5/11/20
Sophomores 2020
Blog #31
Aim 1: How can students be controlled?
Do Now: Survey (Google Form)
We started the lesson with a survey about statements relating to the novel 1984 such as "You can control people's actions, but not their thoughts" and "You can change the pass". Some of these statements were direct quotes from 1984, including "Ignorance is strength and "War is peace". We then rated how much we agree or disagree with the statement on a scale. After submitting the survey, we discussed our opinions as a class.
Aim 2: How is man conflicted between both the desire to conform and the need to
be an individual?
Next, we had an individual activity where we wrote about the word "freedom" and its meaning to us and how it applies to our environment (as in home, school, society). We discussed that equality is an unrealistic idea that sounds great but is not actually practical. If everyone were to have true equality, there would be chaos and disorder because there is no one above to control everyone else. In our society, we agreed that we have a lot of different types of freedom, such as freedom of speech and religion. However, we are still limited by morals and laws that prevent us from harming ourselves and others, meaning having full free will and autonomy will never be a possibility in a functioning society. In our homes, parents may give children ultimatums to make them do what they should be doing and in school, our language is limited in order to be appropriate for a school setting.
As we moved to our class discussion, the conversation shifted to rules presented by our parents and our school. Even though school has a set standard of rules to follow, within classes, the rules can be completely different. For example, some teachers require students to sit in assigned seats while others have no opinion on it. Rules like these are generally reasonable because we know that there is a specific reasoning for the enforcement of these rules.
Finally, we completed a second survey to see our thoughts on certain opinions that ranged from "Patriotism means supporting your government during times of war" to "For an idea to exist, we must have words to express it. Our opinions on these topics were generally the same, aside from a couple of conflicting comments. The statement that peaked my interest was number 2; "To assure the country's freedom, the government should be able to spy on its citizens". The word "spy" has very negative connotations, implying that the government doesn't trust its citizens to live with privacy. Because of this wording, I did not agree with this statement. This statement also reminded me of a very controversial approach to preventing the spread of the coronavirus in South Korea. The government uses facial recognition technology to trace the movements of those infected with the virus, testing those who came in contact with that person, and tracing their steps as well. By being able to see who was exposed to the virus, they were able to quarantine them and prevent the spread of coronavirus, also known as contact tracing. However, this strategy was met with some resistance, mostly form Western countries, where privacy was more of a concern.
Here is a video about South Korea's response to the COVID-19 outbreak:
https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c
We finished the lesson with a presentation from Brian Luo.
What is it like working from home?
Working from home is so much more difficult and tiring than actual school. Keeping up with my assignments have also been almost impossible because of how abstract they feel. In addition to the assignments, being home all the time reduces my productivity. Being at school motivated me to be productive and give my days structure. Without this structure, I needed to relearn how to get work done efficiently. Being at home also gives the opportunity of distractions, making getting work done even harder. The workload has also increased dramatically, and on top of preparing for the AP test, doing work has been very stressful. Since almost all of my day is spent on homework and class, there has been no time for self care or any of the luxuries that come with working from home.
Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.
The whole point of being in quarantine and social distancing has been very exhausting, but I still understand the importance of it. When I hear about other places lifting shelter in place restrictions, I can't help but help but feel that they are lifting restrictions too early. Even though New York City is most likely on the downward side of the curve, I think that reducing these measures would lead to an increase in cases and prolong the quarantine.
Reflection
We learned about the true meaning of freedom and how it applies to our everyday life, in addition to rules and why they are implemented and by who. We argued about the morality of rules put in place and scenarios where our superiors exercise a greater amount of control over us. I learned this because it relates to 1984, with ideas about the government controlling ideas and citizens' actions. By becoming aware of and analyzing our thoughts about the freedoms within our own society, we can see how impactful the message of censorship and freedom is in 1984. I will use this knowledge by seeing how the idea of freedom and the amount of control the government has over everything in Oceania, including on its citizens' thoughts in 1984.
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