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.