Promises Blog Post

The most important key factor in the world to live in a world without war is communication. The current most known conflict in world, caused by misunderstanding and non communication, is the war between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli and Palestine people can not find a  way to share "their" land. That it why they are in a big war now, to decide who will get what. It is a very unnecessary way to share his opinion and many innocent people are caught in all this trouble. 

In the class of Academic Leadership we discussed and watched a documentary about the current most known conflict in the world: The war between Palestine and Israel. The documentary, Promises, analyzed the certain situation and thoughts of seven children in the two different religious groups. They only live a few minutes away from each other but have no option to meet each other. Few of them do not even want to see children from the other religion because they got raised like that. 

Israeli-American film makers went to Israel and Palestine to make a documentary about seven children: Faraj, Daniel, Yarko, Mahmoud, Sanabel, Shlomo and Moishe. The film makers talked to each kid and asked about its opinion over the whole war. From each kid came a different reaction which was very interesting. The children never thought about leaving their part where they were living and now the documentary group managed it to let the children meet each other and share the opinion. Some of them were very curious to see what was going to happen, other children like Shlomo, a Jewish kid, did not want to see children from Palestine and stayed in Israel.

When the children meet each other they were very excited and curious. They did not know what to say and what to do. After a little time they played, talked and ate with each other. They talked much about the war between their religions and communicated the right way. Without violence they made a conclusion together. They noticed that they have the same opinion about the whole war. "People on both sides die", was a very interesting sentence from Daniel. It is full of truth and wise. When you think about it, every human is equal, it does not matter in what religion we believe or what we do in live. We all were born and we all are going to die. That is why it is unnecessary to have a war over a land that sooner or later nobody is going to own anymore. 

As concluding thought, I think that the children have the right to have  the liberty of speech and different thoughts about the situation. Communication is the only way to correspond. There has to be no war to tell his opinion or get attention. Everybody should do it like those children. Meet each other and talk about each other problems so everybody can come to a concluding thought and live peacefully with each other. 

 

Plans for the future: IB and Career

We are going to go loose this time: Just simply express your thoughts on the guidance you have received in terms of your IB program and your career planning. 
What have you learned from the process? Especially anything that has surprised you. 
What worries you about what you have learned? What excites you? 
What is your plan of attack? How are you going to use what you have learned? 




I never heard about the IB, before I came to the International School of Curitiba. I moved to Brazil 1 1/2 years ago and began to understand, what IB really meant. I was excited when I heard that with this diploma, you can go to other countries and study there, after you graduated. In Europe there are many Universities that accept the International Baccalaureate. I did not want to move to Brazil and now I have the opportunity to finish my school here and move back to Germany, to study there. The last weeks we had presentations about the International Baccalaureate (IB), where teachers explained to our class, how the IB works, what it requires and the benefits from it. There are six sections what the IB requires, which the following picture will show: 

I am worried about the hard time that it will take me to study and organize myself in IB. I hear a lot of opinions about the IB and I have to work a lot on my self organization. The IB requires every single percent of your self organization and of your will to do it. Also it will be a hard choice about choosing the courses because you have to take them two years and if you do not like a course you took then you have to rethink everything again, how to start the course and how to work on it. However there are good things, too. I am excited about courses. It will be very interesting, to see how they look like and how they work.

I personally think I will do good in the IB program, because of the good support that I receive from my school. Our college counselor Ms. Benaci made with us a program, where she explained us how the International Baccalaureate works and how to manage yourself. She gave us exercises and tests to do. We could see our scores in an online test we did, called MBTI. The score showed us, who kind of person we are and our potential jobs in the future. She also gave us exercises called Holland Code. We had to fill out experience sheets and 

sheets, where we had to talk about our pride experience. 

I will start attacking the IB with working in my self organization. I am not good at managing my time and I have to improve my studying skills. It will be a hard time for me, but a lot of people get the IB diploma, so I can do it, too.

I want to do my IB diploma, because it is my goal to move back to Germany and continue studying there. The IB gives me that opportunity and I am not going to miss that chance. I have friends that took their International Baccalaureate tests already and friends, who are going to take it this year. I will ask them for help and explanation, how to get better prepared for the IB. It is very exciting for me, because it means a lot for me, moving back to Germany.  

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Response to Seattle Boycott Article

Response to Seattle Boycott Article

     After a few days of the year 2013, the teachers and students at the Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, boycotted the MAP standardizes tests. Protesting against those standardaized test were relatively common, but this boycott gained a lot of attention. Many people supported this boycott, like the local PTSA, the Seattle Student Senate and the usual suspects like Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Kozol.

A history teacher,Jesse Hagopian, of the Garfield High School talks in an interview about the problems with the standardized testing. He says that the reason why they are boycotting is, that the MAP requires things in math for th gade, which they do not teach until 11th grade which aren't even in the curriculum. He also says that the worse thing is that there's no graduation requirement.

     In my opinion, the Garfield High School students and teachers and also all the other people who support   the boycott of the MAP standardized tests, are right. I totally support the protistation, because I do not see a point where there should be tests, in which are for example math tasks, which some schools dont't teach or which there is not even a graduation requirement. I mean, why shoud I take the test? I could miss every single question and it would not happen anything. It doesn't show up in my college record, it is a waste of time. Some kids want to work hard for those types of tests because they do not want a feeling of 

failure and because of the standardizing test, there is much pressure on them and really for no reason. It is normal to make standardized tests for the IB, SAT or ACT. There is a reason behind it because those tests will show up on your college record and you will need them to get into a good college. For those tests tere can not be any boycott or protest because  I think that it is obvious that you have to take those standardized tests to show your skills and knowledge. But if it is for something that does not even show up in your college record or is required for college, then I agree totally with the Garfield Highschool and  the other people, who are protesting and boycotting.       It is very interesting how people, which don't even know each other work together, when they protest against something. Garfield High School was given so much support from other schools that they won't give up, like other schools did.  The protest is very creative and thoughtful, not like protest in which there is violence or police. They have sentences  on their posters, which leave me with my mouth open. They have a very good message and talk exactly about the problem. Not like protest with posters on which are written "Stop MAP" or "MAP is bad" and I think with this support and the thoughtfull protest and boycott they will reach many things.      SEATTLE, Washington (February 6, 2013) -- National Education Association (NEA) members that teach at  Garfield High School, gathered with community activists, parents and students to hold a Measures of Academic  Progress (MAP) test boycott National Day of Action rally. Teacher refusal to administer the MAP test is motivated  by its lack of proper alignment with their school district's curriculum.