Best of the Week: Last day

For my last week of the year, I was to a presentation in Humanities and another in Spanish class. Seeing as the week was only 2.3 days long for me, I was a little bit nervous. On Monday I gave my TED presentation about Amber Case and her talk about how humans are kind of like cyborgs. I went into the presentation well enough prepared, but very nervous as I do for most speeches. However, I noticed this time that it wasn't as much of nerves as it was an excitement. I knew that this would be my last time speaking in front of a class at Glenbrook South. After that, I would be done. It gave me excitement and closure. For the rest of my life if I do pursue a career in education, I know I'll be doing the same thing: speaking in front of classes every day. This is even what I'm doing on senior project. In a way, I'm continuing on with high school with this project, but just in a different atmosphere. It took this class project/presentation for me to realize that.

Best of the Week [DO YOU MIND?!]

               Taking the whole week into perspective, I'd have to say that the best thing that happened this week was our discussion on Tuesday of the "Do you mind" questions. I thought we had a very deep discussion. It turned out to be a lot more interesting to follow than our other class reading. The questions we answered were kind of related which made an even stronger discussion. It really impacted me though and made it the best of my week because I actually related very personally to it. The questions had to do with our minds and how fast they work and when they are conscious. I had just come from choir where I experienced a perfect example of when my mind is conscious. I discussed it in class and found that throughout the entire discussion I was conscious and aware of the conversation.

Blogging Around

Stephanie Gordon posted a blog called, "Captured Thought: The end is near". This caught my attention right away because I had a good idea what it would be about. Stephanie explained how and when it hit her that high school is quickly coming to an end. She questions what the future will hold for her.

beccaw2010humanities said...

HEY STEPHHHH!!!
I could not agree more with that entire entry. I think it was just the beginning of this month that I realized how limited my time was. Since I'm doing senior project, I have 6 more real days of school left. HOLY COW. I'm done after this. Like you, I always thought high school would go by nice and slowly even though everyone said how fast it would be. It seems like only yesterday we were on habitat anticipating senior year. I wish I could start over from freshman year, but like you said, now I can prepare myself for how fast these next four years in college will be!

April 18, 2011 2:22 PM 

The second blog I looked at was Marlee's blog entitled "Metacognition: First semester in Humanities". In this blog, Marlee explains how she has subconsciously taken away material learned in class such as philosophy and ideas from different articles. She has applied these outside the class room which I find very impressive!

beccaw2010humanities said...

Yo Marlee!!!!

Wow, great blog! So true... I agree with a lot of what you said about the classroom material from this year. I think some of it was alright, but it really took me a while and 'getting into' to enjoy what we were reading. Like Sophie's world for example, I also really didn't like that book, but sometimes I would catch myself reading it and enjoying it, until I remembered how cheesy and unrealistic it was.
But overall, I have to agree with you that I learned a lot about my mind. I'm happy with humanities first semester; I think it took me this class to understand some things about myself. Overall I'd say it was a very beneficial semester.
The same thing happened with Shadow Catcher, when Wiggins described her own life and boring art, I wasn't too interested. However, when she told the story of Edward and Clara, that's what really got me. I think Humanities helped me discover what type of reading I just 'get'.

April 18, 2011 2:31 PM 

Final Blog: Lit Circles

As Living in Pictures, My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin talks a great deal about her specific mind works, I noticed that some other people’s books focus on how the mind of a regular American works. This is brought up in terms of thinking in general, and thinking to create ideas about history and today’s media. 

One response that I really saw a connection is was Jennifer J’s response on the book, Where Good Ideas Come From by Johnson. In her response, Jennifer mentions how the author mainly talks about what types of environments effect the brain and creates more ideas. Ideas are key here and working with other people are how we work better together. However, I noticed the contrast with what Temple Grandin talks about in the book I read. She is speaking of people with autism, and there is a vast difference in the way in which their brains work. People with autism would not fit well in this working environment because of the lack of communication skills they have. It is more difficult to them to connect and make conversation with people. However, it is easy to connect with objects and places just like Temple connects with the cattle she works with and the plant she works on. 

Most humans work very well together to connect their ideas and make them better, but because of the concentration and devotion people with autism have, they are able to come up with ideas and make discoveries or inventions that are just as insightful and creative without the help of other humans. I thought these two contrasting points were very interesting because of the way it displays Temple Grandin challenging the status quo, and for that matter, all autistic people, because of how they make use of their brains.

Lit Circle Post: Meeting 2

Meeting Number 2: Pages 43-115

Thinking in Pictures, My Life With Autism

Temple Grandin

Summary: 

Temple Grandin talks a lot about the effects of autism, programs for it, and ways to treat it, which in my opinion resembled a guide for parents with autistic children rather than a book appropriate for a high school student. Since Temple is extremely passionate about a few things, as an inventor, she talks about how she created the squeeze machine, a machine designed to put pressure on the body to give the illusion of hugging and holding which comforted Grandin in times when she could not feel that from another human. She mentions the problems autistic people have with their senses like smell, taste, hearing, and feel becuase of how sensitive some are to even the slightest touch or noise. Later, Grandin goes on to discuss how to deal with the emotions of an autistic person and how relatable people with autism are to animals.

Major Claim: 

“The irony is that if I had given up the machine, I would have been a cold, hard rock. Without the machine, I would have had no kind feelings towards [her mother]”.

Response: 

Grandin describes how her mother felt unappreciated because of the lack of emotions she was able to express towards her. Her mother was even offended because of how she created this machine to serve as a method of love and care rather than a family member. However, Grandin is extremely creative in how she deals with this; she knows it will be better off for her mother if she takes the time in her squeeze machine to feel love and closeness to another object and later be able to deal with her mother in a more humane way. By being creative, she is dealing with her autism, and making it easier for the loved ones surrounding her. 

Captured Thought: Music Theory

           One of these ideas of a "now I get it!" moment don't come by thinking about it, but come spontaneously. So asking to come up with a moment like that with a 3 day notice is a bit unrealistic. There have not been any recent thoughts I have had that included a moment of realization. Of course these moments are constantly happening, but they are difficult to recall unless you are looking out for them.

            I could lie to you to simply follow the prompt and say that just last week I had a great idea and a moment of complete realization, but that would do me no good to reflect upon it. Although this is not recent, I can still recall a specific time where I had an extreme realization. Of course just like half the things I write about this moment was in choir sophomore year when I had a moment where I understood music theory. It had always seemed to be a foreign language to me even though we had always been tested on it; but I just let the theory of music pass me by. These were simple ideas too, like rhythmic ideas and counting and identifying key signatures and what not. It didn't really apply to anything I did because I tended to follow along with what the rest of the choir sang and not really pay much attention to the notes on the page. 

           One day in choir we were given a work sheet and asked to write down the note's value and the beat it got. (1&2&3&4& in a 4/4 measure for example). I was completely confused and although I understood values of each note, the page looked foreign. I decided to seek help and sat down with Elyse to see if she could teach me. What a great decision. She explained in a way that was more clear than I had ever heard before. I finally understood the entirety of note values and key signatures. It was such a moment of realization and totally a "wow" moment. I was getting these on my own and understanding the music. This wasn't that spontaneous but after thinking about it for a while, without knowing it I would have never gotten by being in Solace and Chambers because of how much more independent I need to be. In smaller groups when I am singing a part on my own, I need to know the values of notes. Without an early understanding this would have been such a struggle for me. 

Connection: Probability

           After talking a great amount about Einstein because of the book we just read, in class, we decided to take a look at a few videos about challenging the adjacent possible. Along with that we checked out a video on entropy. The video reminded me a lot of what we are doing in math, which is mostly on probability.
          The video seemed to discuss a lot of what Einstein discovered in his time. For example, the man in the informational video explained how his i-pod headphones always seem to go into his pocket in a neat pile, but always come out in a different configuration. This is because there are millions of possibilities that the headphones could end up in, but only one of those ways is being completely neat.
           Already knowing the mathematics behind this made it clearer what the man in the video was explaining. It made me realize just how I was jumping into the mind of Einstein and exploring the ideas he created of probability.

metacognition: First Semester Humanities

The first semester in humanities flew by faster than I realized. The books we read and the activities we did in class were extremely effective. I think the main reason they all worked so well was because they seemed to fit in with topics of other classes. In issues and answers we study a lot of philosophy and that is exactly what Sophie’s World taught us. Because I was already familiar with these ideas, it made the book more of a brush up of the information previously learned. All the music activities we did and vertical listening helped and was familiar to me because of my music theory and choir classes. The connection within classes is an effective way of learning. The timing of the topics worked perfectly in this class.