Week of September 8th and 10th: Discussion and prepping canvases

In class on September 8^th, we discussed how history can be biased. In this discussion we talked about how when history in taught in schools, there can be “selective memory”. For example, we talked about people who are rarely discussed in classrooms. From Dolores Huerta to John Brown, classrooms have the tendency to leave out figures who could be seen as controversial. Dr. Johnson said that this was due to the fact that history books are written by people who do not want this stuff talked about, and I agree to a point. I am aware of how textbooks can be very biased when it comes to remembering how history went down (like how World War II is a huge focal point in classrooms, but the Japanese internment camps in the US are rarely mentioned in class, or the lack of pages on women and people of color). I also believe, that history is such a huge topic to talk about, and there are so many people to cover, that sometimes people are left out.

In my AP US history class in high school, I had a teacher who focused both on what was going to be covered on our test and on what he felt was important for us to know. I think it is up to the teachers (with the approval of their principal) on how much they want to deviate from the textbooks and curriculum, to teach their students about figures in history who are equally as important as the ones we learn about in textbooks.

In this class period we also were assigned a project called Unsung Heroes. For this project we were assigned a person who we had not heard of before (I was given Dolores Huerta) and were supposed to make an art piece symbolic of what they stood for, along with facts on our person. It was to be due on October 6^th.

In class on September 10^th, we started working on the canvasses that we would use for painting with a twist. We built our canvasses by framing two pieces of wood, and pulling a piece of canvas linen around the frames and borders. After making sure they were on tight, we stapled them onto the wood, and then went on to paint the canvases white. Then we let them dry for next week.