Fighting for Prayer

Religion and prayer has been a debated since 1962. It's been argued on whether teachers should be allowed to explain their religion and if kids have to pray in school, or if religious acts should be allowed such as moments of silence, praying at athletic games and so forth. Before the  1960's, prayer had been allowed, teachers would have bible study and prayer. The government has often argued about religion and there have been many cases where religion will collide with government. Prayer has had many restrictions by the US Supreme Court. Prayer is part of a religion, and religion is part of who you are, even if you don't have or believe in religion, what you believe makes up your identity, I think prayer, religion, and the freedom to follow whatever you may believe in should be allowed in American public schools.

It's been an issue since the Engel v. Vitale case in 1962, when the New Hyde Park, New York, Union Free District No. 9 told the principal to give prayer in the beginning of the school day, with a teacher present in each class. 10 of these student's parents complained and gave in a suit to the New York State asking that the prayer be banned from schools. The parents reasons for this was because the morning prayer went against their beliefs and religion. The New York State resolved that "so long as the schools did not compel any pupil to join in the prayer over his or her parents objection" The case was that the New York Union Free District had violated the rights of the freedom of religious belief. I don't think students were violated did because they had the choice not to participate. If someone is praying, you can have the option to just politely stand or sit there, you aren't forced to participate. This is like in the school, the students didn't have to be in that position to pray, so to try and sue the school is ridiculous because it's what the school believes and you can't sue them for that because you believe in something else.

Since this case, there has been conflict between religion and the government. One of the most controversy in the government and religions is the US Pledge of Allegiance. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States Of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God,  indivisible,  with liberty and justice for all". The argument for this is, what if you don't believe in God? What if you believe in something else? Like for example, Wiccan, they believe that there is a Goddess and a God. "under God" is saying that there is only one God, which goes against there religion. Students in the morning repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with their hands placed over their heart. It's required to recite the allegiance in most American public schools, whether they are in elementary school or in collage. It doesn't go against any law or amendment, but it can make someone uncomfortable if it's not exactly what they believe in. To say that you pledge, or promise to a country that is under God, and God might not be what you believe in, can go against what you believe in. There isn't exactly a resolution to this because when this was written in 1954, most of Americans were christian, and pledging under God wasn't a big deal. You can't form a different Pledge of Allegiance because there are still people who do believe in God and there isn't anyway to change it. But to be forced to say the Pledge Of Allegiance, which in some schools students are, to be forced to pledge your allegiance to a God that you might not believe in, can go against someone's religion, which is something that nobody should be forced to go through.

Children's viewpoint on how the Government decides over how they will show their religion, impacted me. In this site, the children talk about how they feel about the Government making laws and rules that aren't swayed by religion. They speak strongly about how they feel about religious people being treated poorly because they can't do things that the laws required, such Jehovah's Witnesses, can't say the Pledge of Allegiance because it is against their religion. They also argue about how in Texas, they can't say prayers at football games anymore. I think that these children have a point. A common argument they have is, that how they pray, how they live their lives is under the protection of the First Amendment, which allows you to worship under your own religion freely. If the law says that they can no longer say prayers at football games, then the law is breaking the First Amendment, these schools wish to pray before games, so why can't they? Why does the law forbid it? Schools should be allowed to follow whatever religious exercise as long as the children aren't forced to participate. This is letting everyone worship whatever way they want.

Religion hasn't been a problem until the 1960's and it shouldn't have to be a problem. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Christians, which is why they say "under God" but just because you don't believe in God, doesn't mean you aren't an American. Teachers should be allowed to talk and mention or speak freely about what they believe. Schools should be allowed to pray, to follow the religion of their choice, and children should have the choice of how they can worship without being forced to by the schools. Religion shouldn't be conflicting problem. Most religions teach to be peaceful, so why is it so conflicted and controversial? I think that having the freedom to believe in whatever you want, to worship however you want, and to speak about your religion is something worth fighting for.

(Picture URL: http://clearriver.org/jefflingblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/slpersecution_lrg.jpg)

Fighting for Ourselves

There are many things to fight for in our lives. We can fight for whatever we believe in, whether it be in justice, politics, freedom, we can stand up and defend for whatever we want to happen or change. Our human race has been given the ability to speak with persuasion, using words to convince and coax change out of others. For many years we've had debates about many things such as education, wars, international affairs, but the one thing we've forgotten is ourselves. If we are the change in the world and mold it into something that we believe in, then I think that we should believe in ourselves.

Society has nearly sucked out all the individuality in our teenagers these days. To fit in the puzzle piece of society is so important to teenagers. This is a generalization but there are those who just don't have the courage to be different than what life requires and stand for what they believe. There can be people who can and will fight with bravery in what they think is right, which can result into being shot down or wanting to be heard again. But what about those with the unexpressed brilliant ideas, they are so concerned about what it will look like if they stand up for a religion or stand up for concept that they believe in.
"A heart can be broken
And the world could go on,
A life could be ended
No one will notice, until you speak up,
Do not hold back from the right thing."
The clothes we wear, the songs we listen to, the people we hang out with, aren't the structure of who we are and what we can put confidence into. It's the people who can inspire us and the reasons why we do things that make us who we are and what can spark these thoughts is the abstract mind.  Our voices are the weapons of the mind. To speak the mind is a common phrase, and to me, teenagers are losing their minds in the chaotic ways of society.

To remember who you are is important. We are people. According to the dictionary this is how we as people are defined. "Human beings, as distinguished from animals and other beings" or "The entire body of persons, who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by a virtue of a common culture, history, or religion..." This is what makes us people. What makes a person is, as according to the dictionary, "The actual self or individual personality of a human being" A person who is an actual self, or has an individual personality. What it means to fight for something, is to have something inside of you and want to make it known or cause a change in others to stand up for the cause. A personality would affect this, it's a bias, on how you would see it. The human personality can vary on how you would perceive an idea, this would also change on how you would fight for it. If you don't have a personality, how can you know what is worth fighting for? A person each has their each characteristics that make them who they are, and that is worth fighting for.

It sometimes can be hard to fight for what you believe in. Being our age, it's easy to believe that you can't make a difference and that you are just one person. But that's exactly what can motivate us, being young and knowing who we are and what we stand for. It's so important to understand this. It could be many years before someone comes along and realizes what we stand for. Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl living in Nazi Germany, wrote a diary about her experiences in the secret Annex. She was an upstander because she wrote the truth about Germany and she wrote about hopes and dreams that she had. Her father Otto helped a dream come true after the war, Anne wanted her voice to be heard and she wanted her diary to be published, unfortunately Anne died during the war, but millions have read about Anne standing up for what she believed in. This relates to knowing about yourself because Anne knew what what she wanted and she knew herself so that she could fight for it, she dreamed of getting her diary publicized to the world and that they could her what she had to say about society.

To be an upstander in society its important to know what you are standing up for. Having something like this can make what you fight for even stronger. But to know what you believe in, that is what you need to fight for yourself? People have things that they believe that is worth standing up to and whether its bad or good they believe it's something that makes something worth fighting for, and to have that belief and to believe in yourself is something that is worth taking a stand for.

No Child Left Behind

In America, slowly and sadly, there are children falling behind in school. They can't focus in school, they aren't motivated to pay attention, or do their homework, and this to parents, who care for their kid's education, fear that this is a big problem. So the Congress supported the bill, and gave it to George W. Bush who was current president, and he signed and approved of it, bringing the No Child Left Behind program into action. This act is basically the schools give their kids a test, and if the schools don't reach a certain score than they have to re-think their teaching. People now are beginning to debate against the No Child Left Behind policy, which in my opinion is very smart.

As productive and as effective as NCLB sounds, to test kids and get them to a smarter level, is a big time waster. Students will spend months and months studying for tests, when they could be learning new curriculum, or reading about current breakthroughs or events. One example is Dena, a high school freshmen who wrote that she spent 2 months learning about root words because it was on the test. She thinks it would be better if we could learn critical thinking, or analyzing events.  Even though I think that root words would be helpful to learn, I think that you shouldn't spend too much time learning about them. I think it's more important to learn new strategies and develop your thinking.

NCLB runs on a budget, printing tests, reviewing the average score,  and hiring people to help with the tests. What I think is that American's shouldn't pay for this, it wastes our money on tests that aren't current, and although the studying for the tests are good review of the whole year, what are the chances that the kids are going to remember what they learnt in the beginning of the year? We should spend money on new curriculum, new text books, new technology. If we are the future, don't you think we should at least invest some money for the new generation? Instead of testing, they should use the money to give us new and updated books, technology, and resources, so that we can challenge ourselves with new thinking. Isn't that more important than testing us? We should be treated like stocks in a sense. If you pay for a share of a stock, you can benefit greatly. They should spend money on us, and educate us, and hope that we can create a better future and solve the current problems that we are debating over.

Students and teachers are beginning to wonder if NCLB testing is really helping. They're spending so much time just learning things for the test and trying to review it. Going over the same books over and over again just to make sure you know everything and lets be honest, it can get tiresome, boring, and it can make it hard to focus. Teachers will have to break it up so that the low achiever kids can understand and the high achiever kids will be challenged. But considering how NCLB makes the teachers teach in a way so that they can't break out of the teaching method so they can't teach by their own ideas. Teaching comes from the latin root  Kids can't learn by books, they can read it, but they can't understand it. To me, it's important to not only read something and learn it, but to understand how it happens and why it happens. I think that's what makes school so interesting. Not the learning (although that can be interesting) but to understand the learning. It's so important that what we read and we understand, because when we understand, we learn.

Although there have been many problems with NCLB, the intentions are positive. They're trying to get teachers to work harder and students to pull their weight at school. However, their approach is wrong and summing up what I have said in my blog post, there should be a better way rather than testing us. It's not like testing was a bad idea, but there are better ideas. Using the money for better technology, resources, teaching curriculum, investing time and money towards us because we are the future.

Taking A Stand

We strongly believe that you should go out on a limb.
We implore you to cleverly oppose society.
To challenge with determination the manner that has somehow tragically infected our generation.
We have walked with conviction, yet nothing has happened.
By actually talking we have noticed that somehow
the challenge of wisdom has aggressively frightened society
and disguised conviction.

By Georgina Irvine and Rachel McKinley.

To Turn The Other Cheek

I think the world could learn more about forgiveness. I feel like forgiveness is so important and the world is slowly forgetting how to forgive. When someone does something horrible to you, do you have the humility to turn the other cheek? For some people, it comes easily. They can see the greater good in others, they always see the shining light in others. But to some, it takes all they have to walk away.

I believe in God. I was born into christianity and I know no other life outside of my religion. Every night when I go to pray, I am supposed to pray for those who have done wrong to me, no matter how angry I am. Despite this religious belief, I have the hardest time forgiving others. It's hard to think how they have hurt me and try to walk away or to turn the other cheek. My religion believes in a sermon. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also..." Matthew 5:38-42. Being a teenager, I guess I will have to go through loads of drama, whether I want too or not. There is always going to be something she did to me or he said about me, but that's the thing. What good is it going to do for either of us by hurting each other? Even if I'm telling the world that people need to forgive, I know that I too need to forgive, even if it is the most difficult thing that I can do. Also, you don't have to be a big into society to make an impact. Just forgiving one of your friends can be the simplest step.

One current story that I know about forgiveness is about Fatmire Feka, who was separated from her brother and sister ten years ago in Kosovo. She founded the Kids Club For Peace, which helps kids to see past ethnicity issues that one might have. In an interview, she tells us how horrible it was for everyone during the war. The economy was horrible and houses were torched. She remembers children having to go through horrible traumatic experiences that she herself being a child had to go though. "I wanted peace because.... I had never had peace in my entire life" quoted by Fatmire Feka. I find this person to be quite amazing because even though her family was torn apart by war, she still found the integrity inside of her to help children with stories like hers to change their hearts about those who may have destroyed their lives.

Even in the past we've had people forgiving others and trying as hard as possible to forgive themselves. In 1930's during the start of Hitler's regime, Trudy, a Jew, had her father taken away and sent to a labour camp, however Trudy was able to escape on a boat to America. Weeks after weeks she would get letters from her father asking her to come save him. So by the time she had worked up enough money to bail out her father, she found it was too late. Decades later, she decides to share her father's letter's with her daughter. She was invited to a church organization in Austria for Holocaust survivors. They were coming together to help each other forgive what traumatic experiences that changed their lives forever. I find this so amazing that the Holocaust people are so forgiving. After what everyone has done to them and said about them, that they have the humility to forgive. Trudy was able to forgive those who had done horrible things to her, and she was also able to forgive herself for not saving her father. I think that the survivors are really amazing because they were able to forgive.

There are so many examples of people forgiving each other. So than why are there people going out there to murder, to steal, to lie, and so on? Even if there are good people out there who are so willing to forgive, doesn't mean that the others are willing to say they're sorry. I find it sad when people hate each other. That they aren't willing to humble themselves because they think that they're right. I wish we were more forgiving. In the past we've been able to forgive each other, in the current time we've also been able to forgive, so I hope in the future we are still able to forgive. I hope that we are all able to forgive each other because with forgiveness comes love.

A Democratic New Word

My first few choices that I had to pick for my one characteristic that I would hope for in this new world were equal, just, democratic, multi-cultural, and educated. I figured that equal and just could go into the same category as democracy. Also I thought that to be multi-cultural, you must be educated to have a good open mind to others. So in the end, I had two options, education and democracy. I picked democracy because in the new world that is being created, I would want everyone to have a voice to help improve and cultivate the new world to a fair society.

"Democracy- the practice or principles of social equality" -Dictionary

This was found off the dictionary and I liked how they said social equality. In democracy, everyone has a voice, no matter where they are from, who they are, or what they look like. I reasoned that if everyone has a voice, and the government listened, than we would have a fair or just society. I think that if you have a new world where every one's voice is heard, than you can start building up the foundation of the world. For example, if the government put down some basic laws, and not everyone was happy about it, than those people could speak their mind, they would be able to compromise with the government to make the world a fair place to be in.

"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme." -Aristotle

I really liked this quote because it talked about how when you have a democracy, your government won't put richer people before the poorer people. In some countries, if you have more money, you have more power. This happens most often in poorer countries with some corruption in government, but in this quote, it tells you it doesn't matter if you have more money than others, you will have the same equality as another. I also really liked this quote because it talks about how in democracy, the majority is supreme. The government doesn't choose for you, the majority wins. This shows how everyone has an opinion and it's fair for society.

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely for the safe guard of democracy"

This quote was good because it showed how hard my choice was between education or democracy. To have a really good democracy the people should be educated to make educated votes or when they express their opinions. I would hope that my people would be educated so that they could advance in almost everything at once. These two characteristics go hand in hand. It's like when you're giving a teenager a responsibility. They have the choice to handle it carefully or they can handle it with not such great care, but they can also choose to accept the responsibility or not. So I thought that if my country is to be good in education, they would have democracy because it's a reasonable idea, every one gets their own voice, and they wouldn't tear down the country, they would try and build it up.

Democracy to me is one of the best characteristics for a country. There are other important characteristics, but I feel that democracy comes first. I feel this way because I feel strongly about everyone having a voice. I think it's important that a country is equal and not oppressive. I feel this way because if you want to build up a country, you should have rules that everyone can agree with, and everyone should be able to speak freely. This is what I think will help build a strong community.

The Night Of Chrystal (Kristalnacht)

On November 10th 1933, this is the night of chrystal, when the Nazis came into town and all over Germany, burned the Jewish buisness, and burnt all the synagogues. In the end, after all the windows have been shattered, chaos passed, reality set in and the destruction was seen, an estimation of over 100 Jews, were killed, but an unknown amount of Jews commited sucicude, many died in the hospitial, and 30,000 Jews were forced into concentration camp.

On account of some survivors, they recall this horrific night, and the propaganda used against them.

Susan Strauss Taube recalls how they were about to go to school and than they saw all the synagogues burn, turning on the radio, they were told to stay inside their homes. Her father was thrown into a concentration camp for 4 weeks and told to leave Germany imediately. Her father released but was not seen for a few more weeks, he escaped and fled to Holland. Everything was confiscated. When I saw this I felt awful. I can't believe after the surrounding countries sat around watching and didn't even assisting. What I want to know is, why didn't anyone stand up to the bully? After watching someone go against the flow, don't you think other countries would've been less passive and stand up to Germany? Germany had just went through turmoil, they couldn't have been too powerful yet.

Hitler has been setting Germany up for the worst. I think Kristalnacht was the serious turning point. Actually it was more like the fall. So everything that was happening before Kristalnacht was like little steps slowly descending, than Kristalnacht was like the empty missing steps. Hitler thought he was helping Germany regain her pride, he was manipulating all of Germany and they helped him create Genocide. Than when they knew they had lost, Hitler turned his back on them and killed himself, rather than taking the consequences. People were forced to go in and kill innocent people and they aren't allowed to oppose, only if they wish for death.

The Jews were targeted and along with the Communists. The Communists were targets because they were seen as a threat to Germany. Other people such as Gays, Lesebians, people with mental issues were also put into because they were seen as "staining" Germany. So they would be placed into Concentration Camps

This part of history is horrific and it has scarred many people. However we shouldn't blame Germany. We all stood by and watched. We all just sat there thinking of what we should do. We had thought of helping, but that doesn't matter, we didn't help. Therefore we are also to blame. Think about Canada who didn't come to aid people. Or the USA who came in later rather than jumping in and helping. We all watched Germany build and expand their pyramid of hate. We are as much to blame as Germany is. Despite everything awful that has happened, we have this as an example. To teach generations to come, the horrible actions, the watching, the seeing, the propaganda, we can still learn from our mistakes. We can't turn around the past, but we can turn the future.

Coming a MM (milimeter) closer to knowing myself

Mr. Whitting and Mrs. Narsiman both enter the classroom. They hand us sheets with weird figures drawn on them, two eyes, two eye sockets, two ears, two hands, two legs. They explain about the brain, how our brains have two hemispheres. The right, which controls the left side of the body, and the left side, which controls the right. Kids who had health or are doing health, all groan in unision and some even hiss to their neighbor "I already know what I am, we did this in health!" the people who haven't done this, look around awkwardly and pretend to know what is going on. Mr. Whitting explains more about the brain and how we shut down if go through too much stress. We all did the little tests, and each of us got one of the profiles that were piled into a black binder. Mine was MM.

I learn from metaphors, examples, and associations. I look and listen for intention and emotion. I am also highly intuitive, often I will do things that just feel right, not knowing the truth or the reasoning behind my decision. I am also very physically and emotionally expressive. The best way to talk to me, is by me turning my head to my left ear, and rather looking at the person, I must listen to the tone, pitch, and rhythm. I learn best when I am moving and I need to see the whole context, or the whole picture and having an emotional relevance to myself before I actually have it best learnt.

I learn best when I move around. I am a kinesthetic learner so I must move around. I was suggested to do Lazy 8's during while I am sitting. It will help if I do cross lateral movements, cross crawl, and Hook Ups from Brain Gym. I can learn well by focusing the whole picture, context and emotional relevance to self. I must be able to see, hear, move or verbalize the whole context before learning the details. I must be moving myself to help me think (it will most likely be my hands)

I often will understand the main idea, but I might have a great trouble seeing and communicating the details. I have trouble following step by step instructions, I will tend to follow my intuition and do what seems apropriate. I will often start imagining what will happen in the end rather than thinking about it. My movemens tend to be relaxed and energetic when I am relaxed, but when I'm stressed, I willbe cautious, clumsy and stuck.

My teacheres should know, I have difficulty with pennmanship, but I benefit from fine motor, hand-eye coordinations as well. My left eye reads right to left, I may have trouble reading or writting langues that move from left to right like English. I may reverse or tanspose letters/numbers.

A Bloody Collage

Picasso made a collage based on the attack of Guernica, a village where women and children mainly lived. Guernica was bombed by the Germans however and Picasso painted this picture to show everyone what's it's like to get bombed.

My thoughts on this picture is everything looks really confusing. I mean you can't see what exactly is going on and everything is distorted. So I wondered why everything was messy and everything is very distorted. Than I realized, if your city was getting bombed, than wouldn't everything be really confusing? You would have people screaming and running for their lives, you'd have dead people on the street, injured people everywhere. So I think that the chaotic feel to this painting is because Picasso wanted to show everyone what it would be like to get bombed.

The painting Guernica, gives off a really weird feeling. It gives off a sort of disturbing feeling. I think that feeling comes from the facial expressions from the people and than it just makes you feel really weird. Also the other feeling it gives off is more of a intruding feeling. I feel like I don't really belong, and I feel like this isn't something I should be looking at. I think I feel this because of the distorted people, like they're different and I'm just here watching.

One of the questions I had was 'How did people feel in Picasso's time when they first saw this?' Often in times in history, when people saw things they didn't like or disagreed with, they destroyed it, or hated the person who created it. People who saw this, and disagreed with what they saw, like they thought "Oh it's not that bad, and what we're doing is right, those people deserved what we doing to them". People would think that because everyone had an opinion in the war. So what did those people think?

The most interesting thing in this painting, is the facial expressions. Everyone has a certain facial expression, confusion, uncertainty, surprised. Even the horse has a surprised look on it's face. Picasso probably put this like this because in a bombing, everyone would be very surprised and confused and really scared.

Picasso did an amazing job potraying the scene of a bombing. He was able to collide everything and make it look scary and confused. He maked an amazing job in showing the facial expressions and I think that this is a wonderful painting.

Regretting Past, Changing Future

This is a story of a man named Jesús Colón. Jesús Colón was on a subway. He's a black, Hispanic, and he's living in a racist time period. He sees a white young lady, with two young children, and a baby. He knows what he should do. He should help the young lady. But he doesn't. He rushes right past them, as he rushes out of the problem that he could've helped. I believe that he should've helped even if he may have gotten in trouble.

Jesús Colón is black and he's Hispanic which is a way he describes himself. He is living in a racist time and that's exactly how he described himself. He also described the young blonde woman as white, and as a woman. This was what held him back from helping her. The fact that he was worried she would call the police on him because it was late at night, she was alone with three children, she was white, and he was black. However he didn't not stop to help her off the train worrying about himself, because he may have gotten in trouble or the lady may have thought something of it rather than actually him helping her. He was being selfish and put himself in front of her and didn't want to get in trouble instead of taking an chance and helping her.

The skin color in this time period was a big barrier to everyone. Black people were segregated from white people so I understand why he wouldn't help her. He may have been worried that she would've gotten the wrong idea that he was trying to help her, she might have thought that he was being to friendly. So the skin color was one of the reasons he didn't help, but I think that he should've tried to see past that even though the larger society says that because of someone's skin color they will either be accepted into society or not be accepted and the blacks at this time did not feel accepted.

Jesús Colón regrets not helping the lady out of the subway. He didn't make the right choice. It's the thought that counts to at least bothered to help her and what I think is, I don't think she would've acted racist in front of her own children because what if they copied her to their friends or repeated some of the words that she said to him. So I think that he made the wrong choice in rushing off and not helping her. He knows he didn't make the right choice and he wishes he could've done something to help her.

If Jesús Colón were white would my answer be different in how he reacted? No, if he rushed off without even helping her than that would be just wrong. Jesús Colón's dilemma was that he was black and she was white, so she might have thought something different, but if he were white and she were white than he should help her, because they are the same race and she might not think anything of except for the fact that he's trying to help her.

I think that the victims in this story are the woman and Jesús Colón. But more of Colón because first of all he wouldn't help her because he was worried she might call the police on her and he was black so she might think something else rather than he was trying to helper her. The woman was a victim not so much because she had trouble getting off the train and he didn't help her. The Larger Society victimized them because if there were no racial problems, he wouldn't think or even worry about him being black and there wouldn't be a problem helping her. But everyone thinks of racism then people worry about it and they hate one another because of people's skin color.

I chose this photo because it's a photo of the 'Larger Society' and what we have here is a group of black people in a restaurant. There are no white people because white people wouldn't go into that restaurant during this particular time because of racial problems. So this represents the Larger Society and right now the Larger Society doesn't allow black people to mix with white people.

This is related to the story we read in class called 'The Blokes' by Alan Gibbons. Hashim was not accepted into The Blokes because he was a foreigner. The Blokes represent the Larger Society because what they say goes "What the Blokes say goes" and so the Larger Society are the white people, they think that they are the greatest rather than being equal. So Hashim represents the other races, different and non-white. When they aren't accepted they don't do anything because they are powerless unlike the Larger Society. The kids who keep their heads down, and don't say anything represent the people who could make a change but don't. John, Hashim's friend, represents the people who do make a change in the society and help the 'Hashim's".

This story is connected in my life because, when I was in third grade, we would all play together at recess. My friends and I always stuck together and we would go into different groups to play games. There was one girl, who didn't fit in. She told "out of the world" lies and we all knew that she was lying. One day she decided to hang out with my friends and she was telling us all about how she could do flips off a bar. My friends and she were having an arguement. I said nothing and they were still arguing and I told my friends to shut up about her. I didn't stop and "rush off the bus" I stopped and "helped the lady" I feel really good about this and after that I heard the girl say, "Rachel is a really great friend" I still feel pretty good about what I said over 4 years ago.

URL: http://ltcsociety.in/files/2009/08/ltcs.jpg

Forgiveness is the Power

Forgiveness is Power
November 27 2010

Fatmire Feka was separated from her brother and sister ten years ago. It's been 10 years and she has released the idea that they might just be alive. She and her mother think that they have been shot because their uncle was shot in the shoulder and doesn't remember who it was, or if her siblings were killed. I believe she is a hero.

Fatmire Feka has one remarkable personality trait. The power to forgive. Because of her past, of someone helping her and teaching her about forgiveness rather than hatred and anger, she wants to forgive everyone. But the problem is, not matter how hard she wants to forgive, she doesn't know who to forgive. This is a heroic act of hers and I think that if this were me, I don't think I'd ever be able to forgive so this is amazing what she's doing. Also in the Bible, because I'm Christian, there is a verse that many preachers and bishops like to quote. I don't know where to find it, but the quote is 'Turn the other cheek' I believe Jesus said this to his disciples. These are powerful words, when you turn the other cheek, I think it means to not fight back, and forgive. Though sometimes it may be hard.

This story is connected to the story we read in class called 'The Blokes' by Alan Gibbons. There was a boy named Hashim and The Blokes blackmailed Hashim's friend John, into destroying Hashim's school project, his village. When John did so, he felt awful and like a horrible friend. Hashim did not hate John or The Blokes. He did not fight back. He forgave everyone and he was then called the strongest link by his friend John. Fatmire Feka hasn't gone around saying she wants to hurt the person who killed her sister and brother, not because she doesn't know who it was, but because she wants to seek to forgive them. She and Hashim are amazing people, who seeked refugee from somewhere and have came into people's lives and changed them, for good. That's what makes them both heroes.

This is related to my life because sometimes, when I mess up, or I hurt people's feelings, I want forgiveness. I would say I'm sorry and I would want them to forgive me. Although sometimes I don't exactly show it but I would want it. Fatmire Feka although has been able to seek forgiveness even though it was hard and she is a hero for that and if we all were able to forgive and turn the other cheek, I think we would have so much more peace in the world.

I chose this photo because it shows someone's hands in a prayer position. When you pray, in my culture, what you do is you thank God for all the blessings, than you ask for forgiveness in all your sins, like if you lied, cheated, or stole, than you ask for forgiveness with all your heart. So this reminded me of someone asking for forgiveness.

Artist: Unknown

Painting: Unknown

URL: http://wendyusuallywanders.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/forgiveness.jpg

The Visual Poem

We watched a visual poem in Humanities about two people, Jason Van Genderen and Shane Emmett who live in Sydney, Australia, and New York City, New York. They went around taking pictures of the city around them but they only used words to describe how both of the cities are connected. We all watched the simple street words transformed into powerful words.

In the beginning we learned about how both New York City and Sydney are completely different cities, they are separated by an ocean. They are on different sides of the world and are even different time zones. They are each different. But are they really? They have people who live and have families. They each have poverty in their cities, homeless people, they have children, adults, grandparents and animals who live in one city. So why is it just sea that divides us? In the poem that we had, it talked about how we aren't just two little separate islands with our own stories and disconnected from one another. Rather we are one massive "continent" that Donne refers to. Both Donne and Van Genderen have suggested that mankind is interconnected and have used continent as a metaphor to show that we are all united. Although we each have our own stories and lives, we can share this one another. 'No man is an island entire of itself: every man is a continent, a part of a main.' Van.... said that we all have stories and that wherever we go, there will be someone with a unique back round, personality, and family. So while we are interconnected, we cannot forget the people who don't have as much as we have. Even though they may be invisible and as we walk by them we need to accept that they are humans just like

This poem is like an opposite of the story "The Blokes" , a short story by Alan , this was their problem. They could not accept the fact that they aren't the great continent while everyone else is just a little island out in the ocean. They.... don't realize that we are millions of people, hundreds of races, many different faces, one human species. I think that they think that they are the best out of everyone and that's what gets to them to do the mean things they do. The pride. They pull strings and that's what makes them think that they are the best and that they are super and that they are the greatest.

I chose this photo because if you take a first glance at it, it shows just a man's face, but if you take a closer look than you see more people. The face represents the 'Continent' "No man is an entire island of itself; every man is a piece of the main" and the people there represent the people, that's us, who make up the island.

My blog post shows that this video is encouraging us to relate to others no matter who they are and why they are that way and everything like this.

10 things I like about Me

Converse, a house T-shirt, ipod, running shoes, a crafted box, seashell, music sheet, and a US Olympic sweatshirt. This is me in 10 objects!


My red house T-shirt is really important to me. Tt represents which house I am in, Tupai. It shows my support to the school and it's important that I don't lose it, because I used this T-shirt in 6th grade. ISKL is important to me because it's one of my favorite schools. I have been 4 schools so far. It's one of my favorites because I like how this school has good beliefs the school encourages us to think creatively, reason critically, live ethically, collaborate constructively and communicate effectively it also values, kindness, honesty, and respect. This makes ISKL is very friendly and surrounds you with a feeling like you j ust ate a warm brownie and ice cream. When I first came here, I was very nervous. My brothers had told me Middle School was going to be terrifying and extraordinarily exhausting. I got over these anxieties by the first week of school. All the teachers were helpful and everyone was very friendly.

I chose to put my black converse in my photo since Converse is one of my favorite shoes. they are light-weight, stylish, and they go with almost anything. The converse you see in the photo were my first converse. They were hand-me downs from one of my friends in Hong Kong. I used them in 5th grade and I used them sometimes in 6th grade. One of my friends here at ISKL gave me colorful laces to string on. So these shoes connect me with my friend in Hong Kong who was one of my best friends to another friend here in Malaysia.

I have tennis shoes on top of the converse since I really enjoy sports. I like running. Unfortunately running in the heat is not easy. When I run, I look forward to competition. I love to have competition. I love the gloating feeling I get when I win but of course I shake hands with the competitor. I love the energy I use take off and beat the person next to me. I just love that! My favorite sport is Softball. The reason I like softball is because in softball, you use a lot of your muscles. You use you're hands to catch, pitch, and bat. You use your legs as well. So it's really convenient to have some tennis shoes on your feet during a sport. I like these tennis shoes because, they have cool colors and they are very comfortable. I bought these tennis shoes over the summer in the US.

Next to the shoes is a box. My sister bought this box for me in China. I like this box because I love the colors on it, it's very useful to keep coins in there and small things in it. Half my family is now out of the home and in College or out in the world, so getting this gift was really special to me since my siblings are away from home. My siblings don’t get me gifts from where they travel. The only thing they bring back are hugs and stories. They say that they can’t afford to bring me gifts and that their suitcases are so full they can’t bring me any gifts.

Sitting near the box, is an ipod shuffle. This was my first ipod shuffle and I used it so many times in 6th grade. I got this for my 12 birthday. I had been using a CD player all my life when I wanted to listen to music, or I would just go on to Youtube so I could listen to songs that I didn't have. This ipod shuffle was my brother’s old ipod, but he didn’t use it. So I kept asking for it. Finally on my birthday, I found it sitting on the table. I was extremely surprised. I thought my brother would never give it up. I was so excited I could barely eat my breakfast. My brother had some songs I didn’t want I had to take the time to re-sync it. I like to listen to all kinds of music. I used to listen to oldies as a little kid. I still do sometimes when the pop music today just doesn’t cut it. I love to listen to Queen and Beatles the most.

I have a seashell because my mother is from California, and she loves the beach. I grew up to love the beach as well. So I got the seashell near a river at my old home in Maryland during the summer. The seashell reminded me of the sea so I kept it. Maryland was the last American state I had lived in before we moved to Asia. My family were sitting by the Chesapeake River, we were eating crab at a local crab restaurant. I found the seashell on our way to the car. This always takes me back to the warm mosquito infested summers. The sight of murky water in the bay. The sound of true Marylanders cracking open their red soft shell crab. The feeling of crab guts oozing out on your hands. The taste of the salty, old bay seasoning, which is a seasoning you use on crab. It flavors up the warm, buttery crab. When I look at the shell, I can smell, taste, and hear all those things.

Underneath everything is a sheet of music. In my culture, music is a really big thing. All of my family have played an instrument before. Some of us don't play anymore. So this was a choir sheet I had gotten last year. I love to sing. I love going to choir and learning more about music and how to be a better singer. Most people, when they hear of choir, they laugh. It does sound kind of funny when you say "I'm going to choir next" but music is a big thing for my family. I don't want to become famous, I just want to sing for fun. My favorite part of singing is when it’s at first unison but then, when you break up into harmony, it’s sounds amazing. Often times I get goosebumps listening to alto or soprano. I also love when you do a round, or also known as a Cannon. I love the crisscrossing melodies. Another thing I love about singing is when you see a high note on the sheet and you think to yourself “that’s so high!” and then you hit the note perfectly, you feel light-headed but you know you sounded great and it sounded great with the lower part.

I have a sweatshirt in the photo as well. This was my brother's sweatshirt, I just outgrew my old one, so I got his. This was a sweatshirt from the winter Olympics in Utah. It took place in 2002 and I just like wearing the sweatshirt because it's old and comfortable, and I keep it as a memento. There was a matching hat, I just couldn't find it. There is something about wearing my brother’s jacket connects us together. It’s a brother and sister bond. We both don’t get along often. But this special jacket reminds me how we both are siblings and we need to care for each other.

Last object is a stuffed Beluga. A Beluga is a type of dolphin. It's white and it's small. This is my oldest stuffed animal I have. I got it around age 6 or 5. I got it in Utah at Park City because we used to live in Utah. It was a cold day I think, and my Mom took me to a toy shop that was shutting down. She let me and my brothers buy something. My brother Joseph, had bought some crayons that when you colored with them, the color shined. I bought the beluga. Now that I look back, I had named the dolphin countless of names. In fact, it took me about the whole car ride home to settle on a name. I was 6, so I didn't know when I was 12 I would kick myself internally for not naming it something else. I named it Fluffy. It's a dolphin. It's not supposed to be "fluffy" but it was a stuffed animal. It had to be ‘Fluffy’. It squeaks too.

Who would’ve thought, that 10 objects would be able to describe my past and my present?

Matt Harding response

I think that Matt Harding has a very creative, energetic, original, and globalized idea. I think it's great that he goes around dancing a really goofy dance. Past the smiles, I think this is a really great way to connect people to the world. I bet some people who watch this on youtube would be very interested about this clip. It's a great way to show people how people in the next country or halfway across the world act just like us. I'm American, I grew up in America for most my life. I thought it was cool that someone in Australia had the same moves that I did when I danced. I've never even been to Australia. I hope that even if our homes are far apart, we all live different lifestyles, that one day, we'll come together instead of being strangers, we can help each other when we need it.

“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.”

My blog title was changed to “Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.” -Carol Lynn Pearson. I chose this quote because I thought it sent a good message. It sent a good one because since we are learning about the ways of a hero, I thought it was pretty clever that it says something like "Not only does a hero do amazing things like fight off a dragon, but they also discover what they are and who they are inside and out." This is important for a hero because if he or she isn't able to decide what they want, or who they are, then it's going to be hard when they just have to fit in. It's like an everyday person may just know more about themselves then a hero would, because an everyday person would know what he or she wanted, when they wanted it, or how they wanted it to be like, but a hero on the other hand might not, because of publicity, pressure, or no self confidence. I read online, that to make a person a hero, they have to believe in themselves and others, they also have to have someone on the sidelines cheering for someone. We may not see it now, but I believe we are heroes. Maybe we're not stop pollution or finding a cure for cancer, but we may be the heroes of our own story.


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I believe in Compliments

The last time I had received a compliment was just today. It wasn't much of a compliment but it felt like a compliment to me. I was talking to my Mom about my Global Issues class and I was asking about her opinion. After she was done, I asked her if I asked the other kids parents about the questions I asked her, if their response would be different. She said to me "Probably not, I learned about this in collage."

When she said this, it made me feel really great. I was pretty excited that I was learning a simpler version of what my Mother was learning in collage. I also found this class very interesting, it made me really made me think about how I was really lucky, It had also opened my eyes to the world around me. It was something my Mom and I may have in common. I was really interested to hear this from my Mom because I had always thought that my Mom and I had completely different interests

The last time I had complimented someone it was also today. It was on the bus today. A girl was talking about her watch and her bracelet. I told her I liked her bracelet. Complimenting her did not make me feel any better, but at the time I'm sure she felt pretty good about what I had said about her watch.

After watching the complimenting video, at first I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea, but then after a while, I didn't think it sound very sincere. If I were walking by those same guys every single day, I wouldn't think that they were being very sincere. It still sounds like they were trying just to cheer up people, but it sort of sounded like a joke. I wouldn't take them very seriously, if I were talking to them.



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