Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Communication in Promises.

"Why was communication essential to understanding among the children of Promises?"


    In the movie Promises, the audience is introduced to Moishe, Mahmoud, Shlomo, Yarko, Daniel, Faraj, and Sanabel; these are all kids that live either on Jerusalem or on the refugee camps around them. During the movie, they show their points of view on the Israeli and Palestine conflict over the land. Each one of them has a distinct opinion due to their religions: Mahmoud, Faraj, and Sannabel are Muslims and believe that the Palestinians should have the land, while Moishe and Shlomo are Jewish and believe that Israel should continue, whereas Yarko and Daniel are secular and just want to stop the conflict. The goal of this movie was to show their perspective and then try to make the kids meet in order to play and discuss the issue.



   The conflict between these two cultures is a quite old one and it does not seem to get any closer to peace, so the idea was to make kids, the future generation of both sides, to communicate with each other. Communication is necessary whenever there is a dispute for something so all perspectives can be shown and understood for the process of reaching a peaceful solution can please both sides. Adding children to a debate of opinions is also very effective since they do not know much about the other's opinion due to their age which means less experience and knowledge. If they never contact the other point of view, they might grow with a biased view and just increase on the violence of the conflict. While if they gain knowledge about each other, they will be favorable to understand both sides and provide solutions in the future. As they got together, they saw how similar they were and how foolish all this idea of separation seemed.


-Israeli Checkpoint



   Coming together is not the only method of communication used for the understanding of the kids in the movie. Even though they all are neighbors, it is hard for them to come together due to the Israeli checkpoints which do not allow the Palestinian kids enter Jerusalem, so communication was an essential method for them to know each other and establish a discussion. An effective method of communication used was the phone to call each other. Faraj was able to call Yarko and Daniel in order to get to know each other and schedule their friendly meeting. Another method of communication that brought opinions together was by B.Z. Goldberg, the director, himself. He was able to send messages from kids to another and he was also responsible to introduce them to many different perspectives. Finally, this movie was another part of communication that helped on the understanding among the children, since many of them only were exposed to the other kids when they went watch it on the cinemas. As they watched the movie they were exposed to the suffering many of them passed and to what each of them believe on, also exposed to the possibility of meeting the two groups represented by the meeting of the kids. Also they were not watching the movie by themselves; people from various cultures came to them and talked to them about their opinion on the conflict.   

      

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Racism to respect - Blog Post

Mateus Pianowski
Topic: "What does it take for someone to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect like the transformation that occurred in Derek?" 




     In my Acdemic Leadership class, we have watched the movie "American History X," which contains a powerful lesson about racial hate and its possible outcomes. I it tell the story of how Derek, the main character's brother, changed from a radical racist to a white man that shows respect the other cultures and people. As we watched the movie, I noticed exactly four reasons that took Derek to change his prejudicial behavior and these are: contact, outcomes of hate and reflection.




     Before talking about the motives it is important to state that the change that Derek made was actually something drastic due to the fact that the he was a radical racist. We can put him at the second level of the pyramid of hate, because he led a small group of Neo Nazi Skinheads, he killed 2 black men, and invaded a Korean market. What I am trying to say is that these reasons that are going to be presented are somethings that are so strong that can change the opinion of man like Derek.

    Contact is the first and the most important reason why Derek changed his mind is that he had contact with a friendly a black man when he went to prison after killing those two men. Until he went to prison, the character never had any friendly contact with a person of different race, the only contact was the violent ones caused by his prejudice. Derek never thought he was so much alike to a black man, thus he always believed on white supremacy. Without contact between races, ignorance is created and people tend to separate from each other. One man that sought this contact was Martin Luther K. Jr with his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In this speech, he says that he dreams of that one day a white chid and a black child can hold hands in peace.




    The second reason is the outcomes of hate, these can be serious consequences that can happen to a person as a response to the racist acts of a said person. In the movie, Derek's hate caused him to become a victim of rape in the prison showers which made him reflect on what could he do to stop and prevent these bad things to happen to him. These bad consequences can change the thought of racist people based on how terrible they affected them, so they can stop. Unfortunately, Derek lived a life of extreme prejudice which also caused his brother to get shot. 

    Finally, there is reflection. Derek came to a point of reflection after he was gang raped and was asked by his mentor the following: "has anything you've done made your life better?" This is where Derek notices that all this hating he was carrying never helped him or his family and then he decides to stop with the racism and take care of himself and his family. People that are in the middle of this change of thought reflect like Derek in order to fully change and  to see what is their next step to prevent that racism impacts their life again. After reflection, some people should take help from anti-racist groups like SHARP to completely erase their thoughts of hate.  


    My twitter: @MateusPianowski
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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Blog Post - Resoponse to the Seattle Boycott Article


     Last week, one my teachers showed to our class an article that talked about the ongoing boycott in a school of Seattle. Garfield High School has boycotted the MAP standardized test, but what surprised me the most in this event was that every teacher of Garfield supported the boycotted. To my understanding, these MAP tests are forcing the teachers to teach their students the answers to these tests, while the students lose their creativity, they do not learn anything from the subjects.

                                                   


   This is the definition of the verb teach that I have got from dictionary.comto impart knowledge or skill to; give instruction to. It clearly states that it is the act of give your knowledge or skill to others and instruction them through their learning. My point is that with the standardized tests, students will only receive instruction of how to go well in the tests and no knowledge will be received, which makes the meaning of teaching obsolete.

    In my school we do have the MAP test, but it works different than in the other schools. Let me explain something first, here all teachers make their own test, quizes, and assignments to grade the students. The MAP test we take does not inffluence our grade at all, when we asked our teachers about it, they said it was test that would show how well we are doing in specific subjects. We take these tests once every quarter and there are four tests: a Math test, a Science test, a English Language test, and a English Literature test. I really dislike these tests, because for most of them they ask question about content that we don't even know about. Plus these tests, from my point of view, are a huge waste of time. I support the teachers at Garfield that are trying to get rid of the MAP tests so they can finally truly teach their students.

Seattle Boycott Article: http://processofliving.com/2013/01/27/under-pressure/