The Happiness Project
Artist Statement
In my art piece, a person holding onto a balloon is depicted, in their other hand is two pieces of rope that are connected to a house and a bag of money, but are broken in the middle. This symbolizes that breaking free from materialism allows us to rise above and become happier. The quote: “The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.” This also tied into the theme. I created this piece to help introduce people to a lifestyle that is more focused on happiness and less on material wealth. Hopefully this will begin to change people's perspective on their own lives and on the society around them.
In my art piece, a person holding onto a balloon is depicted, in their other hand is two pieces of rope that are connected to a house and a bag of money, but are broken in the middle. This symbolizes that breaking free from materialism allows us to rise above and become happier. The quote: “The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.” This also tied into the theme. I created this piece to help introduce people to a lifestyle that is more focused on happiness and less on material wealth. Hopefully this will begin to change people's perspective on their own lives and on the society around them.
Model United Nations Project
The Model Untied Nations Project was based around learning about real world problems and issues and attempting to create UN resolutions to solve them. Each student was assigned the role of a country in the UN and had to base their solutions and actions off of their country's perspective. Throughout the project we covered two world issues. The first was North Korea and its right to own and produce nuclear weapons. The second issue was the immensely controversial Israel-Palestine conflict and Palestinian right of return. For both of these issues we found our country's perspective and wrote a paper on it, then we wrote actual resolution the attempted to find a solution for them.
Policy Paper North Korea
Resolution North Korea
Policy Paper Israel/Palestine
Resolution Israel/Palestine
Project Reflection
Policy Paper North Korea
Resolution North Korea
Policy Paper Israel/Palestine
Resolution Israel/Palestine
Project Reflection
The Tragedy Project
During this project we read and learned about ancient Greek tragedies and how their use in society helped relieve harmful emotions through catharsis. We then wrote our own tragedies based on modern issues such as gun control or abortion.
Script
Prologue
(Scene opens outside of the Burton household, emergency vehicles and personnel are present, red and blue lights are flashing and illuminating the cul-de-sac. There are two gurneys, both covered with tarps, being wheeled out of the front door. The Chief of Police and a police officer are conversing with each other, with Madison sitting on the curb.)
Officer 1: Good Evening, Chief. Glad you are finally here, sir.
Chief Bradley: Tell me what happened here.
(Takes out the case report, and flips through a couple of pages)
Officer 1: Yes sir. We received reports of commotion within the Burton residence, when the first two officers arrived on scene, they stated that it was apparent that some sort of violence was in progress. They entered the house, weapons drawn. The officers discovered Daniel Burton standing over the body of Alison Burton. According to the officers, Daniel Burton rushed towards them wielding a knife, later confirmed to the murder weapon, and one of them shot him in the chest and head, killing him instantly.
Chief Bradley: And what of the wife?
Officer 1: As far as we can tell, she died from multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. The paramedics also noticed blunt trauma to the head.
Chief Bradley: Damn tragic. How is the girl holding up?
Officer 1: I'm not sure, no one has been able to get anything out of her since we found her. She must have seen what happened.
Chorus:
(As the police officers)
A tragedy like others,
But this one is different,
It hits so close to home,
It makes you stop to listen,
A family so normal,
Father. Mother and Child,
It feels so informal,
To say the Father went wild,
He murdered his wife,
And orphaned his daughter
Alone in the world,
Blown out of the water,
She has no home
Without a single clue,
The child oblivious
To the harm drugs can do.
(Scene ends with the focus on Madison, fade to gray.)
Scene One
(Scene opens with Madison and Alison in one of the bedrooms, Madison is laying in the bed with the covers pulled up. Madison is playing on the floor. The front door of the house opens, a tall figure steps through, and slams the door behind him.)
Madison: Mommy, Daddy’s home.
Alison: Okay, thank you. Go to your room, sweetheart.
Madison: But I want to see Daddy!
Alison: Listen to me sweetie, I need you to go to your room. You can see daddy when we are done talking, ok?
Madison: Okay.
(Alison smiles at Madison, as heavy footsteps coming down the hallway.)
Alison: Hurry now.
(Madison shuffles down the hall and sits down heavily on her bed. She hears muffled voices shouting through the wall.)
Daniel: Where are they? Where did you hide them?
Alison: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Daniel: The meds! I need them, where did you put them?
Alison: We ran out of the prescriptions last week.
Daniel: You’re lying to me. You’re hiding it.
Alison: No I’m not, I swear!
(Madison quietly walks down the hall, and peeks into the bedroom)
Daniel: If you won’t tell me where they are, I will find them myself!
(Alison grabs Daniels arm as he turns to walk away)
Alison: Stop it!
Daniel: Get off me.
(Daniel turns and hits Alison in the face and walks out of the house, slamming the door behind him. Alison breaks down in tears. Scene fades out of flashback to investigation.)
Chorus:
(As The police officers)
Ravaged by addiction,
The wanting for more,
He blindly struck his wife,
Brought her down to the floor,
And in his fogged mind,
He had failed to see,
Just how harmful,
his addiction could be.
Scene Two
(Madison is sleeping in a chair in the police department, there are a few officers still in the building, including Chief Bradley. One officer is sitting across from her holding a notepad and pen.)
Officer 2: Madison? …. Madison? Wake up, there are a couple things I need to ask you, ok?
(Madison Yawns)
Officer 2: Madison, I need to ask you a couple questions, do you think you can answer them?
Madison: Okay.
Officer 2: Alright, was your daddy hurt, or taking any medicine?
Madison: No, but he was really mad all the time.
Officer 2: We knew your mom was taking medicine for an accident, but where you taking anything?
Madison: Mommy used to give me medicine to help me in school, but then my daddy made me stop.
Officer 2: Okay, one more question Madison, Do you remember when your daddy started being mean to your mommy?
Madison: I think…. I think it was after I went to school.
Officer 2: After school started?
Madison:(sadly) Uh-huh.
Officer 2: Okay, thank you for your help Madison, just tell me if you need anything, okay?
Madison:(sleepily) Okay.
(Madison goes back to sleep, Scene fades to grey.)
Scene 3
(Scene opens to Daniel and Alison in the kitchen, Daniel is furiously searching for something. Madison peeks around the corner.)
Daniel: Where did you hide it?
Alison: There’s nothing left, I’ve told you this.
Daniel: You’re lying!
Alison: Stop yelling! You’re going to wake Madison up.
(Daniel stops searching and turns on Alison with a knife in hand)
Daniel: Tell me now!
(Alison glances over and spots Madison)
Alison: Madison, run!
(As Madison runs down the hall, she can hear screams behind her, but she runs to her room and shuts the door.)
Exode
Chorus:
(As the police officers)
Poor little Madison,
All alone in her world,
Still oblivious to the events,
That have unfurled,
Oblivious to the fact,
That her parents are gone,
Even late in her life,
She will not move on,
Oblivious to the fact,
That she will be starved of love,
All of this caused,
By a few fistfuls of drugs
Tragedy Project Reflection
The part of my project that I am most proud of is the style of drawing. The drawing style was intended to be dark, shadowy, and mysterious. When you look at some of the frames, this is extremely apparent that a common theme is being used. I am very proud of this because it shows a unique and original art style, but it also sets a specific tone for the graphic novel, which made it feel more professional overall.
For the next group of students I would say that to succeed you need to focus and never stop working until you are done. During the project me and my partner did not utilize all of the time we had, this meant parts of our tragedy were left unrefined. If i could go back and refine one thing it would be the dialogue near the end of the play, if that were to be refined I believe that it would increase the quality and understanding of the play.
I think that working in partners had many advantages, and only a few disadvantages. When I was working with my partner, Joe, we were able to brainstorm and refine ideas together as well as allowing one of us to work on the project if the other partner was absent. The only real drawback was not being able to communicate and work together after class. Overall, it was much more efficient to work together and we did finish the project strong, if we were to do it again though, we would need to focus on staying on task.
The most difficult task to overcome in this project was formatting and finalizing the graphic novel. This was difficult because we had to format and style the graphic novel in a way that matched the illustration. It was very tedious to put the text in each frame and color code the speech bubbles.
For the next group of students I would say that to succeed you need to focus and never stop working until you are done. During the project me and my partner did not utilize all of the time we had, this meant parts of our tragedy were left unrefined. If i could go back and refine one thing it would be the dialogue near the end of the play, if that were to be refined I believe that it would increase the quality and understanding of the play.
I think that working in partners had many advantages, and only a few disadvantages. When I was working with my partner, Joe, we were able to brainstorm and refine ideas together as well as allowing one of us to work on the project if the other partner was absent. The only real drawback was not being able to communicate and work together after class. Overall, it was much more efficient to work together and we did finish the project strong, if we were to do it again though, we would need to focus on staying on task.
The most difficult task to overcome in this project was formatting and finalizing the graphic novel. This was difficult because we had to format and style the graphic novel in a way that matched the illustration. It was very tedious to put the text in each frame and color code the speech bubbles.
Socialization Project
The Socialization Project's Main focus was to not only teach us about the cycle of socialization, and how it affects and shapes the world around us, but how it has molded us. This was our first project of the year, and lasted about 9 weeks. For the first couple weeks we learned about how socialization works and how society continues the cycle that forms each generation through seven groups, called identity categories. These categories are race, gender, age, economic class, religion, ability/disability, and sexual orientation. We also learned of cases where children grew up in an environment with little or no socialization at all, leaving them stunted and mentally incapable of complex thought. Near the end of the project, we wrote essays top explain how we have been socialized. We also made masks, the represent the metaphorical masks that we wear everyday to conform with society.
The Mask
The Essay
The Monster of Socialization
In Society, we are all socialized by everyone and everything around us. This positive and negative socialization affects us differently depending on our race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, ability/disability, and economic class, these are the identity categories. People are stereotyped, and many times negatively affected because of how they fit into each category. I, for example have been almost unconsciously told that as a man I have to be strong and dominant, as a white person I am told that I should be humble am that I am born with more privileges, and as a teenager I am told that my opinions don’t matter and I am too young to understand things that adults do. Even though you might be part of a group that has been known to have more power you can still be negatively socialized and discriminated against.
When it comes to gender, there is a very large amount of negative socialization that always seems to outweigh the positive socialization. In the video, A Call to Men, Tony Porter explains the idea of the ‘man box.’ “We were taught that men had to be tough, had to be strong, had to be courageous, dominating, no pain, no emotions, with the exception of anger, and definitely no fear; that men are in charge, which means women are not; that men lead, and you should just follow and do what we say; that men are superior; women are inferior; that men are strong; women are weak; that women are of less value, property of men, and objects,particularly sexual objects. I've later come to know that to be the collective socialization of men, better known as the ‘man box.” The box he talks about is very prominent in society and can be seen everywhere. In my own personal experience, I was ostracized for not playing sports. In our culture, sports such as football and baseball are viewed as very masculine, because I did not play sports I was often excluded from activities that sports players participated in and limited who I was able to be friends with. Despite all the progress that society has made, men are still expected to be over masculine, emotionless, dominators.
On the subject of race, there is hate and misrepresentation for all races. The video, Black Men Ski, performed by Stew, covers over many different stereotypes pertaining to black people. Many of these stereotypes were things like: Black people don’t ski; all black people look the same; most black people are good athletes and many other stereotypes that can be degrading or hurtful to people who are black. Alongside the stereotypes towards black people, there are many directed towards white people too, one of the biggest affects me personally. This stereotype is that all white people, regardless of where they are born, or how much money they have, all have this invisible privilege that allows them to live better lives. When I was a kid, had multiple friends who were black or hispanic that would tell me how much better I had it, just because I was white. But the truth was, for the early years of my life I lived in a very small house barely scraping by. Plus, when I went to some of their houses they had it the same, or even better than I did. I was stereotyped as a privileged white person by my friends, possibly similar to the way they were stereotyped with people of their races.
Age, the one thing that everyone is affected by. This category is the only one where nearly everyone experiences the same. Everyone is born and grows through childhood to adulthood, and in most cases to elderly. Even the article, The Cycle of Socialization by Bobbie Harro, says most ages are targeted. “Target groups women; racially oppressed groups; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; disabled people; Jews; elders; youth; and people living in poverty.” Also, Harro mentions that the stereotype, ”Children should be seen and not heard” is commonly seen. This is showing that two different ages are being discriminated against, despite the fact that everyone goes through them. In my opinion, we are only harming ourselves and society by discriminating against specific ages. I also believe that we do this because we see people do it, or because it has happened to us. When I was a kid, and right now as a teenager I am viewed by many as unimportant, and always wrong. Its makes no sense that people would discriminate against children, because then the next generation grows up to do the same, and against elderly because then they will receive the same treatment when they reach that age. Age discrimination is not only one of the most prominent forms of negative socialization, but is also one of the most futile, because it affects everyone.
It doesn't matter how you fit into the seven categories, you can still be discriminated against, using my experiences as an example. Even though I am part of two groups seen as dominant and powerful, I was, and sometimes still am discriminated against. The fact the everyone is being affected by this negative socialization is a clear sign that we need to change not only our system of socialization, but how we think all together. If we can teach children, and adults to treat everyone equally and with a very basic level of respect, we can end many problems that plague our society today.
In Society, we are all socialized by everyone and everything around us. This positive and negative socialization affects us differently depending on our race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, ability/disability, and economic class, these are the identity categories. People are stereotyped, and many times negatively affected because of how they fit into each category. I, for example have been almost unconsciously told that as a man I have to be strong and dominant, as a white person I am told that I should be humble am that I am born with more privileges, and as a teenager I am told that my opinions don’t matter and I am too young to understand things that adults do. Even though you might be part of a group that has been known to have more power you can still be negatively socialized and discriminated against.
When it comes to gender, there is a very large amount of negative socialization that always seems to outweigh the positive socialization. In the video, A Call to Men, Tony Porter explains the idea of the ‘man box.’ “We were taught that men had to be tough, had to be strong, had to be courageous, dominating, no pain, no emotions, with the exception of anger, and definitely no fear; that men are in charge, which means women are not; that men lead, and you should just follow and do what we say; that men are superior; women are inferior; that men are strong; women are weak; that women are of less value, property of men, and objects,particularly sexual objects. I've later come to know that to be the collective socialization of men, better known as the ‘man box.” The box he talks about is very prominent in society and can be seen everywhere. In my own personal experience, I was ostracized for not playing sports. In our culture, sports such as football and baseball are viewed as very masculine, because I did not play sports I was often excluded from activities that sports players participated in and limited who I was able to be friends with. Despite all the progress that society has made, men are still expected to be over masculine, emotionless, dominators.
On the subject of race, there is hate and misrepresentation for all races. The video, Black Men Ski, performed by Stew, covers over many different stereotypes pertaining to black people. Many of these stereotypes were things like: Black people don’t ski; all black people look the same; most black people are good athletes and many other stereotypes that can be degrading or hurtful to people who are black. Alongside the stereotypes towards black people, there are many directed towards white people too, one of the biggest affects me personally. This stereotype is that all white people, regardless of where they are born, or how much money they have, all have this invisible privilege that allows them to live better lives. When I was a kid, had multiple friends who were black or hispanic that would tell me how much better I had it, just because I was white. But the truth was, for the early years of my life I lived in a very small house barely scraping by. Plus, when I went to some of their houses they had it the same, or even better than I did. I was stereotyped as a privileged white person by my friends, possibly similar to the way they were stereotyped with people of their races.
Age, the one thing that everyone is affected by. This category is the only one where nearly everyone experiences the same. Everyone is born and grows through childhood to adulthood, and in most cases to elderly. Even the article, The Cycle of Socialization by Bobbie Harro, says most ages are targeted. “Target groups women; racially oppressed groups; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; disabled people; Jews; elders; youth; and people living in poverty.” Also, Harro mentions that the stereotype, ”Children should be seen and not heard” is commonly seen. This is showing that two different ages are being discriminated against, despite the fact that everyone goes through them. In my opinion, we are only harming ourselves and society by discriminating against specific ages. I also believe that we do this because we see people do it, or because it has happened to us. When I was a kid, and right now as a teenager I am viewed by many as unimportant, and always wrong. Its makes no sense that people would discriminate against children, because then the next generation grows up to do the same, and against elderly because then they will receive the same treatment when they reach that age. Age discrimination is not only one of the most prominent forms of negative socialization, but is also one of the most futile, because it affects everyone.
It doesn't matter how you fit into the seven categories, you can still be discriminated against, using my experiences as an example. Even though I am part of two groups seen as dominant and powerful, I was, and sometimes still am discriminated against. The fact the everyone is being affected by this negative socialization is a clear sign that we need to change not only our system of socialization, but how we think all together. If we can teach children, and adults to treat everyone equally and with a very basic level of respect, we can end many problems that plague our society today.
Project Reflection
- What are you most proud of about your mask? Why?
- Quote the section of your essay that you are most proud of and describe, in detail, why you are proud of it.
- What will you remember from this project? Why?
- Which habit of heart and mind do you need to work on in your next project to get better at Project Based Learning? Why do you need to improve and how that Habit of Heart and Mind will help you?