Course Reflection/Plan of Action

This quarter, I have learned a lot, and thought more deeply about issues I previously hadn’t thought much about at all. I am not going to school to be a teacher, but this class intrigued me in such a way I wish I had taken more education classes in my time at Eastern. I learned about wars I had only heard mentioned once or twice before in my life, and thought much more about how I would ever try to teach something like that to kids.

            The part that was most difficult for me was reading Sold, and especially trying to figure out when would be an appropriate age to give that to kids. I have a 12 year old sister, and most of our books, the main child was around that age. It was difficult to try and wrap my brain around that, and wonder when she would be mature enough for such heavy books. While Sold was probably the most difficult text for me to read, it was difficult among all of our books to try to figure out what is an appropriate age for kids and that topic.

            In relation to work we did in class, I am glad that we did research beforehand on the area or war/dispute itself. This made me have more background knowledge so I was not blindly going into the book. The books were also written from the view of a kid, so it was nice to have background that was written for adults, to then go in and see how a kid would view that.

            A discussion we had regularly I found interesting was talking about how certain things relate to us, and if there is something we do similar in the United States. We often don’t think such terrible things can happen because they don’t happen here, but when you stop and think about it, we have all of the same things going on, just in different variations.

            This class has influenced my thinking in how I can be a part of something bigger than myself, and how I can make a difference in the world. Having the discussions of how terrible things happen all around the world, as well as here made me think that there must be a way I can get involved and try to make a change.

            I have always been interested in sponsoring a child. My sister’s roommate sponsors one, and is constantly getting updates on how he is doing, and how her money is so greatly affecting him. He draws pictures for her, and gets pictures of him monthly. I know this would warm my heart having such a soft spot for kids. My plan of action following this course, is to start sponsoring a child. When Sean came to speak to our class, he said that he never believed the commercials on TV showing the kids so skinny and unhealthy from malnutrition. When he went to a high poverty level country however, he said it was even worse. This influenced my decision even more. In all of the books we read, children were the main focus, with their childhoods being ripped away. If I can help that in any way possible, I want to. 

Graffiti Wall

For my graffiti wall assignment, I decided to do a little collage of pictures I thought best represented the themes we have talked about in the subject of war and peace. I used Photoshop to get these pictures to blend together more, and create a unified look.

First, I took a picture of a broken road as the background. I used this picture because I thought it represented how homes or other areas can get so destroyed from war. This picture shows that the cement actually broke into the water, and over half of it is severally broken and not useable. This is a small example, but we all know how long construction takes once a road is destroyed, or even when there is a pothole. That would be a miniscule reminder of just how much the war affected that place. This would also be a small factor on representing geography in relation to war. Take 9/11 for example, since the World Trade Centers were hit, it has drastically affected the geography of New York. There is still a monument in place of them, and for very long after, many roads surrounding were closed. There was glass and other debris everywhere, affecting greatly affected the geography of that one location, and affecting the rest of the United States as well.

The next thing I did was take a picture of a mom, dad, and two kids, otherwise previously known as the “traditional family”. I decided to break them apart, because it shows just how severely a war impacts a family. As shown from A Long Way Gone, families get torn apart from wars, and in the case of Sierra Leone, it is possible to never see your family again. Going off family, I wrote “Not so traditional family” at the top in red, to signify what I meant by the family getting broken apart. I wrote it in red because red is typically one of the most noticed colors. Family also plays a significant role in a person’s culture. If a family is broken apart from war or anything else, their culture has been severely shifted as well.

Finally, I put in a picture of a broken peace sign. At first I thought that since it is a unit of war and peace, I wanted to put a peace sign. I then thought however that since my focus of my collage was mainly about the ramifications of war, I wanted to put a broken peace sign. Peace is most often destroyed once war hits. Like Sean and A Long Way Gone have said, people are constantly living in fear once a war is struck. That to me does not signify peace. That is why I thought a broken peace sign in the middle of my artwork was more appropriate.