Exams

On Friday, in Human Geography class, Mr. Schick reverted back to teaching us again. On top of that he also finished the exam review with us. Since we don’t have class again before exams, I think that it is appropriate to devise a prayer for exams. How does “Lord next week we have exams, help us pass without a peek,” sound. Mr. Schick was also, dong his best to make sure that we were ready for his exam, by telling us exactly how many questions are on the exam for each concept as well as what the short answers would be. For today’s review, we picked up right where Ben left off and started with Religion. We also covered World leaders and Economic Geography as well. Although we might not of gone over each individual piece of material, Mr. Schick still effectively helped us figure out exactly what we would need to study to prepare for his exam properly. Also, since this will be our last BLOG before Christmas, and possibly our last BLOG for the year depending on our teacher next semester, I would like to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I would also like to add that I am lucky enough to be in your Western Civilization class next semester.

Exam Review part 1

Mr. Schick officially quit teaching us today!! His reasoning behind this is because he believes that Ben Does a much better job of teaching class than Mr. Schick does. I however, disagree with this statement. I say this because honestly, Mr. Schick is way more knowledgeable on this topic than Ben could ever probably dream to be. Well in any case, let’s get to the more important occurrences in today’s class. For starters we finished the presentation’s today; in fact we heard the last presentation TWICE!! That’s right we heard the fifth and final presentation a second time because Mr. Schick/the class requested that Ben presents the last group’s advertisement again after they went.  Then, Mr. Schick started our exam review at the end of class and some people probably found that they need to do some studying for Human Geography. For example, when we were reviewing the vocab from Socrates and the CIA World Fact Book, some people were unable to come up with a sufficient answer or an answer at all.

economic geography project presentation

PRESENTATION TIME!!!!!! Today in Human Geography class, we began presenting our advertisements to the class. Only this time there’s a twist, before the first group went, he passed out a sheet for us to grade the other groups’ performance. So far, I gave most of the groups an A because they had fairly decent, professional-looking advertisements. However, I took off points because they made feel-like I could not read and just read the slides to their audience, one person even turned their back to my side of the room, GASP!!! I feel I am authorized enough to point these things out because I have successfully earned my communications merit badge and we were even required to prepare a five minute speech and deliver it to the rest of class. For this requirement, we were judged on time and number of umm’s. Honestly, I think we should just have a class centered around public speaking and how to properly get up in front of your peers and effectively deliver a speech or other presentation.

Japanese shadows day 1

Monday’s Human Geography class brought us more project time, and Japanese students. That’s right Japanese students La Salle high school. The reason for this visit is because they wanted to come to OUR school and shadow here for a few days. Therefore I would like to say Konichiwa to our Japanese students. Honestly the visitors we had were probably the most exciting thing that relates to Monday’s Human Geography class. I mean this would probably be labeled as opinion since all we did in class was work on our advertisements with our groups. Though my group’s presentation is definitely coming along we got our bibliography (some facts to go with it), a slogan (two actually: “We love cheap,” and fast, cheap, good), a product, and a way to sell foreign labor. With that, I would like to give Mr. Schick the impression that my group actually has a decent presentation.

Economic Geography project time

Guess what! There are no more “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” videos. Which only means one thing, it’s PROJECT TIME!!!! That’s right Mr. Schick assigned us a project to do which we will present on Wednesday of next week. For this project, Mr. Schick would like our groups to advertise either all-American products or products that were made over-seas in some foreign country. In addition to the advertisement, we have to find a product to use in our advertisement. For example my group is advertising over-seas products, so we decided to use Mc Donald’s Happy Meal toys. Part of the objective of using our product is to talk about how the prices of foreign made products compare’s to American made products of the same category. On plus, side to this project, in addition to it being somewhat fun, it means that we will not be having a test on this unit! However, we still want to do well on the assignment since Mr. Schick is yet to decide, whether it will be worth 100 or 200 points.

Look at that Chinese car...ouch!

Today in Human Geography class we finished “The People’s Republic of Capitalism: part 3.” One of facts that we were told about was that some American automobile brands like Ford and Buick are plummeting in America but are doing really well in China. On top of that, but jobs in the automobile industry are starting to go to China. Another point brought up is that China wants to start selling Chinese cars in the United States. Unfortunately, for the Chinese, people in America want stylish, luxurious, safe, and cheap cars. The problem is that many Chinese cars may cover stylish and cheap, though to sell a car for only $2,000; it would not be able to be the least bit luxurious nor would be anywhere near safe! In fact the cars spectacularly fail our safety testing!!! On the plus side, for us anyway, OUR JOBS ARE COMING BACK!!!! Which can only mean one thing, our economy might just make a turn upward, thus our unemployment rate will go downJ!!

Vocabulary

Capitalism-(n) an economic and political system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Communism-(n) 1.a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. 2. (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. It is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless society in which rich people distribute their wealth so that

Free Enterprise- (n) 1. An economic and political doctrine holding that a capitalist economy can regulate itself in a freely competitive market through the relationship of supply and demand with a minimum of governmental intervention and regulation. 2. the practice of free enterprise in an economy, or the right to practice it. Private business operating for business. The goverment can't tell you how to run your business, except for safety and minimum wage.

Free Market- (n) An economic system in which prices and wages are deterermined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.

People's Republic of Capitalism part 3

Today in Human Geography class, we began watching part 3 of “The People’s Republic of Capitalism.” “Why we skipped part two?” You ask. That would be because Mr. Schick did not deem part 2 important enough for us to watch. In any case part 3 still deals with the economy the only difference is that it focuses on China’s economy on wheels, in other words cars and auto-insurance. One of the main points that the video made was that one of the most dangerous places to be, especially in China, is on or around a major road or highway. The reasoning behind this is that a vast majority of Chinese drivers have never driven before or are fresh out of Driver’s Ed. As a result of this, accidents are not a rare phenomenon; in fact over 400 accidents occur DAILY!!!! That’s why they brought American insurance companies to China. The biggest difference in accident cases in China vs. in America is that insurance companies pay off every penny of damage to the other driver’s car with no deductible!   

Robotics Tour

Unfortunately, I was unable to make it to Friday’s Human Geography class. This wasn’t because of a fatal disease or a luxury cruise liner, I was absent from class due to the STEM academy field trip. Yes, that’s right I was missing class to go see robots. Upon arrival at Johns Hopkins we found our way to the robotics laboratory where we met up with our first tour guide. For the first part of our tour we were told about what goes on in the hydro-lab and the work they have done with underwater robots, which could be cleverly renamed fish-bots (I just made this up this name on the spot). After hearing about these aquatic machines, we continued on our way back to where we met tour guide #1 and switched to tour guide #2. This tour guide took us into a different laboratory and informed us about a robot call the Da Vinci robot (why it got that name I have no idea considering that Da Vinci most definitely did NOT have the materials to make this kind of advanced robot). Then after that we got play with it!!! YAY!!! Now, if you were there you may be thinking why in his right mind would he let us toy around with a $2,000,000 robot that we have never used in our life? The answer is: I have no idea. Well in any case, the robot operated by sitting in a chair with a machine in front of you. Then, you look into the binoculars after inserting your thumb and fore-finger into loops. Then you pinch your fingers together. Finally you move your hands around as the robot hands follow your motions. Once everyone got a turn we went back to the bus ate our lunch then returned to school and went to mod ten (once mod ten began).

People's Republic of Capitalism continued

We yet again continued to watch “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” in Human Geography today. How often do you shop at Wal-Mart? Do you enjoy shopping there because it allows you to save money? Now, have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart can sell their items and still be successful? It’s for the same reason that more than 90% of products we buy are made in China. There are plenty people over in China who are more than willing to work tedious monotonous jobs for only a buck or two a day so that even if you add in the cost to ship the products over to America from China it is still way cheaper to make everything in China. In fact, once you add it all up, it comes to be about $10,000,000 cheaper! Still, there are people out in this nation who think everyone should buy only products made in America. To that I say “Good Luck! Let me know if you can do this and still be living a decent life with everything you need.”      

The People's Republic of Capitalism

Today in Human Geography class we continued watching and discussing the video of China’s economy called “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” in today’s portion we saw how much money we get paid compared to a lot of people in china in the construction business. To be exact, the minimum wage in America is $7.50 per hour which amounts to about $15,000 a year. On the other hand in China, women, working hours on end moving heavy bricks in a dangerous environment make about $1-2 per DAY. Men doing the same type of job get paid a little better at $3-4 per day. You may be thinking that this is not fair. Well, it is, but fair does not necessarily mean moral. It is fair because, in marketing, if you work in China making Apple computers for little money (which it’s like that right now) Apple products are already pricy. Try increasing the cost of the work force (giving employees a higher salary) then the price of the computer goes up accordingly. Conveniently for sellers, there are mobs of people who are desperate for jobs like this. This way the cost of computers does not get so high that it causes a lack of customers.      

Economic Geography

At long last, we are FINALLY done with our political geography unit!!!! We also were given our tests back and went over the answers for those who heard a “ding, ding” when given their quizzes back (I was one of the people who got the double ding, the first if you want to be really specific). Unfortunately, we had the lowest average grade on the test. However, we are not completely out of the water yet for the world leaders. This would be because we are yet to know how we did on our 200 point research paper, so if you think that your grade is fine right now and are worrying about your paper, BEWARE!!!!! In the mean time we will be moving on to economic geography, in other words, MONEY!!!!! We kicked off this new unit by starting to watch a video called “The People’s Republic of Capitalism.” Which is basically about China’s economy.

independence discussion

Today, in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class today, we discussed the BLOG assignment that we were given last night about nations’ independence and there beginnings as well as where in the world they are. Mr. Schick also planted a seed in us so that we can make a world where we are one of the world’s richest nations because we are a lead oil producer and we don’t even need any of it because we have other means of producing energy such as wind, water and the sun. Right now, we are nowhere near that goal because we are the number one oil consumer in the world so instead of working on getting our nation to be dependent upon an alternate source of energy instead of oil. Also, we have Saudi Arabia to worry about as well since they are currently the world’s leading oil producing nation, and they didn’t even know they had oil a couple decades ago when they were a really poor nation who thought that they didn’t have anything.

Independence

Afghanistan declared their independence on August 19, 1919. Before they were independent, Afghanistan was a conquering nation as well as a conquered one. Before Christ they conquered nations such as Persia. They were also later taken over by the British after the Anglo-Saxon War. If you were to look on a world map you could find Afghanistan in the Southwestern part of Asia between Turkmenistan and Pakistan.

Brazil gained their independence from the United Kingdom on September 7, 1822, when they became the Brazilian Empire. Before their independence, Brazil was frequently invaded by various nations due to lack of Portuguese interest. When they became independent they broke away from Portugal who started the Brazilian colony, however, the Portuguese were only successful in controlling a portion of the original land that they had colonized. You could find Brazil on a world map in South America located in the Eastern part of South America and overlaps the equator.

France unlike many nations, never exactly became independent because they were independent from the start. As France was forming, I was populated by the Franks, which then overtime got the nation its France. Thus, one could assume that France was always an independent nation. Want to know where I am talking about? France is located next to the Bay of Biscay and borders Spain, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Germany officially became independent at the German Empire Unification on January 18, 1871. Germany is located in Europe and borders France, Belgium, and Poland.

India became an independent nation on August 15 1947 from the United Kingdom. Before gaining their independence, India had very little say in government since most legal decisions were made by the British. India is located in Southern Asia and is bordered by Pakistan, Nepal, China, and Bangledesh. 
      
Iran


Iran gained its independence in 1979, when the Monarchy ruling

 the country was overthrown. The country was previously known

 as Persia, but that changed in 1935. After the fall of the monarchy,

 conservative clerical forces established a theocratic system of

 government with a supreme ruler. During the 1980's, Iran was 

involved in a bloody war between Iraq. Iran can be found in the 

middle east between Iraq and Pakistan.

 

 
Venezuela

 

When the country of Gran Columbia collapsed in 1830,

 Venezuela was one of 3 countries that emerged from the

fallen country. Democratically elected governments in

Venezuela started in 1959. Venezuela can be found

in northern South America bordering the North Atlantic

Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.    

 

 

 

 

 

United Kingdom

 

During the 19th century, the British Empire stretched

 nearly a quarter of the earths surface. During the 1940's, 

the UK's power was quickly diminished in 2 world wars and

the Irish Republic's withdrawal from the Union. The country has 

never gained any sort of Independence and has never

been subjects of another country. The UK can be found in 

Western Europe.

 

 

 

Saudi Arabia

 

Modern day Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932. Since

then, it has been a Monarchist country. No country 

has ever been the subject of Saudi Arabia and Saudi

Arabia has never gained independence. Saudi Arabia can be 

found in the middle east, bordering the red sea and the

Persian Gulf

 

 

 

Mexico

 

Ancient civilizations have existed in the area of Mexico for 

thousands of years. Mexico was conquered by Spain in

the early 16th century. It had achieved its independence from

Spain in the 19th century. Mexico can be found between South

America and the United States.

No More Hu Jokes!!!

It was my turn to suffer the severe humiliation of which can be inflicted by Mr. Schick in the event of the mispronunciation of a world leader’s name. Today, I was forced to say Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In order to drill the correct pronunciation into my head, Mr. Schick made me say it one syllable at a time, like this ma – mood – ach – ma – dine – jad. Then he made me put it all together, then repeat the process until I correctly pronounced the name. Some sad news, however, we shall no longer be able to make Hu Jintao jokes in class because Hu Jintao is no longer the president of China…and Hu is not his successorL. We are very upset about this because you could go all day without the Hu joke getting old. I mean really we would crack the joke every single time that Hu’s name came up in class. We also got our quizzes back as well. Sadly, I got a 73%.   

Another World Leaders Quiz

On Friday, November 9, 2012, in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we had another quiz. For this quiz, it was front and back. The front part was identical to our last quiz, in which we had to match the leader to the corresponding country. The second part, which was on the back, was also matching, only this time instead of matching the leader to the country, we were expected to be able to match the leader with their description. For example, we had to match Barack Obama with “This week I was elected to a second term.” One other question was matching Dilma Rousseff with the description that referred to being tortured with the infamous “parrot perch.” I think that I got a 100% on the front but I don’t believe I did as well on the back. Mr. Schick was also nice enough to let us use our BLOGs if we chose to.   

More World Leaders

Today, in another very exciting addition of Mr. Schick’s Human Geography, we continued our discussion on world leaders, like we probably will be for the next few days at least. One rather interesting factoid that we learned today was the story of when the governor of Illinois appointed a new senator to replace Obama. This is particularly interesting because he was originally going to go with Oprah Winfrey, it was then that an evil thought took over him and he thought “Hmmm…I could make some money off this if I sold it to someone for about $1,000,000. Unfortunately for him, the position was sold. Not only that but he was caught in the act. He resigned his office before his trial, found guilty and thrown in jail (I think it would be funny if this term could be used literally). The other exciting discussion we had was about what plan of action America should take about Iran’s nuclear power plant. I still honestly think we should give them the benefit of the doubt until we can uncover the truth and then take military action if the purposes reveal themselves to be hostile.

World Leaders (continued)

Today, in Human Geography, we discussed the assignment that we did Monday night on interesting facts with each leader. He also asked us to finish the assignment tonight by researching President Obama since we now know that he won the election. First, let’s talk about other leaders. For example we found that Dilma Rousseff was actually tortured with a device called the Parrot’s Perch and shocked at her hands and feet. Not only that but there was one other leader who was jailed for the exact same thing, coup d’état, which means to over through a government. Mr. Schick also told us that Hamid Karzai survived at least 4 different assassination attempts, which include bombs, rocket launchers, and guns. Therefore, it is unsafe for him to travel throughout is country. Now, Obama was born in Hawaii and in addition to that he became the first sitting U.S. president to legalize same-sex marriage.     

Leadership Qualities

Enrique Nieto is a good leader because he has promised to reform the Mexican government to make it more democratic and open to criticism. Abdullah Aziz is a good leader because he has had political experience for almost his entire life. Angela Merkel is an excellent leader which is good considering she is the fourth most powerful person in the world. This is because she is one of the most important people in handling the economic crisis in Europe and has been referred to as “the Decider.” Benjamin Netanyahu is a good leader because he is the prime minister of Israel and also holds several other positions and is also a key role in the nation’s military. This makes him a good leader because if he were a bad leader Israel would be having a political crisis right now. Hu Jintao is both a good and bad leader. He is a good leader because he is working to build a “Harmonious Society.” He is a bad leader because he is conservative in political reform. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a bad leader because he supports Iran’s nuclear energy program and disregards human rights. Hamid Karzai is a bad leader because he is not powerful enough to influence areas other than Kabul. However, he is a good leader because he is trying to come to peace with outside areas by negotiation rather than force. François Hollande is a good leader because He knows the: who, what, when, where, why and how for his policies. Pranab Mukherjee is a good leader because he held a number of positions including a finance portfolio. Hugo Chávez is a good leader because some of his reforms have improved health care and education as well as decreased poverty. David Cameron is a good leader because he has given an outline on how he plans to work hard while putting aside party differences. Queen Elizabeth II is a good leader because she strongly supports the monarchy. Dilma Rousseff is a good leader because she successfully covered the post of Chief of staff during a crisis, until she had to leave in order to run for president. This makes her a good leader because it is an important skill to be able to cover for another leader.

11/1/12

Today in Human Geography, we had our Cultural Geography tests returned to us. We also spent part of class going over the answers. I, however, did not get my test back until I finished helping clean-up from mass and figured out where class was being held today. It turned out that we had Human Geography in room 104 with Mrs. Hugo instead of room 113. I mean really, this was the 3^rd time that we had had our Human Geography Class moved without warning. I thought that Mr. Schick liked our class, for all we know he could be using his excuse that he has to go to meetings as a cover up for taking a day off to get away from us or sign himself up to an insane asylum for help with the insanity we cause him. Well, whatever the case may be, we miss Mr. Schick and wish him to come back to us, because he is the BEST Human Geography in all of space-time!!!!!  

Political Geography

Mexico

Federal Republic

President

Felipe Calderón

China                                                                                                    India

Communist                                                                                        representational democracy      

Chairman                                                                                             prime minister

Mao Ze Dong                                                                                     Manmohan Singh

Afghanistan                                                                                       Israel

Islamic Republic                                                                                Parliamentary Democracy

President                                                                                            Prime Minister

Hamid Karzai                                                                                      Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu

Iran                                                                                        Germany

Theocratic Republic                                                         Federal Republic

President                                                                            Chancellor

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu                                      Angela Merkel

United Kingdom

Constitutional monarchy

Prime Minister

France

Unitary Semi-Presidential Republic

President/Prime Minister

Nicholas Sarkozy/ Francois Fillon

Brazil

Federal Republic

President

Dilma Rousseff

Venezuela

“Democracy”

Dictator

Hugo Chavez

Saudi Arabia

Absolute Monarchy

King/Queen

Abdullah Aziz

A Crazy Day

Wow! What a day today! First off we had a weird schedule to begin with the whole “bomb threat” thing. Then, we had the lockdown mode in mod 1 which was followed by students going to their mods 2-3 classes before advisory where we had an evacuation drill. Also, there were no bells to signal the start of the next mod. Our schedule was normal once we got to mod 5, except for our Human Geography class. We had a weird Human Geography class today, because we had class in room 321 instead of room 113 like we normally have it. Then Mr. Schick did not show and we had to have a substitute. To make things even weirder, we did not have a test today, like Mr. Schick said we would. Instead we were given an assignment in which we had to come up with 15 items that we thought might show up on the test which we will have next class period. A day like this is bound to get people mixed-up (which it did).

test questions

We ARE the SMART CLASS!!! Because of this factor, Mr. Schick has asked us to start our BLOG in class and come up with 5 questions for Wednesday’s…wait did he say TEST!!! BUT I DIDN’T STUDY!!! Well in any case, here are the questions Mr. Schick.

1.       Q: True or False, Hinduism is a lifestyle and can follow other religions.

A: False

2.       Q: What is the dominant language in Brazil?

A: Portuguese

3.       Q: The Native Americans were always living on this continent.

A: False

4.       Q: What are the major Ethnic groups in Rwanda?

A: Tutsis and Hutus

5.       Q: What are the major ethnic groups in Burundi?

A: same as #4

more religion talk

Today, in Human Geography with Mr. Schick, we discussed everything from Buddhism to… stinkbugs. The part of our class spent on stinkbug stories, we heard about how Mr. Schick’s home was taken over by stinkbugs and how he had so many stinkbugs in his wood stove that he had to burn the stinkbugs at the stake because there were just too many of them. Then we moved on to continue our lesson on culture and discussed the major religions in the world. During this lesson we were told of how Mr. Schick thought about becoming a Buddhist because of their moral standards and how one of his friends invited them to his mosque and tried to convince him and his wife to convert to Islam. We also learned that one can be both Hindu and worship a god in another religion. This is because Hinduism is more of a lifestyle than an actual religion, so you can be a Hindu as long as you are in agreement with their way of life.

10/15/12

Today in Human Geography with Mr. Schick, we continued to hear Mr. Schick ramble on about cultural characteristics. Today’s lesson consisted of discussion about the BLOG we posted over the weekend and ethnic heritage. Once we got to discussion on heritage, we talked about how some countries ethnicity and religion can be unifying while they can turn other countries against. For example, in Rwanda and Burundi, people are persecuted because they are either Tutsi or Hutu depending on which country you are in. Also in Yugo Slovakia, they had so many different ethnic groups that it was actually split into several different nations. On the other hand, in the U.S. and Switzerland, these countries probably are number two in the world for variety in culture and both nations are still intact. An example of how religion can be a separation force is Sudan. This is because there was a civil war in which the Muslims tried to take over the country. Again, the United States is an example of how religion can unify a nation, since we have religious freedom.          

World Religions

In Human Geography today, Mr. Schick asked us to research the Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish religions and answer questions on each.
 
Christianity was founded in 41 A.D. in Jerusalem, Israel. It is considered to be a monotheistic religion since we worship only one god, who is called God, whereas in a polytheistic religion they worship gods. The Christian religion’s holy book is called the Bible. Christianity has over 2.1 billion followers globally. Christianity is most common in the Americas but can be found in many countries around the world in Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Islam was founded in 632 A.D. in Mecca. Islam is a monotheistic religion, whose central figure is Muhammad. The Islamic holy book is called the Quran, which has multiple spellings such as Koran, Kora’n, and Kuraan. Islam has 1.57 billion. Just like Christianity, Muslims can be found globally but are mostly located in Asia and Africa.

Buddhism was founded in 460 B.C. in Northeast India. Technically, Buddhists worship no gods, which would make them nontheistic. Unlike other religions, Buddhism does not have a holy book. The Buddhist central figure is Buddha. Buddhism has between 200-500 million followers which can be mostly found in India.

Hinduism was founded in 1500 B.C. in India. Hinduism is considered to be a polytheistic religion. Their holy book, called the Vedas, as several different parts. However none are considered to be absolute truth. The Hindu central figure is a trinity of Shiva, Visnhu, and Brahma. Hindus claim a total of about 900 million followers, which would make it the third largest in the world.

Judaism was founded about 3800 years ago in Israel. The Jewish religion is a monotheistic religion. The Jewish Holy book is, like Christianity, called the Bible. The central figure of worship in Judaism is also God. The number of Jews is between 12-14 million, but has a trend of shrinking since many Jews either assimilate or don’t know that they are Jewish and are mostly located in Israel and New York, United States; however it is a global religion.

Cultural Characteristics

The date is the eleventh of October in the year 2012, and it is another exciting edition of Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class. Today, Mr. Schick our host (teacher) had his class, section two Human Geography, finish the presentation on Christopher Columbus then we got to the main portion of class (drum roll please) soda, or is it pop… no coke. I don’t know call it what you wish, but the lesson was still on what different counties call soda, pop, or coke. Actually, it wasn’t, it was about Cultural Characteristics and the difference in various cultures and what makes up a culture. Some components to a culture are its language, religion and ethnic heritage. For example, Canada speaks both French and English. However English is dominant in most provinces. However, French is the dominant language in Quebec and caused their government to want to succeed from Canada and become its own country. In Sweden, they speak several languages and it does not cause any troubles between the people.

10/10/12

Today in Human Geography class with Mr. Schick, we presented our presentations that we created through Google on the Native Americans, the Vikings, or Christopher Columbus. After hearing the Columbus presentation, I doubt that one would wish to hang with Columbus if they knew that he raped some of the natives, cut off their hands, and enslaved the “Indians.” I mean really compared to the Native Americans and the Vikings you would think that Christopher Columbus was more intent on conquering a world that they knew almost nothing about the combat skills of the natives then actually trading with them like he was hired to do. What if he actually had landed in India? What would that do to their relationship? I will bet Christopher Columbus never thought of that? Did he? In fact the Vikings, the big ferocious conquering warriors, treated the Americas better than Columbus did. Now grant it, the Vikings did land on an arctic tundra that nobody could live in, so maybe it really is not that great of a comparison. Still, I doubt the Vikings would have committed atrocities such as that. I mean they probably would have burned some villages and looted them, so I guess it’s your pick; being raped, enslaved, and having your hands cut off, or killed.

Columbus Day presentation.

Pop quiz: “Who was the first European to discover America?”

A)     Marco Polo

B)      Christopher Columbus

C)      The Vikings

D)     None of the above

E)      All of the above

If this was history class, your answer was probably B) Christopher Columbus. Also, if this were a History course, which it’s not, you would be right too. If you used that knowledge to answer this question, I have one thing to say to you, “WRONG SIR!!!” What your History teachers probably failed to bestow upon you is that Christopher Columbus discovered NOTHING!!! For starters, the Vikings beat Columbus by at least 500 years. Second, it was already found and inhabited long before the Vikings got there. Thirdly, he thought he landed in India. Have been wondering why the Native Americans are commonly called Indians? Well there’s your answer. Thus, if Christopher Columbus is to be renowned for anything, it’s the atrocities he committed against the natives. I will bet you never knew that he cut off their hands and enslaved them back in Europe now did you? I thought so. Now who’s the great explorer that we celebrate the discovery of our continent on Columbus Day?  

"God Grew Tired of Us" assessment

Today, Mr. Schick tested our knowledge of the documentary “God Grew Tired of Us.” I mean he actually tested our knowledge of the movie. In my opinion, I found the test to be on the… harder side, yup definitely the hardest test we have had all year. I never even thought that Mr. Schick would actually have been cruel enough to put the main character’s tribe on the test. I mean come on now, who cares about what tribe some African dude was from. Then, after we all surely turned in failing grades except for one, Mr. Schick had our shadow today read us the answers. Once we finished dealing with the test, Mr. Schick told us a story about how his neighbors got a rooster, which would crow every morning about a half-hour before sunrise. Thus, we plotted revenge with him, revealing his great plan to take a recording of the cock-a-doodle-doing, hook it up a stereo and play it from the edge of their property at about two o’ clock in morning. We shall see how they like being woken up in the morning by the sound of a rooster.

Fundraising for Sudan

Today in Human Geography class, we started by sharing the organizations that we found. Some of these organizations were focused on helping the Lost Boys while others were about children with cleft lips. Mr. Schick also informed us that he was able to contact John Dau about coming to our school to speak to us. However, the price to bring him here would be between six and ten thousand dollars. After seeing the email, Mr. Schick took survey to see if we still wanted him to come, and the majority still said that we wanted him to come over skyping him. Therefore, we are going to work out a way to raise the money to bring him hear as a guest speaker. One idea that we came up with was having a dress-down day for those who pay 3-5 dollars for a bracelet. The guidelines for this dress-down day would be to buy and wear the Sudan bracelet along with jeans and a T-shirt.  

Mr. Schick's Wrath

In Human Geography on the third of October, we did more work as to which organizations need our help. We also heard about the wrath which was unleashed upon section 1 by Mr. Schick. Mr. Schick’s rage was justified by the fact that after he set them to work, within 20 minutes, there were students who were deleting people’s work and typing random comments such as “Mason eats dead puppies.” Mr. Schick tried to resolve this peaceably by ordering them to quit it in a calm controlled voice. This was not enough, the “cyber-terrorism” continued and Mr. Schick’s section one Human Geography class saw that Mr. Schick’s cruel rage knows no limits. In fact, no form of rational comments could stop it. Then, it struck, Mr. Schick dictated that he would turn it into an assignment and give everyone 0’s. Our class however, was much more behaved. There were still groups complaining that their work was being deleted, but Mr. Schick just closed the document for a few minutes and then re-opened it to allow people to copy and paste their work, then closed it again.

end of "God Grew Tired of Us"

Today, in Human Geography class on October 1, 2012, we finished watching the documentary, “God Grew Tired of Us.” At the end of the movie, we found out that most of the lost boys went to college and got their Bachelor’s degree. Not only that, Panther and John were reunited with their families or at least what was left of them. Panther also went back to Africa to build a school for the refugees back at the camp. John also built a medical clinic at the refugee camp in Kenya as well. However, Daniel did not get the same good news. This is because he discovered that his entire family had been killed, and was unable to experience the reunion that Panther and John were lucky enough to get. Mr. Schick also told us that he is friends with John on face book. After, watching the movie, we discussed things that we could do as a class to help this group of people. One thing we came up with in class was having John come to The John Carroll School as a guest speaker and we were also asked to research ways to help for our blog tonight. The most obvious and probably the easiest as well, that I found, is to donate to the John Dau Organization.

9/28/12

On 9/28/12 in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we started late because Mr. Schick was not back from his field trip yet so we had to wait for Mr. Schick to return. Once he arrived and fetched the movie, we continued to watch “God Grew Tired of Us.”  In what we watched today, we learned what job’s they got. They would start work at a factory at 7:00 AM and get dropped off for work at 5:00 AM, two hours before they even started. Even though there are four of them in the apartment, the lost boys also feel lonely without the rest of their family. However, as they stay they learn that Americans are not as friendly as people in Sudan. For example, when the lost boys walk into a 7-11, a clerk behind the counter calls the cops saying that a group of tall African Americans just walked into my store. In Sudan, if someone saw you walking around looking like you are lost, someone would ask if you are lost and point you in the right direction.

"God Grew Tired of Us"

In the 9/27/12 edition of Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we were watching more of the documentary “God Grew Tired of Us.” However, it was a bit more exciting in today’s class. That is because at the beginning of class Mr. Schick was trying to use all of our unit two vocabulary words in sentences relating to “God Grew Tired of Us.” For example, one of these sentences was “We will scrutinize this more as we continue watching.” Also, where we are in the movie right now, some of the Sudanese were chosen to be resettled in America. However, moving to the United States did not get rid of all of their problems. This is because, even though their troubles aren’t as severe as they were in Kenya, they have other issues which come in the form of adapting to their new environment and learning an entirely different culture and for that matter a different lifestyle. For example, the chosen refugees to move to America did not even know what a shower was or most other things that we have as a developed nation (i.e. electricity, running water, or even a grocery store).  

9/26/12

Today was not that exciting or informative as other classes have been, especially for me. The reason for this would be because we went over the correct answers for Monday’s test. I did not really see why I needed to pay any particular attention to this part of class because I was one of two people to get a one-hundred three percent on the test. To make things a bit more exciting or different, we had a visitor (also known as a shadow). The shadow’s name was Taylor, who was shadowing Alice today from Saint Margaret’s School (the middle school that I graduated from). However, we did not only discuss the answers for the test. After, reviewing the test, we continued to watch the film that we started called “God Grew Tired of Us.” We started watching from where we left off on Monday where the refugees have crossed Sudan’s borders, passed through Ethiopia, and they are now arriving in a camp in Kenya.

Test Day

Today, in another exciting edition of Mr. Schick’s Human Geography Class, we were given our first test! The test covered everything that we discussed in class even the Did You Know 3.0 video that we watched one night for our BLOG. However, we were not tested on Illinois and note taking, and they were what I studied the MOST, not really. Well in any case, I found the test to be fairly easy… I mean extremely difficult. Now, some may have been even more stumped, in the case of not having studied. It’s not like I would actually neglect to study for the first test of the year or anything, because I am a very studious student and work very hard. Mr. Schick was generous enough to give us an extra credit question, so we could at least have some chance of actually managing to pass today’s examination. After everyone finished the test, Mr. Schick showed us a video about the civil war in Sudan. The video detailed how the natives fled their country so that they were not killed by the native Muslims trying to take control of the country.

test review

Yesterday, in Human Geography class, the remaining groups that were yet to present after Thursday, presented their presentations, which did include my group’s presentation on America. I think that my group’s was the best because a) I’m being biased, b) we got our American statistics right unlike other groups, and c) there is no “c.” After we finished our very educational presentation on America (we were the last to present), Mr. Schick so generously reviewed the material that will be tested on Monday. For this test, Mr. Schick is requiring us to actually MEMORIZE what we learned since the beginning of the school year. I mean really, he expects us to remember who Socrates was and all of those useful terms that we used to analyze countries with the CIA World Fact Book such as the Total Fertility Rate and Gross Domestic Product! Well, fine then, I guess I’ll just have to study the notes of which I took so expertly after Mr. Schick’s lesson on note taking and see if his lesson really was for nothing.

Presentation Day

Today in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we started our presentations that we made yesterday about the country that we were assigned. Today’s presentations were about Germany, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. I thought that these presentations were very useful because we not only heard the statistics for each country, but we also discussed exactly what each statistic, such as net migration rate, meant and how it relates to figuring out how developed a country is and how much their economy is thriving. For example, the group that had Germany added in obesity in addition to the list of stats that Mr. Schick gave us to include. When this came up in the Germany presentation, Mr. Schick told us how when he went to France for a John Carroll trip he did not see any fat people and that basically every French person was somewhat trimmed. As he was recounting this story to us, I looked up the U.S’s rank in the world for obesity. In my searching, I found that our country is number six in the world for number of fat people. I also found it interesting that, in the time that I have spent analyzing the World Fact Book, I noticed that the CIA left out the crime rate for nations.