Tag Archive for Project Based Learning

Learning Through Different Eyes

October 21, 2011 Crimes Against Humanities No comments

The refreshing atmosphere of the Chicago Global Council put me into a position of feeling entrepreneurship. The core discussions that my class observed put issues regarding immigration and other topics on policy reform into perspective. I put myself in a position similarly as a college student looking into studies based off of what can be done to discuss problem solving for a better social society. As an objective for attending a short meeting with the Council of Global Affairs, I wanted to base what I learned as a supporter for beginning to write my crime fiction piece in my Crimes Against Humanities course. I have a strong threshold on understanding the values of developing a plot based on using true facts about the city in which this story will come from. The Chicago Global Council put into perspective that there are organizations set up for the sole purpose of doing good for the sake of other people in need of help. And that affairs regarding the demand of change in a city or country are topics that are being addressed in complex ways. This has a familiar objective in the way I want to approach understanding crime and suffering in a different region of the world.

Visiting the Council of Global Affairs allowed me to invest in the ability to truly understand how problems they deal with arise. Organizations that fight for a cause that represents thousands of people who suffer from the pressure of the society they live in. Main effects that drive people to have a certain lifestyle come from the places they live. This can drive people to be forced into a life of constant pressure from policies of their city. Developing a Crime Fiction story comes from being able to write about occurring problems as if it were to represent the true essence of its setting. I want my work to represent injustices that pertain to the factual context of the country I chose in order to have my work stand for true issues occurring. I will be doing a study of Berlin, Germany in the perspective of a novelist inventing a particular crime that captures the area’s unmasked citizen mentalities. If I am to be writing this piece, I must make an effort to display that the issues I discuss are in fact a universal mentality seen in criminals. And choosing a particular city, I enhance this character mentality from the history of Berlin as a study.

Changing Economy

October 18, 2011 Economic Fundamentals + Business Statistics No comments

In order to make clarified rationale for expressing knowledge on a problem, I developed a case study for my Economic Fundamentals class that looks into solutions and causes on the economic crisis. This crisis is developed based on main factors that I wanted to study for the purpose of ruling out possible solutions to look into; if we are to understand the cause of the issue. I began this research by learning from my lectures; where I studied different points of arguments giving a perspective on the economic crisis. One resource I studied was the documentary The Inside Job, which acted like its own thesis in order to explain the economic crisis. This behaved as a base influence to understand how to develop my own thesis so that I can look into specifics of the problems and solutions in the economic crisis. It was important for me to also find direct resources to explain the logic I wanted to produce in order to develop a proper thesis. By interviewing Nathan Aldinger (co-founder of Freedom Ventures), I recorded and analyzed his methods of explaining causes inducing the crisis which helped me gain incite on how to study these factors can be explained and rationalized. In order to produce a foundation for my studies, these resources proved to be an improving process for me when it comes to developing a case study. Thereby making the purpose of this thesis to support developing an argument on a tedious topic, and learn more about the topic through my own initiatives. I want my reader to inquire directly on facts that can be shared in order to brain storm what this economic crisis leads to when it comes to understanding the importance of developing a healthy industrial society.

Introduction
(An excerpt from my case study)

Economic issues pertain to debt consequences in industrialized countries, through which business and consumer factors assume a primary goal of organizing a functioning society rather than seeking a full resolution of the problem. Acknowledging that economies operate on a basis for only maintaining a productive economy, it leaves problems like bankruptcy, debt, and corrupted business monopoly. According to the outcomes that the economic crisis creates, understanding what makes certain tactics assume a necessary role for organizing a productive society is put into question. The economic crisis is being overlooked and through three positions, loopholes are created in order to overcome the impact of the crisis, accepting certain issues will not be solved. Thereby not supporting the notion that their individualized success will help heal the economic crisis; and that is where the issue lies. This study will look into the positions of consumers, politicians, and business owners; they have only a primary objective which is stabilizing their own success.

Please refer to my work in progress (Resources, data, developing ideas):

http://www.gcechicago.com/LT/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/EconCrisisTHESISLT1.

The Elements of Poetry

October 18, 2011 Global RAP No comments

It is said that a painting can share thousands of words and stories. In order to capture this complexity, poetry is formed as a result. The way in which a poem can be written can be teach its story through rhythm, visual formation, word imagery, and pattern. Combining these into a poem, we create poetry that can share its morals through merely a series of words. Manipulating these words to give individualized patterns, which effect the flow of the poem can become representative for comprehending its morals. As a writer, I subjected the factors of building a poem and refer to them as elements. Elements can be described as the essence of something; which leads us to understand how poetry is symbolically built upon elemental use of a subject. In this project, I took the literal meaning of elements and developed a poem describing the particular natural element: water. By conducting research on a painting, I was asked to use poetry to capture the essence of what I feel can be told from the poem. In my first attempt to experiment with this method of describing a visual concept with poetry, I refereed to a famous painting which uses water as an enhancing component. I then developed a quick poem to capture the painting as if it would no longer exist, and only have life through my poem.

I then applied this practice into a personalized formation of poetry, which I was given the opportunity to fully construct in the matter using water. My poetic design was to connect it to myself, and give meaning to water and manipulate its concept to be used metaphorically. In the poem that I wrote, I took the essence of water and incorporated it into the sounds of the words I used, the pattern of word formation, and through the way the words and interact with one another. The water’s significance to the poem is embarked by the journeys I wish to tell as it becomes compounded in the way I developed myself as a person. Water is known to be ever-changing based on its environments, and it has functions that participate in the aspiration to nourish or impact greatly depending on its form. I used water and described it as a resurrected system, meaning water goes through a cycle. This connects to the way I describe who I am, and what I go through as a journey through life and change. I influenced who I am and what represents who I am through the actions I made in life to build on the idea of this water concept.


Toulouse Lautrec (1901) Admiral Viaud
Committing Action
 

The quake of wood that has no roots,

Uplifted from its tousled row.
My eyes release from my body,

Now to drench my dignity.
Water in the shape of guns.

The burden of sound, is the silence that breaks

As it begs for the last breath

Of

Forgiveness.
 

Mier (2007)/WATER/http://fav.me/dtau7m
Formation of a Journey
Evanescent
This presence
Stable scattered passion
Surpass torment succession
Rushing silent freedom
Reveal invisible breath
 

Dissolving
 

The winds
In the water
 

Awaken this inspiration
Fixation on the crystal pane of eyes
Soak the remaining embodied pieces of my wish
Forgiveness of a liar
Painting water
On a blank canvas
 

Condensation with             demanding whispers

Connection for          immovable desires

Metamorphose of               unbreakable bonds
Believe the shattered flesh of my frame
Reinvent manifestation
But let me begin again

Waltz Rhythm: “Letters From a Forgotten Boy.”

October 6, 2011 Global RAP One comment

Poem and piano music written and narrated by myself, LT.

The waltz music originated in Germany, and influenced many other countries. It was reinvented by many composers and applied in many types of ways, often for dancing. Here, I wanted to match it with the moods and the tones of the words I use, so that each tone you hear can match the types of moods the words establish. This was created to look into psychology aspects and principles in the perspectives of people who have suffered due to losses of any kind, or restrictions. During the holocaust of WWII, many faced the challenges of what occurred during the growth of the Eugenics Movement. Which occurred in Germany, surrounding countries, and even in America. Many people where mutilated, experimented on, separated, and exploited due to their modernized scientific system. These principles do not only apply to this history, but in much of what we see today when it comes to studying human behavior. We reject the beliefs of others because we do not understand them, or we determine intelligence based on the calculations that are easier to handle in large quantum. This was made in order to look into what people can relate to artistically, musically, and mentally when it comes to actually understanding these feelings. Because we still face it even today, in ways you may overlook.

Every aspect of these patterns are justified through the words and sentences I use. They play off of one another just as their format does in the letter-skeleton pattern. This incorporates the elements I want to use for explaining the rhythm and my connections to it; elements are the meanings of words.

Rhythms in music themselves can influence emotional and personal connections, and these the elements I use. Knowing how they are subjected into words, sentences, and their pattern. The piano keys become the appearance and sound, while the words explain them.

The way any person interprets music and its pattern can be given its own meaning, and it becomes the art of conversation. Learning how to connect the way we think to the function of music works develops a heightened understanding of ourselves, and how to brainstorm for successful accomplishment. It allows me to experiment with literature and the functions of words in order to create a meaning following its subject. This is what this study has taught me, and I feel more connected to understanding music for its principles of function, and how it can influence a way of thought. In the culture it was born from, and through its listeners.

Letters From a Forgotten Boy.

Cry.
If not for your life,
Then cry for my sins.
I create your dreams,

For I am the Hands.

Just as hatred breathes love,
Paint me your storm.

Shout.
I reflect the illusion,
Its presence dissolving.
I embrace your pain,

For I am the Lips.

Let your tongue mutter,
Words I taste so sweet.

Question.
What could be,
Why the world wishes to destroy us.
I can be only be what I am,

For I am the Ears.

Be steady not what you hear,
Listen to what is.

Watch.
Brush against the edges of challenge,
Fall into the sea of your goals.
Look up into the clouded sky,

For I am the Eyes.

Let light cast down my joy,
Embrace the smile I give.

I am the Moon.
Show me your stars.

Cover them with mist.

So heart fades into madness,
But with a kiss I hush you into sleep.

For what begins
Another’s end.
Perfection in the eyes of sorrow
Paints only within desire.

For I may be a monster
This love has gone to bed.
My mind of ever spinning cogs
Tell the time ticks to the hour.

Seconds give birth to days
Days kiss the lips of memory.
Emotions that flourished
In remembrance to present,

Now forgotten
Silence my tongue
And bind my eyes.

Steady waters cool my flesh,
Through your reflection cast a shadow
My locks coiled and broken,
My eyes are hollowed pits.

This soul of mine to shatter
Has emptied into my own abyss.

I will forever howl to the sky
That casts light
As it falls to reality.

Of illumination,
Her face without a name
Angel I call
But only I touch the rain.

My hands create perfection,
This art is my keeping
Love grows to dampen the heart,
That I can no longer give.

If not all stars in the sky shine as brightly,
The clock strikes the 3rd
Just after numbers begin to change.

When all is clear your certainty lies
Awake in bed
You gaze at its wonder.

For whom G-d sped to guide,
Ever watching before we walk the earth together
To darken the light of day in life.

All is lost in forgiveness descended.
Based on moral judgment
For my sins wept
As the rain fell from the sky.

Will I lose you
My angel without a name.
Let your death be in peace

Love cannot cradle fate
Be still, my love
Be still
You and I can never be.

Understanding What We See

September 30, 2011 Crimes Against Humanities No comments

Crimes Against Humanity is a course that not only goes into the historical aspect of culture, but it also sheds light on what can be done for future societies. It is as if we are looking at problems to figure out the solutions for ourselves and what we can produce theoretically with our abilities to influence the better nature of education. Learning to become more involved with our community and testing how far we can go with our knowledge gives worth to our education and lifestyles.

What we value is at the heart of crimes against humanity. Maxwell Street provided an example of how the University of Illinois-Chicago and the city of Chicago attempted to stimulate the growth of an area, but instead drove out the valuable culture that supported it. I can remember examining Maxwell Street and observing it from a tourist’s perspective rather than genuinely experiencing what made that diverse area exceptional–a place where people rose from the gutter and made historical accomplishments. We could see it as a way to enhance the culture and make a learning experience if we wanted to improve the state of the area. During this exhibition, I was given the opportunity to brainstorm how to make effective changes in an area of diversity. This made me believe that Maxwell Street was a microcosm scenario for how many countries handle situations, and how some judgments can be deemed as a crime against humanity.

Further crimes are evident in our course text, Chicago Blues. My personal favorite crime fiction story was “O Death Where is Thy Sting?” not only because I enjoyed researching it as a part of my curriculum but because from all of them I made many personal connections. We see that in this story that there are morals such as determining the differences between true innocence and what determines guilt. During the climax of the story, a young boy undergoes obstacles that ultimately play a key role in underlining the irony of his own demise. Ultimately, societies bear the burden of having to balance out what makes their people innocent or guilty.

The Way We Change

September 23, 2011 Global RAP No comments

Persona on PhotoPeach


Persona
Embodied Metamorphosing
Experience Develop Challenge
Or wander alone divided
Union

Maxwell Street’s Impact through Time

September 19, 2011 Crimes Against Humanities No comments
Haiku Presentation

View more presentations from Leustante.

Justice comes in time
We have wrote shame and came forward
To have that new home

Music Through Writing

September 15, 2011 Global RAP No comments

How can anyone develop music that challenges the general understanding that music has to be heard by the ears?

What I noticed about this class was that I felt that the students in the class have a passion for wanting connection, and that the teacher wants to influence these patterns of communication. In order to fully grasp the curriculum of the course, I believe that the community of the students is something that is necessary in order to make connections to the world and self. I believe this course will open a way to reflect on what influences our daily thinking in order to come to a goal that satisfies our desires to learn; which indefinitely ties to the world. Observing the world at large requires any person to become more in-tune with their sensory abilities. I believe that what we are learning when it comes to recognizing and personifying sound patterns, it becomes a solid study to be more artistically inclined and want to explore our personal lifestyles while having an open mind for accepting other perspectives.

The poem bellow was written by myself on April 14, 2010 where I had a strong connection to music and literature with the ways in which it works regarding the understanding of the “self”. The “self”, in this case, defines the brains of writers who self reflect on their lives; modifying their thoughts in ways so to find stability in their lives. When writing this poem, the idea was to project how I connected these thoughts (the idea of “self”) to rhythm of pattern in writing: where we then find that music has the same sound but is silenced. It is silenced because the sound does not have to be heard in order to appreciate it, but how it works with the way that writing can bring rhythm to our minds. How are we to find any organization if our own thinking did not have its own beat? In the position I had when writing, the way to share this is to produce poetry and allow it to make sense before the viewer. So as you read this poem, think about how rhythm and pattern can be music but shaped and understood in many more complex ways. Think about the “self” of the person who shared these words; the pattern of his thoughts for expression. However it makes sense to us as the music that you can fathom.

Sounds of a Typewriter
A fragile delicacy lost to memory,
The mind’s elaborate grace to wonder.
I am the eyes kept closed,
For there is more to hear than site can paint.

A canvas of color,
A picture perfect detail of those eyes.
Absorb the image which creates your stirring thoughts.
Let opinion be your paint,
With which your brush has chosen to spread upon that board.

Detail what you see.
Show the world,
Which you view so differently.
Let them open their eyes to adore your masterpiece.

So paint me in the shape of your knowledge,
I am standing before you,
Inverse, am I?
Allow my hands to write this story,
Of a human being who chose to defy logic.

For I am living among the hidden,
Of men who sing silent lyrics rather than painting.
Let this be a riddle,
Who am I?

I am not the grace of God,
For the fallen have been shunned.
Though I am not similar to them,
I am correct to feel emotion in this body.

I am the keeper of secrets,
May I do best to speak the truth.
I am a complex of nor emotion or love.
For what has been lost took with it trust,
That can no longer bare arms to give.

I will walk before you as differently as perceived.
A mind of a whole percent more
Than what I am.
A world of critiques,
Allow me to read your poetry.

What breaks when spoken,
Is the the silence I devoted to keep the artists painting,
And the typewriters clicking.

To then count the sins,
That begin with a common letter.

What am I gaining from GCE?

September 14, 2011 Uncategorized No comments
Masks of Bulls

Learning styles can vary in each student depending on how he/she is able to easily understand methods of approach in a given task. Any student who faces challenges in a certain learning style or finds strength in a different style should be given options when in school. At GCE, the teachers embark on many methods to try to help students gain the fullest understanding on a subject matter. I personally have a wide range of learning styles depending on how I calculate information and find answers. Taking a survey, I received 100% in the following categories: Linguistic, Logic-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, and Visual-Spatial learning. Having these different ways of learning, I see how I am able to find what is best for my education in matters of problem solving tactics to produce knowledge in a subject I analyze and study. As a logical thinker, I can apply this coherently with my abilities to support others in finding different approaches to a solution. I often find myself wanting very solid facts to stem off of, then I use creativity in spatial thinking and linguistics to apply different ways to learn about a situation. Being able to interpret things in front of you or a part of your existence makes it a lot easier to understand something. Using this information, I am expected at GCE to allow my thinking to be fully extended in each subject matter and find any approach that is easiest for me in order to justify how I comprehend the lesson being taught. I hope to be able to produce as many options as I can for myself in order to completely express my interests and look for personal goals in my learning. That is what I feel is expected of me as a student, and how I should go about contributing to GCE as a whole in order to make the best of my education. Specifically in my Crimes Against Humanities class, it offers a wide range of different focuses when it comes to committing to education in ways that is meant to impact studies on a global scale. At GCE, core studies are given and can be seen as something to manipulate and become personally useful for goals. A more condensed goal I have is studying human society and how individuals impact the world on a global and micro scale. In essence, studying how art represents abstract thinking and deeper meaning, how individual people experience life, and using mathematics and logic to make sense of this occurring around the world is a broad way to learn how to be an independent adult and expand options for career studies.

 

In Crimes Against Humanity, I see more potential in my studies because they have meaning towards how I want to impress my abilities to analyze and create resources for a study. I expect myself to learn more about organizing studies and getting down to the core of the subject to produce a proper analysis blog. I am offered a wide range of opportunities to self reflect, and that is resourceful when I am practicing writing and deduction skills. A few examples of these studies where incorporated in my Crimes Against Humanities course, where our class participated in an analytical study that involved Pablo Picasso’s bull 11 impression series. I documented a personal analysis for each bull, and this allowed me to apply a knowledge-based grasp of what each bull symbolized in terms of how I related it to the world, interpreted it for physical symbolism, and derived personal connections. Picasso’s bull series was important for understanding changes in observation where a person can analyze and contrast similarities to distinguished differences. This series signified an abstract approach toward symbolism which allows observations to be very differently applied according to the person. Picasso guides us through this learning by making progressive changes that have certain similarities to each bull; so as to distinguish a pattern where we know and see that there is a bull. The significance of it is how it changes throughout the series. The similarities of them to each other force the viewer to want to think more about its meaning. A picture can paint many words, but that depends on the interpreter if they are getting the whole story.

 

Now, looking at the approach for seeing ways to interpret individual impacts on the world, we study a young woman named Chimamanda Adichie, who was raised in Africa and transferred as a student scholar in America. She faced a lot of oppression from how she compared her real life experiences to how people in America have committed themselves to believe through bias. In “The Danger of a Single Story” she discusses how she gained experience through contrasting events throughout her life to people who considered opinion a fact. The “story” in this case is the story people have been given to create their own individual opinions, processed through the bias of their resource. She read books when she was younger to represent what she gained through the eyes of a culture about which she knew nothing of as a young child. This story was dangerous towards her view of society because from the books she learned to read where written in the perspective of a different culture. She did not understand that there were people who have a general idea of societies based on their culture and region of birth. There was an opinion based on an individual’s experiences in life in which they gained their views of Nigerian/African people as inequal to different races and cultures. Because this woman is African, the automatic impression is that people from this country are living in darkness, they have animalistic personalities, and they are not fully civilized. This is a stereotype created by people who have explained the situations within Africa, and how this places bias against people who live there. Moreover, a “single story” is based on the observations of those who create personalized views of societies based on how they interact with the principles of their economy and society in other places. What gives power to a “single story” is the way people relate ideas to their understanding of norms in their own society, which obscures from analyzing the history of a culture’s own society and what influences the population’s lifestyles. There is no one way to tell a single story, and there is never a single story when describing a country. A single story should not justify itself based on catastrophes where people live. There should never be too much negativity; true records in history become inauthentic. People create stereotypes to explain the way people function, and this is due in large amount to what we are given from a single resource.  What we gain by “losing” the single story is the understanding that there is no single story to describe a person or country. We only gain understanding by experiencing or studying it from legitimate perspectives. We gain knowledge that is trustworthy and true, when there is no single perspective.