Learning Profile- I'm an A!

Today in class, we used a few tests to figure out our learning profile. From the title of this post, you can tell that I got A as my profile- this means someone who is right leg, right arm, right eye and right ear dominant, but is left brain (logic) dominant. This means I am a visual and auditory learner- I learn best when presented with diagrams and both a written and spoken explanation of it and when I focus on details. I process by verbalizing, writing and analyzing, instead of acting or drawing. I prefer things to be in a sequence and find language useful for learning. This gives me a large advantage, as teachers tend to give their directions orally in class and hand out a written rubric, matching me perfectly. However, there are a couple of downfalls to my profile- during stress, I tend to have difficulty seeing the 'big picture', I find it challenging to connect emotionally or kinesthetically to information and, due to all my dominant features being on the opposite sides of my dominant hemisphere, I have a difficult time accessing the gestalt hemisphere when I'm stressed.

In order to broaden my learning horizons, I need to be more open to gestalt ideas. I should do this through positive, enjoyable sensory-motor experiences, which will allow me to emotionally interact to the fullest, be creative and develop intuition. I should have an integral balance of art, music, freeform movement and interpersonal skills, combined with cognitive endeavors to balance me out as a person- I am currently working on this by taking an art course through choice and talking to my friends about acting. I should be encouraged to understand and synthesize information from a whole perspective and explore ambiguity, emotions and movement, in order to see the world from another point of view.

The strategies that would help me in my learning would be to sit towards the front of a class, so I can easily see and hear the teacher, while also embarking on conversations with the teacher about emotions behind a text, or how all the small forces come together to form the bigger picture of the Earth. Being close means I take in the information easily, while also broadening the way I think. Although I feel most comfortable with written explanations, I should, when given the option, try to create a skit or creative poster to help engage the lesser-used gestalt side of my brain.

I would like my teachers to know that I would prefer them to draw diagrams up on the board to asking us to act out a word. I know that I just stated in the last paragraph that I should act out more- I know I should, but I would rather take in the information through a visual, then act out as a project once I am confident with the concept. I would also prefer there to be an even number of oral and written assignments- I am confident with written assignments, but I should do some orals to broaden my horizons. I would also like to sit towards the front of the class, instead of being shoved at the back where it is harder to see and hear. I know that you can't cater to all my needs, as other people may request other things, but I would like these changes to be thought about.

Brunelleschi- The Cranium Behind the Dome

Brunelleschi- a visionary, an artist, a thinker and a do-er. Perservering on a grand scale, Brunelleschi ignored everyone who thought he was crazy and built the spectacle of Florence- the dome.

Brunelleschi was a courageous man- he overcame ridicule, he stood infront of the very men who laughed at his "preposterous" notion. Brunelleschi didn't let his fear of failure or mocking get in the way of him building his architectural masterpiece. It takes true courage to not let fear guide you off the path of progress, to not concern yourself with your image to others and only focus on the art at hand, to challenge the thinkers of a century, to do the unthinkable. Brunelleschi did overcome obstacles and indeed take many risks, but what was it that took him to the end? His courageous nature. He powered through, with no apparent fear, just wanting to have his dome completed, to showcase his architectural genius.

Every action and decision we make effects change, regardless of how small the action or decision may seem. In Brunelleschi's case, his action/decision was fairly large- building a dome with no scaffolding was nothing small. He opened up new pathways to many young artists, he acted as an inspiration to people wishing to do great things, changing the line of thought from "I can't do that- the idea is too extreme!" to "I need to come up with more original ideas- I need to marvel people!" Brunelleschi also changed how people looked at Florence- it used to be "Oh, it's Florence. It's got Medicis ruling it." to "Wow, Florence, look at that dome! It casts a shadow over Tuscany! This city knows a thing or two about architecture!" However, we don't need to be Brunelleschis to change things- simply by donating ringpulls into the ISKL ringpull box, we are changing the lives of Thai people who have lost their limbs- we're making a massive difference through a tiny action. Anyone can change the world- they just need to act.

Please, please, please use the ISKL ringpull tube! Stationed outside the MS office, there's a large metal tube with ringpulls in it- save all your ringpulls at home and bring them in! Everything helps! There are also tiny rigpull boxes on a few of the aluminum can bins- placing your ringpulls in there also helps, as the totals from the tube and boxes are added together. Please donate! Make a difference!

Where Do New Ideas Come From?

Ideas can come from anywhere. Sometimes ideas come from experiences, some from knowledge, some from inspiration and some just randomly pop into your head! Many ideas exist in history- some people thought the world was flat, some wonder whether we evolved, or if a God just placed us on the planet. Some still believe the world will end in 2012! All of them have their origins, even if we don't know exactly where they trace back to. Even the most complex and popular ideas can come from the simplest of places. The idea of gravity and Newton's laws all came from an apple falling off a tree one day. The massively popular Daleks from the TV series Doctor Who supposedly came from a salt shaker. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, the simple origins of massive ideas were over-exaggerated when a man figured out how to create a completely perspective simulation of the universe by looking a a crumb of fairy cake.
Ideas are minor miracles sometimes- you can come up with the perfect idea suddenly, without trying to think of it, without knowing where it came from and without suggestion. Ideas just happen. Ideas are amazing. Without ideas, the world would certainly be a very boring place.

My Favourite Short Story

This is the first blog entry I've written in a while, so if it seems boring, please bear with me.

My favourite short story of the unit was "Thank You Ma'am" by Langston Hughes. I found the conflict in the story interesting- a boy and a woman, both out late, both having done bad things previously in their lives. I know that Langston Hughes mainly wrote about issues of civil rights, and although it wasn't directly stated, I get the feeling that in terms of skin colour, the boy was African-American, and the woman was white. I get this feeling because while the woman had a pocketbook and a purse, and could afford to give Roger $10, Roger had next to nothing, and apparently no family to go home to, something common of African-Americans back in the 1920's. The way Hughes phrased the characters' speech gave a good hint as to the time of the story, as majority of the things the two characters said would be very different today- instead of saying "I were young once and I wanted things I could not get.", the way Luella did, we would now say, "I was young once and I wanted things I couldn't have."

This I Believe- Perserverance

I believe that people should always see things through to the end, no matter how tough they may seem. This may just seem like advice for school, when you’re stuck on a long essay, and you’re having trouble thinking of a topic sentence, or when you want to give up on your maths test because you forgot to study, but it’s also true for life in general.

Last year, I was being bullied in school. The bully only ever did things to me after Tae Kwon Do, an activity which we had together. Since we had half an hour to wait for the bus, he had ample time to hurt me, mainly physically, but also with words. He would kick me around the hallway, slammed me into lockers. He had power. He was a black belt, whereas back then I was only a blue belt. His punches stung, but his words were almost worse. His words were irritating, and I couldn't do anything about them. I couldn't come up with any response, and if I lashed out, he would start hitting me again. If I tried to run after him, he would have gotten away, since I was far slower. I could almost deal with it after school, since I was the only person effected.

But then, one day, I was walking around with my friend at lunch when we happened to bump into the bully with his friends. A fight then ensued. After being hit in the chest and arm a few times, I ducked around the corner. I’d left my friend with them. In an act of self-preservation, I’d let my friend fight them off alone, whilst I was round the corner, doing nothing.

I apologized to my friend afterwards, and he was fine, but I felt extremely guilty about leaving him. I had given up on defending myself, given up on defending him, given up on resisting the bullies. My selfish act had made me no better than the bullies, letting my friend take the hits, without intervening to help him. I should have stood up for both of us, not let him have the power to beat us up. Had I stayed there, we might have been able to persuade them to stop, might have been able to keep them away. After this, I vowed that I would keep on going in not just fights, but anything I was faced with. In the words of Lance Armstrong, “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

If we all kept going, surely there would be more achievers in the world, less people that would be jobless, less that would feel disappointed. If you don't give up, and you go out and meet your goal, the happy feeling inside is contagious. You have to share it with others, tell them about what you've done, let them see what you did and aspire to do the same. There are many people I look up to, and I know that if I persevere, I can achieve the same, if not more than what they can. It's not like doing great things is going to be easy; but if you start with small steps, you really can achieve something massive, without really noticing.

As said by Eleanor Roosevelt, "Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works." There are political situations where people stand up, don't get crushed and keep coming back to fight for their cause. The same thing happens everyday, albeit on a smaller scale. If I'd stood up to the bully, I could have been the small, valiant resistance, defying the large, dictator-like ruling party, the subject of the picture I put here. The picture features Myanmar civilians protesting, standing up for themselves and their right, continuing to stand there, even after laws had been made to get rid of protesters and protesters were being shot.

If you stand up and see your actions through, you really can bring about great change, even if you're in a small-scale situation like I was. I could have made the bully realize that he really didn't have the power that he thought he had, shown him that I wasn't going to let him bully my friends and I.

I could have stood up and made a difference. I didn't. But now, I can go out and keep seeing things through, do anything I want, amaze people, and be the one that people look up to. I still have a chance. The bruises from the punches and kicks are now gone, but the guilt of leaving my friend is still with me. Seeing things through till the end won’t get rid of my guilt, but it can prevent me from feeling more.

Image citation-
"2007 Myanmar protests ." 2007 Myanmar protests 11-cropped flag view closer. Web. 31 May 2010. .

The 1066 Games Reflection

The 1066 games were both very entertaining. In the first one, you got to select your leader (William or Harold), and answer a series of tactical questions to determine the winner. In the second, you choose your army and your battlefield, and them wage war. I found they both helped a bit with my strategy, with the first one showing the tough decisions kings had to make, and the second being just like a rugby game. I found the second one was easier for me, since the tactics are similar to those of Risk and rugby, with all the clicking of a computer geek. However, I didn't find them historically accurate. All the information I learned about the Battle of Hastings was from class, not from the games. The book told us that the Battle of Hastings was directly after the Battle of Stromford Bridge, and the English soldiers had been marching for to days straight before Hastings. The Normans came in from the sea, and completely slaughtered the exhausted English, making William the new king. It was speculated that Harold died with an arrow in his eye; however, this is unconfirmed. The games don't show this at all; however, this is what makes them fun. If you knew the outcome of each army, would you play? I wouldn't, since no strategy is required! I found that the games did help you remember the places and competitors though; you tend to remember things that are fun, such as the two games. Overall, I'd give them a 4/5 rating, taking everything into account.

What are the Consequences of Conformity?

What are the consequences of ' just accepting the situation in which you find yourself [so] everything will be so much easier'? - From John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, page 53.

Personally, I believe that this quote is an extremely powerful philosophical dilemma. This dilemma also leads to another- "Can you still be a good person, without acting on bad things happening all around you?" This question has many answers, based on many viewpoints. What follows is what I think, what, deep down, my heart feels is correct.


If you accept the situation and do nothing to act against it, you are saying that you agree with the situation. Now, this may be good if the people are keeping a mutual relationship, but when one side is way worse off than the other, and the other side is not helping them or doing all they can to keep the other side worse off, then something needs to be done about it. Someone has to take action. If you are a bystander, you aren't helping the worse off side. You may not be directly doing them damage, but by not standing up for them, you are letting the opposition tear them to shreds! Now, when you stop and think about this, who is getting an advantage based on you not acting? The opposition are. Essentially, this means you are helping them, and by helping, you show that you agree with their arguement. The consequence of this is that one side winds up being hurt, maybe even killed. You may think that you'll never run into another Holocaust-like situation, but actually, you find smaller versions of them all around you. In school, if one guy is bullying another, the situation is the same. Are you going to accept that the bully can bully people? I wouldn't! Even if you don't walk up to the bully and tell him to go away, you can still tell someone else, like a teacher, principal, or any other adult with the power to do something. This may not necessarily work in war, since there may not be a higher power to go to, but you can still stand up for your rights and others'.

I may want to stand up, but when the lives of myself and my family are on the line, would I? Hopefully I would, but it takes a lot of courage to stand up like that. The people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon had an extreme amount of courage, sheltering the Nazis' victims in their homes for years. They literally risked everything, just to keep other people safe. Why did they do it? There are two reasons. One was that if they didn't they would be equally as evil as the Nazis. The other is slightly more complex. A century or two before the Holocaust, the people of Le Chambon were also taken prisnor, also under attack, and knew how horrible it was not to find shelter. The empathised with the Jews, and let them stay. If everyone did things like that, the world would almost certainly be a better place, full of empathetic, kind citizens. I think that John Boyne, the author of the aforementioned book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, tried to hint a little at this. Bruno could be compared to Le Chambon, the minority in a Nazi world, helping Shmuel. Although Bruno didn't knowingly help at first, he showed so much sorrow and regret after he lied to Kotler about Shmuel, that he started making an effort to help him. He also used empathy to realize what his best friend was going through, similar to how the people of Le Chambon were empathetic towards Nazi targets, as the people of Le Chambon had been through a similar experience. Although Bruno hadn't gone through the same as Shmuel, he said all the things that Shmuel said, and realized just how horribly tragic Shmuel's life was. His dad and sister, along with Kotler and the other Nazis, represent Germany. They tore apart the Jews, put them down and tortured them.


In the newspapers, stories tend to be uncommon, and therefore interesting. Now, going on this logic, since the newspapers feature people who help out, that makes our race one that is less likely to help out. One day, I would like there to be a world where the newspapers have stories of people not helping out, meaning that more people do, in fact, stand up for their rights, for others' rights. For a world to be like that, we need to "Start in small places close to home." -Eleanor Roosevelt.

I chose the image at the top because of its true portrayal of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Bruno and Shmuel are like lights in the darkness, the chaos, that surrounds them. Also, the light comes from eyes, a major motif in the book. This also links into "seeing the light", in that Bruno only sees the goodness in the Jews after talking to Shmuel, without being under his father's Nazi shadow.

Image Citation-

"Eyes in the dark." Flickr. Web. 15 Apr 2010. .