CAim: How do George Orwell’s themes of literacy protest transcend time?
Reflection of the Day’s Lesson:
For today’s lesson we talked about how George Orwell’s themes of literary protest transcend time and how we live with these themes today. We have been discussing Orwell’s themes and concepts of Animal Farm and how many of the animals are meant to be depicting founding members of the Communist party in Russia. These concepts are then connected to our society today and how it affects us. The main theme we focused on was his theme of elitism, through Animal Farm.
During the Do Now, we discussed how elitism was fostered among the animals in Animal Farm. In Animal Farm, the pigs were considered the elites on the farm, and no one is better than them. Napoleon took charge of the farm and established all pigs as superior to other animals. He made himself the leader, and established a god-complex, in which he thought of himself as a god. We read how the pigs coerced the other animals to do hard labor for them, without them knowing that it only really benefited the pigs. The baby pigs were basically taught that no one was better than them and they were the superior animal. Our class linked this to WW2 era Germany, where the Germans were told by Adolf Hitler that the white German race was superior, and the children were taught that no one was better than them. This is shown in the picture to the right, where Hitler is visiting a bunch of kids in the Hitler Youth program, and you can see that the children are visibly happy that their leader has come visit them. Our class then started to connect this theme of elitism to modern day topics, such as the government. One student, Max Pintchouk brought up the fact that the government and the rich were basically the elite of today’s society. He explained that the rich were basically able to influence the government. The rich are also able to reap the benefits of the labors of the middle and lower classes of society, by hiring them, and sometimes paying them little to nothing in some countries. This is much like how the pigs in Animal farm were able to exploit the other animals for laborious tasks.
For classwork, we were given a situation that incorporated elitism and personal thoughts. We were given a dilemma in which one of our classmates had an embarrassing picture sent around the class, and they became visibly uncomfortable and humiliated, to the point where they ran out of the room. As we started the discussion, we all came to the conclusion that this situation was obviously very bad, but we all had differing opinions on how it got that far and how they got so affected. We realized that there were differing variables that come from this situation, such as how the students responded to the picture, if some students actually took initiative and went to comfort the other student, and how sensitive this person really was. We realized that this situation was linked to elitism through the influence of both the affected victim, and the students that responded. We did not know how sensitive the affected classmate was, so it could vary. Our class also realized that the response of the classmates could have also affected the outcome, in which, if a fellow classmate had responded by comforting and consoling the affected student, then they could have helped to stop the spread of the picture. After this discussion, we watched two videos, one of a girl talking about a kid on a soccer team that was said to cause the team to always lose a game, and the other video of a ted talk of a girl who took a stand on cyberbullying and acted on it by created an anti-cyberbullying software. Both videos were clear depictions on how one person could change their community, and sometimes the world, little by little. The girl in the first video was able to stand up for the soccer player and start a movement that gained a lot of students’ attention in order to stop bullying the player. In the second video, the girl in the ted talk basically informed people to rethink your actions before committing to it.
My takeaways from this is that elitism is still very much part of our society, in our government and our upper classes. Elitism also can influence not only the decisions of individual people, but also entire groups, as shown through the videos shown, as well as the dilemma that we were given in the beginning of the lesson.
Blog Content:
What’s it like working from home?
Working from home is actually not as great as I first thought it would be. I miss school and all my friends, and although I love my family, having to see them 24/7 is getting quite annoying sometimes. I do however like that I can work at my own pace, and take breaks when I want to. I still manage to get my work done, and I’m not as stressed as I am at school, but I still have to manage my time, because there is no strict routine that I have to follow since school is not there.
Personal thoughts and feelings about what is happening now.
As someone that is living in a household with several people that are in danger of potentially dying of this virus, me included, I am extremely nervous about this virus, and I rarely leave the house at all. (I was born premature, and my lungs did not fully develop) I also live with my grandmother, who although is not very old, is still old enough to the point where her immune system could be compromised from this virus. Everytime I turn on the news and see people protesting the shutdowns of public spaces that are happening in our country, I get very angry at how some people can be so ignorant and selfish. Although school is closed and I am a little bit less stressed about schoolwork, I miss my friends a lot and haven’t seen most of them in a month.
What are you learning about your world/community based on the reactions?
Through watching the news and keeping up with social media, I’m learning that our world can be extremely selfish, but also extremely kind and caring for each other. Some politicians are using these troubling times for political gain, and normal everyday citizens are complaining that they can’t go to their nail salon, or they can’t go to the beach. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people that are still going to work, and braving this virus so that they can help other people.
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