Reflection of the year

This year in American studies there has been so much that we learned. So many different topics and time periods starting from the 1700s all the way to present day. So many of what we learned we could apply to real life situations and learn from the mistakes in today's world.  An example of this is slavery and women's rights, there is so much from racism to gender equality that we can learn from. Furthermore the whole experience and learning how to write essays on history, making OPVLs and other things that helped me throughout the year. Furthermore I saw growth in these different skills as it wasn't a one time learn thing but rather through practice did I solidify my knowledge of OPVLs and  writing solid factual essays with sufficient information. On the wall in Mr. Hoffman's room we had a quote that more or less said "in the moment you will not rise to the occasion but you will return to the practice that you have done." this will truly be quote will be truly be proven once we take the IB exam for American studies and return to the practice of OPVLs and writing informational essays. All in all this year was very fun and it had its ups and downs but I learned many life lessons that will help me on later on in life.

1960s Space Race

The cold war was a dramatic set of events that Russia and America went through. On October 4, 1957 the soviets launched the world’s first satellite ‘Sputnik.’ This was not appealing to the American’s it was a demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 Missiles which was capable of delivering a nuclear war. Because of this the U.S. launched its own satellite by the name of ‘Explorer’ which launched the same year that President Dwight Eisenhower created NASA. However, Russia then succeed the U.S. in sending the first human into space in 1961 with astronaut Yuri Gagarin. The United States retaliated with Apollo 11 that sent three astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin ALdrin, and Michael Collins. By landing on the moon the United States effectively won the space race. The space race came to an official ending in 1975 with the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission that sent three American astronauts aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with the Soviet made Soyuz vehicle. The two commanders of the spacecraft officially greeted the each other to symbolize gradual improvement of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The outcome of the space race was positive, because it included rapid improvements and advancements in telecommunication, solar power, computer science, etc. The innovations led to the inventions of other technologies today like the GPS and more.

Cold war

The Cold war was a time where the ideas of communism and the idea of capitalism collided a lot during those rough times. The war was between the 2 superpowers of the world USSR and US. The USSR spreading Communism and the U.S. spreading the idea of capitalism. There was no actual war however it was a competition of who could "stick their chest out more''.  An example of this is the race to space where the russians got to space, but almost immediately the Americans sent apollo 11 to the moon. There were also many proxy wars between the two such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Furthermore the ideology that the USSR was spreading was very different than the original meaning of communism which was that of a political theory that advocated class war and lead to a society with all property being publicly owned. The ideology that the USSR was spreading, was that of communism becoming something more of a dictatorship rather than the original meaning. However since both countries had so much influence because of their superpower natures they imposed their ideologies such as russia on cuba and the U.S. on germany as after world war 2 the U.S. had a very large influence on the germans.  All in all the cold war was a battle of ideologies and influence.

1920 Blues

The 1920s ushered in a wave of new music and art, one particular movement that grew popular was the jazz movement. The jazz movement represented a wave of new Americans that were more free and more outgoing. Women called flappers who represented the new culture were more popular and listened to the "new" music which was jazz, and talked about their sexual lives more freely. This new music called was introduced with a negative connotation as even the word "jazz" was meant to explain fornication and something called a "jazzbow" was a lover of the ladies. Jazz was unaccepted at first but was slowly accepted into the new culture by the likes of performers that have their names burned into history such as Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Jazz famously is known to have been originated from african american roots which for the most part is true but there were many white american performers that picked up the "new music" and helped increased its popularity. A very famous performer named Benny Goodman who was nicknamed the king of the swing helped popularize jazz in the white community and played from 1926 through 1986 when he passed away. All in all Jazz helped America jump into a new day and age in the 1920s and introduced a new culture. It also helped the black community by pushing their arts into a new day and age where it was later on more appreciated.

Why slavery isn't the cause for rascism

Have you ever take the sin of slavery upon yourself and felt obligated to pay black people back for the pain that they suffered.  Although thats all fine and dandy I want to talk about why i feel that this shouldnt be taken ones self and why it can't be taken upon yourself. the first thing that I wanted to cover is that slavery is no longer a factor that effects black people today. Although many people may argue that slavery is the cause for rascism, I feel that it is the exact opposite rather it is rascism that affects slavery. To prove this let us take a step back in history and look at slavery and rascism, you will find that slavery has come and gone but rascism has always been there. For example If we look at something recently, the rascism tensions between Pakistan and India are a great example. However there is no recent record of slavery between two races, which proves my point that rascism has been here for a longer time than slavery. So I feel that people should not take upon themselves to pay back black people for the sin slavery that they haven't even committed because there is nothing that we can do that will fix that problem. Rather the problem that remains is rascism and the only way to fix that problem is to treat everyone equally on a personal level not on a national level. The only possible way to fix this problem is to treat everyone equally and justly, on an individual level so that acts such as slavery are not repeated.

Unit 1 Overview and Rebuilding era

This unit we learned a lot of things ranging from the revolution and the war against the British to slavery and the Civil war. We learned about reasoning and how to analyze texts to use them and learn about history from OPVL. To help us understand the importance of history we also discussed a range of topics such as general pickets charge or more earlier we discussed like Jared diamonds theory of movement. We were tested on our knowledge of logic and history in our unit test. It tested our skills of using OPVL to analyze a document and the skill of comparing and contrasting 2 very different or alike documents. It also tested our writing skills for an essay. I think i did fine on the test because the test wasn't testing our knowledge as it was testing our skill of analyzing different documents. After the test we started to learn about what happened after the civil war and we moved in learning about the roaring 20's and which after the great depression moving into World War 1. All in all i think that this unit was great and we will learn more next unit about earlier times.

Foreign culture day and the Civil war

In American lit this week we debated whether or not we should have a foreign culture day or not. There were many great  arguments on the both sides. One thing that was brought forth by the group against the idea of foreign culture day was that it encourages unnecessary racism. I realized that due to the actions of one person a whole society has to suffer. To connect this to the civil war because of the actions of a select few states that decided that it is okay to own another person, it caused all of America to go in war for 4 years. This affected people as they had to enlist into the army as early adults and a lot of them died. Another more specific example in the civil war was the battle of Gettysburg where General Jeb Stuart made a mistake by raiding small towns rather than scouting the union army and reporting back to General Lee. His mistake caused problems and complications for General Lee's army, which some historians believe ultimately caused the Confederates to lose the war. What we can take from this is that one person that can be used as an excuse to blame a whole society. So this is more of a character check for whoever reads this. Remember that you represent yourself and a culture or group so if you do something wrong it could be used against not just you but the people you represent.