Period 2: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 7 - Class Recap

After a Blazers game against New Orleans earlier this year. From left to right: my brother Maxwell, my great friend Clarke, and Mr. Fritz, in my Brandon Roy jersey. Go Blazers! :-)
Good afternoon amazing students!

What an interesting day that was, right? The assembly sort of threw us off at the beginning, but I REALLY liked the forced choice activity. Whenever I can get people fired up about considering different viewpoints and relating it all to what we are learning, I love it. That's what we in the teaching business like to call critical thinking. Thank you for the participation in the day! Please excuse the later posting than usual. I'm afraid it is going to have to become all too common if I want to do a good job on these! On to the class recap:

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? What is the impact of religion on policy in the Middle East?

Soundtrack: "We Like to Party" by Vengaboys. Lyrics here. Basically, I picked this song because it is a catchy tune and it is Friday. Also, you hear it all the time at basketball games (including when I went to the Blazers game on Wednesday).

AGENDA 4/17/09:
News Brief
Women Speaking Up
Forced Choice
Class Unity Activity

Homework: Do something that you have been putting off (like late work, chores, apologizing to someone, etc). Watch the Blazers game! Read blog recap!

I am not sure the homework needs any sort of explaining, other than to say that I am not going to check to make sure you did it (as should be obvious). Nonetheless, please attempt to, unless you could not care less about the Blazers.

News Brief: After settling down from the assembly, I went over the essential questions, soundtrack, agenda, and homework. I always like to ask "So, is there anything interesting going on in the world?" Some good responses there! Pay attention to what is going on around you, everyone!

Brian brought in a news article from Afghanistan, about the reaction to the new law restricting women's rights there. Here's the latest: CNN.com - Afghanistan to change controversial 'rape' law. Because this was exactly what I was going to talk about in the next part of class, it was a great lead in! Thanks Brian! Aaron, you are up for next Tuesday. Any article about anything currently going on outside of the United States.

Women Speaking Up: One of the comments I made on a lot of the women in the Middle East paper that you turned in (or should have) was "what if women are killed for speaking up?" All too often, I think we put the blame on women for not doing anything, or needing to do this or that. Well, how? I handed out an article that a student in my Period 1 class brought in yesterday that was absolutely amazing for talking about all of these same issues. The article can be found here: NYTimes.com - Afghan Women Protest Law on Home Life. Check out the following quote from near the beginning:

"We want our rights!" one of the women shouted, turning to face them. “We want equality!”

The women ran to the bus and dived inside as it rumbled away, with the men smashing the taillights and banging on the sides.

"Whores!"

But the march continued anyway. About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal a new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on women, and permits, among other things, marital rape.

It was an extraordinary scene. Women are mostly illiterate in this impoverished country, and they do not, generally speaking, enjoy anything near the freedom accorded to men. But there they were, most of them young, many in jeans, defying a threatening crowd and calling out slogans heavy with meaning.

As I pointed out in class, how much in that article was stuff that we had JUST talked about? Speaking out. Unity and building a coalition. Education. Persistence. Religion. All of these and more came into play in that situation. Pretty amazing, right?

After reading the article to the class and getting some great thoughts on it and the relation to women making a difference from a few students (thank you for speaking up, by the way), we moved on to...

Forced Choice: Now, THIS was a lot of fun. Thank you for being willing take a stand for what you believe in! I created these statements purposely to be divisive, so that we could see multiple perspectives on an issue. Specifically, I wanted all of the questions to somehow relate to the Middle East and what we are studying. I know this was somewhat difficult! That was the point! I really liked all the thoughts and raised hands and dialogue, even though I heard from a few students in Mr. Hardin's class that they could hear me yelling for quiet through the wall!

One of the facts that I brought up in class was that the death penalty costs much more than life in prison, due to all the costs of lawyers and prosecution and such. Because I like to try to back up claims like that as much as possible so that you do not think I just made it up, an interesting little article was recently done on this by National Public Radio (which is AMAZING by the way - I would highly recommend listening to "The World" on OPB's station, 91.5 FM, from 3:00-4:00 some day after you get out of school): Opponents Focus On Cost In Death Penalty Debate. So, is it worth it? The choice was up to you!

I was also really excited to see all different thoughts. There were many reasons for each side, even though some people wanted to creep toward the middle. I thought that some of the most interesting debates were over the question of using religion to fight, and for the "eye for an eye" philosophy of killing someone for killing someone else. I was glad to see some questions that had only a few people on one side stand up (literally) for what they believed in. That to me shows that there was a lack of being naive, at the very least.

This took a lot of time (in fact, the entire rest of the class), but I think it was really fun and incredibly interesting. I am going to try similar activities in the future. Definitely leave any thought about how that process went, or defend your opinion, below in the comments! Think about all the conflict we had just in that class - translate that to the Middle East, and you begin to see why it is such a region of turmoil.

Class Unity Activity: We did not have the time to get to this, which is actually pretty funny, because I always seem to be running out of time for this particular activity. Hopefully we will devote a good portion of time next class to it. I wanted to do it right after the forced choice, so that we could try to repair any rifts in the room, but it will have to wait. Plus, I am sure that you guys are fine.
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Before I sign off, I have to thank Stephen for being the lone representative from Period 2 to come play hoops in the gym during second lunch. He's a baller. Next week, I am going to have to come prepared or something, because not only did I get swatted once, but I think he drained about 5 threes to my 2. Bad times.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Enjoy the great weather (Monday is forecasted to be 80 degrees)! Remember to watch the Blazers playoff game tomorrow night, at 7:30 on KGW (Ch. 8) and ESPN. I will be online during the game, so if you have any observations or thoughts, post them here, and let's get a little running dialogue going!