Semester One Speech

US history this year so far has been very productive in my opinion.  My favorite activity that we have done so far was our research projects about the movies that we watched first quarter.  I actually learned a lot in those few weeks and writing the paper about them afterwards just reinforced what I had learned.  I enjoyed researching the two movies and being able to decipher between the true facts and the things that the moviemakers made up to make the movies more entertaining.  I learned that not all things we see on television that claim to be based on a true story are always true.  I learned and was able to prove that Hollywood likes to change events that happened in history to make them more appealing to their audience. 

            One thing that I was most unpleasantly surprised with was how women were treated in the work force.  I did not like learning about how they were treated unfairly and like they were not as good as men.  Their pays even displayed how much they were disliked.  Companies and men saw women as less than equal to them, therefore their pay was much less than men.  Men also saw women as a threat because it lowered their pay and put them out of work.  The men wanted to make all of the money in the household and prove that they could take care of their family’s without the help of their wife. 

            There is a lot that we have learned this year that I am pretty positive that I will remember ten years on down the road, but one thing that really stood out to me was when we learned the difference between empathy and sympathy.  I always knew that they were very similar and deal with concerns of others, but I never knew what the exact differences between the two are.  I now know that sympathy is simply felling sorry for someone and empathy is feeling sorry for someone and understanding his or her situation.

            One big thing that Americans dealt with in the past was racism.  Obviously, we are still dealing with this issue today.  Many people in America that aren’t American feel discriminated against, the same way people felt back then.  I, personally, do not think that non-Americans are treated any differently than the Americans.  I believe that we should all be treated the same and that we are treated the same.

            If I were able to go back in time and rename the “Gilded Age,” the time between 1865 and 1920, something different, I would name it the “Age of Conduct.”  This name seems fitting because this whole time period deals with all sorts of economic growth, including the wages of working people going up, causing a lot of immigration.  The immigration resulted in an increase of industrialization, causing all wages to rise over the time period.  The economy rate in the United States rose faster in this time period than it ever had before, making this name very suitable.

Thinking About Success

Importance
1. hard work
2. opportunity
3. skill
4. luck

     I believe that hard work is the most important of these four words because if someone doesn't work hard or have the drive to do so, then they will never get anything done.  Opportunity is second on my list because if someone has the ability to work hard but doesn't have the opportunity to work hard on anything in particular, then that hard work and drive is gone to waste.  Skill is third because skill is only useful when you work hard.  One can have the skills to do many things, but if they don't have any opportunities or the drive to do anything, then that skill isn't necessary.  Luck is third because being lucky is not really a thing.  Everything that happens happens for a reason.  It is kind of like opportunity but it can relate to anything.  With luck, not much can be done and it is only occasionally that one gets lucky.  It isn't a constant thing.

Fashion

While doing research in class today, I found one of the few articles to be particularly interesting.  I ave never really thought about fashion designers and why they design/sell the clothes that they do.  This article answers that question, saying that some people sell clothes according to trends and others according to the quality of the clothes.  This makes me wonder how do they figure out what kind of trends will be popular in the future and how do they know customers will buy their product?  Also, what makes the quality of a piece of clothing good?

This is a Uniqlo store, showing many different colors and trends.

Ch. 18 Letter

Dear Mom,
     Today has been rough, just like the many others.  I have been here for a while now and it still has not gotten any easier.  I get made fun of and ridiculed for the way I look, dress, and what I believe in daily by all of these Americans.  I know that it's only because I'm different but it's so embarrassing.  But I know that it will be worth it in the long-run.
     I have joined another group of people from Ireland.  They are so nice, but sometimes it makes me miss home even more.  It's supposed to make me feel at home here, and it does sometimes.  But when I leave there and go back out into the real world, it brings me back to reality and that is that I'm not at home and I'm stuck here.  I know that it will get better, I just need to give it time.
     I really want to become more like the people here.  Being in the "ethnic neighborhood" with other Irish people is nice, but spending time with them will not make it any easier when I go out into the real world.  I am trying to branch out and eat the food from here and hang around Americans so that I can be more like them and maybe one day I will be accepted into their culture.  But as for now, I am focussing on my job and making money to support you, dad, and the rest of the family.

Much love from America,

your daughter.

This is our ethnic neighborhood

Frontier Schools

Schooling in the 1800s was a lot different from the way we think of schooling now.  Everything about it was different, from the buildings, to the curriculum, even to the teachers.  Their way of thinking was much different from ours, not that that is a bad thing at all.  They just were not as advanced on the Frontier as we are today.

            One thing that was extremely different about Frontier schools was the building that they taught in.  Most schools were called “One-room Schools” that consisted of only one room.  They were typically an old abandoned log cabin or something similar.  This was due to lack of land and money to build a new building.  In the one-room schools, the students were placed in a certain order.  The younger children would sit in the front and the older children would sit in the back, girls on one side and boys on the other.  In the middle of the room, there would be a wood or coal-burning stove that would be used during winter for heat. 

            The one-room schools put a strain on education in a way.  Because there was only one room, students of all ages would have to be taught at the same time.  Most schools did not have a kindergarten, so first thru eighth grade were all taught in the same room.  So the older kids had heard each lesson at least eight times, allowing them to be able to assist the younger children who might have been having trouble with their studies.  The curriculum that was taught in frontier schools is very similar to what we do today, but theirs probably was not as in depth as ours is.  Their curriculum consisted of reading, spelling, writing, math, and history/geography.  They learning much like we do: memorizing, reciting, and oral drills.  Classes were taught in ten to fifteen minutes to each grade. 

            Many families did not seem to realize how important schooling was until a little later.  They thought that learning was less important than using an ax and a plow for the boys, or using a loom and a spinning wheel for the girls.  After they passed a law in 1819 saying that elementary school was required, they had no choice but to go.  However, when they went to school was different from when we go to school.  Their school year was based around farming because most of the boys had to help with getting the crops up.  Because of this, girls were more educated and graduated earlier, around the age of thirteen or fourteen, whereas boys would not graduate until they were eighteen.

            Teachers in frontier schools were also much different from our teachers today.  Most schools have different teachers for each subject, but all schools have different teachers for each grade, but not frontier schools.  They had one teacher that taught eight different grades in the same room.  Granted, those eight grades did not have very many students, but the number ranges greatly.  Some schools only had 3 students enrolled, but others had 50.

            The teachers in one-room schools on the frontier had to be very well educated, organized, and have a lot of patience.  At first, all teachers were male, but later, the male teachers realized that they could get a job in a factory or on a farm and make a lot more money.  They also came to the conclusion that since women raised children in a household; they would also make a good teacher.  Women, or girls would probably be more fitting, could train to be a teacher after finishing the eighth grade.  It only took six to twelve months to train, so the youngest teacher could be fifteen.  Teaching in this time period would have been a lot of responsibility, especially for a young woman at that age.

            Frontier schools were much different than our schools today.  From the building, to the lessons, and even the teachers.  Everything is so different now from what it was back then.  Education has changed a lot over time, and we should be thankful for that.  Education is very important to everyone, some people just do not realize it.

Works Cited

PBS 1

PBS 2

PBS 3

This three different pages from the same website.  I learned a lot of background information about school in this time period, I learned how much female teachers made compared to how much male teachers made, I learned about the lives of students and teachers and their relationships in and outside of the school building, and the school buildings themselves.

The Mini Page

I learned about the lessons they taught in school and how things worked in a one room schoolhouse on this website.

Log Cabin Village

This website gave a brief outline of what a school day would look like in most frontier schools.

Iowa Pathways

I learned about why they started letting woman teach instead of men on this website.

One-Room School Program

This website gave good information on who went to school and a good comparison of urban schools vs. frontier and rural schools.

Facts For Now – Schools and Churches

This source gave information on the importance of going to school, what the schools would look like, and their school supplies.

Little House on the Prairie – Wikipedia

I used this article about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books to see what it was like to live in this time period.  It gave me a lot of background on the time period and information on what the schools were like.

One-room school house

Children in boarding school in Oklahoma

One-room school house with children of all ages

Little House on the Prairie - one-room school with younger children in the front and older children in the back

Frontier School

Film Essay

          Before moving to this school, I went to Randolph School and even before the middle of the first quarter, we had already watched two movies in my history class about slavery.  I believe that many teachers think that when they show a movie in class the students are not paying attention so they are not learning anything.  Well, obviously if you do not pay attention when watching a movie you will not get anything out of it.  This is the only way that I agree with teachers when they say they do not want to show a movie.  You cannot force students to pay attention to the movie, but you cannot force them to take notes or pat attention when the teacher is lecturing either.  Another argument is that sometimes history gets changed in a movie to make it more entertaining or appealing to the viewer.  Sadly, this does happen, but we can still learn from the big ideas.

          The two movies we watched were Glory and 12 Years a Slave.  The director of Glory, Edward Zwick, said that his main goal when making this movie was to review history, and that is exactly what he does.  Another movie about slavery that was popular around this time was Gone With The Wind.  He says that he absolutely was not trying to outdo Gone With The Wind when making his film.

            Like I said before, sometimes history gets changed when it makes it to Hollywood.  Some inaccuracies in Glory include some small things, such as when the Confederate fortress was defending the Charleston Harbor.  In the movie, they were moving north to south, but when it really happened, they went south to north.  It also shows in the movie that Robert Gould Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick and the main character, was Governor Andrew’s first choice to command the regiment and that he took the job right away.  In reality, he was not the governor’s first choice, but when he was offered the position, he hesitated for a long while before accepting.  Probably the biggest inaccuracy was the way that the 54^th Massachusetts was depicted.  It was depicted in the movie as a regiment made of runaway slaves, but it was mainly made up of free blacks recruited from New York and Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts.

            Just like there are historical inaccuracies in Glory, there are a few in 12 Years a Slave as well.  Steve McQueen, director of 12 Years a Slave, said that his main reason for making this movie was to tell a story about the time of slaves, but he did not want to have an obvious character, such as Harriet Tubman or someone that most people know about.  That is why he chose to tell about Solomon Northup.  Most of the inaccuracies are very small.  In the movie, Solomon has only two children, but he really had three.  While they were on the ship, it shows one of the slave owners murdering a slave, which did not happen in real life.  There is some controversy over one thing though, and that is whether he was actually drugged or not before being sold into slavery.  In his book, he states that he does not remember what happened that night, so he suspects that he was drugged.

            The events and facts that were twisted or mistook in both of these movies were very minor.  We can still see the big picture of what happened in real life and know that the times were horrible.  In Glory, we can see that there were many black men, slaves or not, fighting for there freedom and equality.  It does not really matter whether he was first choice or not.  We can see in 12 Years a Slave that a free man was tricked into leaving his home and was sold into slavery.  How many kids he ha does not really matter, just that he has a family.  We see that the times were very rough for all blacks, free or not.  Whenever people saw a black person in these times, they were assumed to be a slave whether they were one or not.  Black people were all treated awfully and they did not deserve that.  We all deserve our freedom and thankfully, we all have that now.

Sources, Film Research – Glory & 12 Years a Slave

IMDB – Glory

IMDB – List of Awards Won in Glory

IMDB – Box Office

Ashbrook - Glory Historical Accuracy

IMDB - Reviews for Glory

Critic Reviews - Glory

IMDB – List of Awards Won in 12 Years a Slave

IMDB – Reviews for 12 Years a Slave

IMDB – box office for 12 years

History vs. Hollywood – 12 years a slave (Historical Accuracy)

Blog – Interview with John Ridley (Goals and Intentions)

The Tech – Interview with Edward Zwick (Goals and Intentions – Glory)

IMDB – Glory Cast

IMDB – 12 Years a Slave Cast