Period 4: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 7 - Class Recap

My friends Scott (left) and Clarke (middle) with me before Game 2 of the Blazers playoff series! So much fun!
Good afternoon Period 4!

First off, let me say that I am really sorry that many of you were unable to access the blog! Someone definitely should have sent me an e-mail. It should be fixed now - it was a matter of HTML coding not synced up right. Class today went well, though that definitely was a long time of talking, me asking people to listen, and some students not paying any attention at all to what was going on. For those of you that actively participated and listened, thank you!

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? What is the impact of religion on policy in the Middle East?

Soundtrack: "A Dios le Pido" by Juanes. Lyrics here. Juanes is the man. Song chosen because we are continuing to look at the role of religion in the Middle East (the translation for the title of the song is "I ask of God") and because I wanted to bring in some Spanish, because Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow.

AGENDA 5/4/09:
News Brief
Forced Choice
Debrief Discussion
Class Unity Activity

Homework: Finish any late work! Read blog recap!

There are only 11 students in the entire class that have every assignment in so far. Those students get the night off. For everyone else (if you don't know, please ask me), I need you to be finishing up and turning in late work. Thanks!

News Brief: After talking a little about the swine flu (the big topic of discussion in all of my classes - go figure), Morgan brought in this news article: USA Today - Iran: Case of convicted U.S. journalist will get fair review. This was SO interesting! Really worth reading and knowing about, because it definitely relates to both the United States and our relationship with Iran, as well as women in Iran. Thanks so much for bringing this in! Martin, you are up for next class. Any current article (yes, appropriate to share please) about anything currently going on outside the United States.

Forced Choice: Now, THIS was a lot of fun. Thank you for being willing take a stand for what you believe in! I created these statements purposely to be divisive, so that we could see multiple perspectives on an issue. Specifically, I wanted all of the questions to somehow relate to the Middle East and what we are studying. I know this was somewhat difficult! That was the point! I really liked all the thoughts and raised hands and dialogue, even though I heard from a few students in Mr. Hardin's class that they could hear me yelling for quiet through the wall!

One of the facts that I brought up in class was that the death penalty costs much more than life in prison, due to all the costs of lawyers and prosecution and such. Because I like to try to back up claims like that as much as possible so that you do not think I just made it up, an interesting little article was recently done on this by National Public Radio (which is AMAZING by the way - I would highly recommend listening to "The World" on OPB's station, 91.5 FM, from 3:00-4:00 some day after you get out of school): Opponents Focus On Cost In Death Penalty Debate.

The Oregonian recently had a cover page story on the costs of the death penalty in this state: OregonLive.com - Can Oregon afford the dealth penalty? So, is it worth it? The choice was up to you!

I was also really excited to see all different thoughts. There were many reasons for each side, even though some people wanted to creep toward the middle. I thought that some of the most interesting debates were over the question of women in government and for the "eye for an eye" philosophy of killing someone for killing someone else. I was glad to see some questions that had only a few people on one side stand up (literally) for what they believed in. That to me shows that there was a lack of being naive, at the very least.

This took a lot of time (in fact, the entire rest of the class), but I think it was really fun and incredibly interesting - though as I stated above, I think many of you were tuning out or losing focus way too easily. I am going to try similar activities in the future. Definitely leave any thought about how that process went, or defend your opinion, below in the comments! Think about all the conflict we had just in that class - translate that to the Middle East, and you begin to see why it is such a region of turmoil.

Debrief Discussion: I was happy to hear that many of you thought this was worthwhile too. Again, I am concerned about those that may not have thought it was interesting or informative at all. Good to have the feedback, though!

Class Unity Activity: We did not have the time to get to this, which is actually pretty funny, because I always seem to be running out of time for this particular activity. Hopefully we will devote a good portion of time next class to it. I wanted to do it right after the forced choice, so that we could try to repair any rifts in the room, but it will have to wait. Plus, I am sure that you guys are fine.
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Have a great night! See you on Thursday! Please keep checking up and asking questions or posting comments! :-)