Diego, Marce, Pablito, our pumpkin and I :)
Morning Meeting
Halloween is here! Today our morning meeting was facilitated by Kata and there where pumpkins everywhere, which was exciting! Also, everyone was dressed up as some character of our curriculum. I was a greek, it was fun to see everyone in a costume. We started with our announcements of the day, which where: Emerson at 11:00 a.m., Discussion of The Trivium at 2:00p.m. and a Conference around 4:30/5:00p.m. Then the fun started! The activity of today was to crave pumpkins!! I've never done that in my entire life and I was eager to it this year...and I did! :) Kata read out loud the rules of the game and we divided in groups. My team was Pablito, Marce and Diego. So we started cutting the top of the pumpkin and removing all the things it had inside, which was quite disgusting because it was sticky. Then I drew the face and we started craving. Each of us craved one part of the face. We also added some hair to our pumpkin with black paper and it looked beautiful. We were so proud of our beloved piece of art. Later we cleaned up all the mess to have a clean environment and start working.
Individual work
We didn't have much time, but still I used all my time to keep on reading The Trivium. I advanced a lot, I'm on the last chapter but I guess I won't make it for today. I'll do my best to finish it!
Greek
Moris didn't show up today, I guess maybe he doesn't want to facilitate for us. Anyways, we started playing a game which consisted in throwing a lemon to someone and repeating the greek alphabet. It was the first time that I really learned the correct pronunciation and order of it. I was super excited because we were having fun learning it. Then we started singing the alphabet with the usual rhythm: alfa, beta, gamma, delta...It was really amazing because almost everyone knew it by heart. Bert, surprised, came into the class and told us something like "Guys you sound good, we should really do the A Capella group". And so we were trying to pitch some notes and sang the alphabet, it was quite hard and some students resisted to sing it like that. I had fun, I actually enjoy to sing. I believe that I can sing but I just haven't developed my skills.
Video: MPC-ers singing the greek alphabet
Self-Reliance: Emerson
At 11:00a.m. we circled up but decided to have the first half-hour to re-read what we've read so far. This is one of my favorite essays ever. After reading it and having more insights, we started the dialogue at 11:30a.m. sharp. We begin reading all together paragraph by paragraph and sharing insights of them. Today's paragraphs were all about how society punishes in a way the non-conformists. Why? This is the constant question I ask myself, why does society awards the people who conform and accept mediocrity? Shouldn't it be the other way around, award the ones who don't conform because they know there's a better way or at least another way. Also I quote I really loved was this one: "Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.- 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'-Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood". It reminded me to always speak my mind, anywhere, with anyone and always. It isn't bad to change opinions, or views or ideologies...what matters is how you speak them. It isn't bad to be misunderstood, it's great. I want to always be a non-conformist, I want to strive for better things, possibilities. I don't want to stagnate, that is evil, I think the worst that can happen to a human being. I'm really learning a lot from this essay and I don't want to finish it ever. Every paragraph is very meaningful to me.
Performing Arts
We worked on improv-skills, it was hilarious! I couldn't stop laughing! It was too much for me. The first activity was to act some random scenes and when someone called for a pause that someone replaced another person of the scene and created another scene. It was really funny! We made like four of five different scenes. Then we made another activity which consisted on disturbing someone that was sitting next to us, so there were two people sitting beside each other and one person had to disturb the other till he/she got up. My stomach ached because of laughter!!! And the last activity was to imitate a famous person and have a dialogue, which was fun as well but caused our tardiness to The Trivium dialogue.
The Trivium Dialogue
It started 20 minutes late, which means 2:20p.m. We started talking about the last discussion, which was "What is the meta question of chapter 1?", almost all of our dialogue was about the first two chapters. I felt that the dialogue just took place on one part of the circle, I consider that I really participated in this one because I was really into the book. We discussed what other way of gaining truth exists? Is it only The Trivium? We later found in the book that Sister Miriam Joseph also talks about another way of discovering truth, which is revelation. It was a really good dialogue but I still feel we have a lot to improve in many things, I enjoyed it but I noticed that many people weren't into it. We'll talk about the later chapters in other dialogues because this book relates to everything and also because everything we are reading it's connected.
Debrief
Today's debriefing was different than all others, we just stated what we've observed during the dialogue. There were positive and negative remarks, it was all about giving direct feedback. For example: "I noticed that not all of us were engaged in the dialogue" or "I noticed there were a lot of inquiries". It was a fast debrief because we had a conference, however it was very direct and honest.
Conference: The philosophy of capitalism
Warren Orbaugh imparted the conference today. He started quoting Thomas Jefferson "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states...And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." This ideas were influenced by Aristotle, who truly stood for reason and that men ultimate pursue is happiness. He also talked about John Locke, who we can say is the philosopher who introduced the ideas of capitalism. Locke's ideas: law can only be recognized by reason, everyone is equal, men will do anything for happiness, the principal law is auto-preservation, the government is created to preserve the life, freedom and goods of each individual. His idea was that the politic body should be a republic instead of a democracy and that every single law had to be created under the agreement of the citizens. Later on, Orbaugh mentioned Adam Smith and how he introduced the division of labor, free-market, self-interest and society's progress through this premises. He said that the government just had three obligations, which were: protect international attacks, protect the life of men and raise public properties (highways). He said: "A republic, if you can keep it". Then he mentioned David Hume and Immanuel Kant, who were kind of the destroyers of these previous ideas. They both said that each person has different perspectives and they don't really know if they are real. Kant said that it was immoral to pursue what was done for self-interest, that we should just stick to our duty without looking for self-benefit. An example would be: If two children are drowning, one is your son and the other your neighbor, you should save the neighbor's son because that's your duty. Saving your own son would be immoral. Later, August Comte was the one who introduced the ideas of altruism and opposed individual rights. He stood for "you have to live for others, sacrifice yourself because altruism is what a society needs". There were no rights in his ideas. Then, Karl Marx said that private property wasn't what a society needed. He wanted socialism and democracy, and of course altruism. So those people were the ones who sort of destroyed the ideas of capitalism and individual rights. However, a women philosopher, Ayn Rand developed her own ideas connecting them to previous philosophers. She said: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." She stood for reason=individualism=capitalism. She said that the way each one perceived reality was real because everyone IS part of reality. She thought that men was perfectible and stood for the preserve of life, liberty and property. Therefore, right was a natural law. Rand re-establishes what was written on Jefferson's memorial. A quote I love from her is this one: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." I really learned a lot of this conference because there were a lot of things that I din't knew, I love capitalism and I truly believe in individualism which is linked to be a self-governed person. I respect private property and I totally agree with Jefferson, Aristotle, Locke and Rand. Actually I think that Ayn Rand, on her book Atlas Shrugged, defined some of my views and perceptions about the world. I somehow felt that she just wrote my thoughts on paper and I really love some of her ideas.
Pictures of the day
Halloween is here! Today our morning meeting was facilitated by Kata and there where pumpkins everywhere, which was exciting! Also, everyone was dressed up as some character of our curriculum. I was a greek, it was fun to see everyone in a costume. We started with our announcements of the day, which where: Emerson at 11:00 a.m., Discussion of The Trivium at 2:00p.m. and a Conference around 4:30/5:00p.m. Then the fun started! The activity of today was to crave pumpkins!! I've never done that in my entire life and I was eager to it this year...and I did! :) Kata read out loud the rules of the game and we divided in groups. My team was Pablito, Marce and Diego. So we started cutting the top of the pumpkin and removing all the things it had inside, which was quite disgusting because it was sticky. Then I drew the face and we started craving. Each of us craved one part of the face. We also added some hair to our pumpkin with black paper and it looked beautiful. We were so proud of our beloved piece of art. Later we cleaned up all the mess to have a clean environment and start working.
Individual work
We didn't have much time, but still I used all my time to keep on reading The Trivium. I advanced a lot, I'm on the last chapter but I guess I won't make it for today. I'll do my best to finish it!
Greek
Moris didn't show up today, I guess maybe he doesn't want to facilitate for us. Anyways, we started playing a game which consisted in throwing a lemon to someone and repeating the greek alphabet. It was the first time that I really learned the correct pronunciation and order of it. I was super excited because we were having fun learning it. Then we started singing the alphabet with the usual rhythm: alfa, beta, gamma, delta...It was really amazing because almost everyone knew it by heart. Bert, surprised, came into the class and told us something like "Guys you sound good, we should really do the A Capella group". And so we were trying to pitch some notes and sang the alphabet, it was quite hard and some students resisted to sing it like that. I had fun, I actually enjoy to sing. I believe that I can sing but I just haven't developed my skills.
Video: MPC-ers singing the greek alphabet
Self-Reliance: Emerson
At 11:00a.m. we circled up but decided to have the first half-hour to re-read what we've read so far. This is one of my favorite essays ever. After reading it and having more insights, we started the dialogue at 11:30a.m. sharp. We begin reading all together paragraph by paragraph and sharing insights of them. Today's paragraphs were all about how society punishes in a way the non-conformists. Why? This is the constant question I ask myself, why does society awards the people who conform and accept mediocrity? Shouldn't it be the other way around, award the ones who don't conform because they know there's a better way or at least another way. Also I quote I really loved was this one: "Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.- 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'-Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood". It reminded me to always speak my mind, anywhere, with anyone and always. It isn't bad to change opinions, or views or ideologies...what matters is how you speak them. It isn't bad to be misunderstood, it's great. I want to always be a non-conformist, I want to strive for better things, possibilities. I don't want to stagnate, that is evil, I think the worst that can happen to a human being. I'm really learning a lot from this essay and I don't want to finish it ever. Every paragraph is very meaningful to me.
Performing Arts
We worked on improv-skills, it was hilarious! I couldn't stop laughing! It was too much for me. The first activity was to act some random scenes and when someone called for a pause that someone replaced another person of the scene and created another scene. It was really funny! We made like four of five different scenes. Then we made another activity which consisted on disturbing someone that was sitting next to us, so there were two people sitting beside each other and one person had to disturb the other till he/she got up. My stomach ached because of laughter!!! And the last activity was to imitate a famous person and have a dialogue, which was fun as well but caused our tardiness to The Trivium dialogue.
The Trivium Dialogue
It started 20 minutes late, which means 2:20p.m. We started talking about the last discussion, which was "What is the meta question of chapter 1?", almost all of our dialogue was about the first two chapters. I felt that the dialogue just took place on one part of the circle, I consider that I really participated in this one because I was really into the book. We discussed what other way of gaining truth exists? Is it only The Trivium? We later found in the book that Sister Miriam Joseph also talks about another way of discovering truth, which is revelation. It was a really good dialogue but I still feel we have a lot to improve in many things, I enjoyed it but I noticed that many people weren't into it. We'll talk about the later chapters in other dialogues because this book relates to everything and also because everything we are reading it's connected.
Debrief
Today's debriefing was different than all others, we just stated what we've observed during the dialogue. There were positive and negative remarks, it was all about giving direct feedback. For example: "I noticed that not all of us were engaged in the dialogue" or "I noticed there were a lot of inquiries". It was a fast debrief because we had a conference, however it was very direct and honest.
Conference: The philosophy of capitalism
Warren Orbaugh imparted the conference today. He started quoting Thomas Jefferson "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states...And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." This ideas were influenced by Aristotle, who truly stood for reason and that men ultimate pursue is happiness. He also talked about John Locke, who we can say is the philosopher who introduced the ideas of capitalism. Locke's ideas: law can only be recognized by reason, everyone is equal, men will do anything for happiness, the principal law is auto-preservation, the government is created to preserve the life, freedom and goods of each individual. His idea was that the politic body should be a republic instead of a democracy and that every single law had to be created under the agreement of the citizens. Later on, Orbaugh mentioned Adam Smith and how he introduced the division of labor, free-market, self-interest and society's progress through this premises. He said that the government just had three obligations, which were: protect international attacks, protect the life of men and raise public properties (highways). He said: "A republic, if you can keep it". Then he mentioned David Hume and Immanuel Kant, who were kind of the destroyers of these previous ideas. They both said that each person has different perspectives and they don't really know if they are real. Kant said that it was immoral to pursue what was done for self-interest, that we should just stick to our duty without looking for self-benefit. An example would be: If two children are drowning, one is your son and the other your neighbor, you should save the neighbor's son because that's your duty. Saving your own son would be immoral. Later, August Comte was the one who introduced the ideas of altruism and opposed individual rights. He stood for "you have to live for others, sacrifice yourself because altruism is what a society needs". There were no rights in his ideas. Then, Karl Marx said that private property wasn't what a society needed. He wanted socialism and democracy, and of course altruism. So those people were the ones who sort of destroyed the ideas of capitalism and individual rights. However, a women philosopher, Ayn Rand developed her own ideas connecting them to previous philosophers. She said: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." She stood for reason=individualism=capitalism. She said that the way each one perceived reality was real because everyone IS part of reality. She thought that men was perfectible and stood for the preserve of life, liberty and property. Therefore, right was a natural law. Rand re-establishes what was written on Jefferson's memorial. A quote I love from her is this one: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." I really learned a lot of this conference because there were a lot of things that I din't knew, I love capitalism and I truly believe in individualism which is linked to be a self-governed person. I respect private property and I totally agree with Jefferson, Aristotle, Locke and Rand. Actually I think that Ayn Rand, on her book Atlas Shrugged, defined some of my views and perceptions about the world. I somehow felt that she just wrote my thoughts on paper and I really love some of her ideas.
Pictures of the day