I learned many things this semester including the Rwandan Genocide. I learned that it was a giant catastrophe and many parties were involved. I think the MRND and the UN were mostly responsible because the MRND promoted violence and made Hutu’s feel like it was their responsibility to kill Tutsi’s and the UN did nothing to stop it. France and the United States also played a role because France trained soldiers and the U.S. didn’t really do anything to stop the conflict. This activity also gave me hands on experience with a debate. After hearing everyone yelling at the MRND and the UN in the classroom, I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like in a real heated debate with hundreds of people yelling.
I learned a lot from watching the movie Rabbit Proof Fence. I learned about how badly the Australian aborigines were treated by the government and I saw how a cultural genocide was taking place. It was hard to imagine how the families would have felt seeing their children being taken away to be taught a new life without any choice and seeing your culture slowly fading away. The weird part was that the government thought they were doing the aborigines a favor by changing their culture when they were really doing a terrible thing. The children were mistreated and had barely any rights and they had to get their names changed. I hoped that while watching this movie, something like this would never happen again and that governments take note of what happened to the aborigines when they have to deal with a native culture.
Another case of bad treatment against natives was the movie The Power of One. Unlike Rabbit Proof Fence, we had just started studying South Africa so I didn’t have much prior knowledge on what went on there. The movie showed the brutality and unfairness of apartheid and it made me angry that a government would make laws to discriminate against people just because of their skin color. PK helped teach the blacks how to read but the government would not let him because they were afraid of the blacks becoming intelligent. I understood that the government’s plan was to not educate the blacks so they wouldn’t fit into society which would prevent them from getting rid of apartheid. Overall it was a good movie and taught me a lot about South African apartheid.
Margin Notes taught me a whole new way to take notes this year. I use to just jot stuff down on a piece of paper when reading an article but now I just take the notes on the article and it helps me understand it better because I know exactly where the note is coming from. It was weird at first writing in the margins with lines going everywhere but after a few tries it became easy. I think taking notes this way is very efficient and will help me down the road.
Something I never really worked on until this year was a thesis in my papers. I learned that Mr. Fielder is really strict on them and he will not let you continue to write until it is great. The thesis tells the reader what your opinion is on the paper and what it will generally be about. It makes a lot of sense because most people don’t like reading something if they don’t know what it is about and with a really good thesis, you can capture the reader’s attention and make it really interesting for him/her. All in all I learned a lot this semester and I hope it is the same for the second semester.
I learned a lot from watching the movie Rabbit Proof Fence. I learned about how badly the Australian aborigines were treated by the government and I saw how a cultural genocide was taking place. It was hard to imagine how the families would have felt seeing their children being taken away to be taught a new life without any choice and seeing your culture slowly fading away. The weird part was that the government thought they were doing the aborigines a favor by changing their culture when they were really doing a terrible thing. The children were mistreated and had barely any rights and they had to get their names changed. I hoped that while watching this movie, something like this would never happen again and that governments take note of what happened to the aborigines when they have to deal with a native culture.
Another case of bad treatment against natives was the movie The Power of One. Unlike Rabbit Proof Fence, we had just started studying South Africa so I didn’t have much prior knowledge on what went on there. The movie showed the brutality and unfairness of apartheid and it made me angry that a government would make laws to discriminate against people just because of their skin color. PK helped teach the blacks how to read but the government would not let him because they were afraid of the blacks becoming intelligent. I understood that the government’s plan was to not educate the blacks so they wouldn’t fit into society which would prevent them from getting rid of apartheid. Overall it was a good movie and taught me a lot about South African apartheid.
Margin Notes taught me a whole new way to take notes this year. I use to just jot stuff down on a piece of paper when reading an article but now I just take the notes on the article and it helps me understand it better because I know exactly where the note is coming from. It was weird at first writing in the margins with lines going everywhere but after a few tries it became easy. I think taking notes this way is very efficient and will help me down the road.
Something I never really worked on until this year was a thesis in my papers. I learned that Mr. Fielder is really strict on them and he will not let you continue to write until it is great. The thesis tells the reader what your opinion is on the paper and what it will generally be about. It makes a lot of sense because most people don’t like reading something if they don’t know what it is about and with a really good thesis, you can capture the reader’s attention and make it really interesting for him/her. All in all I learned a lot this semester and I hope it is the same for the second semester.
