Blog Post #5

The documentary movie, Promises, explains the conflict between Palestinian people and Israel people. And the movie also shows the complication of the life of seven children: Moishe, Mahmoud, Shlomo, Yarko, Daniel, Faraj and Sanabel. The Promises Film Project team supported some of them to get together and to play. In the end the documentary, they discussed about the problem of Palestinian people and Israel people. Several year’s later, The Promises Film Project team created update of the film. In the update, the team interviewed children. In the interview, some children partially show their opinion against the conflict. This fact tells that their opinion had changed by time. Even though, their problem shift from racial one to their environment. This means they are started think about each other’s side. As a proof, Shlomo, the boy who did not participated to get together, refused interviews. It shows that the meeting they participated clearly changed their mind.
Israel is a jewish country with the population of 7,170,000. And 20.7% of them are Arabic. The conflict happening in Israel comes from religious and racial problem. Judaism and Muslim consider this land as holy land. Consequently, they both argue the land is theirs and other should leave. The story takes place in Jerusalem. And the seven children live in this place. Daniel and Yarko are Israeli boys living in west Jerusalem, secular Jews, put off more by religious Jews than Palestinians. Moishe, Mahmoud, Faraj and Sanabel are Palestinian who live in Palestinian quorter. And Shlomo is a orthodox Jewish boy who did not participated to get together and refused interview. These children are living inside the city with many racial problem. For example, Moishe’s best friend get killed by Israeli soldier. It caused his hate to Jewish people. In a school of Mahmoud, teacher strongly support the idea against Jewish. Faraj’s house is completely destroyed be Jewish. In the movie, he sit on the stone which was originally part of his house. And these problem complicate their life. However the team tried to bring Daniel and Yarko to Palestinian quarter to see their reaction to each other. When they started communication, their mind had changed. They started to see each other as a individual men rather than Arab or Jewish. Several years later, children met each other shifted their opinion against race to opinion to country they are living.
As a conclusion, the documentary clearly shows the problem caused by lack of communication. The project team actually asked them to communicate and it changed their mind against race to opinion to country itself. In my opinion, the communication is crucial for those country with many conflict. Because the lack of communication cause more conflict rather than understanding each other. In the movie they achieved to communicate and started thinking about understanding each other.
"Israel." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
"The Promises Film Project." The Promises Film Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Promises. Dir. Justine Shapiro. Perf. BZ Goldberg. 2001. Film.

Blog Post #4

Topic:"What does it take for someone to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect like the transformation that occurred in Derek?"

American History X is the movie about the concepts of hate and racism. We watched the movie in the class and discussed about racism and hate. Basically, the film is a story of two brothers. Elder brother was called Derek. He is White supremacist who joined the group of Neo-Nazism after his father was murdered by black people. And he served in prison 3 years because he killed two men. When he had released from prison,he changed his mind. Experience in the prison takes him to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect.

My opinion is adopting with another race make people's mind change. He adopted with black guy called Lamont. Before He met Lamont, he categorized people into two categories which are black and white without looking their characteristic. So it was first time he looked black man by their characteristic. In addition, one shocking event happened to him. White people did sexual assault to Derek. I guess he could not trust anyone at that moment. After he got sexual assault, he met with the man who was teacher of his brother, Danny. He asked him like this "Has anything you've done made your life better?" It was the begging of changing his mind. Then, he started looking person by their identity and stop categorizing them.

In conclusion, my opinion is that conversation with other races change mind to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect.

Response to the article

Under Pressure

I read this article and I talked about education with my education with my Japanese friend. First things we thought about are situation in the Japan. In japan, you always have to go to university if you want to enter any kind of company. What I think about education is that education is the one way to measure how you can work. Not everything.

“It’s important to use test results, but it’s also important that they not become your oxygen.”

–Pat Hunter, Principal of Maple Elementary, Seattle

This is a one phrase from the article and I think it is exactly what I talked about. In my opinion. Education is one way to learn how to work in a society. So something, which can be a way to learn, can replace education and itself.

So I think that school without class is also one way to learn how to work. I think that would work. When I saw that classroom. I compared with Google office. These two is seems like same and their way to work is similar. Normal school we usually go is school that teaches how to work in the normal office. The school without classroom is school that teaches how to work in the office like Google. I think the education system would change by the situation of working place and jobs. I hope education system will change and get better for childs

Lucas Suzuki