The Visit of the Romans

On December 8, 2006, the Ancient Romans visited our school with their jewelry and paintings…..

Coming Soon : ) : ) : )

Anthropologist – a person who studies anthropology. Anthropology is a study of origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of mankind. It is also someone who studies different cultures from different places in the world.

Archeologist- A person who studies the prehistory or history of people’s and their cultures by analyzing their artifacts, daily life and others.

Economist- A specialist in economics.

Historian-

Linguist-

Theologian-

Questions

1. Where did the Aztecs originally live? What prompted them to relocate? Where did they end up and why? Chose an artifact, which you feel best, represents this event. Support your choice.
The Aztecs originally lived in a place called Atzlan. The reason why they left their homes was because a prophet named Tenoch, had a vision of Huitzilopochtli (God of war) telling him to lead his people to a new land to settle. Huitzilopochtli said that he would know when he is in this land if he sees an eagle sitting on a cactus eating a snake. But this is only a legend. It might be true or it might be wrong. The more accurate reason is that they were driven out from their original homes because they were poor and wild people who ate rats, snakes and stole food. Then they ended up in and island in the middle of lake Texcoco.

2. The Aztecs ended up in the middle of a lake and built their new capital Tenochtitlan. What were the pros and cons of settling in the middle of a lake? Describe the lay of the land and chose an image for your exhibit.
A pro is they could travel easily by boats and trade easily. A con is that they were living in a snake-infested island. They also made up islands out of mud, because they had a lot of mud since it was a swampy island.  This can be a con or a pro. A con would be when it rains a lot, the mud would get really liquid- like and can wash away, which might make the people that live on that part of the island in danger. A pro would be they would have land to live on. (my opinion)

3. Which gods were worshiped? The pyramids were built for what purpose?
The gods were Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, Chalchiuhtlicue, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe-Totec. The pyramids were built for human sacrifice

4. Who are the different members of Aztec society? What are their roles? Choose an artifact that represents the social order of Aztec society.
The Aztec society was divided into three classes and they were slaves, commoners and nobility.
Slaves: Children of poor parents could be sold to people, but most of the time it would be only for a certain amount of time.
Commoners: They farmed on a land that they were given for a certain amount of time.
Nobility:  They worked in a position from a government. They were in a army or a priest.

5. The Aztecs have a spoken language. What was it called? Did they use any other forms of communication? Include an example of either written or visual language of the Aztecs.
The language they spoke was called “Nahuatl”. It belongs to a large group of Indian languages from Comanche, Pima, Shochone and other tribes from the westerner North America. Another form of communication to the Aztecs were that they used pictures through writing. Some pictures symbolized ideas and others symbolized the sounds of the syllables.

6. How did the Aztecs grow food and what was their main crop? Did they trade and with whom? Did they have a currency (money)? Find an image for your exhibit about making a living Aztec style.
Aztecs also used a slash and burn method of farming to grow their corn, chili peppers, squash, tomatoes, beans, and other kinds of food. They traded their food with their surrounded tribes,

7. Discuss the Impact of Spanish Contact 1519 from both the Aztec point of view and the Spanish point of view. Find an image depicting this event.

8. Discuss La Malinche or Dona Marina. Debate her positive/negative impact on Mexico past and present. What does the term Mestizo refer to? What influences remain today from Aztec culture of the past?

Shades of Night

Again night fell

Cold, barbed cell

Shadows gathered in the dark

Torn from life, left no mark

No prayer was chanted to unite their souls

Darkness devouring bodies, hearts scorched with holes

Flames feeding off our tortured hearts

Beginning of our decease which slowly starts

Darkness will soon disguise itself as light

I see through the mask, you’re no knight

He granted you your first breath

Time to kiss the angel of death

By Carl from 9th grade

 

 

Diary Used To Teach U.S. Fear And Hate In North Korea

(CBS) If you want to hear “hate” coming out of the mouths of school kids, go to the schools of North Korea, as a Dutch television crew did, and you’ll hear hate from that country’s teenagers directed at the United States.

Western television reporters rarely get into North Korea, but remarkably they let a Dutch television crew in to see how they’re using Holland’s most famous book, “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

That diary, of her life in hiding during World War II, is now being studied in North Korea’s schools. But Anne Frank’s plea for peace and freedom got lost in translation.

North Korea is using her diary, not to teach how Anne suffered at the hands of the German Nazis, but to warn the students how they could suffer at the hands of those they call “American Nazis.” Correspondent Mike Wallace reports.

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”After reading this book, I had a hatred for the American imperialists,” says one student.

“That warmonger Bush is just as bad as Hitler. Because of him we will always live in fear of war,” says another student.

But Anne Frank did not preach hate. Her diary is an enchanting, if horrific, day-by-day account of the time this Dutch teenager and her Jewish family spent hiding from the Germans who had invaded and occupied Holland.

Anne, her parents and sister hid in a small apartment in an attic in Amsterdam for more than two years. A bookcase concealed their secret stairway, but the Nazis eventually discovered them, and Anne died in a concentration camp when she was only 15.

Now, Anne Frank’s house is a shrine to the courage she displayed, and the fear she lived with, under Hitler. Her diary has been translated into more than a 100 languages. Most recently, it was published in North Korea, where it’s now part of the curriculum in their junior high schools.

Anne’s plea for peace is a curious message for these students, because North Korea is constantly preparing for war. Dictator Kim Jong Il spends the country’s meager resources maintaining a powerful military. And it turns out that North Korea is using Anne’s diary to tell students they must sacrifice for the military — because war with America is inevitable.

“The Americans enjoy war. It excites them. It’s part of their nature,” says one student.

Here, they teach that today’s Nazis are the Americans – and that today’s Hitler is George W. Bush. And, to hammer that home, whenever North Korean students refer to President Bush, or to other Americans, they’re taught to call them “Nazis,” or “warmongers.”

“As long as the warmonger Bush and the Nazi Americans live, who are worse than Hitler’s fascists, world peace will be impossible to achieve,” says another student.

But of course, that bellicose message runs counter to what Anne wrote in her diary: “You will understand that here in the attic, the desperate question is often asked: Why, oh why, go to war? Why can’t people live in peace and why must we destroy everything?”

Why do the North Korean student think there are still wars in the world? “Because the cruel Americans want war,” replies one student.

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All this came as a shock to Miriam Bartelsman, the reporter from Dutch television who received rare permission to come to the capital city of Pyongyang to see how North Korea is using Anne’s diary.

For her report, she was allowed to talk with students about what they’re learning from the book. After returning to Amsterdam, she told us that North Korea is simply turning Anne’s message on its head.

“Anne Frank’s diary is a big plea or a big cry for freedom, and for peace. But I think in North Korea, the diary is being used to promote war,” says Bartelsman.

These students sympathize with Anne, but according to Bartelsman, they do not respect her.

“She didn’t win. She was not a hero, and North Korea, they are learning, the children, we all want to be a hero, and we don’t want to be killed,” says Bartelsman.

‘We know that Nazi America is certain to start a war with us, but we will win that war,” says one student.

“Our students will fight with a pen in one hand and a weapon in the other until the last American is dead,” adds another student.

These youngsters parrot the words of North Korea’s deputy minister of education, who uses Anne’s diary to teach students that North Korea’s top priority is to build a stronger military to defeat the Americans.

And to make sure the students give that same answer, Dutch television caught one teacher whispering to her students, telling them just what to say to the Dutch reporter.

Teacher:: Say that we don’t want war, but that that is impossible as long as our enemy lives. So for us war is inevitable. We are not going to beg for peace. Instead, we must crush our enemy without mercy.

Student: You should not beg for peace. As long as the imperialists live, there will be no end to war.

“The most shocking thing is their comparison for President Bush with Hitler. that is absolutely disgusting,” says Anne’s cousin, Buddy Elias, who was her playmate and her last living direct relative.

Elias was the one who approved giving North Korea the rights to publish her diary, for a symbolic payment of less than $2,000.

“We were not told that it would be misused in schools. That, we had no idea,” says Elias, who considers today’s Hitler to be Kim Jong-Il, North Korea’s supreme leader. Kim insists that whenever anyone mentions his name, they must first call him respected or beloved.

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And, in North Korea, teachers don’t decide what their students will read. Those instructions come down from the top.

Why do the students think they were asked to read this diary? “According to our respected leader Kim Jung Il, the “Diary of Anne Frank” is one of the great classics of the world,” says one student. “That is why we read the diary — out of great respect for our leader Kim Jung Il.”

“Our respected Gen. Kim Jung Il, with his warm and caring love for us students, gives us different foreign literature every year in hope that we can expand our intellectual development,” adds another student. “The ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ is part of that.”

In North Korea, all art, all music, all pageants are created to praise Kim Jong Il or his father, Kim Il-Sung, North Korea’s first leader.

But while these children of the elite sing of their leader in Pyongyang, youngsters in the countryside are starving, reveal pictures that were smuggled out of North Korea by a German doctor. According to the World Food Program, almost half of North Korea’s children, under the
age of 7, suffer from chronic malnutrition. But not the children of the establishment in Pyongyang.

“I’m certain that thanks to our beloved Gen. Kim Jung Il, we will never experience hunger like Anne did,” says one boy.

Another student read from the diary: “Why is there hunger when food rots away elsewhere? Why are people so crazy?”

When Bartelsman asked students if they could answer Anne’s question, again their teacher told them just what to say: “Why isn’t food distributed everywhere? Because the imperialist bourgeoisie take it — that’s why there is nothing left for the proletariat. Just say that.”

The student’s response: “Food is taken by the imperialist bourgeoisie, which is why there is nothing left for the proletariat.”

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Apparently, these students don’t know that in
their socialist paradise, up to a million people are now held in slave labor camps. But thanks to Anne Frank, they do know a lot about Nazi concentration camps.

Do they think that concentration camps like that still exist?

“Yes, I think such camps still exist. As long as there are American Nazis, there will be secret places where innocent people are murdered,” says one student. “Places like that exist in America. The prisons in America are comparable to concentration camps.”

And apparently, these students have learned what they were supposed to learn from Anne Frank’s diary: When war with America comes, don’t be a loser like her.

Could they live in hiding the way that Anne and her family did? “No,” says one student. “I would go and fight, instead of living like a beggar as Anne did.”

“For world peace, America will have to be destroyed,” adds another student. “Only then, will Anne’s wonderful dream of peace come true.”

 

I got this from

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/26/60minutes/main602415.shtml

The actual writing was really long so i’ll just give you the site.

She doens’t really talk about Anne Frank dieing but she was in the same camp as

Anne and she describs how they were treated which includes Anne

SO just check this site out:)

Click Here 

The Soldier’s Christmas Poem

T’was the night before christmas.
He lived all alone,
In a one bedroom house.
Made of plaster and stone.

I had come down the chimney
With presents to give
And to see just who
In this home did live

I looked all about
A strange sight I did see
No tinsel no presents
Not even a tree

No stocking by mantle
Just boots filled with sand
On the wall hung pictures
Of far distant lands

With medals and badges
Awards of all kinds
A sober thought
Came through my mind

For this house was different
It was dark and dreary
I found the home of a soldier
Once I could see clearly

The soldier lay sleeping
Silent alone
Curled up on the floor
In this one bedroom home

The face was so gentle
The room in such disorder
Not how i pictured
A new zealand soldier

Was this the hero
Of whom I’d just read?
Curled up on a poncho
The floor for a bed?

I realized the families
That I saw this night
Owed their lives to these soldiers
Who were willing to fight

Soon round the world
The children would play
And grownups would celebrate
A bright christmas day

They all enjoyed freedom
Each month of the year
Because of the soldiers
Like the one lying here

I couldn’t help wonder
How many lay alone
On a cold christmas eve
In a land far from home

The very thought brought
A tear to my eye
I dropped to my knees
And started to cry

The soldier awakened
And I heard a rough voice
“Santa don’t cry,
This life is my choice;

I fight for freedom
I don’t ask for more
My life is my god
My country, my corps

The soldier rolled over
And drifted to sleep
I coundn’t control it
I continued to weep

I kept watch for hours
So silent and still
And we both shivered
From the cold night’s chill

I didn’t want to leave
On that cold dark night
This guardian of honor
So willing to fight

Then the soldier rolled over
With a voice soft and pure
Whispered “carry on santa
It’s christmas day all is secure.”

One look at my watch
And I knew he was right
“Merry Christmas my friend
And to all a good night.”

- Grant Hays

Hey i found a site that had the timeline, pictures, summary, quote, posters, and many more

so why don’t you guys check it out!

Click here to go to the site.:) 

Dear Anne,

I don’t think my opinions are stupid and others do; so it is better to keep them to myself. (page 102)

I see that it is hard to share your opinions with people who have totally different personalities with you and don’t really understand you, but you shouldn’t just keep your ideas bottled up and feel really bad. I personally think your opinions are some what ‘Special’ then other people’s opinions not stupid. You have a very creative way of thinking, but have to learn to share your ideas in a decent way. Also not everyone needs to understand you, even though the people you stay with thinks your ideas are ‘Different’ then others doesn’t mean that the whole world disagrees.

Everyday, people think of new ideas and yes people might think the ideas that other people think are stupid but not all of them! You should believe what you think of and stand out for that.

Since you are still growing and learning more everyday like me, you might think of stupid ideas. We’re not as developed as the adults, we don’t know as much as the adults but that doesn’t mean our ideas should be hiding underground like a lonely hermit. Sometimes even adults think of really ‘foolish’ ideas. So we ‘Young adults’ shouldn’t think our ideas are stupid. It all matters how you said it. So the next time you think that, say what you think first to the person, and don’t be afraid to face arguments.

Sincierly

Ahihn:)

Melting Ice Threatens Sea-Level Rise

You can click on the links below to see more about this article

Article Link (Actual article)

Picture Link (Picture of the event)

 

Map (Map of where this is happening)

Grade 8 Guides

The 8th grade trip was fabulous but thats all thanks to the guides. They were kind, enjoyable, had fun games to do with us and were very helpful. So to get to know them better, we interviewed some of the guides and found out some interesting facts

Click here to view the rest of the article!..:)