A lil story for ya

With all the readings we've been doing lately it's made me think about evolution, and how or if one should go about teaching it. I personally think it's a very interesting theory, and would be beneficial to learn about, even if you choose not to believe it. With some people it's not that simple. So here is my evolution experience. My sophomore year of high school the biology teacher has evolution on the syllabus, so we knew it was coming. One girl was very serious about her Christianity faith and was determined to prove the teacher wrong. She came to class with papers all about the issues of evolution and the opposing side with facts. Before the teacher had a chance to say more than three words, the girl started her debate. The teacher didn't handle it very well either. She interrupted the girl and rudely said something a long the lines of she could try as hard as she wanted but she was the teacher and knew more than girl. I think she even said something like sit back little girl and try to learn something. Pretty ridiculous. Obviously, neither of these two were going to learn anything from one another. I understand that we all have a right to our opinions, but why not be willing to look at the other side? One might believe in the story of creation, but isn't it interesting to learn about other ideas? Even in school sometimes we learn about other religions, and I think we should appreciate all these different ideas, and learn. The debate over evolution is complicated and there are a lot of views.

So that's just my experience, and thoughts for now :)

Citizenship

After reading chapter 3 in the book Outspoken, I've gained more perspective on the idea of free speech. Margaret Randall is a very talented auther with strong opinions that she has a right to speak about. The part that stuck out to me the most was when she talked about how if you want to be a citizen somewhere else you must give up your American Citizenship, and then they wouldn't let her get it back, mostly because of the things she wrote about and said against the government and policies in America. I can't imagine how it would feel to talk into a room and see all your work spread out in front of you, then be questioned about why you wrote what you did. First of all, to have to answer why you think a certain way isn't fair, and then to have it held against you, is pretty ridiculous. She must of felt intimidated, but now she should feel so brave for standing up for her rights. There are definitely limits to free speech, especially when it makes the government look bad.

July 4th, 1798

When we think of July 4th, we think of Independence and Freedom. As years pass.. we also think about fireworks and barbeques. But it is so important to remember how we earned those "fireworks." I've always thought of it as this glorious day! But the article we read for class "Order Vs. Liberty" by Larry Gragg, made me think a little bit differently about it. It also made me think history classes in highschool need to be improved. I learned how, yes we did celebrate freedom from Britain, but at the same time passed the Seditition Bill, preventing the publishing of statements that would hurt the government by being scandalous or false. By doing this I think it also made people really careful in everything they wrote, worry of it being taken the wrong way. This goes against the First Ammendment, and I'm thankful it's not like that anymore. It makes you think a little bit differently about all that went on on that July 4th.

The Safety Zone!

One thing that I really enjoyed talking about in our seminar yesterday revolved around the idea of a "free speech zone." We discussed how the free speech zone at school is in front of the DC in the main quad. They can regulate what we choose to protest, so my guess is if you wanted to protest something about CSUMB, it wouldn't be allowed. The idea of free speech being limited is very knew to me. I always assumed we could voice our opinions virtually wherever we wanted. The video I attatched is of a group of students that are protesting their right to free speech. Their school put up a fence blocking them from the trees, and making it the spot where they can voice their opinions. My question is if they have gone too far by jumping fence and "trespassing." Can you really arrest these students for speaking out and protesting?

Click to see video!

I couldn't figure out how to directly add the video, but I really recommend watching it, it's very interesting!