Grandparents Day

Today was grandparents day at JC and my grandmother visited me. I made sure she would be there for Mr Schick's class because I knew she would enjoy his teaching. Today we went over some notes we had skimmed over in the past in the power point based off of Chi Cago's hit Rome. We wanted Chi Cago to perform for the grandparent but he got cold feet apparently. Anyway I had to leave the class early to go to the lunch for grandparents so I will be looking back at the notes again and ask someone to give me anything I missed. Today was a lot of fun with the grandparents and I loved that my grandmother could visit my favorite class.

Are You Smarter Than A Gladiator?

Today we finally decided on what my group is doing for the Rome Project. We are making a trivia board game called Are You Smarter Than A Gladiator! It will consist of multiple choice trivia and fill in the blanks. I don't wanna spoil anymore so stay tuned!

Baltimore Up In Flames

We took today's class to talk about the riots currently happening in baltimore caused by the battle between police brutality conspiracy and the african american community. I do not feel comfortable saying my full opinion on the internet about it but I will say one thing. None of the violent rioting will do anything, if we want to end police violent take it up with the law professionally. People are giving cops more opportunities to fight back and then more riots will be caused. I feel like everyone should look back on the past and see what violent protest did compared to what MLK's peaceful protest did. That's all I'm going to say. Stay safe and hopefully this will all be resolved without any deaths. Rest in peace Freddie Gray.

Group Projects

In class on Friday we finally really got into our main groups for the big projects for Rome. My group consists of Kendall and Ellee and we decided that we are going to build a board game inspired by the lives of ancient Romans. We still have a lot to work out on it but I think it could be fun! Until next time.

Tarquin the Proud

Today we throughly went through the lyrics to Rome by Chi Cago in a power point explaining each line of the song. We mainly focused on the last Roman king named Tarquin who was a horrible tyrant to his people. His people kicked him out after he got his son out of trouble wiht the law for a very harsh crime. His son raped a high respected matron who killed herself soon after the rape. The Roman people thought that if they kicked Tarquin out that they wouldn't have to deal with his son as the future king. This was the end of the main Roman monarchy. The government then combined into three different types of government including Democracy, Aristocracy, and some Monarchy. Then Mr Schick talked about how the plebeians and patricians relate to our world today. The rich people get more tax breaks than the poor because they threaten to take their businesses else where if they don't get a break. It was like this in Rome back then as well. We will continue to analyze the lyrics tomorrow in the power point.

Papers on Triremes and Others

Today we finally get our group project papers back from Mr Schick. As of right now actually he is grading the papers and only has one more left to go for our class. Our class is actually the last one to get the papers back so I'm excited. I think this paper will bring my grade up a lot because I wrote a really good ending to the paper and worked really hard on my writing. My partners worked just as hard as I did and I really think we did well on this. I will be very surprised if we don't get a good grade because I doubled checked the grammar and everything on it twice before turning it in. I'm relying on the paper to bring me up to an A so I really am hoping for the best. Mr Schick said we would discuss the papers after he was done grading them and handing them out. If there is anything else to add I will update this blog later. But for now I'm hoping for an A to bump me up to first honors.

Chi Cago

I'm not going to give anything away but these other classes have a quite a treat waiting for them in Mr Schick's class today. Today we started taking notes on the development of Rome. Rome was founded in the 9th century by the Etruscans, Greeks, and Latins and the Latins were the first ones there. They thought since they were in the Mediterranean they were destined to rule over everything. Indo-European tribes moved into Italy created Rome but there were also stories of how else Rome was founded. The story of Romulus and Remus tells about two babies twin brothers who were left in the river of Tiber to die by their parents who were not able to keep the baby because they weren't married. They were taken in by a mother wolf and then adopted by a Shepard and his wive and raised into manhood. When they got older they realized their power and wanted to rule over land but argued where they would rule. Romulus killed Remus in the argument and rule over the land he called Rome. Etruscans were originated in the North and the Greek settlements in the Souht were very influencial to Rome by helping them learn the alphabet and their city-state organization. Originally, Rome was a monarchy on the Etruscan model with a council of elders called the Senate. In 500 BC The Romans overthrew their monarchy and established a Republic. Since the Senate was populated only by patricians the plebians fought for a vote in Rome's government. Each year the Senate elected two rulers, consuls who each served a term of one year. As in the Greek city-states, the Romans would appoint a single dictator in times on war or conflict. There were 12 tables of government and Res Publica means people's affairs and this was a Latin Term used to describe Rome. Can't wait for the other classes to see the surprise!

Gathering Time

In class on Friday we gathered in a circle into small groups to discuss our future projects. I had talked with a couple of girls in my class about the gods and goddess research we brought up the first day. I think this idea would be really fun and would really help us learn. Everyone would look up a god or goddess that was important in the Roman culture of their time. They would study that god or goddess and then when it would come to class time we would all have debates on topics but we would have to answer in the character of the god or goddess. I think with a class like mine things would get pretty interesting and we would still learn while having fun. Another idea was that we would dress up like Roman people and make some of their most famous food dishes. We would take these dishes either around the school or just in our class and teach everyone about them. I think this would be enjoyable and it wouldn't make much time either. We are still going to have to take notes and all of the usual things but I'm excited to do all these fun projects along with learning about the Roman culture.

Rome Projects of the Future

I am so excited to learn about Rome! Mr Schick said how he didn't want to have us just writing another boring paper and powerpoint for this unit.. He wanted us to make up our own fun projects and make them pretty memorable. This caused the class to erupt with ideas on the many projects we could do on Rome. One that I really like was we would do a video pretending to be on the view as a god or goddess and we would have to answer questions in the character of the god or goddess. It think that would be really interesting considering how funny my class is. We had some pretty crazy ideas as well like gladiator fights out on the turf which gave us all a good laugh. We also got the good idea of dressing up as ancient Romans and making famous Roman dishes and inviting the school to come and taste our food. I'm really excited about all of these and definitely will be doing a cool project and not just writing a paper or powerpoint.

Mind Blown

Today we watched a video on one of Plato's writings that was very confusing at first. There were four men tied down in a cave and had their head locked forward so they couldn't see anything but what was in front of them. Then a fire was burned behind them and shadows were shown on the wall in front of them using metal shapes. The four men sitting there were watching the shadows with no intent of leaving or escaping; completely mesmerized. One of the men was unchained and brought up to the sunlight were he was blinded by the sun's brightness. By this he was enlightened and saw that everyone had a purpose in the world outside of the cave. He then returned to the cave to the other three men and was laughed at for not being able to see the shadows he used to see. He could not see them because he had been enlightened by the sun and decided to leave their laughter in the cave and never return. It hit me at the end of this video that it was an extraordinary allegory for many different situations. One that I thought of was Socrates considering Plato was taught by him. Socrates was symbolized by the enlightened men and was laughed at or mocked by others for his philosophy ways. He was enlighten by asking questions and not staying locked under the shadows of authority. I was fascinated by this and realized that Plato could have also predicted the future of television and social media attentions. We sit locked down in front of the television with no intent of leaving and laugh and mock people for not watching the same shows as us. We watched reality television shows even though they are the exact opposite. We question people who don't indulge in this activity even though it is they who have the advantage. They are exploring the world and being enlightened instead of losing IQ points every time Kim Kardashian says literally on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. This video made me realize that I really need to question my ways of entertainment or even my figures of authority. We are being manipulated every day of our lives just like the illusion of the shadows in the video and we have no intent of moving just as the other three men had. Not all manipulation is bad but we need to realize that this happens on a day to day basis. I don't want to be one of the three men; I want to explore life around me and be one of the enlightened people of Socrates' teachings.

First Day Back

Today was our first day back into West Civ class and we went over the test we had to take before we left. Surprisingly, many people got really easy questions wrong; for example someone didn't know where the Nile river was. Little mistakes like this make your grade drop a lot and the questions that I got wrong were more challenging than the other ones. I still got a good grade on it but I'm still waiting to hear back on my paper with my group. I think we did better on that than I did on the test. All we did in class today was go over the answers for the test because we had to leave early to go to an assembly today. I think Mr Schick mentioned something about Rome in our future so I'm excited. Until then.

Closing Off Greece and Opening Up to Break

As of right now I will be on spring break in about 25 minutes! I'm so happy I don't have to worry about anything having to do with school for a whole 11 days! Anyways, I just finished my test on ancient Greece which I studied really hard for. Some people said they failed and their class average was very low but I think my class did a little better than that. I least I hope we did. I'm getting a little scared right now because I'm pretty sure Mr Schick is about to pull a prank on us for April Fools. I will update later if he does. I really hope we get our grades back soon so I don't have to worry all break. I only have trouble with a couple questions which included the dates. Well I'm ending it here have a good break!