IFP: The Lego Activity

The Lego activity (building a structure in silence while each person had an assigned individual agenda to complete) complicated collaboration attempts because of how each individual was focused on their own task, rather than paying attention to other people’s tasks and how they might interfere with others. My own assigned role (the leader, to help ensure everyone completed their tasks, which felt like a daunting task for me) helped me figure out halfway into the game that we needed to pay attention to others’ tasks to succeed. If one person was consistently changing the bottom four layers of the structure, everyone else needed to leave that part of the structure alone and adapt. We needed to note this without talking, showing the importance of awareness of others and consistently thinking about the greater good, especially within collaboration. It was because we didn’t do this that the goal wasn’t achieved in the end. 

 

The discussion we had after the activity when we all revealed our roles helped us figure out these truths, and we started to see how each of our individual roles would influence other tasks. When reflecting, we each took turns to share our roles and our feelings about them, and I actually feel like the discussion helped to strengthen relationships between us as we listened to each other and saw the activity from their perspective. 

 

This activity revealed a lot about the nature of collaboration, and that everyone always has their own individual agenda, however, the key to collaboration is awareness of others’ agenda and then adapting your own to fit theirs in order to achieve a greater good. Compromise, assuming positive intentions (the other people usually only interfere with your activities to achieve their own agenda, never out of malicious intent for you) and awareness of self and others proved the key to succeeding, so in the future, these are the things that I would like to focus on in order to become a more effective team player.

How does religion affect the Bhutanese people’s daily lives?

How does religion affect the Bhutanese people’s daily lives?

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How does religion affect Bhutanese people’s
daily lives?

Grade 9 Bhutan Expedition Exploration

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Featured image depicts Tiger’s Nest Monastery (Paro, Bhutan) 

Some say that “If you didn’t go to the Eiffel Tower, you weren’t in Paris.” In the mountainous, mysterious country of Bhutan, they say that “If you didn’t go to Tiger’s Nest, you weren’t in Bhutan.” If you’re wondering, Tiger’s Nest is a monastery located on a clifftop 3100 metres above sea level. The hike there is 4 hours up, 3 down. It’s definitely not like the Eiffel Tower.

This only showcases a small part of the reverence the Bhutanese have for their many, many monasteries hidden behind tree-topped peaks, and rock faces thousands of metres high. The Bhutanese people believe in Mahayana Buddhism, the type of Buddhism that dominates central Asia, but these mountain people have added their own twists and created their own legends, centuries-old tales that have been sheltered by the protective walls of the mountains, and kept safely in the rural towns and villages ensconced in trees. and still take part in Bhutanese people’s daily lives to this day.

In fact, Bhutanese people are always free to visit the monasteries, (well, during visiting hours, that is) and many often do. According to our guides, on weekends and holidays it is very common for people to visit monasteries to meditate and/or pray. When faced with the large, usually bronze statues of the Buddha, they press their palms together above their forehead, in front of their lips, and to their chest, each gesture in succession, and then bow down to worship the large, majestic statue in front of them. They also believe in gods, and oftentimes beside the Buddha you will see smaller (but still impressive) statues of various different gods. Some temples contain statues that represent the Buddhas of the past, present, and future (the present being the main statue in the middle), and others depict gods of longevity or important deities that vanquished demons. Tiger’s Nest, arguably the most famous monastery in Bhutan, was built for a man who rode to the cliffside on a flying tiger, to fight a demon that was terrorizing the people.

People can even visit the temples and monasteries where the King holds his court. Yes, Bhutan is governed by men sitting inside the walls of monasteries, which once again showcases the importance that Buddhism has inside Bhutan. Every major monastery, or dzong, holds a big festival for one selected month of the year, where music, dance, and drama take place to teach the people about Buddhism through legendary myths. Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, has its festival during September, and all the 100,000 people living there come to Thimphu-dzong to celebrate and learn about a religion that has infused Bhutanese culture for the ages.

However, religion and culture in Bhutan is not all song and dance. It would be untruthful for me to report that the culture in Bhutan wouldn’t offend many people. It can be extremely sexist. The following example describes a central legend in Bhutanese culture, and I say now that some may be affected deeply by these next few paragraphs. Now is the time to look away, if the issue of consent triggers you deeply.

One of the most common Bhutanese myths involves a ‘divine madman’. In Eastern Bhutan, young men take the stories of this ‘divine madman’, who was a great mythological figure that lived thousands of years ago, and then translate them to their own lives. The ‘divine madman’ was thought to be mad, as his name suggests, as he taught Buddhism in a way the Bhutanese people had never seen before. According to the stories, the ‘divine madman’ subjugated a fearsome demoness, and taught Buddhism using his three values. Unlike most stories, he did not value purity, honor, or anything of the sort, no, he valued women, alcohol, and the phallus. This is why the Bhutanese thought he was mad. However, the stories of his escapades involve the subduing of demonesses, which gained him the admiration of the people. I shall leave you to connect the rest of the dots yourself.

Some may have already heard of ‘phallic symbols’ decorating the walls of Bhutanese houses, and models of phalluses lining shop shelves for tourists to buy. The monastery of the divine madman’s brother, blessed by the divine madman himself, is the final resting place of the main demoness the divine madman subjugated, and is also known as the temple of fertility. Married couples go to this monastery to pray for the blessing of children.

The national sport of Bhutan, archery (which women do not participate in) also showcases these three values. When the man hits the target with his arrow (some targets are 150m away), female dancers perform a ritual song carrying jars of alcohol, another one of the divine madman’s values.

Another way the divine madman stories really affect the Bhutanese people’s lives resides in the harshly steep slopes of the Himalayas of Eastern Bhutan. The Bhutanese young men, in the spirit of the ‘divine madman’, climb the walls of the houses of the girls they like, and break in through the windows, to chat and get to know the woman who lives inside. It is deeply rooted inside Bhutanese culture for the girl to consent to such things.

It is difficult to see such things in our modern world. We have come a long way from pitting slaves against each other to fight to the death for entertainment, but it could still be argued that we have not come far enough. Subjugation of our fellow human is the snake that slithers through the whole timeline of human history, even now, and this trip to Bhutan let me catch a better glimpse of the scales of such a beast. I hope that in the future, we will finally see the whole body of this serpent, and prevent it from injecting its venom into civilization.

Thank you for reading.

Greta Thunberg and Techno-Optimism: Discussion

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Greta Thunberg and Techno-Optimism
Discussion

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28th March 2019
In this discussion, my group and I discussed the question, “Does Greta Thunberg’s advocacy help us feel more techno-optimistic about the future?”

The recording is HERE
Our notes document is HERE

Credits to: Uditi Gupta, Raaghavi Samai and Aya Okumura

An Unlikely Classroom Environment

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An Unlikely Classroom Environment
22nd January 2019

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In this emotional rollercoaster of a talk, Martin Suarez retells the heart-wrenching stories of two of his students, who he met when he was doing volunteer work as a teacher in a maximum security prison in Argentina.

Gaby and German had come from entirely different backgrounds. Gaby had grown up with an abusive father, and at the age of 13, fatally struck his father and ran into the streets with his mother. It was inevitable for him to enter a life of crime, he had no choice in the matter. German, however, was an educated and artistic man, whose family supported him when he made an awful mistake and went to prison. Both men attended Suarez’s lessons, and were ‘strong leaders’, as Suarez puts it. They had not only physical strength, but mental strength as well. Suarez talks of how Gaby would teach others to read and write, and how German would carry people to classes so that they could learn, and would paint pictures for the orphans. Gaby even studied law while in prison, and had completed 90% of the work to obtain a degree. However, both men had reached different endings. Suarez suspects that Gaby has gone back into crime, while German got a job due to a feat of kindness and his skilled hands, and tends to an old man’s machinery.

Suarez was first motivated to volunteer when he witnessed a prison maths class. He “saw human beings just like [him]”, loving and respecting a teacher in the name of education. Suarez realised that these juvenile-yet-not-juvenile people had just been the victim of ignorance, whether that be from stupidly making a mistake that landed them in prison, or growing up like Gaby, without the education or the means to bring themselves out of the never-ending cycle of pain they were born into.

But Suarez also realised, that “education is so powerful”, and is an door that leads to a whole new hallway, with even more doors, for you to explore and learn, and this is how we stop ignorance. This is how we stop the problems that we have in this world, by educating ourselves to rid our prejudices, and realise that everyone deserves a second chance, or a third, or a fourth. We are all made up of the same things, after all. So we must ask ourselves, “What can I do for others from here?” (German), and realise that, “The past was destined, the present is inevitable, but the future is up to me.” (Gaby).