Week Three

Weekly Update

Today was a fun day of debating the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Throughout this week students have learned about different kinds of governments and how Iran transitioned from a constitutional monarchy to a representative democracy to a dictatorship and, finally, to a theocracy. Students were put into groups yesterday to argue for either a social democracy, a socialist government, or a theocracy in a role-playing activity, which took place today. The debates were a great learning experience as students put themselves in the shoes of people living during this time of rapid transition in 1979 Iranian society, and we had a lot of fun debating what Iran's future could have looked like. I was really impressed by the empathy that many of the students demonstrated by arguing these positions.

I also told all of the students about a fun opportunity to join a book club with Ms. Reid and I. Students had the option to check out a copy of Persepolis, which is a graphic novel about a girl living through the Iranian Revolution that we have assigned as mandatory reading in the past, but this year is an optional reading (due to time constraints). It's a great book and we hope to have this club meet on Tuesday, September 9th during study hall.

Check out Persepolis on amazon

Check the assignment tracker for an up-to-date listing of where we should be in our assignments right now.

Upcoming Next Week

Next week we will wrap up our study of Iranian society's transition and move on to looking at our second case study: the  Indian Independence movement. There, we will see how a former British colony utilized non-violent struggle to gain their independence and look at how Indian society changed as a result.

We will also be studying now for the South America quiz for next Friday, so make sure your son or daughter is practicing for these weekly quizzes.

I hope everyone has a great three-day weekend!

~Mr. Grieve