What does it mean to be Human? Does this pertain to Humanity or the biological definition of a homosapien? Am I more human than a serial killer or less human than the monkeys sent into space? In the beginning of last semester each day was a heated debate, what was human? What was the true definition? The answer? There is none.
Ishmael, from Quinn's Ishmael, the text I chose, I find more human than the derelict high schools I call my peers. Ishmael points to the humans as the problem for all of the world's crises. I look around me as children are starving and point to my friends who unknowingly deplete all of the world's resources.
What does it mean to be human? Does it mean we talk with eloquence and speed? I see Loralai and Rory Gilmore rattle off words on Gilmore Girls and I am dumbfounded, yet don't the crickets chirp with equal speed? And who knows what they are saying, some cricket out there might be the next shakespeare. Or rather are we human because we have empathy? Because in my personal experience, animals frequently have more empathy than the humans I know and love. I look into the big brown eyes of my loving Irish Setter and see more love, kindness and humanity than middle school girls showed me in seventh grade. I think of my best friend, unable to get married in most parts of the world due to his sexuality and how homophobic only exists in mankind, not the animal kingdom.
I think back to the beginning of the semester, watching the video of the feral girl, "Genie" and is she human? Yes, biologically, but is she? Is she died and in hundreds of years humans discovered her body she would appear just as human as I am, but are we one in the same? I would say not. Biology only goes to an extent. There is more to being human than DNA, we have heart and passion. We strive to make others happy and truly do what we believe should be done. Clearly, this is not true for all humans. But I do not think human DNA or our civilized culture adorned in concrete and steal make us human. I think our humanity makes us human. Our inability to be satisfied, to always try and improve, to innovate and along the way love, care and make connections and communities.
This project, similarly to ours last year in New Global Voices, was an entire class-wide project. We split up into teams and did most of the work in our teams but ran big ideas past each other in the full group setting. On the first day I helped contribute ideas and helped to shape the ideas into the final product. I annotated my individual article as well as all of the group articles for team Ishmael. Within the entire group element, each individual family had to come up with questions and answer other team's questions. I came up with one of the two questions for team Ishmael as well as answered other team's questions and helped discuss answers that make it into the final edit of the script. I think our final product is going to be different--- but interesting. I like the idea and the concept we came up with, I feel like it can truly showcase all of the books we read but still present it in a creative manner, which is all we really wanted. I do however wish the instructions for the project were a little clearer, and maybe what as individuals we could have done more, I found myself redoing or doing the same work others had already done and wished that maybe that was more clear (for example both Cynthia and I read all of our groups group annotations... Was that entirely necessary? Probably not but I felt that I should contribute more, so I did.) I did however like how different this project is. Normal presentations get old, and I like that I am ending my last English class of high school in a new and interesting way, not just a lame skit or powerpoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment