Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Religion, Day 4 - Class Recap


We took notes about Christianity today in class. This is a photo from the top of a mountain overlook Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of Baja California in Mexico. Taken over Winter Break, 2014.

Dear class,

It was nice to be able to continue looking at how religion impacts society, and with taking notes on a new religion. Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Knowledge LT 21: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.

Soundtrack: "Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor" from The Pianist (Wladek Szpilman). Selected for today because the film The Pianist is about the Holocaust, and we are learning about Judaism in society. No lyrics, but listen here.

AGENDA 4/25/17:
News Brief – Eric J.
Israel and Religion
Christianity
Grade Check

Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade and how to improve it - Russian Revolution (found on this post), World War I work (found in this post) and finishing Historical Investigation if you have not - revisions needed, as well. All late work for this progress report is due at midnight on Thursday. Next news brief: Mills.
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News Brief: Eric J. had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: BBC.com - North Korea tensions: US submarine arrives in South Korea. We found North Korea in the world map packet and talked about this story, along with a bit about what is happening there in terms of the tensions between the United States and North Korea about a possible nuclear bomb test.

The next news brief was assigned to Mills.

As usual, we has a spirited conversation about the weekend and what people were up to. I always enjoy hearing about life outside the classroom!

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):


Israel and Religion: To focus on how the Jewish religion impacts and shapes society, it is easy to point to the only country in the world where Judaism is the main religion: Israel. To start this section, I played this video, which is about the Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel, and stopping everything for a minute to reflect:


The next document I showed the class was this recent survey of Americans about their attitudes towards Israel: Gallup.com - Seven in 10 Americans Continue to View Israel Favorably. I showed this to demonstrate that there is still huge support for Israel here in the United States, and I talked about the reasons why this might be - again, how religion impacts society.

Finally, I showed this video from the New York Times: NYTimes.com - Israelis Split Over Service. This was to show the conflict within Israel between Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the military, who mandates that people of the country serve when they turn 18.

After the video, I asked the question of whether or not students thought the Jewish people in the video should be forced to serve in the military, and we had an interesting discussion about it. Thank you for your participation here!

Christianity: Next, we continued with the religion notes, using the Cornell Notes format. Here is the PowerPoint again:


Today, we finished the fourth religion in the PowerPoint - Christianity. I appreciated your focus on it! I enjoyed, as always, explaining and trying to answer questions from the class. :-)

Grade Check: So, because I was feeling nice, instead of having the rest of class be devoted to grade checks, we played the country naming game on Sporcle! You were able to beat your previous score and now top the three classes - way to go! It was a really fun end to the day - thanks everyone! All of that said, it is still very important to stay on top of your grades, especially now that the historical investigation grades have been handed back! See you next class!

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