Jez's Blog

The movie Schindler's List is basically about how Schindler's factory kept the Jews employed, or alive during WWII. While the Nazis invaded the Jewish culture in Germany.
Schindler was a German, he frequently used his wealthiness to build relationships between the others and himself. He usually behaved like he was an important person, a person who had a higher position in the society.

He started this new factories of making pots. And the workers that he had hired were all Jews. Well in the beginning, he opened this factory was just for his own profit. But then, the Germen started to take the Jews into concentration camp, which turned out to be a 'death camp'. And the only way to keep those Jews alive, was to keep them employed, in 'Schindler's place (factory)'.

Jews were saying that 'Schindler's place is an haven!' And also been saying that Schindler was a good person. But by listening to these 'compliment' from the Jews, Schindler somehow felt pressured. It's because that he knew it's dangerous for him to be this 'good person' during the time.

However, after loads of encorigement from his account, which was a incredibly smart person who helped Schindler to held his factory, and also trying to safe as many of Jews as he could. He was trying to safe the Jews from the concentration camp by persuading Schindler to hire them to work in his factory. And although Schindler wasn't really agree with him at the first. But then, the good inside of him has gradually come out.

I think this movie is quite meaningful because it sends the message of the reality of how people have changed their behaviors in such extremed situations. For example, because of the strong prejudice between Germen and the Jews, there was a little German girl yelling 'good-bye Jews' when the Jews were forced out off their houses. And for some of the Jews, they've given up the thought of standing up for themselves. And instead of taking this risk, they decided to just follow the orders. No matter how depressing they were.

The movie is really quite depressing. Watching people got killed for no reason? It was just so sad.. Couldn't belief the Germen were being so cruel to the Jews. Doesn't it just showed how deadly powerful is prejudice?


-http://www.schindlerslist.com/buy-schindlers-list.html
[Picture for Schindler's List. 30th of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea. Kim Hong-il got his leadership from his father, Kim Il-sung. Who was the Prime Minister od North Korea from 1948 to 1972, and the President of North Korea from 1972 to his death.
Kim Joung-il is a cleaver leader, he has been working on being a leader carefully. And by the way, he was known as 'Dear Leader'. He has a very secretive way of governing. But however, he still goes onto live TV shows, prestigious public works projects or large scale ceremonies. <Link>

-http://www.finfacts.ie/finfactsblog/2006/10/kim-jong-il-awaits-to-hear-whether-big.html
[Picture for Kim Jong-il, The Leader of North Korea. 22nd of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

The government in Burma is in a form of 'military-dictatorship'. Which means that the military also takes parts in Burma government. The government doesn't really care about human rights. And in facts, in order to keep itself in power. It has been using rape and torture, forced labour and violent national oppressions. Also, I think the other way for it to keep itself in power is to limit incoming informations from the outside of the country. And for doing this, the Burma government may had forbidden several TV shows, such as news that are saying Burma is a very poor country. And blocked several international websites, such as YouTube, because there might be a video about being against to dictatorships. And therefore, the government is afraid of people start to follow these outside informations, and then eventually, they might rebel, and overthrow it. <Link>

-http://www.karmacino.com/story.php?title=Burma_satire_cartoon_collection
[Picture for Burma Dictatorship. 22nd of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

According to the BBC news post: Aid for Burma 'must be monitored'. The cyclone aids that are sent from the other countries may be seized by the military regime. Burma's media has now risen the official death toll to 43,318, with 27,838 missing. The affected area from the cyclone is still completely disconnected with the outside world. And yet, the regime is stopping the foreign aid workers from getting into the affected area.

When I finished reading this post, I feel quite bad for the citizens in Burma. Maybe it's just because that I don't understand why the regime were there, blocking the helps from the foreign workers. Is it because of pride? But people are suffering and dying in this situation!

'The state media New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the people "will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on a self-reliance basis".'

The quote above is from the post, which made me thought of that the reason for the regime, doing such thing, was because of it wanted to keep its pride. It wanted to let its people think that they are strong enough to not rely on international assistances. But however, the facts is that.. the people were tricked by the regime. Of course they'll need international assistances. Well.. although not always, but at least now, in such situation.

The massive earthquake in China is one of the most followed current event in the world. It happened in Sichuan province, China. The rank of the earthquake was 7.9-magnitude. Millions of buildings and houses have collapsed or sustained damaged from the earthquake.

According to the CNN news post: China quake death toll could reach 50,000. The death toll in Southern China has now topped to 19,500; more than 4.3 million of homes have now collapsed or sustained damaged; 400 mostly small dams have also been effected by the earthquake; at least 201 students of the Muyu Middle School were killed when the school campus collapsed; and more than 30.000 people are missing or out of reach.
After I read this post, I was shocked. Shocked by how much damages have this earthquake actually cause. Loads of people were dying from trapped under collapsed buildings. People lost their home and families. I is terrible!
However, the government is trying it's best to rescue these trapped people. It had ordered 110 helicopters, dropping food and other supplies to the quake-hit area. And also, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam and Poland are among the countries providing assistance, according to Xinhua.

Vido1. Hitler's Speech to Youth:
In this video, Hitler was having a speech to groups of young Germany girls and boys. It seemed like a ceremony to me, which gathered every Germany children, for Hitler to give them his speech. In Hitler's speech, I think he was telling the children that the future of German depends on them. And so he wanted them to be strong and not soft. And while Hitler was having the speech, he was very agitated. Which might be the reason for why he could convince 'his little boys and girls'. Well.. although the children might be easier to convince than the adults. However, also because that the children were easier to convince, it was easier for Hitler to 'brain-wash' them. As part of the progress of turning these children into his faithful followers when they grew up.

Video2. Stalin:
In this video of Stalin, it only showed his painted pictures.
These pictures were all looked quite 'positive'. And what I mean by 'positive' is that these pictures have made Stalin looked good. A lot of them were drawn of people looking up at him, or giving him flowers. And in these pictures, Stalin was always standing strait. Anyways, my point is that for me, I don't really know the biography of Stalin. And by justing learning about him from these pictures in the video, I'd think that he's a good ruler. And probably not as cruel Hitler(which many of us had defined that Hitler is a terribly cruel man).
However, thinking of the purpose of having these pictures, were they real? Or were there to 'lie' to people, and make them trust him, to worship him?

In my Why Dictatorship WebQuest Progression, My topic is The End of WWI. I'd typed down all the questions that I'm going to answer on my Mindmeister mind-map. And I'd also classified these questions into groups of 'Economics', 'History', 'Government', and 'Anthropology'. These questions included the ones that were asked by Mr.Carpenter and the ones that were asked by myself. However, now, I've been researching information, in order to answer the questions that I've already had on my mind-map, I was also thinking of new questions along with the researchings. But for now, basically I've only answered some of the questions on my mind-map, and I'm still working on the researchings in order to answer all the other questions.

Burma, as known as Myanmar, is also one of the few countries that are ruled under dictatorships. And by the way, the military has also controlled Burma since 1962. Although it has been blamed for wide-spread human rights abuses and violent crackdowns on pro-democracy activists.

News1. Cyclone kills 350 in Burma; dissidents call for aid
'Local reports in Myanmar say a cyclone killed more than 350 people and ripped apart thousands of homes, but tensions between the country and the West may make its military government reluctant to ask for international aid.'
'The Forum for Democracy in Burma and other dissident groups have called for the military government to allow aid groups to operate freely.'
- CTV.ca News Staff

News2. Canada to make Burma's dissident leader an honorary citizen
'Canada will grant honorary citizenship to Burma's detained dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday in recognition of her tireless struggle for human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian country.'
- CBC News

In my discovery from these 2 newses, it seems that Burma gains quite a lot of aids from the foreign nations. But for some reasons, the government of Burma refused these aids itself. I wonder why it wanted to refuse these aids from the foreign nations. Maybe the government didn't want to let it's citizens to realize that they are poor and perhaps, not quite progressed. Otherwise, it might cause the citizens to start revolting the government.

North Korea is one of the few countries that are still be ruled under dictatorships. Which means that the leader of North Korea takes all the power of controlling the country.

News1. North Korea Heading Towards Famine: Report
[By Reuters. 30th, Apr. 2008]
The soaring global food prise and the reluctant donors are pushing North Korea back towards famine. The leader of North Korea were focusing on developing nuclear weapons, which costs a lot of money. Therefore, the economic support for the other needs of the citizens has been terminated. Which included the economic support of the foods. In which is causing the citizens to die from hunger.

News2. Bush Says Syria Nuclear Disclosure Intended to Prod North Korea and Iran
[By Steven Lee Myers. 30th Apr. 2008]
North Korea is still developing nuclear weapons, secretively. However, there are not only North Korea that is having nuclear weapon developments. Syria and Iran are also being involved.

According to the 2 newses about North Korea, I found out that as an result, the citizens are suffering because the leader, or you can say the dictator, keeps focusing on developing the nuclear weapons. Even though the development is not allowed, and the U.N. had also negotiated with North Korea that if it (North Korea) quits the development of nuclear weapons, it (U.N.) will fully support the needs within the country (North Korea). And in which tells us that the leader in dictatorships might not be concentrating a lot on the needs of the citizens. And instead, they mostly concentrate on what they want.

Today in class, just as usual, we shared the current events that we'd found. And then, we continued to work on the researching for our individual topics. My topic was 'The End of WWI', I didn't think that it was a hard topic because the information about it as actually quite to find. However, for doing this assignment, there is still a part that was quite hard, which was to think of a question about the topic. I found it's hard was because that I still need to earn a lot of things about my topic first. I had to learn about the history of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles..etc. And although I'd already read some of the informations from the textbook, I still have a lot to learn. And by the way, as a active learner, I was also seeing that if I could learn something else from the website.

After I went to this Bloom's Taxonomy website, here is a list of examples, of my learning that fits each following thinking levels.

Creating:
Using different elements to create a project. For example, the Greece Researching iMovie.

Evaluating:
Checking the rubric for the Greece Researching iMovie and tried to follow it while I was making the iMovie.

Analyzing:
Mind mapping on Mindmeister. Using the mind maps to break down a certain unit of Ancient Greece into different topics. And then penetrate deeply into each of these topics.

Applying:
Using my notes and the informations either from the textbook or the other sources to answer my own questions about the unit.

Understanding:
Summrize the informations that I've learned from the WWII movie into notes.

Remembering:
Reading facts on textbooks, websites, and other information sources.

When I was watching the movie, I was quite shocked although I've already expected that we were about to see something 'fearful'.

In the movie, I saw different ways of how dictators take up their powers in each dictatorships of different countries. For example, the Nazis in Germany, led by Hitler. When I saw the mass parades of the Nazis, the education for the youth from the Nazis, and the way of people showing that they worhip Hitler, which was to rise up your right hand with fingers closed.

I wondered why would these people join the Nazis? It doesn't seem to make their life better anyway, and in fact, it has seemed to make people's life harder and meaningless! Because everyone in the Nazis were just following Hitler's orders. But however, on the other hand, the people that disobeyed the Nazis may somehow be killed. Because under Hitler's power, there were secret polices everywhere and anywhere, the scariest part is that they could be anyone! Which means that it could also be your best friend! And these secret polices would report to Hitler about whoever were insulting him or his dictatorship.

Today in class ,we were watching a movie about World War II for most of the time in class period. And then in the end of the class, Mr. Carpenter showed Jordan's and mine Greece researching video. I think I've been demonstrating as a person of high character because I prepared for the class by fixing my Greece reaching video, and for finding a way to fix it, I even went to Mr. Truchon for installing iMovie 08, the iMovie that I've been using before, which I'm more familiar with. But.. during this process, it didn't went through very smoothly. First of all, Mr. Truchon was in a meeting, when he lent me his iPod flash drive for installing the file. But the file loaded so slow so I was afraid that even the bus was leaving, it wouldn't be done either. Therefore, I quited the installing and returned the iPod flash drive to Mr. Truchon. After that, I sent an email to him to tell him that I quited it before it finished installing. And then, I couldn't find another time to meet him again because there was a field trip to the Taipei Zoo. However, as an critical thinker and problem solver, I used my flash drive and copied iMovie 08 from Lydia(my roommate at the time)'s laptop, and installed it into mine. Then, I used iMovie 08 to redo my video.
During movie in class, I was demonstrating as a person of high character because I was being quiet all the time, I only spoke when I was answering questions or giving my ideas in the discussions. And also, as an active learner, I was taking notes while Mr. Carpenter was brain storming the video.

Wang's two-hitter leads Yankees to win over Red Sox
12th, Apr. 2008 1:06am

Looking at the pictures of this current event, I saw Wang was having a 'good job' hand-shade with his teammate, Jose Molina, in the first picture. And for the second picture, Wang was celebrating with his teammates, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, and Jose Molina after defeating the Boston Red Sox. Therefore, befoe I read the article of this current event. I sort of had this foreshadow from the pictueres, which told me that this event is going to be a good news about the Yankees. And especially about Wang.


'He was as good as I've seen him,' Yankees manager told the reporteres.
'I think this is my best game so far,' said Wang.
Wang Chien-ming pitched a two-hit complete game to lead the New York Yankees to a 4-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Friday in the first meeting this season between the heated American League rivals.

[Writing by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by Greg Stutchbury]

Today in class, we were working on our iMovie for our project. I'd say that I was an active learner because I the iMovie that I was using was in a different version with the one that I've been using before my laptop was broken. And so, when I was using it to do my project, I was also learning to use this version of iMovie, by myself. I would have asked questions if I had any problems, but I didn't seemed to have a lot of problems. However, the only question that I've had was 'how to record my voice by this version of iMovie?' But Mr. Carpenter taught me before I asked him, so I didn't really ask him anything during class. Bascally, I was just working on everything on my own during the class. :p

Look at myself as a parent one day who has runs a democratic form of 'family government'.
My family will be ruled by democracy. My husband and I will basically take the leadership in my family together. My kids, as the 'citizens' will have the right to vote for that do they want, and of course, my husband and I will definitely listen to their voices and come up with a fair decision. The positives for this kind of 'governing', I think is that everyone in the family will be involved for everything that's going on within the family. They can share their voices and opinions to the 'leaderships', and enjoy the life in the 'society' of the family. However, the problem that may occur is that there might be too many different opinions from each members of the family, and so, it could be really hard for the leaders to make a certain decision without being disagreed by the ons that are having a different opinions.

For the Greece researching project, I've chosen my topics, which are Trading and The Athenian Revolution. For the topic-Trading, I've asked 3 questions about it. 1. How did they trade? 2. What did they trade? and 3. Who did they trade with. And for the other topic- The Athenian Revolution, I've only asked 2 questions about it. 1. Why did it happen? and 2. How did it end up?
So far, I've done my researching on all these 5 questions and I've put the answers as notes on my mind map os Greece researching. I've also finished the researching of images that fits my answers. And so, the next thing that I'm going to do, probably in class, is to work on my iMovie for the final presentation of this project. I'll put the images that I'd found into the iMovie, record my voice of answering the question and perhaps, introducing the images.

Active learner
In Progress-Demonstrate.

When there's an assignment that contains researching, I do the researches on my own. I've been learning things from the websites, books and even from answers of people that I'd asked for help. I've also been asking questions during class, though it's not very often. And moreover, I started to read about current events from news websites and also been listening to them from the radio in the morning, on my mum's car during the ride to school.

Today in humanities class, we were doing the reaches for answering the questions that we've asked about ancient Greece.
As a person of high character, I did what I suppose to do during class. And I said this as a demonstration of a person of high character because we were doing the researches on the internet, which is very easy to distract people from their reaching. And also, as a person of high character, I asked permission from Mr. Carpenter for listening to musics during the researching. And of course I wore my earphones. Therefore, I wouldn't disturb the other students.

Today in class, we continued watching the movie about the ancient Greece. The purpose of watching this movie was to learn more about the ancient Greece, for us(the students) to find some interesting topics from it, ask questions, and be answering the questions eventually. As an active learner today, I took notes during watching the movie, and listen carefully to what the movie was talking about. And by the way, I was a critical thinker and problem solver when I took the notes because I know that I'm not a a fast-typer, so instead of typing down my notes on the computer, I wrote my notes with pencil on a piece of paper. And so I could be able to catch up the movie easier. I've written down quite a lot of topics, notes, and questions. Therefore I have more option of topics to choose and work on the answers later on. Then, the class ended before we finish the movie, so we are probably going to keep it continued in the next class.