"4 Little Girls"

This documentary was intense! I think it was very fitting that we watched this on Martin Luther King Day, helping us realize why we do recognize this day and help us all remember where this world once was. Although I know I am not personally responsible for the actions of the '60s, it almost makes me feel ashamed seeing what all these people went through. I think Spike Lee did a great job portraying the emotions of the story, even decades later. The interviews with the family, friends, politicians, and others were extremely powerful. Watching some of the street scenes with the police officers and the protesters was sad to say the least. It was hard to watch. While watching the movie, I couldn't help but think of why it took something like this for people to pay attention to the movement and the way they were treated. On a side note, I thought it was extremely powerful to watch the protests and marches, seeing even the kids getting involved. How can someone hate on innocent children, no matter what the skin color is. I cannot imagine what goes through peoples heads then that can make them hate so much. I don't use the word hate much because it is extremely powerful, but that is exactly what existed back then. I won't be naive and say it doesn't still exist in some peoples hearts, but i will never understand how you can look at someone and because of their skin color, have hatred towards that person. I think my favorite part of the whole documentary was that they rebuilt their churches after the bombings. There are many things they could have done and they chose to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild and i think that is the strongest gesture of all.

Round Table Discussion

Well, it's time again for Rules of Engagement. Only this time it seems like it's going to go much more smoothly. I like the setup this time around with it being a much smaller class size. There are only 7 students and 2 teachers this time, but theres still a lot of personality and speaking ability. It's a bit overwhelming to me and I sometimes sit back and just listen because it is so interesting.

My favorite part about this upcoming semester is the Denmark experience. I think that it is the reason I was originally interested in this class. It gives us an opportunity to get out and really talk to the community. During the discussion we were talking about how you can facilitate a discussion in a community which is going to definitely have differing views. It reminded me of Denmark and the activities we were putting on. The topic of education came up and we were supposed to assign a level of importance for each subject in terms of fixing. A couple people thought that education was a definite must to help out because their school systems had close to a 50% dropout rate. A married couple was at the table and the wife adamantly said that this was not a concern and their education system was fine. This confused me because during our prep work i had heard nothing but bad things about the direction the education was going. Discussions went back and forth and finally the husband spoke up and asked his wife that if the education was so good, then why did they move their kids to an out of county school during there school years? I was later told by a man at our table that she is currently a teacher in the system, but when she had kids, they moved away to go to a better school. I couldn't understand what agenda she had that was preventing her from wanting help, especially when she admitted it wasn't good with the way she handled school and her kids. Anyways, I didn't get an answer, and probably won't, but I look forward to having more experiences like this in the future. I'm looking forward to more Denmark excursions, working with Westminster and our other Mayor's Institute towns, and being enlightened by our class and professors.

Hello blogging world, this is a my first ever blog post.