The Occult | Period 1 | Tuesday

[thepaledreamer.livejournal.com]

Paige hoped the students had recovered from their off the wall weekends sufficiently enough. She'd thought about taking it easy and making today a movie day but, in the end, decided to go along with her lesson plan in the hopes that it would provide even more distraction than even a movie could.

"Today, we're going to be talking about witchcraft," Paige said by way of introduction. "Some of you might already be familiar with this and some of you may even practice witchcraft. For those that aren't aware, witchcraft is the use of magical faculties most commonly for religious, divinatory, or medicinal purposes."

Paige crossed her arms. "In anthropological terms, a witch is different from a sorcerer in that they do not use physical tools or actions to curse; their possible evil notions are perceived as extending from some intangible inner quality and they person may be unaware that they are a witch or may be convinced of their evil nature by the suggestion of others. Witches, though, get a bad rap. The majority of them are not evil. They do not wear black hats or ride brooms and they're not out looking to eat children. In present day, witches are most commonly associated with modern paganism and is most notably practiced in the Wiccan traditions."

She paused again. "The most common practices associated with witches and witchcraft are spell casting and conjuring the dead. Spell casting is, of course, the use of words that signify a meaning to carry out a magical action. And some witches also have the ability to perform necromancy. They can conjure the spirts of the dead for divination, prophecy or other reasons that aren't as clearly defined."

With the basic ideas about witches out of the way, Paige went into their last topic of discussion. "For the most part, society views witches as evil and harmful. Most of you have probably heard of the Salem witch trials or the great witch-hunt in that women who were thought to be witches were accused of such and given no ability to defend themselves. They were drowned or burned at the stake. It's probably easy for us to sit here and think that an awful practice, because it is, but what would we be thinking if were alive back during th Salem Witch Trials? Would we be so easily swayed to thinking witches evil without evidence? Or do you think you could have withstood the calls to join the angry masses and stood up for the witches who were accused so easily? Well, today you're going to get to try. We're in the Danger Shop where a version of the witch trials experienced back then are about to be recreated. You're not going to see anyone burning or being killed but you will be thrust into an angry, loud crowd of people, wanting the blood of the witches and wanting it now. You'll have to make your choice to stand with them or against them. It won't be easy either way. There are great orators in the crowd giving grand speeches and showing why they were so easily able to convince people of the guilt of those without any shred of evidence. And if you choose to stand against them, you'll be blasted with rage and anger and possible physical violence. We'll see how you react. Go."

Handling Your Powers, Tuesday

[not_a_whiner]

"Hey," Kaidan greeted as the students filed into the class. He was leaning back against his desk, his arms crossed.

"So today, I want to talk about something a little lighter," he said. If their weekend had been anything like his-- they could use it. "I want to talk about our powers in our daily life. I mean, we've all got our struggles - our tiny every day struggles. When we get annoyed or frustrated. When we get tempted to take a shortcut and cheat a little. Or maybe your powers just have an ongoing influence on how your routine works."

He reached up to run his hand over his hair. "Like... my biotics generate static electricity. That's got a couple of side-effects; I'm always giving myself static shocks. And I need an hour in the bathroom every morning, just to make sure my hair doesn't get... uh... crazy."

As opposed to the over-gelled pile of... strange that he made out of it instead.

"So... you can share, today. Nothing big, nothing heavy. Let's just take a minute to complain about when our powers are a pain in the ass, or admit to times we used them for really mundane tasks. That's part of this too."

How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, February 11, 2014]

[sith_happened]

"Right, so this weekend I apparently used my influence to blackmail and murder people," Anakin said dryly as he paced around the frozen simulation of a herd of zebras and two groups of people pointing spears at each other. "And for the record, as far as I'm aware, there's no diamond mine fortune to be found on this island. Today we're going to add a bit more violence to our negotiations."

He pointed at one group of people. "These guys think that zebras are black with white stripes." He pointed to the others. "They think they're white with black stripes. You have five minutes to brainstorm ideas before they start poking each other with those spears."

He clapped his hands together. "Go."

Literature- Wednesday- 2nd period

[puppyinacup.livejournal.com]

of After the weekend, Jess made sure to have cookies on hand for all the students, because she felt they deserved them. They were lucky she was also going to be professional and not just give out hugs, too.

No, seriously. She was still tempted to do it.

"It's Wednesday, so hopefully everyone's had enough time to deal with whatever happened this weekend," Jess greeted the class. "And that you've had enough time to read the meta for Much Ado About Nothing, because we're still gonna talk about that. A lot of people now have trouble reading Shakespeare, because of the writing style, the language, and the fact that you have little notes that explain what things mean but it might knock off your flow of reading. So I'm curious how you did, whether you thought it was difficult or not, to start."