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.