Rotationplasty... a 180° difference

The First unit of our new Sophomore class, Cure, we explored the impact of surgery throughout the years. This unit was very exciting, the range of subjects we learned in this unit was was mind blowing to explore. From the method of healing in Western medicine to understanding of the different anatomic systems, organs and tissues. Our class visited the International Museum of Surgical Science to study the history of surgeries where we got a closer look into the trials and tribulations medicine has gone through. This led us to doing our own research on surgeries we were interested in; that's when I chose Rotationplasty as my final action project. Hope you enjoy!

Conservative Point of View

In the final unit of our class Forbidden Books, we learned about censorship. We did not do an action project for Unit 2 because our teacher thought this project hold more substance. In the 3rd unit, we learned about the censorship of books. We read Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." We had weekly book clubs to discuss the book. We visited our local public radio station, WBEZ, to meet with their south-side correspondent Natalie Moore. Ms. Moore wrote a book about the South-Side that was banned in Illinois prisons. We talked with her about what it was like to be an author of a banned book. At the beginning of this class, we chose one of five banned books. The options were: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Animal Farm by George Orwell. Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I chose The Color Purple because i've seen the movie before and really enjoyed it. We then had to read the book and write an essay about why it was banned. I wanted to take a spin on this essay and write about the banning in a conservative point of view.

Conservative Point of View

Love has traditional values in the way it should be shown, given, and more importantly in the way it should be written. Love is the theme that was portrayed in The Color Purple. For example, Celie and Shug in a rather odd way, shifting between a very physical attraction to her to a sisterly love, and then right back to the love a daughter has for a mother. She says "I love looking at Shug." (Walker, 77) and "I work on her like...she mama." (Walker, 55) Even in the very beginning of the book, you get this feeling that Celie envies Shug's life, and really wants to be like her. Then it transforms from an admiration to a genuine love for Shug as she gets to know her, and then settles in on a sisterly love. The Color Purple is written in the form of letters that Celie (main character) writes to God. Celie is a uneducated, poor, African American 14 year old girl. The letters she writes to God talk about the trials and tribulations she faces. Her father Alphonso is mentioned heavily throughout her letters because of the damage he has done to Celie. Celie's father beats her harshly and rapes her continuously, she has been impregnated twice, but the children were both been abducted by her father. Eventually Alphonso marries Celie off to a man who is just as bad as him. The name of Celie’s husband is not mentioned, only written as Mr.__. Mister marries Celie to take care of his four kids, look after the house and work in the fields. Celie seems somewhat content with her marriage because she can take her younger sister Nattie out of her Father's house. Soon enough Mr. kicks Nettie out after Nettie rejects his sexual advances. After Nettie leaves, Celie’s life gets worse as she’s now separated from the only person whom she loves and who loves her back. Shug is Mr._ mistress, she becomes Celie's friend and eventually her lover. Shug remains a mentor who helps Celie evolve into an independent and assertive woman. Celie tells Shug how Mr._ beats her repeatedly and decides to stay to protect her. Shug and Celie’s relationship grows intimate, and Shug begins to ask Celie questions about her sexual habits. Celie grows admiration for Shug as she was the first person to show her signs of affection towards her. This form of love is not one that is rooted in traditional roots and should not hold educational values because of it. The Color Purple does not hold any educational values in the school system; therefore, it should be banned.

The Color Purple does not have any educational values based on the non systematic theme that it holds. West Virginia took action and banned The Color Purple in 1986, like several other school boards because of its troubling ideas about abuse, man’s relation to God, and human sexuality. Bernard King, a member of the school board said, "It could lead to different sex games and violence and other things" (Washington Post). The long established curriculum keeps the students formulated into a systematic ideology and detain from the toxicity emotional attachment does. Ultimately, these are topics that have no matter in a school system that holds the majorities inclination.

There are several examples in The Color Purple that school system point to as reasons it should be ban. For example, “He [Pa] never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t. First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my p****. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it”(pg. 1). This quote was problematic because its explicit depictions and language. Secondly, “Ain’t no way to read the bible and not think God white, she say. Then she sigh. When I found out I thought God was white, and a man, I lost interest. You mad cause he don’t seem to listen to your prayers. Humph! Do the mayor listen to anything colored say?”(pg. 194). This quote depicts the controversy of religion in a demeaning way. Quotes like these are throughout the book and holds no value. They are only expressing vulgarity with no necessity. The Color Purple influences political, religious, and diversity disputes, but because the delivery speaks figuratively the vulgarity outweighs the significance. That being said, it was problematic from the fact that the book hold text that triggers every social aspect. The Color Purple touched on religion when talking about God being a white male, politics when talking about the government not listening to colored folks, and lastly the diversity in race.

The ideologies the book expresses holds no substance in any systematic matter. This ratifies how the banning of The Color Purple is justified to be out of reach for kids. Reasons be the vulgarity in the depictions of violence, the lack of educational values based on the non systematic theme that it holds, and how love has traditional values in the way it should be shown, given, and more importantly in the way it should be written and with that being The Color purple portrayed love being an unhealthy in every standpoint. Alice Walker the author of The Color Purple implemented these ideas with a purpose, her controversial text was apart of her creative writing to expose a certain system that has been oppressed by the majority. As she states, "Also, I think it is anyone’s right to do what they feel they have to do. They have a job. I have a job. I will write what I think is right for me to write. They will oppose it. In a way that makes us equal. Though when one’s work is completely suppressed this is a bitter acceptance."(GuernicaMag).

The censorship of books has been a necessity for many years, whether they were banned because of vulgarity, suggestive themes, religion, or just plain hate against a certain group. The "forbiddance" of a book keeps us safe from a world thats created with ideologies and nonsystematic themes. Looking into a school system we should feel safe that our kids are going to school filled with factual strategic knowledge and no unhealthy ideas. In conclusion The color Purple holds no matter in any learning environment.

“The Pipeline of Book Censorship.” Tavaana, tavaana.org/en/content/censorship.

Works Cited:

“WEST VIRGINIA SCHOOL BOARD BANS 'THE COLOR PURPLE'.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Nov. 1997

“Why was the book "The Color Purple" banned? What was done to allow the book "The Color Purple" not to be banned?” Enotes.com, Enotes.com.

Stimulate the Mind

In our second Unit of our STEAM course Disease, we learned about mental disorders. This Unit we learned about different kinds of mental disorders, learning disabilities, and mental illness. We also learned about different brain waves and when they distinct. With this information we learned how to plot these on a graph and solve a piecewise function. Another thing we learned about was the DSM-5 This is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. This is a manual of many mental disorders that have criteria used to diagnose people. Although we didn't have any field experiences in this unit, we did have lots of class activities and discussions. For this project, we had to pick a mental disorder. I chose False Memory Disorder. We then had to create a lesson and simulation to try to get our classmates to feel the effects of the disorder. We also had to graph the brain waves that we thought our lesson would evoke. We then graphed these as a piecewise function. We filmed the lesson so we could document the experience. I thought this action project was awesome. This action project led me to see an aspect of the medicine field I wasn't exposed to before, this made me curious and want to learn more about neuroscience which I think is extremely interesting field to dive into. Well I hope you enjoy!

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation describes the condition as a person's identity and relationships are affected by memories that are factually incorrect but that they strongly believe. In other words false memory disorder is a predicament in which a person's identity centers on a memory of a traumatic experience that is false but that the person strongly believes occurred.

Signs of false memory disorder included in the DSM-5:

• Significant memory loss of specific times, people and events

• A sense of detachment from your emotions, or emotional numbness

• The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder.

I wanted to dive in deeper with a person who struggles with false memory disorder in order to make my simulation as accurate as possible. So I watched a video of a person who deals with this disorder. Rebbeca Suger was 20 year old woman who dealt this disorder and has gone to court with a serious accusation that wasn't true. When she was 14 she accused her father of sexual abuse later to find out it was all made up. One thing that spoke to me was when she said, "the mind creates your reality". This made me realize how reality is made up of people imagination and beliefs which I found very fascinating.

Brainwave is an electrical impulse in the brain, they are the root off all our thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Specifically looking at a brainwave graph we have different types of brain waves that are associated with different states of consciousness, like being asleep or awake or even meditative states. In a brainwave graph we have: Gamma waves that is hyper brain activity, which is great for learning, Beta waves are your thinking waves where we busily engage in activities and conversations, Alpha waves is a relaxed state of mind seeping into meditation, Theta waves are the creative waves that drifts you into daydreaming down into sleep, and lastly delta waves that occur in deep dreamless sleep engaging in nothing but deep sleep. Everyone goes through there daily life engaging in these brain waves, but people who are diagnosed with false memory disorder tend to use some more than other in long periods of time. False memory disorder is mostly effected by Gamma waves, scientists observed electrical activity in their brains to determine whether specific brain waves were associated with successfully storing and retrieving memories. Researchers found that a fast brain wave, known as the gamma rhythm, increased when participants studied a word that they would later recall.

This is the lesson plan I wrote to simulate False memory Disorder with my classmates, I include a video to demonstrate the process in order for anyone to understand and try it out themselves.

 

This is a video demonstrating the simulation I presented that stimulates their mind (hence the tittle). This video is a "brain game" that takes them into a staged robbery to figure out who were the culprits. In order to solve this case as a witness its very important to remember every detail, but as we find out its very hard to remember certain events even if it was just seconds ago. This shows how False Memory works in a way that your mind makes up certain actions thinking they actually happened.

Here is a graph of the presumably measure of the brain waves my classmates might feel throughout the activity.

GA, "Brainwave Graph", 2018

This Flyer spreads the word about False Memory Disorder.

GA, "False Memory Flyer", 2018

Works Cited:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/14/truth-about-memories-jarrett

http://www.fmsfonline.org/?ginterest=ButItIsInTheDSM

https://youtu.be/5HdF-hexNjc

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-sense/201307/remembering-something-never-happened

The Socratic Method with Mikeal and Elizabeth

In the first unit of Forbidden Books we were assigned a book called Fahrenheit 451 and have discussions about the book. The discussions were usually about why do we think the book was censored. Not only this we learned about how censoring another person’s view or idea can only be detrimental to your process of learning. We also learned about the Socratic method, the purpose of this action project is learning the Socratic method. Socrates believed that the examined life is not worth living, when you are having an argument with another person but your suppose to only ask questions that challenge the opposite argument and allows the you and the person you're arguing with to think more critically. we analyzed the reading The Apology by Plato. In the reading we examined how Socrates would often ask questions to help corner the thought process of his accusers and to get more forced out of them also. In the Apology,Socrates was supposedly apologizing for his actions of corrupting the young but actually is justifying his cause by asking questions. Inspired by this belief, we were assigned the task of choosing a topic we want to talk about entitling my own interest priority over that of the community.



Theme:
Am I entitled to give my own interest priority over that of the community?

Character:
Character #1: Mikeal - IF
Character #2: Elizabeth- GA

Script:

E: *jaywalks

E: Hey wassup Mikeal, How are you doing today?
M: Hey wassup, wait…..WHOA, did you just jaywalk to come over and talk to me?
E: Yeaah, what gives haha?
M: YOU JUST BROKE A LAW!!!
E: psssh, oh Mikeal, It’s just jay-walking. It’s a little law, it doesn’t matter that much haha.
M: mmm so, What makes a law less substantial than other laws?
E: Well… I guess some laws are less substantial than others because some laws cause less harm than others, like jaywalking to a felony. Are you allowed to give your own interest priority over the community’s interest?
E: I don’t think so, The community all works as one unit, but I think it’s fine for little slips to occur in our complete agreement. So like, no; but kinda.
M: Yes, but what is stopping me from calling the... police right now, and reporting you as a jaywalker. Jaywalkers are lawbreakers afterall.
E: Because, you are my friend and that is rude.
M: Is it rude to separate from the community’s ideas?
E: Yes, I guess. Nobody is being offended or hurt, so I guess it’s fine.
M: Can you be sure that nobody is getting hurt?
E: No, I suppose not.
M: Tell me, What does being part of a community mean to you?
E: Mmmh coming to think about it being apart of a community means that I work with all my fellow community members to make the place we live a better one.
M: Well, you just jaywalked all over that darned street, what if you had gotten hit by a motor vehicle?
E: Yes, that would have sucked but I like to beat the odds. As long as I remember look both ways Elizabeth i’m sure ill be fine Mikeal.
M: But what if everybody in the neighborhood started to do that darned jaywalking? Would the community still be a safe place? Would we need sidewalks at all?
E: I guess a lot more people would be getting hit by cars. But I can't speak for the whole community I think you’re over exaggerating Mikeal. that would never happen to me
M: *I ask again, can you be sure that you won’t get hit? What if someody decides to jaywalk and that causes a car to swerve in front of you and you happen to get hit? You might be careful while jaywalking, but you can’t guarantee that everyone will be.
E: You know what, your right Mikeal indeed I am selfish for prioritizing my own interest and not the overall safeness of the community. Boy o boy I sure learned my lesson Mikeal. HAHA
M: So you won’t be jaywalking anymore right?
E: tsk tsk tsk si
M: So what now?
E: You wanna play futbul?

THE END.

Pneumonia

In the second STEAM class of my sophomore year, we are learning about the body. This class is called Disease, the first unit is called Body. We learned about cancer and how that affects the body. We also learned about each organ system and the organs included in them and what they do. We also learned a math concept called completing the square. This is another way to solve quadratic equations. For this action project, we were asked to conduct an interview. It had to be anonymous but we had to find someone with a disease and interview them about it. We then had to write up their profile and classify their disease in accordance with what we learned in class. I  decided to interview my sister who had pneumonia. This presentation will teach you about the symptoms, treatments, cause and affect of pneumonia and how it effects you and your body. Enjoy!

9:23

In our last elective class Rocket Science, we learned about space exploration. We learned about the people that made the space mission possible whether it be pre or post-launch. Throughout this term, we created our own fire rockets, looked into aerodynamics, and created our own water rockets as our final mission. In order to prepare for our launch, we took everything we learned and compiled it into one presentation. This includes all the work I have done over the term which as you will find out quite a bit. I hope you enjoy!??!?!?!?!?

A Boy Within the System

GA Performs A Boy Within the System from GCE Lab School on Vimeo.

A Boy Within the System

A boy within

the system

made the boy go crazy

Ima victim of the system

Big man cutting treatment bills from the ill

That's mental

Survival of the fittest

That’s the way they got us livin

Addicted

Liquid pistols and pills

This is how we get commited

system gotchu restricted

Thin white lines

Now your jurisdiction

Turn to crooks that do time

When did we decide

This is a victimless crime

But that's the big mans plan

Keep you weak with a strong extended hand

Bills written in riddles

You misunderstand

Take your right hand

And sit in the witness stand

While the wise man gets tongue taken and tied

Bills get certified

Big man wears power

To hide his vile sty

Making deals with the devil

Roll the 6 sided die

Bills are even

And you’re oddly left with dry bones

mentally acidified

This boy Within

this system

Sees these people

These are the people stuck within this system

Aunt sally still nagging with a few pumps of oxygen

Little junior taking the wrong path but little junior brings home the dough so he's a fine
young man

Crazy old man goes by the name of joe

Joe owns no home

He reeks and sneaks rocks up his nose

Kids on the block know what's cool

These kids know how to kick it, pop it, and do a flaming lock it

Pass the joint

Don't dare to drop it

This is the system in which we disguise as poverty

Quick pills to take the eaz

Get rid of stress is all they need

This is mental illness not poverty

These are chains that have not been broken

These are people who have lived unspoken

Brainwashed to believe  they need no help

It's not the system

Its poverty

To think your ill is a mockery

Just keep thinking one day you will win the lottery

Say goodbye to poverty

Live a long healthy life

Only to find out

I'm back to the same chain

Wondering why it is this way

But all along you were stuck within

the system

not poverty

I'm the boy within

This system

The boy thats sick

Not mental

Loudspeakers keep the voices away

Baggy trus white tee glistening shoes keeps me cool

And keeps the abnormality away

Fed with lies and hypnotized life scares the hunger away

Boxes of antioxidants don't make me obey

Walking high on two feet

With a cig in each pocket

Lean walking

The money you baggin

Got us toe taggin

Im Delusional

Amphetamine got the best of me

Blurry vision

Got me

straight trippin

Hope the prayers start kickin

Admirable intoxication

Is what builds this nation

The world domination

The world is our creation

The matrix

kill the ill give me eaz

Just take the blue pill

Im mental

Hard to say

The red pill is existential

My demons write my future

Erase my brain with a pencil

I'm fed up

Choked up

Knees shake

Eye roll

God please

Save my soul

I'm begging you

I'm not worthy

But this little boy need sum lovin too

Good kid M.A.A.D city

Made the good kid cruel

I'm not ill,

I'm just sick of the same old stew

Same cig don't wanna light up too

Ignorance is bliss

Until the demons take that too

I'm gone

I'm not mental

I'm just sick

The message of my poem is a boy within the system and mental illness. The boy I address talks about how he feels towards bills being cut from the mental health care system; people of the lower class can't be treated after these cuts being made. In the first stanza I talk about the man in power taking away the bill that allows people to get treated and how that affects the people. I start to talk about how people start to rely on medicated drugs which lead to overdose and that can lead to “victimless crimes” and how that leads to, “crooks that do time”. In the second stanza I talked about the community and how “stuck within the system”. The purpose of this was to teach people how mental illness still seen as a taboo thing. It's not poverty that's bringing them down it's the mental chains that are not being broken, not letting you get out of that certain standpoint. In the 3rd stanza I talk about the boy who is mentally ill, he feels conflicted; does not want to settle on drugs and get stuck within the system. Because Writing this poem with the perspective of the boy, I seemed to use the same poetic devices throughout my poem. Throughout the poem I used a balanced level of wordplay for example, when talking about the man with power I used multisyllabic rhymes to balance the slang rhyme, giving it a stronger cadence. Throughout the piece I also used anaphora as my transition as i talked about the bills, community, and me which was the boy within the system. Throughout my performance I wanted to keep it strong, sharp, simplistic. My performance really depended on the poetic devices because the flow of the rhyme played a big roll. My cadence had a song like tone in the first stanza this enhanced the tone of the poem by setting a mood of who this boy is and how he feels about the system. The volume I used was loud and clear. I wanted the audience to feel attacked and made sure they knew every word had strong meaning and needed to be heard.When revising my poem and my performance I definitely change the poem more than the performance. Because I knew I wanted the performance to be monotone strong and simplistic I knew I had to include more metaphor, alliteration, etc. to hold meaning to what I was saying. I decided this because I wanted to play on the person that is mentally ill. Most people when they think of a mentally ill person think they have no sense of analyzation and articulate. I wanted voice in these people “who have lived unspoken”.