esgp history-social science reflection

8/14/2019 ESGP History-Social Science Reflection

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Econ Ivy Leung

Koh Iota

ESGP History/Social Science Reflection

Over the four years of World History, Humanities, and

Government and Economics class at City Arts & Technology High

School, I have learned what had happened in the past and currently in

our society, from slavery to World Wars to Holocaust. When I was

younger, I was never interested in history or anything that happened in

the world. When I entered elementary school and had to learn about

the past, I thought it was interesting, but I was wrong. It was not what I

expected. I expected the past would be full of life and heroic events.

Though there are heroic events in the past, it had never fascinated me

in any way. The one thing that fascinated me was the picture in history

textbooks. The captions of the pictures were very interesting about the

pictures, but when I read the history behind the pictures, it was dull.

Since then history was not my favorite subject or a subject I did well in.

When I entered high school, I was much more interested in

history than before, though some historic events we learned didn’t

captivate my attention much. Two of many topics I’ve learned in high

school had changed my view about “everything about history is

boring” and they were Apartheid and the Holocaust. I was a freshman

when I learned about Apartheid. My World History teacher, Ms.

Johnson, and my Language Arts teacher, Ms. Rowland, had taught us

about Apartheid. Apartheid was a time period where Afrikaans were

racially segregated between colored people and white people. Colored



Econ Ivy Leung

Koh Iota


people were treated poorly and living in bad conditions. They were

forced to work for white people to earn a living. In Language Arts class,

we read a memoir called Kaffir Boy written by a man who was younger

and affected by Apartheid, Mark Mathabane. The memoir was intense.

The memoir felt so real and made me realize the tough situations

many people were in during this time. I learned about the Holocaust

during my sophmore year in World History class with Ms. Toker and

Language Arts class with Kyle. The Holocaust was about the Nazis

having a mass genocide to eliminate people who were not blonde with

blue eyes, such as Jews, Gay, Mentally Challenged, and etc. people to

create the superior race. I never knew this had happened until we

learned about it. It made me curious about what if I was part of the

“superior race”, then I would not be killed and is prejudiced about what

had happened. Maybe guilty for letting innocent people die when they

did nothing to deserve the pain. Overall, learning about Apartheid and

the Holocaust stood out to me the most from when I was a freshman to

a junior.

This year was very different when I had Government and

Economics class. I was more interested about our society more than

previous years learning about history. Though the one assignment I

dreaded was the Human Nature paper because I didn’t know what

topic to choose to write about. I had many ideas, such as education



Econ Ivy Leung

Koh Iota


and laws. I changed around a lot before I made a decision on the topic

of feminism. When I chose this topic to write about, I was wondering

what role did women have in society in the past. I had an idea of

women being the stay at home kind of mom and I was right. To further

my assumption, I wrote a paper on it to prove my assumption was

right. I didn’t know where to start to find the information. I searched for

books in libraries about feminism and I used the majority of the books

for my paper. We also had an option of one Internet source, but I

couldn’t find anything as I was writing, so I stuck to the books I have

found in the library. When I was revising my paper, I saw I needed to

add another source in my paper to make it complete. Since I didn’t

have any of the books I have borrowed and I practically borrowed most

of the books I could find at the Chinatown branch library, I decided to

use the Internet to find more information on it. I found information

about women in the Victorian time period that I could use which

supported my thesis. It was interesting to know about the role of

women in different society. They were the stay at home kind of moms

and to this day, women were discriminated against the ability they can

work that men can do, such as being a doctor, lawyer, and many more.

Time is different now, but there are women who still want to be the

stay at home kind of mom and the working kind of mom as well.

Politics wasn’t a big issue that I care a lot about. I was not



Econ Ivy Leung

Koh Iota


interested in politics, but I know it was important to society. This year

we are voting for a new president and also I can vote. I think this really

effects me and makes me realize how important I am or will be to

society. I can finally say that I am really apart of our society trying to

make a difference by voting. It shows who I am and what I want to be

and that is to vote for a president that I think can run the U.S. Each

candidate is different in their views about different situations. I still

have no idea who I am going to vote for, but since I am part of society

towards the end of August, it will be time for me to contribute what I

think to society to make a change in our society.

I always thought to myself, what I will be like after I graduate

from high school. Where I will be? What kind of life do I have ahead of

me? Towards the end of this year, we had a personal finance unit

where we plan out or think out where we will be in four, six, ten years

after high school. I always dream of telling myself this what’s going to

happen in my life at every point. What I have written for my personal

finance, I would hope to come true, especially by the tenth year after

high school. I would like to be married by then and have at least one

kid. I would also like to be a successful Psychologist. If this happened, I

would say to myself, “Ivy, you knew this all along didn’t you…that you

have planned your life ahead and follow the road you wanted to”. If it

did happen, I would my children to try it in the future. That would be



Econ Ivy Leung

Koh Iota


great. They can see who they are and what they will become after high

school. This whole project had me thinking about my future and how I

dream of what will happen along with the goals I want to accomplish.

This project was interesting and fun to the point that I really enjoyed

working on. It’s a personal project about my life, which I get to see

what really does happen four, six, and ten years after high school.

Through my four years of high school, I can finally say that I am

no longer the girl who thinks history is so boring, but something

interesting to get to know what had happened in the past and learn

from it. Learning to know what we should continue to do and stop

doing as it may result in the next Holocaust. We cannot change history,

but we can change the current history we are in to not repeat in what

had happened in the past, such as voting for the next president who

can represent the citizens well or stopping racial discrimination. We

can change our current history if we tried and I am going to change

history by voting for the next president.

esgp history-social science reflection

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