Humanities Portfolio 2011

This year has been life changing for me. In History and English we have learned about lots. Like, Change, freedom, religion, fight, struggle, hope, and victory. I’m going to tell you about something’s I’ve discovered in these yearlong courses. The first thing we learned about on History was religion. Me personally thought this was something that was boring and uninteresting, but later on I found it quite fun. We first got to look at our own religions and how they affect us. I am not a religious person, but my parents are Muslim and strong Muslims at that. Throughout the Religion unit, I found out that Religion isn’t one set thing that is controlled by a group of people. Religion is something that one person and his mindset can control. Jumping through a couple months ahead. Another topic we discussed was the revolution of industry around the world and how it has affected us. We watched Movies, had trials, and read about all the hardships that this has put on people and the world. A trial we did were, there were the multi national corporations, the factories, the workers, the elite, and the countrymen. We had a trial to see who is at fault. And, the general understanding I got from this until and that trial is that: The rise of industries ultimately helped the world, but with it’s help brought the rise of Super-Powers, like the US and Russia, that ultimately brought upon a lot of Modern Times problems. Another Topic that we came across was freedom. A project we did for that unit was our Monologue projects. We had to choose a specific point in History and do Monologues about them. The event I chose were the events of tieneman square Protests of 1989. A specific event that happened was the historic events of Tank Man. A lone Chinese man stood in front of 4 tanks that were heading for the square. Pedestrians ultimately took him away, but from his actions brought a global up roar and helped the Chinese take freedom. A more recent event that took place was the events that happened in a small country of Tunisia. A fruit vender lit himself on fire because he couldn’t get a job when he wants to school. This opened the eyes of the world the small country. And, the horrible conditions that the people had to live in. This small act by on person triggered a huge uproar from countries like, Egypt, Syria and Libya. The one thing I learned is: Any actions big or small can lead to huge changes in the world. Another small thing we covered in the larger, Freedom unit is the Psion System is the United States. After going to The Eastern State pennetantry, and researching about prisons. I realized that: The current Prison System does that work and is flawed. A system we should incorporate is that of a rehabilitation so past offenders do not come back.