Where Do We Get New Ideas?

Everyone has a mind of their own and comes up with different new ideas. New ideas mostly come through deep thoughts of people’s minds. New ideas can come from many different things such as nature, your daily life, what you experience, media and many more. In humanities class, we mostly write and think. Therefore, most of our new ideas come from our deep and thorough thoughts. When you are given a question or a subject to think about, you refer to what you have experienced before. From here you can expand your memories to bigger categories and develop your thoughts. This can help you create a new idea. These are examples of how new ideas can be born in our humanities learning environment. But if we refer to our whole school community, there are other ways we think of new ideas. In our school community, there used to be a lot of meetings discussing for improvement of ISKL’s society. Since there are people who have been in the school for a long period of time and some who are new, they will have different opinions about the school and how to make the community better. And if we think of a bigger community like the nation and/or world, there would be countless new ideas to come. As we all known, the major source to new ideas is nature, such as mountains, hills, trees, sun, moon, sky, stars and more! From what’s originally there, you can develop them to create something new. New ideas can also come from our daily life. If there are some uncomfortable things surrounding our home or other places, we can draw new ideas to make things a better situation. As pointed the above, we can create new ideas from many things in our environment. However, the most important factor of new ideas is our attitude. Our enthusiastic, positive and creative way of thinking for our human life is the most.

My Favorite Story-What Makes a Good Story?

As I look over our short story unit, my favorite short story was “Thank You, “Ma’m.” Mostly, I like this story because of the author’s message-theme. The theme is how believing in others may change them since they will want to maintain/earn respect. I agree with this theme. I believe that teaching people what is right and wrong requires to be done wisely. Instead of scolding them for what they have done wrong, you could teach them how to be right. This theme of respect and compassion is portrayed in the short story through the protagonist, Mrs. Luella Bates washing Jones. Based on the story, she is a religious woman with confidence and a sweet heart. She shows trust, belief and respect towards a poor boy, Roger. However when they first meet in the exposition, the boy tries to steal Luella’s purse. Therefore the rising action makes the reader have tension when Luella simply picks up the boy and screams at him. You may be curious of her next action. Will she hurt the boy? Why is she dragging him home? However, the author releases the tension through the resolution. Resolution is that she brings Roger home, makes him wash his face and feeds him supper. She even understands his want to buy something and gives him ten dollars to buy himself some blue suede shoes. Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones treats the boy Roger with kindness, which wraps up the whole theme of compassion and respect. Through this story, I can realize how sometimes in life, we may face difficulties. At those times we can try to understand each other and help each other to succeed in life.

Less Lies, Less Pain

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I believe lying to one another is committing a great sin. As the same human beings living in this world, we should cooperate and be honest to each other. But there are also challenging obstacles that we have to overcome. Every human is stuck in a cycle of greed, fear and pain. There are many times when they want to make themselves better than others, for their pride. There are times when someone is in this difficult situation and needs to hide something through a lie. These are only some things that lead to lies and big problems.

My grandmother always warned me that ‘the moment you lie to one person, you are breaking the trust between you and them.’ When I was in 1^st grade in Korea, I had one best friend that always looked out for me. But I had to lie to her many times to make her think that I was a close friend of hers. Once she found out about all the lies, she wouldn’t talk to me anymore. That’s when I realized that there are no such things as secrets in this world. When the time comes, secrets will always be revealed. And when someone finds out you had been messing with them, your friendship will be torn apart.

Lying to your family is the last thing that you should do. When your family realizes you have been lying to them, they would feel rather disappointed than getting mad, like others. This is because family is a relationship that is most trusted in our lives. Having a family is a great blessing and with families, you can share thoughts and happiness. This is why families will be most disappointed if they found out that you had broke the trust between them.

One person lying can lead to and involve many other people lying. This causes even bigger trouble. One lie can even lead to more and more lies. Lying is something that is endless for everyone. We lied to each other so many times that it’s become part of our lives…this is not a good thing. If this continues we can trust no one in this universe and our world will be full of lies. We have to stop this together.

Lying is not necessary or needed in our lives. There will be less trouble for you and many others if you just admit the truth then to just hide it. The truth will always be revealed. I hope our world can have less lies and more trust. ‘The moment you lie to one person, you are breaking the trust between you and them.’ This I Believe.

Survival or Death?

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The game that I played was basically about the Battle of Hastings. This battle was between Duke William of Normandy and Harold Godwinson of England. In this game, you are allowed to arrange your soldiers however you prefer and can be in both positions. Also, there are multi choices given to you for the game and when you pick one, it will show you what happens in result of your choice of command. A specifically enjoyable thing about the game is that you can choose which command to give and see what happens (you can see which one was a good strategy). The game also gives you a chance to reflect and give your own thoughts and opinions. During this game, I learned about the different strategies that can be used in a war and what time is appropriate to use them. During the Battle of Hastings, everything was very tough and fierce. Harold’s soldiers were at the top of a hill to fight and had a strong shield wall built for protection. This made it very difficult for William’s soldiers to fight against. But soon by an accidental mistake, William came up with a scheme for a trick retreat. Harold kept falling for this and many soldiers were killed. Soon, Harold was killed with an arrow in his eye and a sword in his body. This made William the new king of England. This type of game is very valuable learning because you actually get to experience the war yourself and get to be in the positions of each king. This game was a very valuable experience for me and to help my growth of knowledge. :D

Hunger for Freedom

The book, Catherine Called Birdy, is a historical fiction novel written by Karen Cushman. This book shows a tough journey of a young girl named Catherine with the lack of freedom from family restrictions, inequality of men and women and the seeking power of the church. In this book, there are many times when Catherine gets frustrated for having no rights to control her life but instead get it controlled by her father. This is proved by the marriage she was forced to accept with the pig, Shaggy Beard. This also leads to the fact that in noble families, marriages are mostly controlled by men and the fact that during the time of middle ages, females were to stay home doing all the housework and had no rights for freedom. This is proved when at the beginning of the book, all Catherine did was sewing and she was sick of it. Not only did the men control their lives, but there was the church. This can be proved by all the saint days that were written in the book

and the fact that Catherine had to follow them strictly, not eating food that were restricted on some days. Catherine had a difficult and a tough time with all the chaos that were going on. Back then, life in medieval times was difficult particularly for a noble girl. Like many others, Catherine had no rights or freedom but to follow and obey the orders.

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The Boy in The Striped Pajamas

No, I don't believe The Boy in The Striped Pajamas shows the Holocaust in the right way because it doesn't specifically show the terrible horror the Jews were in during the Holocaust. It should have mentioned more detailed descriptions about the concentration camps so that the readers could have a chance to reflect on their own and think about the huge disaster that was made in 1938. Showing the story in a child's eye view may interest the readers but most of the time it mainly talked about the house and the family and not much about the important bits such as father's job. This strategy also didn't touch much on The Fury and what they were behind. The author could have showed more of the times with Bruno and Shumel, and the interactions they had, where there were so many things in common between them yet more thing that were strangely different.

Although there were bits of important facts later in the book, there should have been more views of life of Jews. Why they didn't like them and why they couldn't be together is a question many people have been asking after the terrible war. The book should have had more focus on the terrible needs of the HOLOCAUST.

Holocaust Questions

1. Go to the website http://www.ushmm.org/. Go to the section that says education and click on for students. Then, click on antisemitism and analyze the picture. Why do you think there are TWO crows? What does the picture show you when you look at the faces of the Jews? What do you feel?

2. Read the second paragraph and place yourself in the position of the Jews. How do you feel and how do you think they felt when this terrible thing happened?

3. Go back to the home page. Click on Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust. Read the third paragraph and give three good reasons why so many Jews lived in Germany.

4. Go back to the homepage. Click on Nazi rise to power and click on the election article. If you were Hitler, how would you be feeling right now and what would you be planning and going around in your mind?

5. How do you feel when looking at this article? Explain in detail.

6. Go back to the home page and click on the first concentration camps. What do you think is happening in the photo? Why do you think only one guy is wearing a white suit?

7. Reading the first six paragraphs of the writing, how do you think the Jews felt towards the Nazis when this happened? Do you think anybody tried to help?

8. Click on death marches and read the first paragraph. If you were back in that time and you knew the Jews were going to be killed, do you think you would follow the Nazis or support the Jews? Why?

9. Analyze the photo. What do you think is happening in the photo?

10. Reflecting on the terrible holocaust, do you think that if you existed back in that time period, you would have had the guts to stand up for what’s wrong? What is our big learning from this mistake we have made and have endured for a long time?