It's Kind of Fitting to Learn About the Cold War When it Snows in May

One thing that you guys have to be grateful of - I really think you're improving with your multiple choice tests!  The marks after the partner test were amazing, you should all be proud of yourselves! Even hearing the great conversations with the partner tests is great because you are getting the chance to restudy or gain a clearer understanding of what we've learned so far. It's really cool as a teacher to see you guys improve so much in a short amount of time :) 

This week is our week that is dedicated to the Cold War and we will probably finish this by next Wednesday at the latest (I hope).  Which will leave us approximately a month to cover our economics unit.  To finish up our Cold War unit, as it is so short, rather than doing a test, then partner test, I will have it be your groups you're working with right now completing a multiple choice assignment (aka: test questions) that are specifically about the Cold War.  No clue how many questions it will be, but at least 20.  Just a friendly reminder that the week that is grad (which is about 2 weeks away), regardless if I only have 5 students, I will continue to go through material.  So if you are missing for whatever reason, it is your responsibility to catch up with what your are missing.

On another note, if you are really interested in the Cold War, here is a great documentary series that was on CBC.

For the most part of this week, you will be working on your presentation for your part of the Cold War.  I cannot guarantee you access to computers, so if you are creating a presentation of whatever sort and can bring your own computer, it would be best if you could.  The article that I handed out to you on Friday about the start of the Cold War is just extra background knowledge for the Cold War and its origins.

Monday 

• Hand in your spectrum of illiberal actions
• Go through Potsdam Conference and the beginning of the Cold War
• Extra Videos

• Work on presentations

Tuesday and Wednesday

• Work on presentations - all handouts, questions and anything else needs to be turned into me by THURSDAY night so that on Friday morning before class, I have the opportunity to photocopy anything that needs to be copied for your presentations.

Thursday 

• Rants by Logan, Rachael and Eric
• Last class time to finish up presentations

Friday

• Presentations
• Practice interpreting sources
• The New Cold War - is it a thing?

So exciting, a new topic begins this week!!!

So, we are finally finishing up with our unit on political systems, with democracy versus dictatorship, the bitter battle of which way to run your country is right.  I know that you were riveted to learn all about it! Remember that this week, you will be having your test and that we will be doing a crash course of the Cold War. WOOOOOO!!!!! A war that was never actually fought! So super exciting!!

I hope that you have studied for your test, as it will be a bit of a doozy ;) Unless you studied. Then you will be fine.

So what’s our week going to look like….

Monday:

·         Case studies on illiberalism.  Just like what we did with dissent, you will be given one case study to complete per person, so it will have to be more in-depth than your last one.  Your write up must include:

o   Background information – what was going on at the time that prompted the government to limit people’s civil liberites.  For example, if you are doing the temperance movement, why was booze seen as the devil and the downfall of society?

o   What rights and/or freedoms were limited? Who was this applied to? How was it supposed to rectify the situation?

o   Did the citizens support the actions or not? If they didn’t, how did they dissent?

o   Do you think the government actions were justifiable, understandable or wrong? Why?

o   An image – video, photograph, political cartoon, newspaper article, poster, etc, to attach to your case study

·         You will again be posting this case study on padlet.  Here is the website: http://padlet.com/jacquelines1/illiberalism

·         If you finish before the end of the class, you can continue working on your practice multiple choice.  I hope to have the answer key into Dropbox by the end of the school day, if not earlier.

·         If you are finished that, you can study.

·         Here is what people are researching:

o   Alison – Prohibition, Landon – No smoking in public legislation, Ashley – War Measures Act, Sabrina – NSA collecting information on Americans, Amber – Immigration Laws pre-WWII, Keyton – Anti-Monopoly and Anti-trust laws, Hailey – Emergencies Act, Rachel Mayko – Airport Security post-9/11, Rachael Melenka – Britain under Churchill WWII, Cody – No Fly Lists, Chantal – Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal, Jonathan – Anti-terrorism Act, Denton – McCarthyism , Logan – Canadian Conscription, Katlynn – Mandatory voting in Australia, Ethan – Anti-gay marriage legislation, Kaylynn – Bill 101 in Quebec and Language Laws, Eric – Indian Act

Tuesday

·         Test Day!! YAY!!!!!

Wednesday

·         Re-test day

·         Cold War Presentations – what you will be doing

Thursday

·         Rants by Chantal and Logan

·         Notes on How the Cold War Started

Friday

·         Super fun surprise!

The Last Little Bit on Democracies....and How They Can Suck

Just a friendly that you will be having a multiple choice test next week.  It is completely multiple choice and is 45 questions.  The things that will be on the test:

• Political System Basics (some of this can be found in your first unit)
• Role of having a government
• Different types and names
• Role of citizens in the political structure
• Rights and Freedoms
• Spectrum with different political ideologies
• Philosophers and their political beliefs
• Democracies
• Roles and responsibilities of citizens
• Benefits and drawbacks
• Different types - Direct, Presidential and Parliamentary
• Representative democracies - proportional vs rep by pop
• Majority vs Minority governments
• Checks and balances - separation of powers
• Rights and freedoms - CCRF, Bill of Rights
• Dissent
• Imposition of liberalism - Red and White Paper
• Individual Rights vs Collective Rights
• Illiberalism
• Voter Apathy
• Dictatorships
• Different names of dictatorships
• Examples: Nazi Germany and Soviet Union - a general understanding of what life was life for citizens living under Hitler and Stalin
• Techniques: Scapegoating/redirection of popular discontent, one party rule, censorship/control of the media, influence of youth groups, indoctrination, elimination of enemies, no dissent, use of force and terror, controlled citizen participation
• Roles and responsibilities of the citizens
• Benefits and drawbacks
• Know your Vocabulary - blue sheets for sure, but review your yellow ones too

This week, will be finishing up with what illiberalism is and whether or not there is room for it in a democracy.

Tuesday 

• Hand in PRINTED copy of your good copy of your essay.  If you did not hand in a rough draft, your copy of your essay is due today.  As well, your dissent square is due today as well.  Preferably, I would like these in class rather than the end of the day.
• Vocabulary words: Illiberalism, Red Paper  and White Paper
• Start looking at illiberalism and what is more important in a democracy - Rights and Freedoms or Safety and Security?
• Illiberal Acts in Democracies: War Measures Act in Canada and USA Patriot Act in the United States

 

Wednesday 

• Finish notes on illiberalism
• Case Study: Edward Snowden
• Internment - Right or wrong? 

Thursday

• Imposition of Liberalism in Canada 
• Residential Schools
• White and Red Paper
• Idle No More and Aboriginal Day of Protest

Friday 

• Review Game - I'm not sure what type of game I'm going to do.  Picto-Jeopardy is fun, but time consuming to create.  I would also like to do something different.  As usual, the winners will have their choice of a baked good for a prize on Monday.
• Happy studying :)

Is It Wrong Not To Have All Your Rights?

It seems like forever since I have blogged for you, and it has been forever, practically an entire month! I know that some of you guys will be away on Thursday because of badminton - I will be going through material on safety and security vs. rights and freedoms, so you will need to gather that information.  We lose class on Wednesday this week as well, so time is becoming very precious so if you are missing for whatever reason, even if I only have 3 students in class, I will continue on with the material for the rest of the semester.  For those of you who were gone with me to Europe, on  Wednesday after school until about 4:00 (which means starting  right after school) I can go through what you should have gone through the week you missed as I will be staying late on Wednesday for parent teacher interviews.

As you can most likely tell (unless you are up unusually late on a Sunday night), I am not in school today.  So, I hope that you have headphones with you as you will be working in the computer lab to do some research that we will need for an assignment that is due on Tuesday.  All the handouts that you need will be handed out to you through Dropbox.  So print off what you need at school.

Last week, we looked at the different types of rights that citizens of a democratic nation can have and what protects those rights.  As we saw with some of our case studies on Wednesday, even though it is written down that we are guaranteed certain rights, does not always mean that they are upheld.  So, what do you do when your rights are being ignored? You DISSENT !!! What does that mean?

Now, in a democracy, there are acceptable ways to be a dissident (a person who dissents) and there are unacceptable ways.  Likewise, there are acceptable government responses and unacceptable government responses.  So what we will be looking at on Monday and Tuesday are case studies of dissent and whether or not they are justifiable, as well as discuss how important dissent is to a functioning democracy.

Monday

• Hand in your crossword to the substitute teacher, completed or not.
• Go to the computer lab
• Print off the handouts that are for you in Dropbox.  It's titled: Discovering Dissent.  You can also just download the electronic copy and type in your answers if you'd really like to.
• To start things off with, watch the video below and answer the questions on page 1 of your handout.  Please use your headphones to listen to the video

If you can't see it, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuIEPwogEdQ&feature=youtu.be

• Next, look at page 2 in the handout.  On this page, you will be looking up the background information on 2 case studies.  For each of your case student you must identify when and where it took place, the important figure(s) aka: peeps that were integral for the dissent to happen, what was going on in their country (background details) that led to the protest and how the government reacted to the dissent shown.  This will be a paragraph.  Please don't just copy and paste from the internet.  You can type it up on word, the copy and paste it to our sharing forum if you would like but that's not necessary. In a second paragraph, you need to explain why you feel the dissent was justified or not and whether it was appropriate action taken.  As well, discuss if you think how the government responded to the situation was justifiable or not.  Lastly, you need to find some sort of image (picture, poster, cartoon, video) that is about the case study you looked at.
• When you have collected all of your information, you are going to post it onto this website:  http://padlet.com/wall/jvbp9uwc2d  It is password protected and the password is SMHS (all capital letters).  Click anywhere on the wall and you can start putting in your case study.  This case study must be completed by TUESDAY.
• If you have finished, you can start on the third page of the handout, which I will be taking in for marks which is selecting 4 case studies (none of your own) and putting them in the square with why they fit there.

Tuesday

• Vocabulary Dissent, Civil Disobedience
• Notes on Dissent - what is acceptable, what is unacceptable and is it necessary
• Interpretation of sources
• Dissent Squares Assignment - Due on Thursday

Wednesday

• Presentation at school

Thursday

• Rants by Cody and Hailey 
• Imposition of Liberalism - Was it always a choice?
• Red Paper and White Paper 
• Residential Schools

What You'll Be Working on While I'm Gone....Hopefully not the best week of social classes for you

Like I told you guys last week, while I am in Kananaskis, you will essentially be teaching yourself.  I will not be going over this material again in class, but if there are things you don't understand, please feel free to send me an email or ask me after Spring Break.

On your vocabulary pages, with everything that we did last week, you should be able to complete all terms up to Voter Apathy and Reform.  That should be one of the first things that you complete this week.

Also, I have booked out the Chrome book portable labs for our class the entire week.  There is not a full class set of 20 (I believe there is only 15) so if you can bring your own laptop, please do.  Since there will be a few different videos you are watching over the course of the week, please bring headphones daily to class.

Ukraine Explained in Simple Terms - Why is there a conflict?

Here are couple different websites that you can use as reference and review of what we covered last week.

Read p. 343 in your textbook on Proportional Representation

First Past the Post

America's Government System vs. Canada's Government System

Canada's Political System, Explained

Monday and Tuesday

• Hand in your double bubble map from Presidential and Parliamentary democracies.  If you and your partner put the EXACT same thing, please just hand in one copy, with both names on it.
• Vocabulary should be completed for the following words: Minority Government, Majority Government, First Past the Post, Electoral College, and  Constituency 
• Positives and Negatives of Democracy
• Watch the video and read the article 
• Make note of at least 5 reasons why democracy works and is a good thing and at least 5 reasons why it fails and is not very efficient

• For the first 2 days this week, you will be working on the Power Point slides in Dropbox titled "Does Democracy Really Work?" There is a PDF copy of the notes handouts, as well as the actual Power Point.  You will need a laptop/Chrome book for internet access as there are several videos to watch, so please have ear buds with you.  You will also need your textbook to go through certain parts of readings.
• Once you have completed that, go back to your vocabulary and write and draw out the description for voter apathy.
• The work on these two days must be completed before going on to Wednesday and Thursday activities.

Wednesday and Thursday

• For Wednesday and Thursday, you will be using the Power Point called Reform in a Democracy.  You can work on your own, or you can work with a partner.  Go through the 5 slides of notes and add information from the handouts that are in Dropbox.
• Then, on your own, go through slides 7-9.  Make jot notes and answer the questions on the slides. Here are the links to the articles/videos you need:

Slide 7

Slide 8

Slide 9

http://goo.gl/HE4aDk

http://goo.gl/GDReAI

• Once all the people at your table have completed going through the slides (should be done on Thursday), discuss and compare your answers for each of the different .
• At the end of class on Thursday, you will write at least a one page write up for whether you think the Senate should be reformed or abolished.  I will be marking this paragraph and using your rant rubric to mark it - so it will be a mark out of 10.   This needs to be handed in by Friday at the end of class.

Friday

• Finish writing your one page (or more) answer to the Senate situation
• Read the article in Dropbox called "How Democracy Created a Monster"
• Once you have done that, work on the questions on Dictatorships Chapter 5 which are in Dropbox as well.  These should be done for Monday.

Democracies........What You Always Wanted to Know....And Then Some

If you haven't already checked out Dropbox, I did put the answers to the activity that we completed on Thursday.  You will need that completed this week, so please make sure  that you have it done and in your notes for class.  As well, the notes that you need for Monday and possibly Tuesday are already in Dropbox.

On a completely side note to what we will be talking about in class, I strongly encourage you to be paying attention to the situation in Ukraine, specifically in Crimea region (which is a peninsula that is geographically part of Ukraine, but ethnically there is a large Russian population).  This is a situation that we can monitor from afar, as it does not directly deal with our region.  However, if the situation escalates, there is the potential for a conflict to develop between multiple nations.  Last week, it was announced that there would be a referendum in Crimea about whether or not they wish to secede (break away) from Ukraine.  Our Foreign Affairs minister, John Baird, has stated that Canada's position on this referendum would be that we will not accept it, seeing as 10 days is not enough time to hold a vote, especially while Russia is occupying the region.  I also was listening to CBC radio (because I am that cool) and heard one caller's perspective that this whole situation has been engineered by the United States and NATO from the actions of both over the last 60 years - an interesting perspective that does make sense.  Listen to the radio and news; read blogs; read articles; look at multiple perspectives.  This is history in the making and it's important to look at this from more angles than what mainstream media tells us to.

The following video is a good discussion on why we need democracy...

What Shall We Be Covering This Fine Week?

Monday 

• Democracy Introduction video with Questions
• Go through the basics from Thursday - you will need that large colourful sheet you filled in with pictures, as well as the notes printed off from Dropbox
• Vocabulary - Representative Democracy, Representation by Population and Proportional Representation 
• Presidential vs. Parliamentary Democracies

Tuesday

• Electoral Systems - introduction video with questions
• How can we be represented - Rep by Pop vs Proportional Representation
• Please bring a calculator, colouring tools and a protractor
• What's Your Vote Worth Article
• Which is the best system?

Wednesday

• Vocabulary - Minority Government and Majority Government 
• Canada's Electoral System vs. American Electoral System
• First Past the Post, Electoral College, Constituency/Riding

Thursday

• Rants by  Denton  and Melissa - I know somebody else asked to go this week, but I couldn't remember who :( I am only perfect 99% of the time
• Voter Apathy - How do we deal with it?

Friday

• REFORM Friday - Our system isn't perfect, so why not change it? 
• Senate Reform
• Partisan Politics Reform

Political Systems.....SO very exciting!!! In the realm of Social 30....I guess...

"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."
Aristotle

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Winston Churchill

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people."
Harold H. Greene

"Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people."
Richard Perle

"Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest."
Serj Tankian

That's right, kidlings! We're going to start our next unit which has to deal with Political Systems.  Essentially, we will be looking at a democratic vs. dictatorial systems.  Through this, we will analyze:

• What are the roles of the citizens in these systems?
• What are the roles of the government in these systems?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of both systems?
• Where did these ideas originate from?
• Is one system superior to the other and why?
• The different ideological beliefs of the systems of government

And lastly,

• Whether or not these political systems live up to their ideals 

I am really going to stress to you guys to try to keep an open mind during this unit.  Please, don't assume that democracy is the be and all of political systems, because there are some major flaws.  I am not saying let's have a dictatorship, rather I would like to analyze the system we have in our nation and what can be done to improve upon it.

So what's on the agenda for this week?

Monday

• Partner Exam - retake the test with a partner
• Work on planning for essay tomorrow

Tuesday

• In-class writing assignment.  If you are not in class, you must hand in your rough copy the next day you are in class - I will not remind you to do so - if you want feedback before you do your good copy

Wednesday

• Political Liberalism - what it is
• Influence of the Enlightenment and historical influences
• Assignment - similarities and differences between democracies and dictatorships.  You will need either a data seeking device or to bank on using a chrome, which is not necessarily available during class time.



Thursday

• Rants by  Alison and Keyton
• Democracy video
• Article discussion
• TED Talk Video and debate 

Friday

• Vocabulary: Accountable Government, Representation by Population, Proportional Representation
• Canada's Electoral Process