Western Civ 2018

Today in western civ we started off with a pop quiz all because Jacob asked if we were getting one. Then after the quiz, Scott asked why we aren't allowed to be on our computers. Mr. Schick gave three excellent points on why we don't use them. Number one, research proves that writing it makes the person retain the knowledge better. Number two, we can't be trusted on them because instead of writing notes we could be doing anything else. Number three, he knows that if we go on them we won't pay attention and learn because if they are on he only sees the back of the screen he can't tell if we are paying attention. We learned more about Cleisthenes including that he was a member of the elite, he was very rich, and he was a crafty politician. We also learned that hoi polloi means regular people. I'm actually really excited to see what else is on the presentation.

Today in western civ we talked about laws in Ancient Greece. The laws we started talking about were Draco's. Draco's laws included death as punishment for many crimes, debt slavery was ok, and all citizens were equal under the law. Then Solon came in and made some reforms. These reforms include outlawing debt slavery, all Athenian citizens can speak at assemblies, and anyone can press charges against wrongdoers. Hippias (lol) came in and ruled with an iron fist (not Marvel superhero) from 527-510 BCE. His brother was murdered and he had harsh rule since then. He didn't just kill the murderers, but also their families. He was then ostracized from Athens. For revenge, he teamed up with Persian king, Darius I, and helped invade Marathon. After Hippias, two people struggled for leadership. These were Isagoras and Cleisthenes. Isagoras had support from Sparta and fellow aristocrats but Cleisthenes had support from the majority of Athens. Isagoras won and ostracized Cleisthenes,

In western civ we talked more and more about Ancient Greece. We learned about aristocracy and monarchy, and oligarchy. This basically sums up who is ruling Greece. Is it by one person a monarchy or a tyrant, or is it ruled by multiple people aristocracy or oligarchy. In rooms where symposiums were held there were some rules: no women, except the performers, no middle-class,  no slaves, and some aristocrats were excluded. We also learned what a hoplite is. It's a well-armed soldier. Can't wait to see what we learn about next.

Today in western civ we discussed more about The Iliad and The Odyssey focusing more on the Odyssey. In it a war hero from the Trojan War tries to head home but is thwarted by a jealous Poseidon. He ends up on all these different islands one has a lot of beautiful women, another has these people that eat certain leaves and get high, and another has a giant cyclops. We also talked about if Homer existed or not which was really cool. We heard the actor who plays Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies recite the part of the book about the cyclops. We didn't get to hear all of it because the bell rang but it was very cool. I can't wait to see what we talk about on our next class.

Today in western civ we talked about the Trojan War and about other parts of Ancient Greek customs and culture. Ancient Greeks didn't have much meat but they did have a lot of fish, olives, grapes, and grains. Some fish were more expensive than others. Catfish were very popular. Originally historians thought that the Trojan War was a myth because it involved the gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece, but recently they found proof that it actually did happen. We also learned about The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad is about the war and The Odyssey is about a war hero trying to head home but is constantly thwarted by Poseidon, the god of the sea. Speaking of Poseidon, the first caught tuna of a good year is offered as a sacrifice to him.

Today we are talking about Classical Greece so says my title. Some of these facts that I'm learning just blew my mind. Did you know that 3/4 of Ancient Greece was rugged mountains. Some notes we took from our textbook and other notes we took from Mr. Schick's presentation. Some of the things we talked about involved the places that surround Greece and it's topography. We also learned that Mediterranean means middle of the earth. I actually thought that was really cool. Some of the other seas that surround Greece are the Aegen  Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea. Some of the other things we saw in the book involved the Trojan War which I can't wait to learn about. Hopefully we learn about it next class.

Today we started our western civilization class with half new people half old people. We people who had human geo with Mr. Schick helped the noobs set up their blogs. Many people were having problems but Mr. Schick and us helped them through it. Based on the assignment o the board we are starting with Classical Greece. We are actually going to talk some more on Socrates like we did in human geo. This actually makes sense because we are talking about Classical Greece. Socrates was a Greek philosopher who actually was charged with two crimes. The crimes were refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state and corrupting youth. His punishment was to drink poison hemlock which is a really bad way to go. I wonder if I will learn anything new about him later.

Our last human geo class we took a test on world leaders that we have been studying for the past few days. Emmanuel still wasn't here today but hopefully he feels better. The test in my opinion was in some ways challenging but in some cases very easy. Some people are still working on it but luckily I was able to finish and get my blog done early so I have more time to do what I want to do at home. I'm glad that I will have Mr. Schick again next semester for Western Civilization, hopefully I have good classmates and if not I will have to make the best of it. Till next time this is your friendly neighborhood Logan Schermerhorn doing his last human geography blog.

Today we continued the world leaders slide show presentation by Mr. Schick. We learned about the leaders of Syria (that leader is very bad), Canada (nice leader), ours, and North and South Korea. A lot of these leaders had politics running in their family because their fathers or grandfathers were previous leaders of the countries. In fact Canada's leader welcomed Syrian refugees into Canada because they fled from Syria because of the leader's actions in a civil war. We didn't get to talk much about the Koreas because the bell rang but hopefully we all do good on the test that's coming soon.

In human geo class we watched part of Mr. Schick's presentation that we did but he had actual info on the world leaders. We didn't get to watch the whole thing because of the schedule. We took some notes on his presentation and the part that I found interesting was the fact that Xi Jinping's daughter actually came here to Harvard for school. When she came she had a totally different name, identity but some people knew who she was. I got some of the world leaders wrong but I eventually fixed them. I am very curious to see what some other facts are about different world leaders, hopefully they are as interesting as some of the other facts.

Today in human geo we reviewed what we talked about yesterday and then started to do a project involving different countries of the world. We had to take certain countries that Mr. Schick gave us and had to a slide on each of them including the name of the country, the type of government it has, its leader and the official photo of the leader. Some of the countries included United Kingdom, Mexico, India, China, and many more. It was actually warm in Mr. Schick's classroom today Hugh even went and checked the thermometer. Well I can't wait to finish my project not sure about everyone else though.

Today was our first day back after Christmas break and it was cold in Mr. Schick's room. We started to talk about political geography which involved things such as nations, countries, and States. We talked about what defines them and what makes a place a country, nation, or State. Some of the things are a worldly known border. We also learned today that after Q2 we may got to other teachers for Western Civ. Countries are identifiable land areas. Nations are a population with a common culture. States are populations under a single government and can be synonymous with countries. I wonder what else we are going to learn about political geography.