Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Capstone projects, Iron Jawed Angels, and Buses!

In class today we spent the morning working on our Capstone projects. Kisa talked with us one on one to improve our presentations. While she did this, the rest of the class got time to research their subjects for the whole morning. I researched statistics for the passing rates for the math and ELA sections of the CAHSEE at my school and in my district.

At night for community time we watched the movie Iron Jawed Angels. It was an inspiring movie about the fight for women suffrage. I was not excited to see it going in because I had never heard about it before but I quickly began to enjoy it. Taking APUSH in school skimmed the topic of the fight for women suffrage but because we had to cover so much history in so little time, we were not able to really study it in depth. This movie which was based on true facts put together the history of women suffrage in an entertaining and engaging way.

In response to Don Gosney's reference to the haves and have nots, I agree that "sometimes it's being one of the "have nots" that can teach us things that the "haves" can never learn." I believe that this goes both ways as well which is why this program is such a valuable experience for everyone involved. For instance, a few days ago, a group of us went to Providence Place, a nearby shopping center. With Brown ID's, public transportation is free so we decided to take the bus. One girl said that she catches the bus at home so we let her take charge. It turned out that it was a school bus that doesn't require the skill of understanding a bus schedule so twice we almost got on the wrong bus. Finally I got the right bus schedule and we caught the correct bus to Providence Place. Obviously this isn't a huge deal and if we had gotten on the wrong bus, we could have simply gotten off. Despite this fact, I've learned from experience that this is an example of an useful everyday skill that is simple to learn and that saves you tons of time in the long run.

1 comment:

Don Gosney said...

Kiana⎯I’m glad you enjoyed “Iron Jawed Angels”. If you read some of the other posts with my comments about this movie and the events that it was based on you might find it an even more interesting subject. As a smart and engaging person, a greater knowledge and understanding of this issue can be both rewarding and useful to you.

Even though I’ve gone through much travail in my life, by some standards I would be classified as a “have” but by others I would definitely be a “have not”. Everything is relative. Poor by some people’s standards is rich by others.

I’ve always had the benefit of having my own car and never really had to rely on public transportation. There have been a few times in my life, where I needed to tale a bus. I felt very stupid when getting on these buses and having to ask simple questions of the driver like how much does it cost, how do I let you know when I want to get off, or the really simple one: am I on the right bus.

What it comes down to is that even though in this instance I was a “have”, in reality I was a “have not” because I lacked some of the basic skills necessary to get around my own community.

There’s much to be learned about this, Kiana, and it already looks like you’re absorbing this.