Period 1: Nigeria - Building a Power, Day 4 - Class Recap

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Good afternoon students,

Okay, now that was an interesting class, right? I really liked what everyone had to say during our seminar (I'll go over it more below), but I do want to make sure that we are keeping that core value of respect for each other alive. You can completely disagree with each other's views (and I think that there was definitely a lot of disagreement), but please do not disrespect individuals or people as a whole. That being said, the class excellent breakdown of the article, and there was some really good participation (I would guess about 75% of the class had at least one thing to say). I'm excited to get to see it on video (thanks Brandon)! :-)

I am going to post the recap, and then come back later and post another blog about flight stuff (because as you probably saw, I'm a huge geek about it). So look forward to that later.

Essential Questions: How do different structures of power impact the people over whom they govern? How does a developing country become developed? - As an aside, I think we did some pretty good work today with that second question, thank you!

Soundtrack: "International Airport" by Carbon Leaf. This is an excellent song about flying all over the place. Carbon Leaf is one of my favorite bands - their album Indian Summer is an all-time classic. Lyrics for International Airport here.

AGENDA 2/13/09:
News Brief
Socratic Seminar Redux
Leaving on a Jet Plane
Computer Lab Time

Homework: Work on travel guide. Check blog!

Here is the list of who signed up for what country:
Algeria - Andrew H.
Benin - Alondra
Botswana - Zack T.
Cameroon - Kurtis
Chad - C.J.
Democratic Republic of the Congo - John
Cote d'Ivorie (The Ivory Coast) - Scout
Djibouti - Russel
Egypt - Jazmyne
Ethiopia - Abe
Gabon - Gerold
Ghana - Mustafe
Guinea - Jordan
Guinea-Bissau - Carson
Kenya - Zach N.
Liberia - Nolan
Libya - Aaron
Madagascar - Nicole
Mali - Brandon
Mauritius - Archana
Morocco - Andrew K.
Mozambique - McKenzie
Namibia - Nathan
Niger - Tanya
Sierra Leone - Robert
South Africa - Lauren
Sudan - Thuy
Swaziland - Randi
Tanzania - Brooke
Togo - Morgan
Uganda - Kierra
Zambia - Jillian
Zimbabwe - Ben

Whew, now that's some good effort. For those that need to see the assignment again or lost a copy, here it is to download:

Africa Trip Guide Assignment
Remember that we set the due date in class of Tuesday, February 24th. Please be working on it during your long weekend - I am really excited to see what you can do with this! :-)

News Brief: Nathan brought in an article about the continuing violence in Afghanistan. Again, an incredibly important place in the world, and very interesting to study! We will be doing just that after this unit. Nolan, you are up for next Wednesday - any current news article about something outside the United States.

Socratic Seminar Redux: At the beginning of the class, I apologized for the lack of time that we were able to devote in the previous class to the seminar, and for me talking too much. It really is difficult, especially when what is being said is so interesting! :-)

We started up again in a giant circle, and went over the seminar ground rules again. I was really glad to hear your thoughts, even though it did (as we noted) get a little heated. That is sort of the point of discussing a controversial text - I want people to have different interpretations. I think overall, we did a good job of not making it personal, though there were definitely was some moments when I was like: "Oh wow, okay, I need to say something..." I think it comes with the process. We are going to continue to develop this skill of going into texts and seeing what they have to say.

There were TONS of things brought up that had me blown away. I always love it when you make connections to things outside the class, like genocide against Native Americans and the "animalistic" nature (like in Lord of the Flies). I also thought that it was interesting to hear your thoughts on if the positions had been switched, and white people were in Africa - that black people would colonize them, because humans are inherently greedy. If this is the case, how can we get past stuff like that, to work towards the common good? If we admit that greed and selfishness is a part of human nature, what do we need to do to move beyond it?

I liked the feedback from right after too - it is good to see that people were into the conversation (though Ben, you were absolutely right about me still butting in a little too much - sorry)! Let's make our goal for next time to really invite participation from everyone else. Make it a priority! Also, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about the environment in the class - especially during debates like the one we had today.

All in all, the seminar was well done, and I'm glad that we really got to devote a lot of time to it. Thank you to everyone for being involved.

Leaving on a Jet Plane: This is where I passed out the travel guide assignment, and asked: "Why did we start this whole unit on studying Africa?" As I pointed out, part of it was that we saw the differences in conceptions between Africa and Europe, with Africa having overwhelmingly negative impressions. The travel guide is hopefully going to present you with some great opportunities to get past that notion - because there really is just an incredible amount of culture in Africa.

I also did a little show and tell with my airport badge, passport, and model plane of the Lufthansa Airbus A340-300. By the way, for those students that had actually flown that flight - if any of you flew during the last three summers, it is entirely possible that I loaded your bags or cleaned your seat. Small world! :-)

I will bring all that stuff in again for next class, which may or may not be in the computer lab (we might just use books from the library to research). I also introduced some helpful links (though the next post that I will write on airlines will have a lot as well), which are below:

Kayak.com - A great place to start, when you know where you want to go. Enter PDX as the origin airport, and find the three letter code of biggest airport in your country using the Wikipedia article below - that is just one way to find how to get there.

Wikipedia: African Airports

Flight Memory.com - chart your own flights!

Computer Lab Time: Obviously, we did not have time for this. Which, surprisingly, I am okay with. I wanted the seminar to control how much time we devoted to the lab, and since it was just a good conversation for so long, there really wasn't enough time to go up there. Next class we will devote almost the entire time to working on your guides, but don't assume that we will be able to go to a computer lab - bring any materials you think you may need!

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That should be just about it for this post! Look forward to another one later tonight about airline stuff. Please feel free to comment or e-mail me if you need! I should be out tonight from around 4:30 to about 10:00, so don't worry if it doesn't post immediately, or you don't hear from me right away.

Also, funny story - after class, when I was checking my e-mail, I got a message in my Spam folder that was a Nigerian scam! Complete with the President's name and coming from the city of Abuja! It made me laugh.

Watch the All-Star Weekend - and have a wonderful long weekend! You guys are all amazing, do you know that? See you next week! :-)