Elective reading journal entry:

I did two elective readings, reading the article about Grant and Lee as well as watching the youtube video of Maya Lin and the Vietman Veterans Memorial. The article really resonated me, as I realized that history is not black and white; though we typically learn history from the perspective of the winners, this article helped me see that the Union was not purely good, and the Confederates were not completely bad during the Civil War, and history as we knew it would be completely different had the Confederates won. Thus, to accurately analyze history, we must look at it from many different perspectives to acquire a better understanding of what was going on.

Documentation:

We interviewed multiple people and asked them a few questions, and they responded as follows: Q - Do you think all muslims are terrorists? A - No, we do not. Q - Do you actively go out and participate in marches to prevent others from thinking that they are? A - No, we do not. Q - In the Holocaust, the Nazis were able to stay in power due to the citizens who didn’t take action. A - Oh, I didn't think of it that way. Thus, we are repeating a similar mistake of the past (though obviously it has not been to the same extent currently), demonstrating that we do not learn from mistakes in history.

Extension:

We proposed the inclusion of the following essential questions to the list: "How does the perception of mistakes (based on culture) change the lessons that can be learned for history?" and "Can history in the context of this question include non-significant events?" Exploring either question would significantly help us better understand History as an AOK, and both are highly related to the AOK, so we believe that these would be great additions to the list of essential questions.