Experience the World

    At the end of my junior year in high school, I was given the option to choose my senior year english course. I read down the list; "Rhetoric - This year-long course is appropriate for students interested in strengthening their writing skills in preparation for college." I enjoy creative writing and I don't think i'm half bad, but an entire class revolved around building technical skills does not sound like a fit for me. "World Literature - This year-long literature-based.." That was enough for me, the last thing I have an interest in is the study and analysis of classic literature. "Humanities - This year-long course focuses on how humankind expresses meaning in various forms. As students study philosophy, literature, film, painting, architecture, music and dance, they examine how creativity and imagination are used by a wide range of individuals to understand oneself and one's world." Whoa, How fascinating! Could it be that I have actually found a course that suits my interests? "Beyond analyzing and commenting on these diverse works, students also sharpen their own critical eye and voice by creating both written and visual text that reflect on a variety of their experiences." This class is perfect! I have to take it. I marked "Humanities" as my first choice and for the first in my life, I felt an intense sense of excitement to begin a class.

    On August 21st, 2013, I made my first steps into Mr. Glass' Humanities classroom. I was nervous, but eager to begin my journey. I remembered reading about the course, "students also sharpen their own critical eye and voice by creating both written and visual text that reflect on a variety of their experiences." This triggered my first concern. [Q.1] Will I be able to adjust comfortably to new expressive strategies? I knew from my past that I could describe my experiences through poetry and short stories, but never have I tried to express myself through "visual text." During the first week of class, Mr. Glass introduced us to our "mind books." He explained how we would use them in relatively every aspect of the class. From note-taking to assignments, these mind books would be our survival guides to humanities. 

In the following weeks, Mr. Glass assigned our first "self-guided mind book entry." This would be my first chance to try and express my thoughts and feelings through other mediums than words. [SCW.1] I decided to do my assignment on the stresses of college searching and chose to create a visual aid through drawings and pictures. This was the first time I ever put an honest effort towards drawing, as I knew it was one of my weakest skills. Four hours of frustration later, I was pleasantly surprised with what I had created. My drawing was impressive and worked extremely well to convey the feelings of stress and anxiety I was aiming to portray. This was my first breakthrough in humanities. From that point on my self-confidence improved, but that wasn't the only thing holding me back.

    Throughout my life, I have struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and severe perfectionism. Although there are positives in always needing things to be "perfect," it does not promote a healthy lifestyle; and from personal experience, I know it can really drive a person crazy. This brought up my second concern in the class. [Q.2] Will my perfectionism control my progress in humanities? In many ways, my OCD and perfectionism run my life. They control what decisions I make, how I go about my everyday routines, and my thinking processes. This is exactly why I wanted to make sure at least in some ways, that I could overcome my perfectionism. Over the period of about a month, I had been drawing a large abstract picture in the cover of my mind book. Little did I know it would be this very picture that I would have my first victory over my perfectionism. It happened as I was constantly making mistakes. I would make one wrong pen movement and then have to shade in the area to alleviate the mistake. What happened was that I found myself making a lot of mistakes, and shading in a lot of areas. As I continued to draw, I noticed I could build off of my mistakes and create beautiful patterns from them. Once I realized that, it didn't matter what mistakes I made because I would build off of them and create something twice as unique. Once I finished, I named the piece "A Perfect Disaster" after the battle of a process it was to create it.

    After I had made those two personal victories, I was able to focus much more on our daily lessons and discussions. During this time, I learned a lot about major issues and questions. One in particular, was the question, [SCW.2] "Can art change the world?"

I wrote that art can be extremely influential and has the power to "change opinions, create awareness, and ultimately work to severely impact certain situations. But there are too many opinions in the world to change it as a whole." After our class discussion we watched a Ted Talk with a famous graffiti artist known as "JR." He explained through his experiences how art, in fact, does have the power to change the world. I was thoroughly impressed with his work and was fascinated to learn all about his mission to use art to make a global impact. This was one of many instances in humanities where one single question led to an entirely bigger idea. Another example was on the first day of school, when our class was asked "can creativity be learned or taught?" I wrote, [Qte. 1] "I believe creativity itself is not something that can be taught, rather it's something that can be broadened by experiences and exposure." We discussed the topic for a couple of days and read an interesting article about it called "The Creativity Crisis." After reading the article, I learned that creativity can be taught; and that it is actually a pressing issue that our school systems are not encouraging it enough. [Qte. 2] "It's too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. [one likely culprit] is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it's left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there's no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children" (Bronson and Merryman). After learning about this topic, I was so interested that my next two blog posts were written specifically about the issue.
    Besides learning about important issues and thought-provoking questions, humanities also taught me so many new ideas and theories that I found I could relate to my own life. For instance, in a recent blog post I wrote about how certain teachings of the philosopher Kierkegaard could have helped my father and I rebuild our relationship faster. [Qte. 3] "I truly wish I could have learned about Kierkegaard’s philosophy and ideas of 'subjective thinking' and 'human temperament' earlier. For it would have opened my eyes to a whole different way of thinking and possibly allowed my father and I to be much more accepting of one another early on." Learning about Kierkegaard's philosophy in humanities was extremely important because it allowed me to understand where my father and I wronged each other, and helped me realize what is truly important in our relationship. Outside of my personal life, I am able to relate concepts from humanities to other classes I am taking. [AC.1] For example, just as we were learning about how philosophers promote new ideas and share them with the public (most of the time not ending well), in radio, we were learning about how broadcasters share new information and ideas with the public through the airwaves. The airwaves, in a sense, represent word of mouth for the philosophers. Both broadcasters and philosophers share their opinions with the public, its just a matter of how that makes the difference. [AC. 2] Another class I feel I can relate humanities to is Spanish. This is because learning about philosophy has been just like learning a new language for me. In humanities, I am extremely interested in learning philosophy but am awful at grasping the concepts quickly. This is just like Spanish, I have always been highly interested in learning as many languages as I can, but it just so happens that I have an extremely hard time learning them. Luckily, our class discussions in humanities have helped me a lot in understanding the philosophical ideas we are focusing on.
    Many times, there will be multiple philosophical ideas on one broad topic. One of the most interesting topics I have learned about in humanities is understanding the world and how we experience it. A favorite quote of mine by Saint Bernard expresses the importance of our connection with the natural life around us. [AOL. 1] "You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters" (Bernard). I have always found this quote to be extremely fascinating and I think it relates very well with some of the ideas from the two stories we have read. In The Shadow Catcher, when Marianne Wiggins visits her "father" at the hospital, she takes a moment to explain how we perceive the world and why people "light out." [Qte. 4] "the world is only what I see. Maybe that is ultimately the reason anyone lights out. To learn how big the big world is" (Wiggins, 180). In Sophie's World, As Alberto Knox is teaching Hume to Sophie, he talks to her about understanding the world. [Qte. 5] "We are not born with a set of expectations as to what the world is like or how things in the world behave. The world is like it is, and it's something we get to know" (Gaarder, 273). I also learned about the world of senses. It directly relates to these quotes because they all reference experiencing the world. Which brings me to my final question, [Q. 3] How are we supposed to live our lives?
    In The Shadow Catcher, Marianne Wiggins describes how the Navajos lived for each other. [Qte. 6] "Safety was in numbers, the Navajo larger than the populations of the tribes around them, but safety came with ritual, as well, in knowing one was part of a cohering pattern, part of something greater than oneself" (Wiggins, 312). In Sophie's World, Alberto speaks of selfless living as well, [Qte. 7] "Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others" (Gaarder, 276). After learning about how all of these different types of people live their lives, and how important it is to experience the world, I decided to come up with my own way of life. [AOL. 2] "Do not dwell on that you cannot control; love every moment, cherish every memory."

Works Cited

Wiggins, Marianne. The Shadow Catcher. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. Print.

Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "The Creativity Crisis." Newsweek [New York] 1 July 2010: 1-5. Print.