Civics - Art of Civil Disobedience Monday 4th Period - FIELD TRIP

[biotic_psychotic]

The students had been handwaved sent notice to meet at the parking lot on the far side of the causeway. They'd been told to dress for the weather and to wear shoes comfortable for walking in. There was a bus waiting for them. Jack checked them in and then hopped into the driver's seat. She explained about the trip while she drove.

( On the bus, talking about the class today )

She let them think about it until they got to Sandy Springs and the Woodlawn Manor. As she checked them off the bus, she continued.

"For some of you, this class is way too real. I get it. Others of you, this is nothing you've ever had to think about before and it's heavy and I get that too. These last few classes have been to give you a foundation of how laws work. Next week I'm going to run you through how civil disobedience can help change a law. Then? We get into how to resist unjust laws and how to break them when they need to be broken. There's consequences to everything and we're gonna work on how to minimize them and what to do if you can't.

In this country, today's a holiday. It celebrates the life and achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a black man during the era of segregation. He was spearhead for a lot of those non-violent protests and marches we talked about. He insisted that his people stay calm and non-violent and for the most part they did but the violence was done to 'em and it was done bad every time. He gave a famous speech and part of it, the most famous part, goes: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

Jack was quiet for a moment. "He gave that speech in 1963. In 1968 while organizing another rally, he was assassinated. His dream sounds like a fantasy. For all people to be decent to one another? Pfft. Right. People generally suck. But that's also kind of the great thing about people and a society - they can suck, but they can change. They can be changed. His dream? It's a good dream to have."

Another moment of silence.

"Go on. Get your hike on. If you get cold, come back here to the manor to warm up. There's snacks and hot drinks and stuff. If you need me, I'll be here. Don't worry about the time. It's 4th period, nobody's going to care if we're a little late getting back."

[OCD is up.]

Acting 101; Monday, First Period [01/21].

[not_a_bird]

Well. Score one more point for avoiding draft beers at any bar, really, because whatever Green Guy was serving on Friday was not good; Sweet Dee didn't know what could make a beer go skunky enough to cause a weekend-long hallucination that she was just four inches tall and therefor sort of stuck in her apartment thinking everything was huuuuuuuge, but, well, that's what happened, wasn't it? So she was definitely sticking to bottles here, too. Or wine. She could probably do more wine. In pint glasses.

But, anyway, whatever it was clearly had worn off by the time Monday morning rolled around (yaaaay), and she almost thought of just canceling class, because, um, hello, shouldn't they have MLK day off, anyway? What was up with that? Way to screw her out of a convenient day off of work, school. Ugh. But at least it gave her an excuse to kind of phone it in and and still not have to do anything but give an introduction and push a button.

"So," said Sweet Dee, with her usual I-have-no-idea-why-I'm-doing-this-but-I'll-try-anyway smile, "since it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I thought it might be a good use of our time to not only honor and respect a great man, but to also take the opportunity to see some really powerful acting in a critically acclaimed film about Dr. King's life and his work. Now, I know the subject matter is important and revelevant, but since it's an acting class and not a history class, I'd like you to watch this not only for the very important and very real subject matter, but also, pay attention to the acting. The directing. Think about the choices made by the actors in portraying the real, actual people who existed.

"And keep those thoughts in mind for your homework for next week. I'd like you each to pick an actual historical figure and you're going to bring them in and act them out for us, and we'll talk about how you came up with that particular approach. What kind of research did you do? Did you find it difficult or easy to find that character? That sort of stuff. So think about that a little as you watch the movie, and let's get started, yeah?"

...hey, that was pretty good for an assignment she'd just sort of...made up on the spot in an effort to give a little more validity to just cheaply phoning it in on a movie day, right?

Make It Fashion- Tuesday- 1st period

[gobrookeyourself]

There were some new additions to the classroom today, namely the piles of new-old fabric up on a table near Brooke's desk.

"Hey, so it's really cold and I hate it, so I figured we could get some practice in by doing some easy projects that will give you or others some cold weather accessories," Brooke told them. "So one thing people do too much of is throwing away old fabric because they don't know they can recycle or repurpose it, and this kind of thing is perfect to do with what might seem like scraps. I've got a bunch of stuff here, flannel and sweater material, some fleece, all yours to use. You can use the stuff you bought before, if you want. I'm not going to limit your creativity here. You can pick some patterns and cut fabric any way you want to make it, and they're pretty quick to do so if you finish early, maybe make a pair for a friend, or to donate somewhere or something. If there aren't any questions, get some stuff and get started."