Thursday, May 20, 2010
What Facing History and Ourselves Meant to Me
Facing History and Ourselves is like no class I have ever taken before. It is engaging, insightful, and it has a purpose. Every day I find myself submerged in an ocean of information that I am not required to learn, but want to regardless. The reason I am not required to learn it is due to the fact that there are no tests or quizzes, only blogs. Some people hear about this fact and think that the class is easy. However, one thing about Facing History is that it is not easy. My mind does more thinking and soul searching everyday 7th period than the rest of my high school career combined. It has made me discover some things about myself that were not very easy for me to accept, but that is just the power of the course. Still, that is not the main reason that the course has benefited me as a student and person.
Through film and readings, I have been exposed to many powerful stories and experiences that have altered my perception on life. The first movie we saw that really hit home with me was Mrs. Elliot. After seeing this movie, I thought long and hard about what I would do in the same situation. I came to the conclusion that if a teacher came into the classroom and told me that blondes were dumber than everyone else and showed me some sort of justification for it, I would believe them. And that scared the crap out of me. But now I feel much more at ease with the fact that I know how to handle a situation similar to Mrs. Elliot’s experiment and I will be prepared for it in the future. More recently, the film we saw today in class about the concentration camp was totally Earth shattering to me. I nearly left the room halfway through the movie because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Watching the thousands of dead and dying people being piled up in ditches and thrown around as if they were bags of sand was nothing short of appalling. I was trying to understand how the Nazis who were working at the camps could possible go through with such a horrible task. It was just awful to watch and I really just felt angry. I know it happened 70 years ago and that there is nothing I can do to a Nazi now, but that was a hard pill for me to swallow.
The last thing that we did in class that is in my top three most important moments of all time was the discussion about what is the right thing to do. You shared with us the story of your friend who called a girl a bitch for not saying thank you when he held the door for her. While you were telling the story, I remember thinking to myself, good for that guy for standing up for himself. But then you made your point about why the man held the door and in the first place and it was because it was the right thing to do. That really had an impact on me because I realized that people, can be assholes, jerks, racists or sexists, but this is Facing History and Everyone else. This is called facing History and ourselves for a reason. I took that lesson and I brought it into the real world with me already in life. And when I applied that lesson in life, it was difficult at first for me to be happy with the decision I had made. I thought that the lady I helped was a real bitch for not thanking me for my help. But after I stopped and thought about it, I could not have been prouder of myself for reacting the way I did. Any one of a million things could have happened to have caused that lady to be in a bad mood and I didn’t do it for her anyway. I did it for me. I carried this woman’s bags of fertilizer to her car because I would rather break my back helping doing that, then sit back while a woman broke hers doing the same task. So ultimately I felt good about what I did, and I owe it all to Facing History and Ourselves.
The last thing that we did in class that is in my top three most important moments of all time was the discussion about what is the right thing to do. You shared with us the story of your friend who called a girl a bitch for not saying thank you when he held the door for her. While you were telling the story, I remember thinking to myself, good for that guy for standing up for himself. But then you made your point about why the man held the door and in the first place and it was because it was the right thing to do. That really had an impact on me because I realized that people, can be assholes, jerks, racists or sexists, but this is Facing History and Everyone else. This is called facing History and ourselves for a reason. I took that lesson and I brought it into the real world with me already in life. And when I applied that lesson in life, it was difficult at first for me to be happy with the decision I had made. I thought that the lady I helped was a real bitch for not thanking me for my help. But after I stopped and thought about it, I could not have been prouder of myself for reacting the way I did. Any one of a million things could have happened to have caused that lady to be in a bad mood and I didn’t do it for her anyway. I did it for me. I carried this woman’s bags of fertilizer to her car because I would rather break my back helping doing that, then sit back while a woman broke hers doing the same task. So ultimately I felt good about what I did, and I owe it all to Facing History and Ourselves.
Through film and readings, I have been exposed to many powerful stories and experiences that have altered my perception on life. The first movie we saw that really hit home with me was Mrs. Elliot. After seeing this movie, I thought long and hard about what I would do in the same situation. I came to the conclusion that if a teacher came into the classroom and told me that blondes were dumber than everyone else and showed me some sort of justification for it, I would believe them. And that scared the crap out of me. But now I feel much more at ease with the fact that I know how to handle a situation similar to Mrs. Elliot’s experiment and I will be prepared for it in the future. More recently, the film we saw today in class about the concentration camp was totally Earth shattering to me. I nearly left the room halfway through the movie because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Watching the thousands of dead and dying people being piled up in ditches and thrown around as if they were bags of sand was nothing short of appalling. I was trying to understand how the Nazis who were working at the camps could possible go through with such a horrible task. It was just awful to watch and I really just felt angry. I know it happened 70 years ago and that there is nothing I can do to a Nazi now, but that was a hard pill for me to swallow.
The last thing that we did in class that is in my top three most important moments of all time was the discussion about what is the right thing to do. You shared with us the story of your friend who called a girl a bitch for not saying thank you when he held the door for her. While you were telling the story, I remember thinking to myself, good for that guy for standing up for himself. But then you made your point about why the man held the door and in the first place and it was because it was the right thing to do. That really had an impact on me because I realized that people, can be assholes, jerks, racists or sexists, but this is Facing History and Everyone else. This is called facing History and ourselves for a reason. I took that lesson and I brought it into the real world with me already in life. And when I applied that lesson in life, it was difficult at first for me to be happy with the decision I had made. I thought that the lady I helped was a real bitch for not thanking me for my help. But after I stopped and thought about it, I could not have been prouder of myself for reacting the way I did. Any one of a million things could have happened to have caused that lady to be in a bad mood and I didn’t do it for her anyway. I did it for me. I carried this woman’s bags of fertilizer to her car because I would rather break my back helping doing that, then sit back while a woman broke hers doing the same task. So ultimately I felt good about what I did, and I owe it all to Facing History and Ourselves.
The last thing that we did in class that is in my top three most important moments of all time was the discussion about what is the right thing to do. You shared with us the story of your friend who called a girl a bitch for not saying thank you when he held the door for her. While you were telling the story, I remember thinking to myself, good for that guy for standing up for himself. But then you made your point about why the man held the door and in the first place and it was because it was the right thing to do. That really had an impact on me because I realized that people, can be assholes, jerks, racists or sexists, but this is Facing History and Everyone else. This is called facing History and ourselves for a reason. I took that lesson and I brought it into the real world with me already in life. And when I applied that lesson in life, it was difficult at first for me to be happy with the decision I had made. I thought that the lady I helped was a real bitch for not thanking me for my help. But after I stopped and thought about it, I could not have been prouder of myself for reacting the way I did. Any one of a million things could have happened to have caused that lady to be in a bad mood and I didn’t do it for her anyway. I did it for me. I carried this woman’s bags of fertilizer to her car because I would rather break my back helping doing that, then sit back while a woman broke hers doing the same task. So ultimately I felt good about what I did, and I owe it all to Facing History and Ourselves.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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