Period 1: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 14 - Class Recap

Outside the World Trade Center in downtown Portland, near the waterfront. All sorts of countries and cultures coming together there! Picture taken by Mr. Fritz on April 17th.
Dear class,

I must say, I am getting extremely excited for your presentations and creative products! I think I touched based with all of you today about what you were thinking about and where you were. Thanks for the perfect attendance, too! Great to see. Still a little worried about some of you who insisted that everything was done or at home and did not have anything to do in class, but overall, I think that we have given this enough time. Let's see what we can come up with!

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? What are the factors to consider in the development of a Palestinian state? - As I said in class, I really love that first question, because it makes everything that we are doing relevant and interesting. Like music? That works. How about sports? That works too. Dance, language, art, drama? Yes. It is such a broad question, but you can make a million different things relate. A great essential question!

Soundtrack: "You Can't Hurry Love" by Phil Collins. Lyrics here, including some great lines that relate to why I chose it for today, after our Blazers lost, and for our work looking at the long standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

You can't hurry love
No, you'll just have to wait
She said love don't come easy
But it's a game of give and take

So good.

AGENDA 4/27/09:
News Brief
Ping Pong Diplomacy
Music in Pyongyang
Project Work

Homework: Final project (paper and creative product), due next class! Read blog recap!

Just so that there are no issues with this assignment that can be immediately be solved by looking at the assignment sheet, please look it over before asking any questions about what I am asking you to do. After that, by all means, fire away! Here's the assignment to download, if needed:

Israel and Palestine Final Project
Remember that you need to type at least one page explaining your creative product. In that explanation, please write about how you addressed the issues at stake in the conflict, the essential questions of the unit, and how your creation is going to help foster collaboration between both sides.

Again, make this fun and interesting for you! This assignment gives you an enormous amount of free choice! Find ways to relate something that you love to this!

Also, if you need anything in particular for me to bring in, or set up for your presentation, please let me know. I will have my laptop (capable of playing DVDs) and a projector with an ELMO ready for use.

News Brief: After talking for a bit about the Blazers game, we also had an interesting discussion about the swine flu outbreak. Go to almost any news website and you will find information about it. Here's one: CNN.com - 73 cases of swine flu confirmed, hundreds more feared.

As we talked about in class, I have no doubts that this is an immediate and pressing concern. However, how come we all too frequently lose sight of much bigger problems that would absolutely benefit from a lot more publicity? For instance, how about the estimated FOUR THOUSAND plus people that have died so far just in 2009, in the United States, as a result of drunk drivers? Source: AlcoholAlert.com - Drunk Driving Statistics. That is an INSANE statistic!

Some of you may have Mr. Hardy for Biology, and as I was getting super worked up about this in the teacher cluster, he completely agreed and said if people would only start paying attention to the fact that the number one cancer by far and away in both men and women is lung cancer, mostly as a result of tobacco use. And that heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the United States. What is really more dangerous? Swine flu that may or may not take over the world, or you smoking cigarettes?

I am hoping to find that article that I mentioned in class about having a steak knife pointed at you while driving, instead of a seat belt strapping you in. I sure would drive much more carefully!

EDIT: Here it is, in the form of the first chapter of an e-book, available online. The Armchair Economist by Stephen E. Landsburg. The quote that I just love:

If you find it hard to believe that people drive less carefully when their cars are safer, consider the proposition that people drive more carefully when their cars are more dangerous. This is, of course, just another way of saying the same thing, but somehow people find it easier to believe. If the seat belts were removed from your car, wouldn't you be more cautious in driving? Carrying this observation to the extreme, Armen Alchian of the University of California at Los Angeles has suggested a way to bring about a major reduction in the accident rate: Require every car to have a spear mounted on the steering wheel, pointing directly at the driver's heart. Alchian confidently predicts that we would see a lot less tailgating.

Landsburg has all sorts of great insights like this one. I would suggest giving that chapter a read if you are at all interested in the seat belt/spear thing.

Anyway, after this fascinating discussion, Zack T. brought in the following article about something going on in the Middle East: AlJazeera.net - Three Killed in Turkey police raids. Very interesting! That is a conflict that I do not know too much about. I do know a little bit about the "May Day" protests and riots that have happened on May 1st in years past, though. Thuy, you are up for Wednesday. Any news current news article having to do with anything around the world outside of the United States.

Ping Pong Diplomacy: Before letting you loose for project work the rest of class, I wanted to show you a couple of really famous instances of creative ways to get countries talking. One of the most interesting that I can remember (and as highlighted by the fantastic movie Forrest Gump) was the "Ping Pong Diplomacy" that happened between the United States and China in the 1970s. This was an HUGE deal. Here's the video we watched in class:



Music in Pyongyang: Aaron helpfully pointed out that the Ping Pong Diplomacy wouldn't really work for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because neither side wants to make amends. This thought led directly in to a more current situation, with North Korea and the United States, where music was used to bridge long held divides (partially). Here's the video we watched in class about the New York Philharmonic playing in Pyongyang:



I also mentioned an excellent report that Christiane Amanpour did for CNN as a result of the trip, where you get to see some really interesting footage of what life is like in one of the most secretive countries in the entire world. I will post a link to that later, when I can get on YouTube. I am SO excited that teachers will finally be able to access it at school on Wednesday! Update: Here is the link to the first YouTube video in the series - Notes from North Korea (1 of 6).

Project Work: Using the two videos as a sort of a final "pump up" for the final project, we read the key parts of the assignment sheet together. I also told the class to have the skills packet to turn in and be graded on Wednesday.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I liked the work we did in class, and I think I touched base with everyone about their project. Please do not leave the rest of this until the night before! There is way too much to do. I do not want a million comments asking for directions on Tuesday night (though again, I will always be glad to respond to anything you bring up).

Be excited for class on Wednesday! I think this should be interesting and a lot of fun! Let your optimism shine through!
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The Blazers play tomorrow night (Tuesday) in Portland at 7:00 PM on KGW and NBATV. Needless to say, I would rather that we win this game. I think we will, and I actually don't mind our chances to win the next three, but that was just a brutal loss last night. Have hope! 24 is tonight as well, at 9:00, meaning that I will be up until 10:00 to answer any comments or questions. Have a great rest of the day! See you on Wednesday!