Nora's Western Civ Blog

Today you asked us to write about our thoughts of what you posted on your blog today about the struggles that everyone is facing regarding cyber school. For me, this is something I think about a lot. The main topic that I worry about is the integrity part. I have found myself multiple times talking to people in my class on the phone and trying to understand the material and then realize that I am probably getting too much information from them. The few quizzes that I have had it is hard to not cleat when you have the opportunity to do it. I think that the workload is a lot and you do not really think about how much work you do at school because you are at school, but when you are at home you have to focus yourself and do all your work with limited help. I also understand that this must be hard on the teachers to help the students and to get their work done as well. I feel like this time is really difficult, but I also feel that the difficulties we face during cyber school are better th

Today our assignment was to compare the plague that hit Athens to COVID-19. The main difference that I first think of is that the plague in Athens was not a pandemic like COVID-19 is. A second difference is that the plague in Athens lasted for 4 years, hopefully there is a difference here and COVID-19 will not last that long. A third difference is that the plague came from Africa and COVID-19 comes from China. Another thing that I hope to be a difference is the fact that the plague killed 1/3 of the population, and I hope that COVID-19 does not kill that many people. As a last difference the plague does not seem like something many people survived, while coronavirus many people will survive and recover quickly. A similarity of the two diseases are the symptoms. According to the internet the symptoms of coronavirus are: - cough -fever -tiredness -difficulty breathing (severe cases) According to Thucydides the symptoms of the plague in Athens were: "Violent heats in the head;

Today we were assigned to write brief biographies on Phillip II, Alexander the Great, and Darius III. Starting with Phillip II here are some important facts about him: -he was the king of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, England, and Ireland -he was born in 1527 to Charles V and Isabella of Portugal -he was the king of Spain during the Spanish Golden Age -he led a debt-leveraged regime, saw many bankruptcies, and under his rule 9,000 men were recruited from Spain next, Alexander the Great: -he was the king of Macedon -he was born in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip III -his father was assassinated and it was hard for Alexander to become king -many of his years that he was ruling he was on a military campaign and was undefeated in battle for 15 years and named many cities after himself including one named after his horse -he was tutored by Aristotle as a child and took over his father and ruled over the kingdom -Alexander died at the very young age of 32 of unknown ca

Today we were assigned to research about the relationship between Alexander the Great and his horse Bucephalus. I found a lot of information about them and their special relationship. I found that they were inseparable and that Alexander was the only one that could ride him. Alexander met Bucephalus  when he was brought to Macedonia and presented to Alexander's father. Everyone thought that the horse was wild, and Alexander's father wanted him to be sent away. Alexander went against his father and stood up and asked to keep him. He approached the horse and named him. Alexander found out why Bucephalus was acting so crazy and that was because he was afraid of his own shadow. Alexander mounted him right there and rode him away. Starting from that first day when Bucephalus and Alexander met they had a unique relationship and went through many battles together and ended up dying after the Battle of Hydaspes River. I used to own a horse of my own and can relate to some extent on the

Today is the last day of the first week of cyber school. So far, I have had mixed feelings about cyber school. There are some things that I really like about it and some things that I hate. Most of my classes (except for English) are giving an adequate amount of work in my opinion. The only class I feel overwhelmed by is English, because it feels like we are having more work in a day then we would have in like three days of regular school. I also like cyber school because it is helping me learn ways to be more productive. I have been getting up and starting my work, and not sleeping all day like some other people are doing. I like also that I can make my own schedule. I feel like I am doing a pretty good job at keeping up with all my work which is making it much easier on myself. The main thing that I do not like about cyber school is just not being at school. Getting up and going to school is actually fun for me and I look forward to going to some of my classes. I miss the excitement

Socrates and Sophists like Protagorus would have started questioning traditional beliefs at this particular point in history for a few reasons. Socrates, first started by standing his ground about the the crime of the Athenians sailing back to Athens without picking up any of the soldiers that had fallen overboard. Socrates' view was that this crime was not bad enough for the people to be killed and that the assembly needed to calm down and he made it clear that he was going to stand his ground and vote against it because it was the wrong thing to do. Instead of listening to society these men listened to what their own reasoning said to do and not what the society was telling to to think or believe. I think that Socrates and the other philosophers knew that many of the things that the Greek society taught did not make sense and they believed that the teachings were wrong. I think that there were other people in the society that also felt that way but that many people were too afrai

After the Athenians made their plan, it did not unfold quite the way that they expected it to. Along with the shipments that came from overseas, the plague came to Athens. Many people got it including Pericles. Many people became very ill and many died. Pericles had planned to make Athens into the Mediterranean's creates power, but he unfortunately died from the plague. Pericles underestimated that there are things that are out of the control of the very best knowledge. After Pericles died, people realized that Pericles was the glue that was holding Athens together. After he died there were swift and dramatic changes. The flaws that were present in the Athenian democracy now became visible. Without Pericles, many individuals were fighting to become the leader. Athenian democracy now revealed a new and scary potential to slide into mob rule. This caused Athens ability to fight in a war to be damaged. P

Pericles was a statesmen. He was the leader of Athens from 461-429 BC, which included most of Athens "golden age." Pericles was known for the three goals that he put in place, which were to make Athens democracy stronger, to strengthen the empire, and to bring glory to Athens. One of the main ways that Pericles achieved the goal of making Athens democracy stronger was by establishing a direct democracy. A direct democracy is a government where the citizens rule directly and not through representatives. In a direct democracy the people chose everything, whether it is deciding on a leader or deciding on a law, the people are the ones who vote. This type of government was unique to Athens and most other city states did not use it. Pericles strengthened the empire by creating an extremely strong navy, which helped keep Athens more safe. Pericles' last goal was to glorify Athens, which he did by making it outwardly beautiful. The Delian League was created after the Battle of P

Today we spent our whole class talking about the corona virus. It seems that we will be getting off of school for weeks and according to you maybe a month. You talked to us about how cyber school might work for your class. You also gave us an overview of how the corona virus works and gave us lots of information about it. You told us to use hand sanitizer and wash our hands, and also to sanitize our phones so that the germs from our phones do not get on our hands. You let us ask many questions about the virus, and about what we are going to do about it. You knew the answers to almost all the questions we asked since you have been reading and researching about it a lot. I am not really scared of getting the corona virus, but it kind of scares me that it has become a pandemic. It is scary to think that it is going to be here for so long and that it is killing so many people. But, we can only do so much and a lot of it is out of our control.

Today in class we restarted the video and figured out how to watch it together as a class. Our sub played the video for us and we watched it together and took some notes. The video is about ancient Greece and how the civilization came to be. It focused on the war between Athens and Sparta. It was not thought that the Greeks would win, but they beat the Persians. They slaughtered over 6,000 Persians in one day. The important thing about the Athenians is that they wanted to keep their democracy alive. An important battle that was fought was the battle at Marathon. Thamistaclies was known as one of Athens greatest leaders. He realized that the battle between the Persians was not over and that they had to be prepared. He created the trireme, which was a weapon itself that caused the Greeks to become even better at naval battle. When the Persian king Darius the Great died, his son took over. He was determined to burn Athens and he said he would not stop until it was done. News got back to A

This video is talking about how Greece came to be and talks about Greece's golden age. This video features many professors who talk about Greece and its history. This video especially focuses on Cleisthenes, and talked a lot about his childhood and how he was raised with a wealthy family. It also talked a lot about Homer and the Illiad and the Oddessy. It explains how stories were told by word of mouth and how they passed down from generation to generation. There was a tyrant that was also focused on in this video for all the things that he did like giving loans, starting the olive oil business. He was known for bringing a tall girl to Athens and then taking over. This was only the first part of the video, but it went further in depth than what we have just learned in this class so far. I found this video to be pretty interesting and helped me understand some of the history a little more.

Today in class we reviewed and then took a pop quiz on Greece. To wrap up the week here are some key notes that I have taken: the Greek gods interact with humans which is unique Zeus-ruler of heaven; god of sky, weather, thunder, lightning, law, order, and justice, he had a temper and hurled thunderstorms Athena- goddess of wisdom, skill, warfare, intelligence, battle strategy, and handicrafts  Greeks were warlike people Spartans known for tough, ruthless infantry, the boys were started training at the age of 7 nothing could compare to Athens navy, their most effective weapon was the trireme trireme: a technological marvel, fastest ship in the world at the time, rowed by up to 170 men on three levels, could be used as a battering ram, agile and fast phalanx: close-rank, dense grouping of warriors, armed with long spears and interlocking shields, soldiers would advance slowly toward the enemy until they broke through their ranks Philosopherlapalooza- Socrates: looked to scienc

Today in class we talked about the three philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We started with Socrates, here are some notes about him: he looked at science and logic, he did not teach about the traditional Greek gods he started the Socratic Method which has been used to this day a famous quote of Socrates is "the unexamined life is not worth living" he was charged with impiety and corruption of youth, at his trial he did not deny what he did and he was put to death Next, we talked about Plato. Here are some of the notes about him: Plato was a student and a follower of Socrates he wrote about the teachings of Socrates in his work the Apology  the Republic was how Socrates discussed justice Lastly we talked about Aristotle. Here are some notes about him: he was a student of Plato at the Academy he said that Athens was an intellectual destination his school was called the Lyceum and it focused on cooperative research  his thoughts were the ideas t

Today in class we took notes off of slides 33-47 of the ancient Greece power point. Here are some of the key notes that I took: the Greek gods interact with humans which is unique Zeus-ruler of heaven; god of sky, weather, thunder, lightning, law, order, and justice, he had a temper and hurled thunderstorms Athena- goddess of wisdom, skill, warfare, intelligence, battle strategy, and handicrafts  Greeks were warlike people Spartans known for tough, ruthless infantry, the boys were started training at the age of 7 nothing could compare to Athens navy, their most effective weapon was the trireme trireme: a technological marvel, fastest ship in the world at the time, rowed by up to 170 men on three levels, could be used as a battering ram, agile and fast phalanx: close-rank, dense grouping of warriors, armed with long spears and interlocking shields, soldiers would advance slowly toward the enemy until they broke through their ranks Philosopherlapalooza- Socrates: looked to scie