While reading Persepolis all I can think is how different their culture is from ours. They have to hide from thought police and people who will arrest you for things like wearing pants or not covering yourself properly. And in the book it said that if you are a young girl and you get arrested and they are going to execute you they have someone marry you then rape you then kill you, so your aren't a virgin when they kill you because that's illegal in Iran. And they don't ever drink alcohol. That's so incredibly foreign to me. In the U.S. alcohol is no big deal. You can buy it at the grocery store. And in parts of Europe they don't have a drinking age. From their perspective seeing an American drink a glass of wine with their dinner would be like an American being presented with a needle of heroin before dinner. If I had to I could probably deal with the oppressiveness and the no booze thing but what I couldn't deal with is the lack of music. Music is one of my favorite things in the world and if it were suddenly illegal, I would just DIE!! Another thing I would be unable to deal with is religion class. I don't like religion because it doesn't make sense to me and it encourages people to stop learning. I could not deal with it. I would argue with the teacher and probably get expelled.
I am a big fan of Star Trek, and a lot of the aliens that they run into are very different than humans. Now I am learning about other cultures on our own planet and I wonder how we will ever get along with, let alone communicate with, other life forms.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Dust bowl role playing
I sit on top of a hard wooden crate, bouncing along a bumpy dirt road. I clutch the sides of the box to keep from falling off. The splinters dig into my fingers. I look over at my younger siblings who were all bouncing happily on my parents mattress. To them this was all a game. they didn't understand what was happening. But I did. All I could think about were the past few months events. Events that had forced my family and I to put everything we owned in our truck and leave our home. Now we were doing what everyone else was. We're going to California.
As we rumble down this dirt road, with not another soul in sight, All I can think about is how this happened. How everything we had ever known could have fallen apart this fast. Not long ago my pa and I were happily plowing the wheat fields. My little brother was off at school. My baby sister was playing in the living room and my ma was sitting on the couch watching my sister or in the kitchen making supper. That was how it was until the Black Blizzards hit. Before the storms we plenty of food, clean water, and and ocean of wheat growing in our 60 ackers. But the Storms changed all of that.
The day that the Storms hit pa and I were out getting ready to harvest the full grown wheat. We ha the combine started and I was starting the tractor and hooking up the grain trailer. Then I saw it. I had climbed on top of the tractor to start it. I was greeted with a wall of deep red and black sand. Off in the distance it looked like some kind of low hanging cloud from Hell. I didn't know what it was. I had seen all kinds of storm clouds but none of them red and on the ground. I called Pa over to see. He had to strain to see what it was in the distance. I studied his face as it went from soft and puzzled, to twisted in horror. He told me to finish getting the combine ready as he ran inside. I obeyed. The next thing I knew Ma was rushing out to the car and driving off toward my brother's school. As Pa and I pulled the combine and tractor into the fields I still didn't know what was going on. I shouted to Pa over the roar of the engine, asking him what was wrong. He turned around and shouted back. All I heard was Black Blizzard and sand storm. We kept harvesting. I ran the tractor and the whole time I just thought about what Pa may have meant. All this time the storm getting steadily closer.
Now that I really think about it, that was definitely the turning point. By the end of the day, pa and I had harvested about 35 ackers, and the Storm was getting disturbingly close. It was so close that it seemed to envelop the farm. Swallowing it whole. After Pa and I had put all the grain in the silo, we raced inside. Ma handed me Gum Tape and wet cloth and told me to plug up all the windows, door, and cracks in the walls. This was getting really weird. I saw my parents moving with a vengeance. I followed their example. By 6:00 we had that whole house air tight. Tats when the storm hit. The noise was deafening. As the sand hit the outside of the house it made everything shake.
The next day, we awoke to a scene of devastation. The lush green farm that we had called home the day before, no longer existed. In its place, the hand of God had dropped a whole other states worth of dirt. I felt like Dorthy, because there was no way we were in Kansas any more. The dust didn't settle for three days. But every day Pa would go out into the fields and look exasperatedly down at his decimated wheat crop. But the storm was just the beginning. During those three days, every thing was coated in dust. The sheets we had put up had done next to nothing.
A week after the storm, just when we were beginning to regain hope. Beginning to believe that we might have a future. The worst day of the depression hit. The day it starts to affect my family. A tall man in a black suit, that was now wearing its own coat of red dust, came to the door. Pa walked up to him and closed the front door behind him. I heard just mummers through the door and the sand had scratched the windows to the point I couldn't see out of them. But I still knew what they were talking about. The Peterson farm three miles down the road had this happen to them. The brokers need their money, and if you can't pay they just take the land and evict you. When my Pa returned he had a piece of paper in his hand and my mother began to cry. Pa helped her up and they went back into their room.
The next two days were spent packing and loading everything on the car. We had sold the little wheat we had managed to harvest to fund the trip. There was nothing left of ours on the farm when we pulled away. Now I am here. Bouncing along a dirt road sitting on an old crate getting splinters on our fingers. Headed to California, and hopefully, a dust free life.
As we rumble down this dirt road, with not another soul in sight, All I can think about is how this happened. How everything we had ever known could have fallen apart this fast. Not long ago my pa and I were happily plowing the wheat fields. My little brother was off at school. My baby sister was playing in the living room and my ma was sitting on the couch watching my sister or in the kitchen making supper. That was how it was until the Black Blizzards hit. Before the storms we plenty of food, clean water, and and ocean of wheat growing in our 60 ackers. But the Storms changed all of that.
The day that the Storms hit pa and I were out getting ready to harvest the full grown wheat. We ha the combine started and I was starting the tractor and hooking up the grain trailer. Then I saw it. I had climbed on top of the tractor to start it. I was greeted with a wall of deep red and black sand. Off in the distance it looked like some kind of low hanging cloud from Hell. I didn't know what it was. I had seen all kinds of storm clouds but none of them red and on the ground. I called Pa over to see. He had to strain to see what it was in the distance. I studied his face as it went from soft and puzzled, to twisted in horror. He told me to finish getting the combine ready as he ran inside. I obeyed. The next thing I knew Ma was rushing out to the car and driving off toward my brother's school. As Pa and I pulled the combine and tractor into the fields I still didn't know what was going on. I shouted to Pa over the roar of the engine, asking him what was wrong. He turned around and shouted back. All I heard was Black Blizzard and sand storm. We kept harvesting. I ran the tractor and the whole time I just thought about what Pa may have meant. All this time the storm getting steadily closer.
Now that I really think about it, that was definitely the turning point. By the end of the day, pa and I had harvested about 35 ackers, and the Storm was getting disturbingly close. It was so close that it seemed to envelop the farm. Swallowing it whole. After Pa and I had put all the grain in the silo, we raced inside. Ma handed me Gum Tape and wet cloth and told me to plug up all the windows, door, and cracks in the walls. This was getting really weird. I saw my parents moving with a vengeance. I followed their example. By 6:00 we had that whole house air tight. Tats when the storm hit. The noise was deafening. As the sand hit the outside of the house it made everything shake.
The next day, we awoke to a scene of devastation. The lush green farm that we had called home the day before, no longer existed. In its place, the hand of God had dropped a whole other states worth of dirt. I felt like Dorthy, because there was no way we were in Kansas any more. The dust didn't settle for three days. But every day Pa would go out into the fields and look exasperatedly down at his decimated wheat crop. But the storm was just the beginning. During those three days, every thing was coated in dust. The sheets we had put up had done next to nothing.
A week after the storm, just when we were beginning to regain hope. Beginning to believe that we might have a future. The worst day of the depression hit. The day it starts to affect my family. A tall man in a black suit, that was now wearing its own coat of red dust, came to the door. Pa walked up to him and closed the front door behind him. I heard just mummers through the door and the sand had scratched the windows to the point I couldn't see out of them. But I still knew what they were talking about. The Peterson farm three miles down the road had this happen to them. The brokers need their money, and if you can't pay they just take the land and evict you. When my Pa returned he had a piece of paper in his hand and my mother began to cry. Pa helped her up and they went back into their room.
The next two days were spent packing and loading everything on the car. We had sold the little wheat we had managed to harvest to fund the trip. There was nothing left of ours on the farm when we pulled away. Now I am here. Bouncing along a dirt road sitting on an old crate getting splinters on our fingers. Headed to California, and hopefully, a dust free life.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Ownership and Innovation
I know that I have been saying this in all of my resent posts but Innovation and ownership are very similar. I think that Ownership is hard to master. It becomes much easier after you master innovation. If you aren't proud of your work you won't want to take ownership. However if you can get innovation down first all of your work will be new and interesting. This will make it so much easier for you to be proud of your work, and in turn it will be easier for you to take ownership of all of your work.
Like I said before, lately I have been saying that all of the habits of mind are very similar. However some of them were hard to put together. The hardest I think was Evidence and Wonder. I mean that is like trying to find a concrete way to connect subjectivity and objectivity. They are nearly opposites. It took a lot of innovation on my part to come up with a way that they are similar. Innovation is important at our school. Our school has always been innovative and ahead of the curve. In order to be effecftive in this school you have to be innovative in all your projects.
Pardon my repeating myself, But, After you become innovative in your work you will be more likely to take ownership of it. This school is specially designed to prepare you for the real world. If you go out into the world and you don't know how to take ownership of your work you will never be able to operate as an effective member of society.
Pardon my repeating myself, But, After you become innovative in your work you will be more likely to take ownership of it. This school is specially designed to prepare you for the real world. If you go out into the world and you don't know how to take ownership of your work you will never be able to operate as an effective member of society.
Wonder and Evidence
When you hear the word Evidence you probably think about crime scene investigation, CSI, Law and Order. And this is for a good reason. One of the first steps of solving a crime is finding all the right evidence. What you probably don't connect with CSI is wonder. If half of solving a crime is finding all the evidence the the other half is making assumptions. To make an assumption, you first have to Wonder. Wonder about all your evidence and all the circumstances. The point that I am trying to make is that wonder and evidence are both intertwined and that they are very important.
Evidence, what you need to make your point. Be it in court, in your home, or in the class room. At our school evidence is more important then in other schools. To prove this point I will present some Evidence. At the end of the year, we have a TPOL. This is essentially where we prove to our peers and our parents that we are ready to go to the next grade. We use evidence to show that we have learned something.
Wonder is also a very important virtu at our school. When I say wonder I mean thinking about things. Pondering problems and ideas. When you think about and idea a lot you refine it and make it better. Or rather, better fitting for your mindset. Wonder ties into intelligence and imagination. Also your ability to grasp certain concepts. I find that when I don't understand something I think and wonder about it a lot and then I understand it much better. Wonder can also be used to describe a hunger for knowledge. If you wonder about things you will probably want to know more about it. Albert Einstein said to never stop asking questions. Einstein, arguably the smartest person ever to live. He was able to figure out all those amazing things because he wondered about them. This wonder drove him to ask questions. Because those questions didn't have answers at the time he went out and answered those questions.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Mindfulness and Perspective
In most other schools, Mindfulness and Perspective are said to be important. However, The students are never asked to think about them and because they never have to think about them, they are never put into practice. At our school these and other Habits of Mind are all frequently discussed and put into action.
Mindfulness means being mindful of your peers their feelings and how your actions effect them. You should always put the feelings of others before your own. The question we learned to help us know if we were being mindful was "how will my actions effect others?". That question doesn't just apply to the feelings of others. For example, if you are working on a project and you want to use this piece of cardboard. You need to take into consideration how you using that cardboard will effect others, how it may disadvantage them. To be mindful you need to, not just think about the feelings of others, but, also the physical consequences of your actions.
Perspective is a big part to fully understanding Mindfulness. In my opinion you can't be mindful of others until you learn how to look at it from their perspective. I also believe that Perspective is one of the harder Habits of Mind to grasp. It is easy to be aware of the feelings of others. But it is much harder to under stand those emotions and see them from their perspective.
In summary, there is much more to mindfulness then just feeling empathy. Perspective is more difficult to grasp than Mindfulness and understanding perspective is necessary to understanding Mindfulness.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Collage Reflection/Semester Goals
I had fun doing the collage bound exercise. I have always wanted to go to Berkley because I hear great things about it and I love the San Francisco area. I have always had really good grades and I have always been at the top of my class in one or more subjects. This exercise made me realize just how difficult Collage will be. To get into one of the high end schools I want to go to I have to not just have good grades I have to be exemplary in any way possible. Everyone who applies will have good grades, I am going to need something that makes me stand out from everyone else. But I also thought about the up side. I am in Boy Scouts and I'm going for my Eagle Rank. I do tons of community service and teachers usually love me so I will have plenty of people to go to for letters of Recommendation. Finally it made me think about what a big challenge Collage will be. I have always loved conquering any challenge I am faced with. However the Challenges I am familiar with are things like climbing a mountain or being innovative in a project. Now I will have to make life altering choices. I tell myself that when the time comes I'll know what to do. But right now, I just don't know.
Semester Goals
1. To use my Wall Calendar.
-I have a wall Calendar in my room that I sometimes use to keep track of important events that happen with family or with my Boy Scout troop. I think that this Calendar is a valuable un-taped resource at my disposal. I normally only have my To-Do list with the dates for each assignment next to them. The Calendar will give me a more graphic representation of when everything is due.
2. To Come in to Office Hours More Often
-I usually Go to the tutoring in the 11th grade after school, but I think that is I were to use office hours instead then you or Chris would be right there to help me. I have found that sometimes the teachers there don't always understand the assignment. I figure that because you made the assignment you would be a better choice to help me.
3. To Make Better Use of my Google Calendar.
- I reamber making this with Chris but then I didn't touch it ever again. I think that I want to use it more to keep track of assignments and other school related things.
Semester Goals
1. To use my Wall Calendar.
-I have a wall Calendar in my room that I sometimes use to keep track of important events that happen with family or with my Boy Scout troop. I think that this Calendar is a valuable un-taped resource at my disposal. I normally only have my To-Do list with the dates for each assignment next to them. The Calendar will give me a more graphic representation of when everything is due.
2. To Come in to Office Hours More Often
-I usually Go to the tutoring in the 11th grade after school, but I think that is I were to use office hours instead then you or Chris would be right there to help me. I have found that sometimes the teachers there don't always understand the assignment. I figure that because you made the assignment you would be a better choice to help me.
3. To Make Better Use of my Google Calendar.
- I reamber making this with Chris but then I didn't touch it ever again. I think that I want to use it more to keep track of assignments and other school related things.
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