James Williams gave a presentation about school reform and an invitation to join a group meeting this summer to discuss such. Caitlyn gave a short presentation about Diana Abu Jaber. She had the opportunity to have dinner with her the other day. Paul & Max gave a "presentation" about "Canadia", their second attempt. I gave the last seven vocabulary words of the year.

Assignment: vocabulary words: liberation theology, nationalize, privatize

I handed out the writing by Derrick Jensen about diamonds/DeBeers and apartheid. I emphasised the beginnings of a cash economy and the forcing of indigenous peoples to farm cash crops to pay taxes. This is the previous situation which creates the "men with guns" scenario which is the setting for "Men With Guns." We watched a video about coffee growers in Guatemala and Mexico and the bottomed out coffee market and the desperation of many growers. It talked about fair trade coffee as a working alternative. We also watched the following segment of this particular Frontline which was about Sherpa women climbing Mt. Everest.

Assignments
--paragraph written response to two editorials about the Iraq war and its aftermath
--1-5 page essay connecting "Men with Guns" with Frontline coffee video with handout about diamonds & apartheid with Starbucks article (and anything else we've learned)
--remember to do your film project

Shortened periods today. I read a selection from A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen. It's connected to "Men With Guns." I told briefly about the connection. Thursday I will hand out that selection and we will discuss further.

We finished "Men with Guns"

We began watching "Men with Guns" (directed by John Sayles).

Assignment: movie project. (due June 5)

We had a presentation about Jello Biafra by Ashley.

Eric Schlosser is speaking for free tonight at 7.30pm at the First Congregational Church tonite. A marvelous opportunity for all.

We went to the computer lab to do more research.

Assignment: define these vocabulary words: capital, capitalism, cash crop, city-state, civilization, Cold War.

I read the first chapter of Derrick Jensen's A Culture of Make-Believe to the class. We then went down to the computer lab and did further research on topics.

Today we learned a bit about the Nazi holocaust through the "lens" of the movie "Schindler's List." Kaylee and Shannon showed us a few significant segments and gave us some background information to help us know a bit about this horrible historical situation.

We talked about some current events, especially events in Iraq. We did a whirlwind tour of the past 4.7 billion years of this planet. I showed several overhead maps of various movements in geological and human history.

Assignment: define these words: Berlin Wall, bilingual, Black Market

I started the class with some show & tell books, and some more 20th centuries most important events (from a book of that title).

This weekend I went to hear a speaker as part of the Ilahee Environment Matters Series. Derrick Jensen is an extraordinary human being. I was moved by presence and words and I tried to express some of what I learned from him to class. I will try to post more about him.

Assignment: define these words. agricultural revolution (12,000 years ago) animism, anti-Semitism, apartheid, aristocracy.

We did some geography, lots of little map stuff (ie: what defines Polynesia, where is the Black Sea, what countries reside in both Europe and Asia) as well as general historical connections: Irish Potato famine, Machu Pichu, food exports and starvation, Japanese Internment. We're looking at a book called 365 Most Important Events of the Twentieth Century and deciding whether we think they belong. So far, we've decided that many of them belong in a parallel book about Events in the US rather than the world. We talked about Eurocentrism and Americo-centrism (there has to be a better word) yesterday.