Week Nineteen - End of the Semester!

This Week

This has been a really busy week as we have been introducing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict now for nearly the entire week, with a one day break Wednesday when Mrs. Montgomery came in to talk to the students about their posters, which we will be working on incrementally after we get back next year. For those who have been out - each day I have recorded the lectures from 4th period so students can find these online if they are missing them, so please direct them to do so if they are absent for long periods of time this week, as they will need this background information when they return and it will be difficult for them to catch up if they are not taking time to listen to the lectures and go through the PowerPoints over break. A good extension opportunity for you at home would be to check out the New York Times piece from this week by Thomas Friedman on the upcoming Israeli elections and discuss with your son or daughter what he or she believes is the correct path forward, as this will be the topic of their letters when we return.

Secondly, Prezis have finally been graded and I wanted to highlight a few that were very well done (and which will probably be templates for students next year. Brian Bollinger's Prezi looks great, is well-written, and includes the appropriate sources. Colleen Fulton's Prezi and Edward Love's Prezi also look great and are very informative. Nice work all!

Check out Edward's portfolio here!

Also this week students were putting on Healthy Living seminars for teachers. My favorite was when Starr, Ben, and Vyshu came and gave me food. Thanks!

Ben, Starr, and Vyshu came to tell me how bad my eating habits are at Wendy's, but how I can make better choices when I am in a hurry and walk across the parking lot to get fast food! I suppose now I have to lay off the Baconators...

Upcoming Week

Obviously, next week is winter break! When we return we will be continuing with the Israeli-Palestinian Conference. I'm very excited that on January 8th we will host our first-ever Israeli-Palestinian Peace Conference, whereby students will hear from three of four speakers on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Each speaker has a different perspective. Below are their bios.

• Angela Frydman - Presenting the Israeli perspective, Angela Frydman was an assistant Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney for 21 years, specializing in child abuse and high profile violent crime cases. Since 2005, she has been teaching a course entitled “Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict” to Jewish HS students in an effort to prepare them for Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic sentiment on college campuses.
• Dr. Donna Schlagheck - Presenting the U.S. Perspective, Dr. Schlagheck has published a number of  books and articles and her research is focused on the topics of terrorism and diplomacy. She is the Chair of the Political Science Department and the advisor for the Model UN Team.
• Dr. Vaughn Shannon - Presenting the U.S. Perspective, Dr. Shannon has written a number of books and articles about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and is an Associate Professor at Wright State in the Political Science Department and advisor for the Model Arab League Team.
• Safa Suleiman - Presenting the Palestinian perspective, Safa Suleiman is a history, political science, and liberal education instructor at Park University.  Her courses include Modern Middle East, Arab and Muslim Women's Writing, and American Foreign Policy.  Safa was born and raised in Colorado and is of Palestinian heritage.

I'm really looking forward to the conference and working on the posters when we get back!

I hope you and your family have a great break and I wish everyone who celebrates them a Happy Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Feast of St. John's, Christmas Octave, New Year's, Mawlid Un Nabi, and, of course, a Happy Festivus!

~Mr. Grieve

Weekend Update on Grades

Students and Parents,

I've recently input grades for the Prezi project, which involves taking notes throughout this unit the past few weeks. After checking, a number of students are missing significant portions of this assignment. As a result, I've updated ProgressBook and many grades have changed, some for the better, some for the worse. Please check ProgressBook this weekend. Students who are making up a late assignment should email me once they've done the complete missing assignment, which is as follows (each worth 10 points):

Summary of the Cambodian Genocide
Summary of the Bosnian Genocide
Summary of the Rwandan Genocide
Summary of a current, ongoing conflict
Completion of the US Immigration Policy assignment (from the Holocaust unit)

Students should email me with a link to their Prezis ONLY if they've completed all of these if they would like a chance to earn 70% credit on this assignment.

Also, I apologize, I just realized that three assignments were not visible. This has been corrected. Otherwise, their 2nd quarter grades are unlikely to change much given any further assignments that will happen this week. The extra credit opportunity of attending the showing of "Bag It" this Thursday may be a good one for some students to take advantage of. See the weekly newsletter from DRSS for details.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

~Mr. Grieve

Week Eighteen! - Exciting Week!

This Week

*Note, this post was updated at 12:46pm to let you know about the showing's of "Bag It" happening next week, (see below).

This was a really exciting week! We began the week looking at the Conflict in Northern Ireland, or "The Troubles," then on Tuesday we had two guests: my former professor,  Dr. McIlvenna (aka "Dr. No") and local engineer and Belfast native, Eoghan (pronounced 'Owen') Gregory, who spoke to students about growing up during The Troubles. Both shared personal as well as historical perspectives on the conflict and students really seemed to enjoy hearing from both of them. Thanks so much Dr. No and Eoghan! For more information about the progress and challenges that still exist in Northern Ireland, an interesting follow-up article can be found HERE at this NPR story.

Eoghan Gregory, local area engineer and project manager from Belfast, Northern Ireland talked to students about growing up during "The Troubles."

WSU Professor and DRSS parent Dr. Noeleen McIlvenna (aka "Dr. No") speaks to students about her personal experience during The Troubles and how the peace agreement was reached.

On Wednesaday, we discussed and researched current, ongoing conflicts and genocides from United to End Genocide. Recent headlines that the World Food Program has been forced to suspend its food program for the conflict in Syria (click here for NY Times Article) are troubling. The conflict in Syria has brought about a refugee crisis of over 3.2 million refugees who have been displaced. Students were shown what students did in North Carolina by creating "Memes 4 Peace" to help raise money and awareness for these displaced persons. They were also asked to think about how they could have an impact on helping raise awareness or alleviating the effects of global conflicts and genocides through the poster project we are doing, so please talk to them about how they can make a difference!

Click HERE to go to the United to End Genocide Website's map and read about the conflicts the students researched this week.

Finally, on Thursday I introduced students to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. We are just beginning to study this conflict, and it's a long post already, so I'll provide more details on what they're learning in next week's update, but we've only scratched the surface this week!

Upcoming Week

Next week students will be immersed in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, I will be grading their Prezis, entering final grades, and we will be (I can't believe I'm saying this...) half way through the year! No more major projects will be due next week, although there will likely be one more quiz and possibly a couple of classwork assignments, so please check grades on ProgressBook and see what your son or daughter is missing.

I'm also looking for feedback on whether or not the "HW tracker" is being utilized. I'm considering dispensing with it, as I've struggled with keeping it up to date, but if it's something that many use I will do my best to re-double my efforts. Let me know your thoughts.

*Update - We also had 6th grade students all week updating our advisory about the Zero Waste initiative here at DRSS (click HERE to learn more)! The students did a great job and they explained that next week there will be a showing of "Bag It," which tracks the life of a plastic bag (check out the trailer HERE). As this will go hand in hand with our next unit on Globalization, I am offering students who go to one of the showings next week extra credit (10 points out of 0). They can sign up themselves and their family members on the door to Mr. Nelson's room all day today and during the day next week. The showings will be on Thursday the 18th, 5:00 – 6:30pm and 6:30 to 8:00pm. Bring a reusable bowl and cup (ones you won't be throwing away when you're finished) and get free pop and popcorn! Should be a fun time for the whole family.

Thanks!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Seventeen

This Week

Time flew by this week, it's hard to remember what all we did! We began the week by finishing up our studies of the Bosnian Genocide, looking at how the evolution of international law has led to the creation of the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) and watched a short clip about the ICC, or International Criminal Court, an outgrowth of the 1998 Rome Conference that created this "court of last resort."

The rest of the week we studied the Rwandan Genocide. On Tuesday, students read about the Rwandan genocide and then on  watched a Frontline documentary on the event, finishing up today. Afterwards, we practiced the listening skill of asking questions, and I asked students to write down a question they had about the conflict. I'd encourage you to ask them what the question was that they wrote down and asked in class and talk through with them what they learned through this experience. They had some really good ones that I hope you will talk with them about.

Also, on Wednesday, we had an exciting Exhibition Night where many students showed off all of the hard work they've been doing this semester. It was great seeing many of you there, and I learned a lot about what they're learning and doing in their other classes. I learned a little bit about what lysing is (and what it does to beets), got to read many personal memoirs, and I saw many videos from the Westcott House and Public Service Announcements, so it was a great learning experience for me too!

Below are some pictures from the students who were in my room.

It was a busy night!

Some of the students getting ready for the event... last minute preparations!

Dr. Harris, (WSU) Dean of the College of Education and Human Services and DRSS board member, stops to hear from a student about her learning experience.

Upcoming Week

Next week is an exciting one for me as we begin to study one of my personal "favorite" conflicts to study, which is the Conflict in Northern Ireland, aka "The Troubles." I enjoy studying this conflict in part because I visited Northern Ireland a few years ago and I love the people there, but more importantly because I have two guest speakers who come and speak to the students each year who are from Northern Ireland and can talk with firsthand experience about their experiences during The Troubles. Those individuals are Dr. Noeleen McIlvenna, a DRSS parent (for one more year!) and WSU History Professor from a small Northern Ireland town, and Eoghan Gregory, a local engineer who was born and raised in Belfast.

After hearing from them we will discuss current, ongoing conflicts/genocides happening now and brainstorm ways in which we can use our poster project to help raise awareness about and raise money for those suffering through these. To see past posters, please check out our Conflict and Genocide page on the DRSS website here.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve