I agree that a man of Mayor Adams' age having a relationship with an impressionable 18 year old kid is indicative of extremely poor judgment. The Mayor himself has said this and has said that he knows people will not be able to trust his word for some time, so he is hoping to overcome through hard work.
I would point out that kissing is not sexual contact (if it is on the lips), even if the person is under the age of consent - and thus, not a crime. Or at least, I certainly hope it is not, because if it is, I see way too many kids at Westview having sex in the halls during school.
This is all subject to the independent investigation that is ongoing by the Oregon Attorney General's Office. Hopefully that will reveal if anything actually illegal happened. I also would point out that many, many people do not support the Mayor right now - he is definitely feeling the heat.
I am putting my trust in the ongoing investigation and the will of the Portland voters. If they want to recall the Mayor in 6 months, that's democracy. Until then, I don't think I should pass judgment on anyone's consensual personal relationships publically, as much as they may raise my eyebrows internally.
Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion. I'm glad that you are paying attention to these matters! :-)
Mr. Fritz,
ReplyDeleteI guess I was under the impression that any sort of relationship between someone over 18 and someone under 18 was against the law, but either way your right it is poor judgment. But thanks for clearing up those few things so that I do not make false assumptions about anyone.
See you wednesday
Zack,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it has to be a sexual relationship for it to be illegal in this case. I mean, it makes sense - in some cultures, kissing is a form of greeting friends and such. Obviously, "dating" someone under the age of consent raises huge questions, as we have both noted. I just don't think that it's actually a crime, as the law stands right now.
In any case, I'm sure there will be many more twists and turns in the story over the next few months.
Back to the Blazer game - how about that Brandon Roy dunk?!
Mr. Fritz,
ReplyDeleteI cannot watch the blazer game, my mom just commandeered the television to watch some silly show. But i will be listening on the radio!
do you think that you can move the due date of the 5 paragraph essay about somalia to thursday
ReplyDeletei think its not enough to type up for tuesday because we got it in such short notice
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteInstead of complaining about a five paragraph assignment that you have 4 full days to do (especially as you should have the five points done from the work in class), please just get it done.
Thanks,
-Mr. Fritz
HEY IT'S RUSSEL
ReplyDeleteI'M FINALLY ON THE BLOG
NICE JOB MR. FRITZ
UMMMMMMMM.......YOU SHOULD PLAY
DO IT ALONE BY SUGARCULT BECAUSE WE WERE TRYING TO HELP SOMALIA AND THEY CANT DO IT ALONE BUT THEY DONT WANT OUR HELP
IT'S PERFECT
I JUST HEARD IT TODAY AND IT SOUNDS REALLY GOOD
THE VIDEO DOESNT GO WITH IT BUT ITS THE LYRICS THAT COUNT
HERES A LINK FOR IT ON YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL8vBGP5eGk
Hey Russel,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you are on here! I think your caps lock key is broken. :-)
I will look into the song, thanks for the suggestion!
but im not good in making essays
ReplyDeletethey'r too hard
All you have to do is look over the class discussion results at the top of the blog (or in your own writing about your article), find five points that you think might help repair Somalia, and talk about how and why. Don't think of it as an essay. Just five points, with an explanation for each point.
ReplyDeleteso all you do is find 5 points that zach wrote and explain it more
ReplyDeletewe have to give an opinion right?
Well, there were definitely more than five points the class discussed. What Zack wrote were just some of them - you should have others written down, because I asked the class to reflect on the articles you brought in in the same way. Where I want your opinion is to try and think of the best five points that you believe will help solve the problems of Somalia and explain why for each point.
ReplyDeleteoh ok
ReplyDeletei get it...more
ok thanks for your new help
sooooo...............whats on this weeks agenda?
Well, if you don't get all of it, please let me know. One point might be: Somalia needs to accept outside intervention. Then go on to explain why it should do that. Make sense?
ReplyDeleteAs for this week, we will probably be doing some exploring of these points as a class, as well as beginning a nice big section on Nigeria (which I am still in the process of figuring out).
what if we cant type the paper
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm assuming since you were able to type that post, you should be able to type a paper. If you can't print it, send your homework to me and I will print it out for you.
ReplyDeleteIf you for some reason don't have access to a computer, come see me tomorrow and I will hand you a pass to type during Study Hall.
but i heard that the library, computaer labs are closed this week or something
ReplyDeleteThat was last week. If they still are this week, just use the Lower North Teacher's cluster computers. But really, in the amount of time that we have been talking on the blog today, you could have typed three of these assignments. Just get it done tonight and feel accomplished. :-)
ReplyDelete