The Arch of Umberto in downtown Mogadishu - built in the mid-1930s to celebrate a visit to the city by the King of Italy. Fascinating website - based on Google Earth, I think. Check out the aerial view of Mogadishu by zooming out!
Dear class,
Tons and tons of energy today. Maybe a little too much. You are definitely a hard group to try and guide when we get off track. I'll have to try and think of ways to remedy this - it's obvious that the status quo isn't really working. All in all, a good day, but next class, expect a seating chart. I'm sorry, but it's time, and you know it. I will try to make it bearable for everyone - please let me know by e-mail if you have any requests for one person you really think you would work well sitting next to and/or people that you probably would not work well with. Other than that, I was interested to hear your thoughts on repairing Somalia once again, and to develop that final class list of recommendations (more on that below). Recap time!
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is Somalia repairable?
Soundtrack: "We Can Work it Out" by The Beatles. Lyrics here. Picked because of the optimism that we so desperately need in order to have hope that things in the world can be fixed. You are in school because your generation will rule the world someday! We HAVE to work it out! Relevant to our ideas on repairing Somalia as well.
AGENDA 2/3/09 News Brief Mustafe's Pictures Debrief Last Class Five Points Compilation Game Time (Whoop!)
Homework: Finish and turn in any late work. Read class recap blog!
As for your homework, I am not kidding around. If you do not have one of the two items that I have asked you to do so far turned in, please e-mail them to me ASAP. This is getting pretty ridiculous. Just counting up the number of five point plans today after class got me frustrated. We had 21 students out of 33 turn in the plan - which you had almost all the main points of done after you left the class on Friday.
Folks, that is a 63% turn in rate, which is BARELY a D. Granted, we had three students absent today and four students absent last Friday when the paper was assigned - still no excuse for not e-mailing me and checking the blog at the very least. We will definitely be talking about ways to go about solving this problem on Thursday. Even for those that DID get the assignments in (thank you), you still need to be talking to your classmates about it. This is a team effort.
News Brief: I asked the class about the weekend and (as always) got some interesting stories. I mentioned my weekend that consisted of Pack the Pit, the Blazer game on Saturday night, the Australian Open until 5 AM on Sunday morning, sleep until the Super Bowl, watching The Office, and finally, the HUGE come from behind win against New Orleans last night and the 24 episode on right after. No "exaggerating," it was a crazy weekend!
Robert then presented this article: British soldier was killed in Afghanistan by 'friendly fire'. As I mentioned in class, "friendly" fire has happened in Afghanistan many times before - most memorably in the case of Pat Tillman. I don't toss around the word "hero" a lot, but to me, Pat Tillman was pretty much everything you could possibly want from someone. He followed his convictions, even at the cost of enormous sums of money if he had continued to play professional football.
We also talked a little bit about Afghanistan itself - an extremely volatile place that nobody has tamed completely in recent history. Here's the Newsweek article I referenced in class: Newsweek.com: Could Afghanistan Be Obama's Vietnam?. A place that will continue to be directly relevant to the United States. I know people I graduated with from High School that are currently involved in the fighting over there. It is entirely possible that you will too. Something to think about - thanks for bringing it in Robert! Brandon, you are up next for Thursday.
Mustafe's Pictures: I thought these were really interesting, but there was so many of them that I had to go pretty fast through them all. Please ask Mustafe or me if you'd like to see them again. Many of them can be found just be searching around the pages of Wikipedia. Always interesting to see the real home perspective, thank you so much for bringing them in Mustafe!
Debrief Last Class: I was hoping to have a little discussion on how the seminar went last Friday (which I have received great feedback so far about). However, as Mrs. DeFrance point out to me later, this lasted about 3 people before we moved on. I need to be better about calling on people that don't usually talk, especially with feedback on that particular class, because that's who I need to hear from. The deck of cards will be coming out again very soon, I assure you. Please let me know if you have any additional thoughts about how last class went - I would love to hear them.
Five Points Compilation: This is where I asked you to turn to a partner and discuss your homework, while listening for the best points you heard. We then came together and organized a class list:
First off, I'm glad that everyone gets to enjoy my handwriting again. That's always good times. Secondly, it should be pretty clear that the most votes were obtained by: 1) Organize Government (27) 2) Remove Warlords (24) 3) Take Ownership of Law Enforcement (21) 4) Develop a Legitimate Education System (19) 5) Get a Military (17)
Initial thoughts on this? To me, it looks like the authoritarians, the "Somalia needs drastic outside intervention" people in the class won out. Especially #2 - even when I mentioned the Black Hawk Down incident, many students were still insistent that the warlords be removed. I'm definitely glad to see the Education system make it in. I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with that one. Now, who's in to go teach in Somalia?
Game Time (Whoop!): As you probably guessed, this is what we didn't have time to do last class (although I'm glad, because I would have simply just written the numbers and categories down on the board instead of the amazing little PowerPoint. I found the template to use on this website (should you ever want to use it for a class presentation or if/when you become a teacher - in Somalia): http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm
I just downloaded and used the "30 Question Jeopardy Template." Here is the one I created to use in class - this might be helpful in the future for quizzes and tests:
Here are the answers: Geography – 1: The "Horn of Africa." 2: Mogadishu. 3: Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti. 4: Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. 5: Jubba and Shabele.
Culture – 1: Sunni Muslim. 2: Somali, Arabic, English, Italian. 3: Somali, Bantu and other non-Somali Arabs. 4: 6300. 5: Islam and poetry.
Colonialism – 1: 2,500 years. 2: 1880s. 3: England, France, Italy. 4: British, French, Italian Somaliland. 5: England and Italy grant independence in 1960 – France from Djibouti in 1977.
Black Hawk Down – 1: 1993. 2: Civil War and famine. 3: Running the Mogadishu Mile. 4: 1995. 5: Mohamed Farrah Adid.
Somalia Today – 1: A Failed State. 2: A base for al Qaeda. 3: 1,000. 4: 700,000. 5: Sharif Ahmed.
Congratulations to everyone, because you're all winners in my book. This was a lot of fun, but got really chaotic very quickly. If I use this next time, I am going to have to think of a new system to run it. Hopefully it was a lot of fun for everyone though. :-)
----
Okay, that should just about do it! I will not be in the building tomorrow, because Lewis and Clark was getting a little upset at how much time I spend on site each week (in theory, it is supposed to be 15 hours - I've been putting in about 20 for the whole year), so I am now not coming in for the second B day of each week - that is, until the schedule changes again and I am a full-time teacher! Woo hoo!
Other than that, get any late work in, let me know about seating preferences, and as always, post comments or e-mail me if you have any questions, concerns, or comments. Go Blazers tomorrow night at Dallas (5:30 - CSN and NBATV)! Have a wonderful afternoon!
Our class discussion thoughts, courtesy of Zack T. Click for full size and use for your homework!
Good afternoon,
This is the first time I have written a class recap while actually still being at Westview! Fun little fact. I am sitting at Mrs. DeFrance's desk in the Lower North teacher's cluster - nobody came and visited me during lunch (check that, Abe just came in - nice!), so I'm sure that everyone is eagerly awaiting the recap and there are no questions about things. :-)
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is Somalia repairable?
Remember, essential questions are framed so that they do not have a clear answer. This was key for our discussion in class - lots of different opinions on what should happen and what the answer to the problem is. They also lead themselves to way better learning, because you are actually creating something as a response, instead of just memorizing facts and reciting them back. At least, that's my hope!
Soundtrack: "Somali Udiida Ceb (Somalia Don't Shame Yourself)" by Maryam Mursal. Picked because Maryam Mursal is from Somalia and the song is about Somalia. She is a very interesting person - check out this article on her: NYTimes: A Voice that Pleads for Home.
AGENDA 1/30/09: News Brief Somalia Recap Expand Article Thoughts Seminar on Somalia What Time is it?
Homework: Is Somalia repairable? Develop/expand on a five point plan. Check blog. PACK THE PIT! (7 PM, vs. Sunset – Freshman and JV at 5:45).
I will go over this again, but just to make sure it is near the start and clear: I want you to develop a five point plan on repairing Somalia (if it can be - what would need to happen?). Use the article summary and your own thoughts about what is important to know about Somalia to build this. So again, five paragraphs, one for each point in your plan. I also want your article thoughts attached - if I did not check yours off today, please do it by Tuesday and attach it. That was more than a little ridiculous today - to see how many people just plain did not do the first assignment of the semester. Do not allow yourself to let down the class - remember, the class agreed that getting in homework on time was an issue that needed to be resolved. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again.
News Brief: Abe brought in an article on a Nigerian girl being shot to death, which can be found here: BBC.news - Girl Shot Dead in Nigerian Delta. Really just insane. I asked everyone to think about the people around the world that were born the same year, day, and probably hour as you, and are fighting in wars. A good dose of perspective is definitely needed for all of us.
We also talked a little about the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Definitely an interesting news item to consider.
I then asked if people were fired up this morning to come to class and learn about how bad the world is. Obviously, this was a sarcastic question. I do not want anyone in the class to think that we only are talking about the bad things in the world - how nobody ever does anything, how the United Nations and United States are screwing up everything, etc - because that is not the case. I want the class focused on identifying problems and proposing solutions. This shows way more intelligence than if I were to just be concerned with when Somalia was colonized, for instance.
Somalia Recap: I asked the class for some general information about what we learned about Somalia. It was interesting to hear that the first few things were pretty much exactly the same as what you already knew before talking about it. I then showed a clip from a documentary, which can be viewed below:
I discussed aspects of Somalia that have extremely high instability, according to ForeignPolicy.com - which I linked to in the last recap, but if you didn't get the chance to check out, can be found here: Failed States Index, 2008.
Obviously something has gone very wrong in Somalia. The question I have is: what could possibly help?
Expand Article Thoughts: I know this was probably confusing, until I wrote it on the board (thanks Morgan), but I wanted you to look again at your article or article summary, and see if it proposed any solutions. The question I wrote on the board that you should have written out on the back of your article recap was: "what do you think needs to happen in Somalia?" This, obviously, was supposed to set you up for the class discussion. Again, if you did not do the article summary, please get it into me ASAP. You will lose points for it being late (more for each day you do not turn it in), but it is way better than not doing it at all.
Seminar on Somalia: Wow. Wow. Wow. To those that contributed, you absolutely blew me away, once the discussion finally got going good. I think that could have lasted another 30 minutes easy. I do want diverse opinions in there though, so be careful to let those who may otherwise be quiet talk.
A few things here. The list that Zack T. made on the board (fantastic job, by the way) can be viewed at the top of this post. Remember in the future for these discussions (I cannot imagine not doing them again, because again, wow): no raised hands. Address each other, not me. Reference the text/reading/article you have been assigned to read. Go with the flow - but be careful to respect one another and listen to everyone.
About the actual discussion: I started off with the very general question of - Is Somalia repairable? There were a ton of directions to go with this. What does "repairable" actually mean in this situation? What does it mean to you? What does your article say?
I started off with this article and said that I was not really sure it Somalia can be repaired any time soon. We had a ton of thoughts come up, and I again especially want to thank those that really got into the discussion. There were a ton of different explanations and possible solutions brought up. I thought it was really interesting how half of the class seemed to be sort of advocating that another country invade and take Somalia over because it would be better for it - because really, isn't that the logic that almost every country in the modern world has used to justify an invasion? I am not saying it is wrong, just that it is a very interesting argument - "you would be better off if someone invaded and told you what to do."
So again, for your homework, I want a five point plan that you think might repair Somalia. One paragraph explanation for each point. I do not see any way that this could be accomplished effectively in less than a page.
What Time is it? The answer to this question was going to be "Game time!" But we never got to it because the discussion went so well after we got into it. I'm sure this will pop up another day, so I will save my description for it until that time.
If anyone has any questions about the homework (or anything else we did in class), please either comment below (again, just type your name in on the the "Name/URL" option and you are good to go) or e-mail me. Or see me at the game tonight - 7 PM against Sunset! Go Wildcats! Go Blazers (on Ch. 8) on Saturday! Watch the Super Bowl and The Office after it on Sunday! Have an amazing weekend!
I am attempting to get this recap up quickly today, so those of you that have access to the internet during Study Hall can check out the links. I have class myself from 3:30 to 7:30 tonight, so I will be unable to respond to questions or post comments until I get back. On to the recap!
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is Somalia repairable?
Soundtrack: "Brand New Day" by Sting. Picked because of the beginning of the new semester. Lyrics can be found here.
AGENDA 1/28/09 Hand Back Work News Brief Debrief Last Semester Class Unity Introducing Somalia PowerPoint Lecture
Homework: Somalia article write up and summary. Check blog!
Hand Back Work: Again, I would be happy to speak with you about your grade and why you earned what you did. Please come see me with your quiz/any other work you want to go over. The visual metaphors will go up in the classroom once Mrs. DeFrance's classes are done with theirs (I don't want to give their class any hints either!).
News Brief: Russel very nicely recapped this article - CNN.com: Hungry caterpillars force Liberian emergency. Very interesting! Chalk that one up for "things Mr. Fritz had no idea about." Abe, you are our next presenter for Friday. Again, I just want a printed out article and for you to give a short summary in class about it. Don't use your Somalia article, that's cheating! :-)
We also talked a little bit about the economy and why it is so bad. The main point there was that we have very little money (or credit) floating around, so nobody is lending money to each other.
I'm not sure when I showed the class this, but this is the website that has the photo of the inauguration where you can zoom in to find Ryan (I'll bet you have trouble!) - Amazing Inauguration Photo.
Again, the main things that I got out of this are that 1) The class really likes the people in it and atmosphere. 2) The class knows that it needs to work on being quieter and turning homework in on time. 3) Mr. Fritz is good at being enthusiastic. 4) Mr. Fritz needs to work on explaining things better.
Thanks again for being willing to provide that feedback! It definitely helps!
Class Unity: I thought this was a fun little exercise, the "stepping in." Just goes to show how connected we are. Thank you for participating!
Introducing Somalia: I asked the class what you knew about Somalia. We got "Horn of Africa," "Pirates," and "Black Hawk Down." This was for me to see what you did and did not know going into the PowerPoint.
PowerPoint Lecture: I know, I know, there was definitely a lot there. The crazy thing is that I made sure to give at least 30 minutes of class time to it - at least 3 minutes per slide, and we were still struggling to get through each one because there was so much to write and ask questions about. That is not all bad, but I know that a lot of you missed out on one aspect or another. Here is the PowerPoint for those who want to review it again (I would suggest clicking "Save" to your computer, instead of "Open" - it is way faster this way):
During the PowerPoint, I mentioned that ForeignPolicy.com ranked Somalia as the most unstable country in the world during 2008. Here is a link to that article: Foreign Policy: The Failed States Index 2008
Your homework is to find a current (as possible) article about Somalia online and type a 2-3 paragraph summary of what it is saying. After that, you need to type out your own thoughts about what everyone should know about Somalia, in another paragraph. This should be 1 page, TYPED, double spaced, Times New Roman font.
Here are some links that might help with this - START HERE!:
