Script!

1. Introduction
2. Film the school.
1. Teacher teaching with narrator in background

i. Talk about attendance rate and graduation status

2. Interview with teacher or principal.

i. Students’ attitudes towards school and in social behavior

3. Interview with student?

i. How they like their school overall

4. Show students doing work

i. Testing scores

5. Recreational activities

i. Clubs and sports

(Transitional slide)

(Lincoln high school San Diego, CA)

3. Cut to interview with Principal of Lincoln.
1. *How long have you been working here?
   Why did you choose to work here?
   *How many kids are enrolled?
   *What's the attendance percentage each day?
   What is your punishment policy for truancy?
   What is your policy for drugs, alcohol or weaponry that is brought to school?
   How many kids get suspended each year?
   What is the most common reason for suspension?
   *What is the percentage of students that graduate?
   *What is the percentage of students that continue on to College, including
   J/C?
   What percent of your teachers are bilingual?
   What makes a teacher qualified to teach at your school?
   *What is the ethnic diversity of you school?
   How many students, on average, are in each class?
   What percentage of students parents when to college?

*At what level on average are your students when it comes to state testing?

4. Show Lincoln, Same clips as Mexico High school.

Yes, our script is kind of short, but it is just a general outline. We dont have what we are going to say word for word because the base of our documentary is the interview. So without the interview, we just have a general idea of what we are going to talk about.

Beyond the Border

I went to one of my partners blogs, maddie, and saw that she had some sources that helped her out a lot.
I went to the site http://www.solutionsabroad.com/a_schoolsmexico.asp
It gave a lot of general statistics that I think we will definitely share in our documentary.

Some information I found out:

1. The only schools that offer bi-lingual education are private schools, and these schools are only in the main cities of Mexico; Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
2. Children begin school at the age of 3 or 4, similar to the united states.
3. School beings usually around 8 and gets out between 2 & 3.
4. The Majority of schools require the students to wear a uniform every day.
5. Some schools, such as the American School Foundation, have a large population but it is very diverse. The student body is about 2400 and approximately 60% Mexican, 30% American and 10% from some 40 other countries.

Mayan Culture

Culture- The Mayan culture is believed to have begun around 300AD. Teotihucan, a nearby city in Central America, influenced the Mayan culture by trading with them and helping them begin to thrive. When Teotihucan collapsed, the Mayans showed signs of struggle because they Teotihucan civilization was like a piece of their culture. The classic Maya began to do really well in the “southern lowlands,” But then suddenly collapsed in around 800AD, and there are many reasons for this. These include; over-population, too much warfare, rebellion of the farmer/laborer class, or unexpected natural disasters. But different areas still were flourishing. Because the Maya didn’t want the rest of the civilization to fail, this is when they separated into city-states. Unlike the Aztecs who were ruled by one governing system, the Mayans were split up into individual city-states and because all these city states had similar ways of life and beliefs, they were all considered part of the Mayan civilization. The city-states were also the reason that the Spaniards were unable to conquer the Maya, and traces of Mayan culture still clearly remain in areas of Central America.

Some info I have so far

Religion- Mayan religion revolves around time. They developed a number of different calendar systems. One of their man calendars was one called tzolkin, which means sacred calendar. It consisted of 260 days. In addition to tzolkin, they had another one called tun, which had 360 days, plus an additional 5 days that were considered unlucky days. These were the 2 central calendars, but they also had, a half year lunar calendar, a Venus calendar, and a cycle of the gods. These calendars made the Mayans the most accurate predictors of time; they were only off by one day, every 6,000 years. These calendars marked many days of religious celebration. Religious ceremonies consisted of the following; dancing, sacrifice and prayer. The reason for sacrifice was this; the gods needed support from the Humans otherwise, they would but be capable of upholding the duties of a God. The two most often sacrificed things were food and human blood. The amount of blood that the person had to give depended on the social rank of the person. The higher up you were on the social ladder, the more blood was expected during sacrifice. Sometimes a person would even have to give their heart to the gods in sacrifice. They would be held down, cut open, and they would be required to rip out their own heart. The mayans believed that only people who had been sacrificed, hung, or died on childbirth would be the ones to go to the afterlife. That’s why people were so willing to donate themselves to the gods, because everyone who didn’t went to hell. The cross was a symbol for the tree of life. They worshiped Nature Gods, especially the gods of rain, sun, and maize.

recipe!?

I was going to make salsa for my artifact but Ryan took my idea!
Im looking for a recipe so if anyone happens to look over one let me know.


Today in class I thought it was interesting to review the various maps from the past. Its strange how the map makers went from having South American being way too small, to being way too big, or too wide, all in a matter of as little as 3 years! Some of them were completely off and some were surprisingly accurate. Also, it was cool how in just about every map, no matter what year, Africa and Europe looked very accurate and hardly ever changed. I think it would be neat to see how they figured out exactly how wide all the continents were.

Conquistadors!

Today, in class I learned a little more about Francisco Pizarro.
Here are some bullet points that we included on our poster.

- He was born in Trujillo, Spain in 1478.
- His parents were never married so he was raised by his Grandparents.
- He was illiterate, so he could do no job that required any education.
- Because of this, he herded pigs for a living.
- He went on his first expedition in 1509 as a first mate to famous explorer, Balboa.
- They landed in panama.
- On his second expedition, he went to Peru where he came in contact with the Incas.
- He knew they had gold so he killed them all and destroyed any remains of the city.
- When he died, his body was just left where he died because the country-men had no respect for him, therefore, decided to not have a burial.

Mayans :)

http://www.indians.org/welker/maya.htm
&&&&&&&&&
http://www.jaguar-sun.com/maya.html

Both of those give a lot of information on culture and history, and just general information. I used this for the history portion of the mini project :)

Mayan Religion

I was reading about the Mayan religion, and I found some interesting things on this website:
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/MAYAS.HTM

I used this site to find information about religion, sacrifice and The Mayan calendar system. But in addition to those topics, this site has information about Economy, History, and the Region.
I found out that Mayans sacrificed to the gods because they believed that the gods needed their support to be able to uphold the duties of the Gods, and without their support, they would not respond to the people. Some mayan citizens actually had to rip their own heart out and give it to the gods. You would think many people wouldn't be willing to do this, but that is not the case. People would want to be a sacrifice because if they were, they would go to the afterlife, as for everyone else, they would go to hell.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

I have yet to find a really helpful research site, so I decided to blog about tonights reading.

Although it was a little confusing at times, there was a fact that stood out to me.

I found it very, very interesting that there were only 168 Spanish soldiers, and thousands of Indian soldiers, yet the Spanish army completely defeated the Indians simply because of better resources. Not only were the Spanish soldiers on "unfamiliar terrain and ignorant of the local inhabitants," but they also were more then 1,000 miles from any fellow Spaniards, that would be helpful in case of their need to reinforce the army. Also, they didn't only defeat them, they crushed them without losing a single Spanish Soldier. Although they out numbered the Spanish by nearly 500 times, that didnt matter because all they had for protection was quilted armor, and clubs, in which they were lucky to badly wound the Spaniards with. Plus, the Spanish had steel armor, which gave them plenty of protection against the Indians clubs.