Why Do You Ask?: August 2009

Geography Domain Begins

We have to start off with the basics. It's like juggling...you can't do what is in the video below, without first practicing the simple moves, make it automatic, and then grow. You'll make mistakes, but you don't quit - you don't give up - you don't whine - you pick up the pieces, and you move forward to your goal.

We have 19 countries to learn, and we have been doing well. We must know what the countries are, how to pronounce them, how to spell them, and locate them on any map at any time. Then, later, when we discuss the "good stuff" we'll know where we are in the world, and why things are happening in these countries.

And yes -- there is some very good stuff coming.

Here are the countries we must know (a good representation chosen by the state, I might add).

AFRICA -
1-Egypt
2-Sudan
3-Kenya
4-South Africa
5-Nigeria
6-Democratic Republic of the Congo

MIDDLE EAST
7-Turkey
8-Israel (with the Gaza Strip inside the border)
9-Saudi Arabia
10-Iraq
11-Iran
12-Afghanistan

ASIA
13-Japan
14-China
15-Vietnam
16-Indonesia
17-India
18-North Korea
19-South Korea

We have to know our countries, in order, by Wednesday. They will be our lyrics for Thursday.

On Thursday, we have two special guests. Paul & Anna Joseph will come and teach us songs to help us remember the countries. I'll post the video of the class on Thursday or Friday of this week. Here's a little about Paul & Anna:

Paul and Anna Joseph have been worship leaders at Fellowship since August 2002. Anna was born in Dalton and raised in Dalton and Ringgold. Paul grew up in an Air Force family up and down the east coast. They both have BA degrees from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, where they met in 1980. They were married in 1982, and have two daughters Sarah and Hannah. Paul & Anna are published songwriters, and have led worship and sung at numerous conferences and retreats. In addition, Paul has been nominated for two Grammy awards, and won a Grammy in 1987.

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Concepts - Wrap Up - Coffee House Classroom

I call these "You Should Know By Now" ideas.

Conflict and Change
Culture
Governance
Location
Movement
Human/Environment Interaction
Economics
Continuity through Change

Personally, I think we did rather well on the concepts. Everything we study the rest of the year will be funneled through at least one of these concepts.

We used Google Maps (because the Internet couldn't handle Google Earth) to see some pictures in the countries we will study. We made predictions about Conflict and Culture based on what we saw in the pictures. What conflict could you predict from the pictures? What predictions could be made about the culture from the pictures?

Picture 1 - From Nigeria

Picture 2 - From Sudan

Picture 3 - From Israel (West Bank)

Picture 4 - From Vietnam

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We also conducted our first "coffee house" class. We'll get better at this. Here's the idea.

When people go to Starbucks, Panera Bread, McDonalds, or Zaxby's (where ever) you get your food, sit in a booth, or at a table and you talk about stuff (usually other people), and that's what we want to do in our class at times. One of the keys was to conduct yourself the same way you would in public - not talking so loud that other people would be able to hear your rumors ;-).

So we looked at the pictures, wrote individual reflections (keywords), created groups of 3, and had timed discussions about possible conflict and culture.

I really would like to have the high tables and stools in my room. That would be cool, huh?

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Concept #5 - Economics (Videos and Critique)

There is so much to know about economics that the Georgia CRCT test for 7th grade Social Studies is worth 35% in this area. We are only scratching the surface in August, but will see how economic issues are present in nearly everything we study this year.

For now, you need to know that

Production, Distribution, and Consumption of goods and services produced by the society are affected by the location, customs, beliefs, and laws of the society.

Societies must decide on three answers to the following questions:

What will we produce?
Who (and how) will we produce it?
Who will be the consumer of our product?

We will see that these questions are answered differently by people and nations based on their cultural backgrounds (religion, beliefs, traditions, customs, and government). In fact the videos below show some of the differing opinions.

In class, we only watched the first video entitled "The Story of Stuff." While I do not agree with everything in the video, that does not mean there is no value in it. In fact, much of the video explains the concept well. The final 4 videos below, show someone's response to the video; another way of considering economics.

The speaker does talk fast, so you might want to pause and rewind in order to understand what she says. Below is the video in English and Spanish.

English version

Spanish version (in three sections)

There is also a critique (which is good to watch if just for debate purposes) in 4 parts:

As you can tell, there is much disagreement, argument, and conflict about economics in our world. Hey, wait a minute...confilct is one of our major concepts! See how it all works together?

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Concept #4 - Location

The Big Idea with Location is Location affects the economy, culture, and development of a society.

By now, students should know how to find absolute location using latitude and longitude coordinates, and relative location by describing what a location is near. We will one these skills throughout the year.

We also discussed a little about how practice and repetition is how our brain learns best, and that the brain does not really choose to learn new things, but rather wants to use our memory to apply old things to new situations. [NOTE: Yes, we did discuss this kind of cognitive science, based on Daniel Willngham's book, Why Don't Students Like School. Most of my classes enjoy the conversation of this topic.]

We watched the video below to begin class, and will use it as a reference point throughout the year. Practice until new things become automatic...like tying your shoe or saying the ABCs. Directed practice in basic knowledge gives all of us the necessary background to apply our thoughts (memory) to new, complex concepts we will meet this year.

So let's learn to "skip rope" like the girls from King's Firecrackers.

Do you think we can do Social Studies as well as these girl's jump rope? I do!

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Concept #2 - Governance

We have discussed two of the major Concepts for our class:

Conflict & Change
Culture

Today we discuss Governance. The video below will give you an idea of the purpose of governance, what it is designed to do, and why we create so many laws in a country like the United States.

In some of the countries we study, you will see that because they have little diversity, they have fewer (and some would say more uncivilized) laws. When a society has few cultures represented, the need for compromise, consideration, and fairness to all is less of an issue in the eyes of the government.

As we are seeing, the world is getting more information about how other societies give the citizens more of a voice in the political process. Countries that once were secluded from democratic citizen participation are now seeking more options in their government. Therefore, governments are becoming more complex too.

Stay with me...this will begin to make sense soon, and by the end of the school year it will seem like common sense.

Posted via email from Room 755

Concept #2 - Governance

We have discussed two of the major Concepts for our class:

Conflict & Change
Culture

Today we discuss Governance. The video below will give you an idea of the purpose of governance, what it is designed to do, and why we create so many laws in a country like the United States.

In some of the countries we study, you will see that because they have little diversity, they have fewer (and some would say more uncivilized) laws. When a society has few cultures represented, the need for compromise, consideration, and fairness to all is less of an issue in the eyes of the government.

As we are seeing, the world is getting more information about how other societies give the citizens more of a voice in the political process. Countries that once were secluded from democratic citizen participation are now seeking more options in their government. Therefore, governments are becoming more complex too.

Stay with me...this will begin to make sense soon, and by the end of the school year it will seem like common sense.

Posted via email from rrmurry's posterous

Testing PicPosterous for iPhone.

Will need iPhone 3G to take advantage of the automatic video upload.

Unbelievable what the posterous.com people are doing to make publishing content on-the-move so simple (even a k-12 teacher can do it).

iPhoned
From R. Murry

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No Reason

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Concept #2 - Culture

Today we discussed the idea that

Cultures of a society are the product of religion, beliefs, customs, traditions, and governments of that society.

We compared and contrasted Mexican and Greek cultures from movie clips of Fools Rush In and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Earlier this week we discussed the concept of Conflict and Change. We concluded that some conflicts occur due to differences of opinion or points of view. Culture deals five areas of life that can be controversial (or things people can have different opinions about).

So, when there are different cultures within a society, it could create situations of conflict, and therefore constant change.

Below is the presentation we used to learn the concept.

Tomorrow - Governance.

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Conflict & Change - I Think We Got It! - TOMS Shoes

Today, we finished up the concept of Conflict & Change.

I think the most difficult thing for everyone to understand is:

If Change can be a good thing...
And if Conflict always leads to change...
Then it is possible for Conflict to be a good thing...at times.

The struggle is that when students have a conflict, they usually get in trouble of some kind. Demerits, Suspensions, Counselor's office for "conflict resolution." All of these actions are negative in the mind of most students.

But, most students agreed that The Revolutionary War of 1776, which gave the United States its independence from Great Britain, was a good thing.

It is possible that if freedom is the result in Iran, that the election protest of this past summer - violent as it was - might serve as a good thing for the generations that follow.

We agreed that conflict is sometimes started because we have differing opinions and points of view on certain topics. When someone disagrees with our opinion, then conflict can happen, and change will result.

Differing opinions and beliefs will lead us to the 2nd concept - Culture.

The big idea, or as I like to call it "You Should Know This By Now" point, is culture is the product of religion, beliefs, traditions, customs, and governments of the society.

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We also learned more about my beautiful, ugly shoes.

TOMS Shoes are something we are beginning to look at as a project for this year (and I hope for many years to come). I shared two videos (along with my own shoes) so students could begin thinking about buying some of their own, and providing shoes for a child in need. The videos are below.

TOMS stands for Tomorrows - the idea is making better TOMorrowS for children who suffer disease and infection because they have no shoes to wear. I am becoming a victim of "TOMSitis" (defined at 1:12 in the video).

TOMS Shoe Drop

See 0:50 - 1:10 for the events (day without shoes and Style You Sole party).