Period 2: Nonviolence and Gandhi, Day 7 - Class Recap

Gandhi advocated living simply (as you saw today). This is a picture I took last fall of a farm by Lake Oswego, about five miles away from my house. It reminds me of simple times.
Good afternoon Period 2!

I am so sad that today was our last Friday together! I hope that we made the best of it, though I must say, that was one of the longest periods I have ever had! We started at 7:45 and finally let out (due to the long assembly for the seniors) at 11:10. Crazy times. On to the class recap!

Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? How did the concept of nonviolence develop and become implemented?

Soundtrack: "Comin' From Where I'm From" by Anthony Hamilton. Lyrics here. Chosen for today because we are continuing to talk about empathy and nonviolence. That, and it is an excellent song.

AGENDA 6/5/09:
News Brief – President Obama/Tiananmen Square
Example Paper
Talking Gandhi

Homework: Finish and turn in any late work! Read the blog and ask questions!

For those that did not turn in your final paper today, please e-mail me at luke_fritz@beavton.k12.or.us as soon as possible. Thanks!

News Brief: We talked about the enormous lightning storm that happened in Portland last night! It was certainly something to take notice of. I was inside watching the NBA Finals. Good times.

We talked a little bit about the Air France Flight 447 disaster and trying to find the debris (an article on that can be found here: CNN.com - Brazilian air force says debris was not from Air France crash) and Diana asked about the Bermuda Triangle - which is a close, but not exactly where the plane went down. Interesting information at the Wikipedia site! I think what I was talking about in class as far as geysers and such that might be part of the reason for the strange activity in that region are Methane Hydrates.

I mentioned that I will be "graduating" (we still have two more months of classes after this) from Lewis and Clark this Sunday, at 10:00 AM. You can see all of my teaching friends and me! Woo hoo! Here is a link to watch the ceremony live online: Lewis and Clark Commencement 2009. Apparently, the webcast launches at 9:45 AM and changes to live feed at 10 AM. Let me know in the comments if there is a consensus about a signal I can do for you guys! I suppose I could do the touching the nose thing if all else fails. If you don't know when I will be coming up, it is alphabetical by degree. I will be getting my Masters of Arts in Teaching. :-)

I also wanted to point out that the NBA Finals starts tonight, and if you want Mr. Hardin to be sane tomorrow when he is teaching you guys, you had better be rooting for the Lakers. That will air at 6:00 PM on ABC.

As Amy mentioned for her news brief article today (which you can read here: NYTimes.com - Addressing Muslims, Obama Pushes Middle East Peace) President Obama had an enormously big speech yesterday in Cairo, Egypt. He was talking to Muslims in the Middle East. Some of it was almost EXACTLY the same as what you guys did for your Israeli-Palestinian project! Specifically, I wanted to show the class what he had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and nonviolence (tying the last two units together):



I also showed the end to the speech, when the President tried to say that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all had the goal of promoting peace in the world. This was very much like Sarah's presentation for the Israeli-Palestinian unit! The video we watched can be found here.

Good stuff. You can watch the entire speech as well as click on a link for a transcript to read here: WhiteHouse.gov - The President's Speech in Cairo: A New Beginning.

Finally, I wanted to make sure to note that today was the 20th Anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests being broken up. Read all about the event here. This is the video I showed in class (just the first part, until the credits roll):



After this played, I showed this video of the unknown "tank man" standing up to block the Chinese military. A very important date in history!

Thanks for indulging me in all these videos! I hope you found it interesting!

Example Paper: After this extremely long news brief section, I showcased an example of a really good research paper, done by Sarah. It was all about chocolate, and how it has an impact on the economy, health, and happiness! See, that is the power of a thesis statement - I didn't even have to look that up. Because Sarah had a really memorable thesis and paper, it is easy for me to recall what she was talking about. Hopefully, showing her paper to the class was something that everyone learned from - I was really glad to hear the clapping at the end too! It was a great paper! Thanks for the hard work on it Sarah! :-)

Talking Gandhi: Because the class was shortened, this section was not as long as I had hoped that it would be, though I am glad that we got to talk a little bit about the magazine article I had you read last class. I asked everyone to volunteer a few things that Gandhi tried to do in order to better society through nonviolence. The class mentioned his hunger strikes as well as resisting temptation. This was good! After a brief discussion, we watched a biography (if you can call a three minute video a biography) of Gandhi and his philosophy on nonviolence, which you can watch again here.

When the video was over, so was the class! We then voted on a movie to watch as the senior assembly was going on (the freshmen were not allowed to go because of a lack of seating in the gym). The rest of our time was spent watching the movie and/or doing whatever quiet activity that you wanted, until the senior assembly wrapped up about 40 minutes late, giving you roughly 15 minutes in your Period 4 class. Fun times!
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Please remember to be e-mailing me your papers if you did not hand me a copy today or had a copy previously accepted! We will be going over your grades on these on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend! Watch me graduate if you want, and the NBA Finals, and the French Open finals! Please remember to finish out the year strong - this is your last weekend of having school after it! Make the best of it! :-)