Passion Project
In the previous weeks, what I have been working on for my passion projects is getting a basic understanding of psychology. Over the school year I became interested in why some people act they way they do, and how we experience similar thoughts but take on different actions. I mainly wanted to cover how to take on someone else’s perspective and why it is different than my own. I learned quickly that it depends on our past. Most everything we experience throughout our day we interpret based off of past experiences. This is simply a topic I found interesting due to my own past. Curiosity grew within every time I heard someone ask why this thing happened or why this person would do such a thing. From most perspectives, it’s easy to grasp that people take actions to improve their own future while not recognizing and/or caring of others. I hope to continue with this learning starting off with requesting for an actual psychology class during my Junior year. I want to move forward with this learning because it is clear that while I have a grasp on psychology, it goes far beyond my certain understanding.
It changes how I look at most situations due to growing an understanding of perspective. When reacting to issues, I become aware of why others act how they do and think certain ways. Therefore it completely not only changes the way I think about issues but the way I will act towards issues. I recognize that with this, I’ll be able to develop having a more open mind. Hopefully I will grow with people in general. By understanding perspectives, it leads to understanding what their decision making process is and how they will react next. Therefore this will be interesting to see how well I can perform at this. The performance after the learning experience will be simple due to it just being simply talking to well known people and from their it is all on myself mentally. Everything else I have gathered from my research is based off of the idea of perspective. I will grow in ways that I won’t even recognize until I look for it. With predicting their actions, I will be also predicting their emotions. From here with their emotions I can go into their judgement, and find views of their past. The list truly goes on and on.
If I were to do this project all over again, something I would do differently would not be what I did, nor how I got to what I wanted, but how I presented it. I felt that my presentation was simple. It was a stand up motion of just poster boards. Yes, I did include a minor set up to show people how humans just want the best beneficial effect, but I wish I did more. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on myself, showing how psychology works is a difficult task, hence why I went straight to poster boards. Presenting psychology would be demonstrated in what could almost be considered magic tricks. These presentations are to show people a deeper understanding of their mental selves. The most common way to share knowledge of psychology is to talk about it. This is basically what I did, I wrote out my words and did most of the explaining in my pitch to who ever wanted to hear about it. I had a particularly person that talked back and forth with me about several other people who go much farther into psychology. She had recommended videos to me and wrote names for me, all she did was get me more interested. But this is an example of how psychology is mainly expressed through words, whether it is recorded, spoken, or written.
Model United Nations
The Model United Nations is an organization created after World War two, to attempt to connect all countries to work together to solve worldwide problems. Together, are working on finding solutions such as the one we had also focused on, reducing carbon emissions to help prevent climate change. Their structure lies along having chairs, these chairs control the countries delegates, to avoid interruptions when others are talking and help the delegates keep the conference moving. Another strong feature of the structure is the Security Council, also known as the Permanent Five (P5). This group contains 5 main countries including Russia, United Kingdom, France, United States of America, and China. Every other country involved goes under the category, the General Assembly which currently holds 193 countries. During our personal MUN, everyone was assigned to play as a delegate from one of the countries, my role was to play as the delegate from the Russian Federation. Where everything I stated was to be said from the point of view of what would’ve been agreed by Russia’s government. To develop what my countries perspective was, a lot of research time came in ahead of time.
At first, I was excited, in our previous exhibition I was able to take on a leadership role, and I wanted to continue that into this exhibition. I got myself into the Security Council group, which I thought would be a larger role but really only meant I had go-to’s for our unmoderated caucuses. Other than that I, unfortunately, found it hard to point out something I was truly proud of. I kept finding mistakes in my papers, especially my first one which went in unfinished. That did make me want to work harder for our climate change process than our refugees, which was excellent though. In the second round, I did much better with personal pronouns and taking on a clearer stance on what Russia’s government would have done, there was surely improvement done. Something that I am considering that could have been a problem was looking through another perspective on the issues. I want to say it could be from a lack of researching but I would disagree, there was a lot put into those second papers. If I were to do something like this again, a refinement I would want to make that isn’t similar to what I’ve already mentioned is to talk during the speeches. I was disappointed in myself for not performing the speech I worked hard on. With lots memorized, my only reason for not doing so was because of confusion for when we were supposed to present them.
Coming into this project I knew nothing of United Nations including what they are. Although now I take away the acknowledgment of knowing what the United Nations is, depth of how they do construct their meetings, and the understanding of why they create solutions. When it comes to the global issues they face, realization struck when we begin to notice how many problems we truly face. Climate change and refugees are just two of the several problems that need immediate care for. During our Model United Nations conference, it was quickly noted that each country has different needs and wants. It is nearly impossible to come to a solution that everyone agrees upon. Viewing through a delegate of Russia’s eyes, it was interesting to hold a conversation without mentioning my own opinions. I feel that a real delegate of Russia would agree, due to also having personal opinions. Otherwise, focusing mainly on climate change and refugees, since these were the topics we covered, I was forced to view in a wider stance. Although I recognized that my thinking changed in minor ways. For example, now understanding how we, the US, are slowly changing our ways to become more efficient, just pointing out a simple solar panel in our area is interesting.
The Truth Of War
beyond, for example, the Kent State Shooting. Protests normally ended in violence but the duration of them was definitely an eye catcher for our government. The part especially worth mentioning was that not only did we feel that we had to choose a side, but that no matter what we said we had to defend ourselves. Half of a country was set to win this ongoing argument, and in the end not only did it tell us we truly do have a say in what happens but it brought American soldiers back home.
Cornelis Vreeswijk, Fred Akerstrom, and Gosta Ccervin play music during an anti-war march in Stockholm in 1965. Photo by Sam Stadner
The documentary “In the Year of the Pig” portrays insights from interviews with both politicians and soldiers. Photo from the Year of the Pig
In 1967, on October the twenty first thousands of agitators who were against the Vietnam war, gathered in Washington for a mass protest, what caused a fight with police break out at the Pentagon. Published by NBC
Cornelis Vreeswijk, Fred Akerstrom, and Gosta Ccervin play music during an anti-war march in Stockholm in 1965. Photo by Sam Stadner
1: What did we learn about in this project?
We learned in several ways, many things about the Vietnam war. We started as a class by focusing on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and questioned which country had started the war, by reading old documents based around it. Later exploring a documentary which had explained most perspectives, showing start to end what had happened. That part that I found most interesting were the events that happened outside of Vietnam, besides from the Ho Chi Minh trail. I was more affected by what had been going on in America and how badly this was impacting us. That’s why I choose my group, America Divided, in the first place, because of how we all decided to display our feelings. The protests were an understandable act, but it tended to go above and
2: How did we exhibit our learning?
Our room was focused on America during the war, all of the protests that were going on and how the citizens felt. We wanted to show the audience how divided America truly was, and we did so by capturing both sides, those pro-war and anti-war. When the audience would come into our room they were welcomed with live music. Our band was set up in the corner with students either playing instruments or singing. During the three hours, they had played 3 different songs, “Goodnight Saigon”, “Fortunate Son”. and an original written completely for the exhibition. When looking around the room you would read posters with the same phrases that others had used during the actual Vietnam protests. You would also see printed photos taken during several protests with captions underneath explaining each photo. Other than the band and posters, we had a playlist of videos set up (on repeat and the volume off) of many protests to have another, better visualization. Finally, when the band was done playing one certain song for the audience, we would all yell protests. We shouted these four things, directing them only at one another. “USA Love it or Leave it”, “My son died in the war, what for!”, “God yes, communism no!”, and finally “Make love not war”.
3: How did you strengthen (or not strengthen) your skills during this project?
Throughout the process, I stepped up in a way that I haven’t before. I took on a leadership role in my group and this was recognized by all of my members. I worked well with time management, which leads to me having time to support other members. I was given feedback mentioning how my check-ins with other members, and clearing up confusion was a good addition to keep the group on task. I was also pleased to hear that I brought a calm presence to the group, and was kept positive throughout. Near the end, I took on a role on my own, which was more difficult than it seemed. I should’ve asked for more support with it due to the fact that it was simply overwhelming. This is my main work on for future projects, to be able to communicate more and ask for support. I wasn’t aware until afterward, with my communication, that some members would be confused on what I was doing. Other than communicating with them on my tasks, I felt that when there were disagreements, I had a good handle on grasping both sides. Even though, when we got to conclusions, I wish that not only me but my group, helped all the members feel at ease with the decision. I understood that few things went out even with the disapproval from a member or two.
4: How did this project change your thinking?
Truths in war are found in a variety of ways, we just didn’t know where to look. I believe that the truths are found in the government's intentions, what people wanted but never acted upon. That they are found in the soldier’s emotions that can’t be held in anymore. Then explored in the people’s conspiracies and protests. Truth in war is found in not only what happened during so but the impacts it left, how it influence people positively or not, and how the war changed our perspectives. The truths that come with war are scattered, so why do we want to find them, why is it so important to know? Before all of the research, I knew that war was important and the reasoning behind it were as well but I never thought to find why it was important. I found that (as I stated before) several protests had the goal to achieve what they want in their future. So finding what really happened in war is like the last act, to justify, and to set wrongs right. Also to find if what everyone did and contributed to the Vietnam war was worth it or not.
All Videos
All Videos
The Truth of War Music
The Hero's Journey
What I did in this project was mainly focus on the path of the Hero’s Journey. What this is, is a recurring format that is involved in most stories, it follows the main characters. We notice the series of events they go through that eventually leads to the moment where their lesson is learned. I got to demonstrate my learning through a poster. After reading several articles, I was able to understand each stage of the Hero’s Journey. Later on, this helped understand the books and movies we saw and read but also it helped give guidelines throughout our storytelling.
During this project, I felt I grew by getting to have a better connection with my classmates. This was a great experience for me, plus I felt that for me being a transfer student, this was an amazing way to get to know my classmates better. It was a great insight into everyone’s lives and personality traits simply because of their choice of story to tell. The feelings that they wanted to give off to other people has a lot to say, whether it was the sense of happiness or sadness. I found this as a great way to be able to relate to them.
A simple understanding that I can take away, is that anyone can be a hero. The Hero’s Journey obviously made us focus on heroes, but when you compare them all, whether they are from books, movies, or story tales, they all have at least one thing in common. Each one of them saved someone or something in some way. This can be quite literal, by grabbing someone's hand, pulling them into a hug when seconds ago they stood along a roof’s edge of a building, or maybe just giving a little compliment. The possibilities are endless, in the end, you might even find that we find our hero to be ourselves.
