Period 1: Last Class Ever - Class Recap

How perfect is this - with the Blazers "TOGETHER" poster in the background too? Our end of year class picture with everyone (minus John)! Thank you so much again for being such wonderful people and students! What an awesome year together we had! :-) I am going to put in lots of pictures throughout this recap - as I said in class, if you are uncomfortable about/do not want to give me permission to post a picture that you are in, please let me know and I will take it down immediately. Thanks!
Dear former students,

I must confess, I am not even sure how to begin writing this - it is all so strange! Even though I have been so exhausted this week, I feel like I should be lesson planning for next week right now! Also, iTunes, in the infinite wisdom of the full library shuffle, has decided to play "I'll Never Let You Go" by Third Eye Blind. Very appropriate, I must say! Anyway, let's get on with the task at hand: the last class recap of your Global Studies career here at Westview!

Essential Question: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded?

Soundtrack: "Thankful" by Kelly Clarkson. Lyrics (which I projected and read aloud to the class, fixing all the spelling and grammar errors, of course) can be found here. Kierra asked if she could listen to it again - anyone can simply by watching this YouTube video! Obviously, I chose this song because I am genuinely really thankful for "the blessings and lessons that I've learned with you, by my side."

AGENDA 6/12/09:
News Brief
Year Reflections/Letter to Class
Be Social/Travel
School's Out for Summer

Homework: Have a wonderful summer! Read the new blog, if you like! Stay in touch!

After going over all of the stuff written on the board, I gave everyone my personal e-mail address (because I lose my Beaverton one at midnight tonight), which is: LukeFritz@aol.com.

I am very serious when I say that I want you to stay in touch! Send me updates on what is going on! Need me to proof read a paper? Send it my way! Have a question about something going on around the world? E-mail me!


Aaron, nicely modeling my e-mail address. :-)
I also pointed out that I have started a new class blog for all of my Global Studies students to keep in touch with each other, which can be found here: http://westviewgsalum.blogspot.com/. I am guessing that this new blog will only be as good as you help make it. If I see that nobody is actually reading it, I am sure that it will die off soon. I really do not want that to happen! Please favorite it and come back every so often to check in - if you have something especially cool to post, let me know, and I can give you a screenname to post on the blog with, anytime you want!


News Brief: Archana (above) wanted to make sure to go first with her news article today, which was about the shooting on Wednesday at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington D.C. Here is a recap of what happened: CNN.com - Guard killed during shooting at Holocaust museum. I was also blown away to hear in class how truly hateful this 88 year old man is. Hopefully this will show you one of the reasons why the United States supports Israel so much - for whatever reason, there is a LOT of hatred for Jewish people (which is called being an Anti-Semite) out there in the world. Here is a great article about responding to hate and intolerance in this case: WashingtonPost.com - Stepping Up to Defy Intolerance. A great quote, that reminds me of so many things we have talked about in class this year:

For many visitors, the reopening yesterday was an opportunity to make a statement of defiance against intolerance.

"We can't let hatred win," said William Dailey, a teacher at Jefferson Junior High School in Toledo who was chaperoning a school trip.

Toward the head of the line was Tammi Miller, 17, visiting Washington with her family from South Florida. Miller was in the museum Wednesday and was evacuated by way of a fire escape when the shooting began.

"It's important to come back, because if you don't, they win," she said. "It's a form of terrorism."

Really interesting and tragic at the same time. It is a sometimes brutal world out there! What we need is...


...Peace! Next, Randi (above), had me literally jumping up and down, because she had heard about the election in Iran that happened today! To be honest, this might have been my favorite part of the entire class today! EXACTLY what I want people to know about and be interested in! Ahh! This was such a great teaching moment for me, you have no idea. Anyway, this is a really big deal - Iran held a "democratic" election for their President today, which finished up as we were in class. Here is an article about this and the "results" (which are not surprising in the least): HuffingtonPost.com - Iran Election Results: Ahmadinejad, Rival Both Claim Election Win. As I mentioned in class, Iran's current President, Ahmadinejad - the one that hates America and has denied that the Holocaust happened, was going up against at least two challengers - with the main one being Mir Hossein Mousavi, a more friendly (hopefully) person towards America, a pro-women's rights, youth movement candidate. Anyway, that is really a fascinating story going on the world right now, which we should all know at least a little bit about, having studied the Middle East!

Finally, I pointed out that today was the start of digital-only broadcasts on TV: KGW.com - DTV transition times set for Portland. I have a TV in my room that is so old that it won't even work with a converter box. Bad times!

Before moving on, I showed my friend Ryan Bowen's blog again for being over in Rwanda, which has been updated with awesome pictures of kids playing soccer! This makes me smile so much - I mean, what could be a more perfect thing to show the last day? The first unit I made for you all was about the Rwanda genocide. All throughout the year, we learned about conflict and responding to it, as well as what interconnects everyone. Check, check, check.


McKenzie, Morgan, and Scout. I am putting this picture here because Morgan (and possibly the other two, hehe) is amazing at soccer, from what I hear! This is such a great picture of you ladies!
Year Reflections/Letter to Class: At this point in class, I showed everyone at least one positive thing that you all had to say about our class for your anonymous reflections we did last time. In particular, I think that my absolute favorites were:

"The fact that we were Mr. Fritz's first class and it will never change." - To be honest, I am surprised that I didn't tear up at that one in class.

"All the good vibes in here. We are all like family! ... Never change Fritz! Your enthusiasm is 'inspiring' and you love teaching and that makes me love learning!" - As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm." At least, that's what I keep telling myself when I know I get way too loud and excited about things. :-)

"I liked the environment that this class established. Every teacher talks about a safe community in the classroom where people are unafraid to share their ideas, but this was my only class this year that actually accomplished that." - Obviously, every teacher strives to do this for the reasons that we saw in this class - it just makes it such a great place to be if people really know and respect each other.

"I will always remember how much you cared about the students." - Ahem. Thank you. I am glad that I made some sort of positive impact!

That was a really fun section for me - I know we have done those sorts reflections a lot this year, but they are so valuable to me! Thank you everyone for your comments!

Next, I passed out a letter that I was up until 1:00 AM last night typing. It all of a sudden hit me that I really needed to let each and every one of you know how much I truly do appreciate and value you - which was so much fun to write about! I am going to have to do it for my other classes on their blogs too. Anyway, hopefully, everyone felt like we made some sort of connection this year, because I wrote at least a little bit to every single one of you, and read them aloud to the class! Please keep those, because it has my e-mail and new blog address on them! :-)

Be Social/Travel: This was so much fun too! This whole lesson was plain fun! Anyway, because I knew that people probably wanted to eat food/socialize, I let the class loose to do so for about 15 minutes or so, with the direction to talk to people that you normally do not talk to (I'm not sure how well you guys did that, but I still think it was good). During this time, I handed out my camera for people to take any pictures they wanted, some of which are in the rest of this blog. Mrs. DeFrance and I also went around to everyone and assigned you someone to secretly write a little compliment/note to, so that we could pass them back at the end of class. Totally Mrs. DeFrance's idea by the way - she has so many amazingly good ones like that! Here are some pictures from the socializing time - I know I had fun signing letters and eating food! :-)


Ben and his posse of Zack T., Carson, and C.J. Yes, I saw the video from Mr. Hardin's class - SO GOOD! I was dying! You guys are pretty much exactly like I was in high school (as you saw today). Good times!


Russel and Jazmyne! You guys are both amazing, do you know that? Well, really, every one of my students is amazing, but still, the point stands.


Jillian and Brooke. Both of you ladies look like you want to get this whole school thing over with for the year!


Robert and Jordon, looking amused about something!


Alondra and Tanya, taking in the festivities in style!


Kierra and Lauren. Let me put it this way: it does not surprise me one bit that you gals are friends. Zero percent.
Obviously I have many more pictures, but those are the best of different people. If anyone has any others, please post them here, or on the alum blog, by all means!

The "Travel" section of this part of the lesson was geared around watching about a 10 minute clip from near the end of the movie Elizabethtown (2005). The rest of the movie is pretty good too, but the particular sequence that I showed you I just LOVE! It is all about just exploring the country and talking to others and making connections (even with the character's dead father). I made this relate to class because Orlando Bloom visits the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to spread some ashes. Really one of my favorite sequences (I love the music too) of traveling that I know of. My other favorite movie about traveling is Lost in Translation (2003) which is downright fantastic (however, please wait until you are 18 for that one please)! In fact, it is my eighth favorite movie of all time (ask me sometime if you want to know the top 10). :-)

Anyway, after this clip, we had a short discussion about where people were traveling to this summer, if they were. Many of you were going to really amazing places! Zach N. wanted to make sure to have people that are going to Hawaii, in particular, post on the blog about when and where they will be, in the hopes of meeting up. Jazmyne said she might get to see Carson in Arizona this summer, CJ was going to Las Vegas today, and Robert is headed back to South Dakota. Please, please take notice of how amazing the world is around you, where ever you go! Take pictures, breathe it in! One of my favorite things to do when I am traveling is to sit down, close my eyes, and simply just listen. That would have been the activity we would have done outside, by the way - with some creative writing attached to it. Soak in life!

School's Out For Summer: This is when I showed the now infamous "Wanna Be a G Camp" video that my friends and I made in high school, for something fun for everyone to watch. Like I said, make memories and have something that records them for you too! I hope you enjoyed this, even though it was basically just 4 minutes of us dunking on a lowered hoop with a small ball and thinking we were cool.

After that, we took a few class pictures with the help of Ms. Minor. I am so excited about these! My favorite is the first one, which is above. I will probably have it framed and sitting on my desk, where ever I might end up.

Now, for this next section, which I am sure will go down in Mr. Fritz's class legend - shaving in the middle of class! Here's the deal, because I know that this was super weird at the time for everyone. I want to take our class pictures together with my beard, because that simply would not be cool to spend the entire year with the beard, but not have it in the pictures. However, I also promised my Period 4 class that I would shave at the end of the year because they did not believe I would look younger. Thus, I was stuck in a bind, and I figured having some fun with it in class would be the best thing to do. Hehe. That is going to crack me up for years, I am sure.

Anyway, that was fun, and now my face feels unbelievably soft. Yes, I know I look like I am in high school now. In fact, funny story about that - I was at the Subway by Albertson's between football practices today, and while I was ordering, a guy in line asked me if I went to Westview (as in, if I was a student!) When I told him I was a teacher he turned beet red. See, now you know why I kept the beard all year!

Very shortly after this, the fire alarm went off (for the first of, no exaggeration, 6 times today). Ridiculous. I hope that whoever did it is happy that they ruined my nicely planned exit music for you: "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. Most of you were nice enough to stop by after the alarm to pick up your anonymous compliment - if you did not, I still have them, and would love to tell you what it says!

One final class related note: please RECYCLE your papers that you know you will not need in the future. I would feel terrible if we you spent an entire year in Global Studies and then threw your paper into the trash, to make even bigger piles of garbage around our planet.


Nicole, Zack T., Mustafe, Mr. Fritz, Jazmyne, Abe, and Ryan Bowen.
That should just about do it, everyone! Make sure to keep checking in and getting on the alumni blog, which I have some big plans for! Seriously, I will be so disappointed if you do not! Have a fantastic few months off, and let me know what you are up to! Also, barring me being on another continent or something, I will definitely be coming back to see everyone graduate in three years (though obviously, I want to come back tons of times before that too). Just know that you have that to look forward to. I will never ever forget everyone in this class. Until the next time our paths cross, this is Luke, signing off. :-)