Throughout the year in World History Class, there was a rush of many thoughts and ideas that rooted within the minds of students as well as I. Working on certain topics that focused on issues past and present in the world, we gain an understanding of how the world and people think.  

   Participating in the sweatshop trial was a turning point for me in this class. It was an awakening, I realized how certain governments and companies (ie. ours in the US) only look out for themselves. I believe that for the world to ever change, selfishness must cease. In the sweatshop trail, the US multinational corporations, the US consumers, and the government of the poor developing countries were taking advantage of the sweatshop workers. I played one of the sweatshop workers in the trail, what I had to say to all of the people who were forcing me to work was: "We are just a worthless tool used to fulfill greed. But by today, you shall know that we worth more, and we deserve more. You are nothing without us." (Iron Sweatshop Trial). In the trail it made us, the workers, seem as if we had a choice to work in the factories. The workers choices are very slim. It’s either you work in a factory and get some type of income to support you and your family or you along with your family die from poverty, starvation, disease and other things. Also being in the factories exposes you to disease so either way life all around is just crashing. Us, the U.S. consumers also have a part in this because we are blind and naive because we don’t know what’s going on but it’s our responsibility to find out because the government and the corporation tried to put a wool sheet over our heads to make us think everything is fine. Basically human life means nothing to them as long as theirs isn’t endanger.

However, people’s struggles wouldn’t be going on if colonialism didn’t happen. If countries weren’t greedy and took over other lands people would be living peace in their our society. "Colonialism in Australia forever changed the natives, these changes can’t be fixed. They left a scar on the people that will continue to the end of their exist." (Colonialism Benchmark) Colonialism in Australia started with the English taking over an invading the land where the aboriginals once lived and thrived. Colonialism dramatically affected the people, the English exposed them to alcohol and they killed most of their people.  

In countries when the people are worn out to the maximum of what’s happening, rebellion begins. In our Revolutionary Digital story, I focus on revolutions from the past, researching I came to the conclusion that "All of these revolutions are just evidence that a revolution is a continuous battle that seems like they’re over but it’s actually the physical fighting that has ceased." (Revolution Digital Story). With selfishness, people who are degraded will never get what they are entitled to. Therefore revolutions go on and on… "Revolutions don’t end, they kindle on like an ember deep down within the hearts and minds of freedom seekers."  (Revolution Digital Story)

Even in our own country (ha! It’s not really ours because of colonialism!) troubles from the other countries knock us in our faces. The media tries to make the Keystone XL Pipeline seem like it’s a good thing. Actually it’s not. The corporation building the pipeline is forcing people to move from their houses so they can place those pipes where their houses once stood. For the monologue project, I was a reporter that went corrupted because I turned my back on the lies the media was feeding the people of America. "But I’ve got news for you, your cheap propaganda doesn’t work for me.  I will not conform to your image. You are not going to turn me into something i’m not. You thought that I could be another mouthpiece for the creed but I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'm not." (Pipeline Monologue) I thought it was important to tell the people what the government tries to cover up. Even though the pipeline creates jobs and made gas cheaper, people were suffering because they were going homeless and the earth is being ripped apart to dig for this oil.

Reading an article about this women from Nigeria but lives in the United States, she talks about how the media made her country look so bad. "An ongoing problem in the United States is that the media tries to only show the bad problems within a country instead of the good things that are actually happening." (Return to Nigeria). This not only happens to other countries but it happens in the US too. The media targets certain areas that are poor urban communities and always talks about all the bad that happens there. Rarely any good is talked about.

This world only looks out for itself. There are deceivers who only look out for themselves and steal from the poor to gain more profit. There needs to be change, in order for that to happen, we need to lend a helping hand to our neighbors. We can’t leave them worrying, and feeling helpless.  "The 50 year old child who has to rome the streets worrying about what to happen in his future." (The Somebodies - Journal # 50).

My greater understanding of the world leads to my change which all started from Mr. Blocks World History Class. Thank you Mr. Block.  

Final Portfolio

This year in World History, I learned about different countries throughout the world. If I was asked to give a theme about my history class this year, I would say the main idea was change. People all over the world have been fighting oppressors for their rights since the beginning of time. Earlier in the year during our revolution unit, we focused a lot on Ukraine. The people were trying to start a revolution to change the government. They read books and studied different revolution tactics. They took a lot of strategies from Egypt's revolution a few years earlier. The key thing they learned is that the point of a revolution is too see change, and in no circumstance should you leave before you see drastic improvements. I learned that strategies in revolutions evolve over time due to trial and error.

Majority  of the countries we learned about this year are not considered first world countries so I did not learn a lot about them previously. One thing a number of these countries had in common is that they started off wealthy. When I found this out, I spent the first three marking periods wondering how they went from these amazing dynasties to the state they are in today. When the fourth quarter began, I learned how this decline was possible. The explanation behind it is colonization. And another thing these countries had in common is how they were colonized. The countries acknowledged that the land was not theirs but everyones. Western civilizations had a different opinion on the land and felt that they should claim everything for the name of their lords. I find it fascinating that every group of natives accepted the explorers and welcomed them into their land. In some cases the natives even seemed to help and aid the explorers in taking over their land.

Alot of people have problems with the way society is today, but they seem to forget you don't have to sit back and wait for an epidemic, you can start one yourself. In the beginning of the year, we learned about the Keystone XL Pipeline. We talked about the pros and cons to extending the pipeline. Alot of people in the classroom had different ideas and views and opinions on what should be done. We didn’t realize it, but we ourselves can really get involved and make a difference in our communities. Petitions are a great way to create awareness about problems and issues in our communities. This may not be the biggest way to create a change, but it is a great start.

World history is a very broad and expansive subject. Throughout the year we have not only studied things from the worlds past but subjects that are making history now. From sweatshops to Revolutions, even the Keystone XL pipeline. One conclusion that I have came to throughout the year is that beliefs can be used as a way to oppress many people and also that no opinion is wrong. Using collaboration this year has been full of unlikely discoveries pertaining to equality. One day at during this class we started off writing in our journals. The journals always make us think about issues that are usually ignored or not thought about as much in everyday. Mr. Block does not stop at us just writing our ideas in the journals but makes us share them with the class or our small table group. This gives us different ideas that we did not think about from other people. What you say someone else might of never heard so it brings another sense of learning into class. Also in the class when we could go around the class and have everyone share an idea or discussion question which leads into a new units.

In my journal that was required for the year I wrote multiple opinions on different topics that involved the current part of history we studied. “There should be no reason for them to apologize for something that they did not do or cause.”(Journal #19) This journal we were talking about how the people shouldn’t feel guilty for the things that happened in their history hundreds of years ago. An example is the British being sorry and apologizing to the native americans for Columbus coming to America and taking their land. There should be no reason for the British to apologize for the acts that their ancestor committed. Apologizing for someone else makes it less important, and less meaningful.

I found a lot of my journal entries had very interesting subjects when I went through it. “People are not concerned with what is just in the world.” (Journal #37) This quote is from a later journal entry that involves a cartoon of a fish cartoon (See cartoon here). The cartoon shows how the world looks from different social standings. I said people are not concerned mainly because the people that need justice are the ones that are barely heard or looked at. This gave me an idea of how the world actually works. The world is not full a piece but full of fake justice that is meant to make you forget about the real errors in the systems of the world. This relates back to the Sweatshops trial that my class did. The trial explained why sweatshops are a problem but people do not notice the actual effects of it. In trial, workers, system, multinational corporations, poor country elites and US consumers were tried (Notes from Trial). The point was to find out the true group responsible for sweatshops.

In the last quarter the class read a book about an Igbo tribe in Africa, called Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In a journal I wrote.  “I believe he wrote this book so people will not make assumptions about this culture. He wrote it to show the importance understanding something in depth rather than just guessing and/or assuming.” (Journal #45) This was important because it does bring out people assume about different cultures rather actually learning about them. This gave me some perspective on opening my mind to different poeple around the world rather than just ignoring them as just another part of the world.

One thing that we did that is really going to stick with me involve the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeling is a pipeline thattransports oil from tar sands in Canada throught the United States. This pipeline could result inthe loss of lives, jobs, many other things. We wrote muliple monologues about the pipeline that explain poples views. From calling to the people who will be most affected from the ones who did not even know about the pipeline. It shows that everyone should know about something that be such a drastic change in the country. “Talk’n bout jobs.. ya’ll ever thought about who’s jobs you’ll be taken, did ya? 7 million bucks, for what? Some frick’n oil and this country can’t even give people a damn job at a grocery store. If ya would just give them what they want, they’d shut their snouts and people like me get some damn rest. Ain’t nobody asking for some 1,179 mile metal tube through the damn country. Now let me go, cans aint gonna collect themselves.” (Keystone Pipeline Monologue)

Something we did in the beginning of the year an assignment involving Hijab life and story behind why women of Muslim culture wear them. This was really the starting point in seeing that world is not as it seems. No one should really judge a women who wears a hijab before they learn the the meaning of the hijab. The hijab is not because the women are oppressed by the men. No the hijab is used to show a different way of looking at the world. It is apart of a culture we do not fully understad and show learn mroe about.  “The authors perspective is that a woman's hijab a sign of morals. Hijab allows men to chase women due to their personalities and not their bodies. Also that they guard their modesty.” (Women and the Hijab)

In conclusion you can see there was a lot to be learned this year but I found it most interesting that everything we studied lead back to unequality and oppression. It gave me a new outlook on the world. That makes me feel grateful for everything I have and also will forever teach me not to just believe everything that I have heard. It taught me to research, and that ignorance is not bliss.

Symbiosis is “the living together of two dissimilar organisms in more or less intimate association”. This means that the two parts cannot live without each other. You can apply this idea to a huge amount of things. I would like for us to take a look at the term when it comes to understandings. You cannot have an understanding without other understandings, as every understanding is reliant on the understanding of something else. Take, for example, the slicing of an orange. You have a knife and an orange. To have the intention to slice the orange, you need to have an understanding of what a knife is used for, and the fact that the orange is soft enough to cut with said knife. We were asked to form this final portfolio around an understanding, and the understanding that I want to focus on is “Understandings have symbiotic relationships.”  So, let’s take a journey into the world of understandings.

In my World History class, we use this idea of understandings to see beyond the established, textbook facts. We synthesize this information into a more cohesive form. I want to take you through some examples of this intriguing structure. We will begin with something from the beginning of the year. In October, we conducted a trial that involved Cortes’s conquering of the Aztec nation. This started with research, as we had to establish a basic understanding of what happened, and who should be tried for what crimes. Once researching was initially finished, we had to adapt strategies for winning the trial. We had to use our prior knowledge and mix it with the knowledge we had of the trial participants speeches. From this, we formulated questions. Questions, such as “What justification do you give yourself for killing your own men, and people of your country?”. We used our understandings from each response and each group’s arguments to form questions as we went, creating a full, constricting understanding with which to pin our opponents. The full contents of our group’s look at the trial can be found here.

One of the more interesting projects I did this year for World History involved the creation of a play. We had to write a play, one that had grounding in the world, and involved world issues. For this project, I wanted to take a more personal approach and take a look at crime in Philadelphia, my home city. I did research, analyzed the crime in Philly, and used my knowledge of many events like these to write about my own, fictional version of one of these crimes and craft a story around the potential motivations behind it. In my play’s case, the reasons behind the crime can be summarized quite nicely by the main character and perpetrator of the crime’s, mother “Jeremy, I would rather die than let you get caught doin’ something illegal. I will pay for my chemo myself. And then, I’ll get better, I’ll go back to working in the office, and we can have a nice life again.” The full play is here.

Another project involved the analyzation of revolutions, finding a way to talk about and relate revolutions. The project itself asks for the fusing and synthesis of understandings. One of the major things I talked about in the project was the fact that revolutions can take many forms, which I found of import after trying to find a new way to angle my project, so as to promote a different way of understanding revolutions. So, I made the claim that flat design was a design revolution, so that I could show that things like design have revolutions too. You can find the video here.

Throughout the year, we have been using a journal to answer daily questions. These questions are used to assess our current understandings, and to wrack the minds of multiple people in the class to come up with greater understandings based on everyone’s individual thoughts. In one of my Journals, my very first one, I talk about how people are abused for the sake of labor. This is reciprocated, mixing more symbiotic understandings, towards the very end of the year, where we do another trial, this one about sweatshop labor and who is at fault. We began the year with a concept, and learned more about it later in the year. Another of my journals (found here) addresses how people’s understandings are influenced by more correct understandings.

History over the years has changed how society looks at religion. Society all the time has a bad effect in our community. Back in the days people were able to freely be who they were and act the way they wanted, over time terrible things happened such as colonialism and slavery this two can be related because they forced people to look like others in order to survived or to adapt to their ways of living, religion was also a big part of history and society  because back then it used to define who you were and what you could do.

World history has been an amazing experience. I have learned and acknowledge things that I don't think I wouldn't have normally thought about. This class has shined light on lots of changes, both positive and negative. I think Mr. Block has done an outstanding job on bringing the past back to life with his awesome units and lessons. Some of those lessons will be talked about today as I look back on things that developed me as a world history student. I remember me sitting in class in the beginning of the year thinking I would probably hate this class, going off past experiences with other history classes. This class was different. Mr. Block totally changed my perspective on how I viewed this course

Many of the units that were taught and focused on has came to a complete understanding about the way this class is summed up. One of the biggest things that popped up a lot throughout all the lessons we learned was that self identity was a very important credential here in this society and especially all around the world. We looked at units about social justice and and religion/culture. We saw how countries were being colonized and oppressed. We saw how many cultures were being europeanized and taken away their rights and cultural beliefs, just to “fit in”. The “American Dream” did not have any room for people of any skin tone that flawed their ideas at all. Even if that meant not being able to do basic human rights. African countries had the worst of many. Apartheid was a big part of history that we are still scared from to this day. Leaders like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi fought so that someday we could possibly become one and have all equality, but it`s not over yet.

One of the things that stood out to me this year that also reminded me of my understanding,was when we did a discussion on the girl that went back to Africa for a funeral and later went on to move permanently to the country. Here is a part that I truly liked:”She was a strong woman and I think she could have been just as strong living in Africa. She was on a mission and she had something she wanted to accomplish.” I thought that reminded me of when I was thinking about the time I was in Africa and I had to be strong. When I returned back from Africa I thought a lot about how things were so different from back home. I made pledge to myself that I wouldn`t allow people to live like that. That I would try my very hardest when I got older to help those who can't help themselves. I saw that their self identity mattered, because I would see if you were of lebanese descent they would treat you better. It was something about Americans that made life so much easier over their. They would literally ask you if they could kiss your feet, they would stare only because they are not used to such things that you might have. Social identity played a major role in that.

• Return to Nigeria

Another unit we did was from the 3rd quarter when we did the plays. It was my second time doing plays. I did one when I was in middle school and had it performed by fellow classmates. I thought that the topic I wrote about for my play could explain just how much world history has tied into having a self identity. The topic I wrote about was about a woman who cheated with married man because she had a problems with herself. Her boyfriend would beat her and would have drinking problems.I have a part of a scene that explains a lot of my general understanding, Mama Jones: “Yeah, you think so honey. You know why they also come to you, because you easy, ya little hoe. Aint nothing to you, but skin and bones. You aint no real women, You a little girl. They know you just a easy fix to get some with. You hardly know anything baby. And you need to keep more than just ya mouth closed before something come crawling out of there’s saying mama.. This is another crisis of identity when a troubled young girl sleeps around because she is unable to get into contact with herself. She looks for love in the wrong place and maybe ends up getting hurt. I think that many of people struggle to find themselves so they search in others to do so.

• My Play

The unit on revolution was one of my favorites because we did a project on country that we were assigned and had to show how they struggled for their rights and how they overthrew the higher authority. I did mine on Egypt. I learned lots of things that I would never had knew if it were not for this project. Identity was an issue with Egypt because if you were poor and did not have a lot of money it was equivalent to not having a voice or rights. Many of what I was reading when I first started was they were trying to shut up the people that were complaining that they had no rights, which was very unfair. Here is a quote from the story that I Thought stood out, “He was an unfair dictator. He was living a wonderful life while others were living in poverty and dying from simple resources like bread. He was overpowered by the people of egypt. This is an example that long endurance and hard work for justice will happen eventually.” This was the dictator of Egypt and the only reason he was there for that long was because he had a self identity that was higher than most of the people that were against him.

• Revolution Digital Story

I remember I was sitting in class one day and I was looked up the board and saw that the warm up was asking me a question about whether other cultures were allowed to judge other cultures. At first I thought that it was a question that was actually very smart, because  even though we do it, we never really acknowledge the fact that we do it. Even if we do acknowledge it, nobody says that it is wrong. The other resources that I have is the journal we wrote in everyday. I have wrote some meaningful things in there, but one of which I believe I truly should discuss. It was on journal number 3 where I talked about when would it be ok to ever criticize other cultures. I said it would never be ok due to the fact that as a cultural there will never ever be a right way to believe in what you believe in. I think that just ties into the self identity and make yourself fit into a theme that makes other cultures feel lower than some cultures that may be a little more popular such as christianity.

• My journal entries

Here is another journal entry that I recognized as a very important entry that I thought would be very good. In the journal entry it gave me 2 quotes and I said that i disagreed with the second one. The second was basically implying that religion was a drug and blinded people of what actually was going on. I thought that was wrong or disagreed because I thought that religion should be an escape for any bad drugs that try to come into your life on a daily basis. I said I think people should turn to religion if nothing else.

• My journal entries

All these resources made my time in world history thoughtful, fun and meaningful. I think that Mr. Block has altogether changed the way I look at history. Before coming to this class, history used to be a frag. I used to hate it. It made no sense as to why I had to learn about something that happened 200+ years ago, but this class made it so fun to learn about stuff like that. Now looking back at everything in my journal, I agree with some and disagree with some. I think that overtime as you learn more things and see different things you evolve and change. Change is not always bad, but then again change could be bad as we saw in history. Overall this year has been successful, because whenever you can take the knowledge you have received and place it on other things in your life, that class truly has changed your perspective and identity.