HACE

Health and Career Education 9: English

On the 24th of November we had 2 blocks of Health and Career Education. The school had invited a teacher from safe-teen workshop. We were able to learn multiple ways to be safe and fun throughout all high school years, such as ways to avoid conflicts, safe relationship between male and female and no drugs. It was different experience from HACE that I had last year because everything seemed more comfortable, especially the teacher. He was outgoing and I especially enjoyed how he casually talked toward the kids like anybody unlike teacher who seems little bit more uncomfortable.

One of the thing I really enjoyed was during the program was learning ways to avoid conflicts. Some of us got to act like a bully and the one who gets bullied or at least to be bugged. From this experience we were able to learn there are 3 ways people can react when someone bugs you; violence, gets bullied or being like a wall. Their main purpose was to teach us to be firm as a wall and able to stay calm as the bully irritates you. Most priority thing is to make an eye contact and breathe slowly and calmly.

It was also very interesting to learn about relationship between boy and a girl. I think hearing from a safe-teen worker; he seemed to be using more realistic examples, such as from his own experience. He told us the key thing toward relationship is conversation. It is most important thing to do when they are a couple whenever they goes to the next step they must agree by verbally and physically.

From my personal experiences, I think it is best to give respect to earn respect. In most part of situation it is best to not be rude or lash. By being respectful and paying attention to other, they be more comfortable and does the same for you. By starting respecting others does the same.

Overall I think it was defiantly an interesting class and I had learned lots of new informations about having a healthy relationship. I think it wasn’t waste of two hours, and I really recommend to the next year grade nines.

Should we continue blogging?

Ms. Lees gave us assignment to answer following question, “Should we continue blogging?” It is a simple question but there are lots of different views you can look at because it has both strength and weakness. In this essay I would also like to give both point of view but also choose which side I think is more beneficial overall.

When using a blogger, we can learn multiple different skills, such as using blogger, proper structure and constructive comments to give other people feedback on their posts. Blogger can be very useful in the future such as other school works or even in university it might be useful to work with. Using constructive can be very useful but requires lots of thinking. You need to write an encouraging feedback to the writer but also can’t be too critic which can also kill the writer’s self-esteem. It has both benefits for the reader and the writer.

Not everything is perfect in this world, even the blog has disadvantage. I am pretty sure that most of our classmates are around age of 14, which also called teenagers. In this twenty first century there are millions of teenagers are who are addict to Facebook and cannot live with them. I also myself, it is great difficulty for me to not to go on Facebook a single day. Blog has to be done on computer and as you work it is easily tempted by other thing such as Facebook and YouTube.

I think we should continue blogging because experience such as this, it is better to do it younger so you have lots of common knowledge before the senior grade. Not all the kids are interest in Facebook or YouTube nor tempted as they work. It could also be self-challenge whether you can withstand the temptations.

Question #1 revised

Geoffrey Trease in his novel “Cue for Treason” examines a boy named Peter that is forced to become heroic and brave to save Queen Elizabeth. However, before he becomes the heroic character that he becomes, he runs away and hides. This is because he threw a rock at Sir Phillip, who is a cruel knight that controls the Law and lots of evil men working for him, and he is after Peter. Indeed Peter was a coward when he was running away, but there must be a reason that Geoffrey Trease chose him as the main character. The reason is that even though Peter runs away, he comes back later with more knowledge and strength to conquer his problem. Therefore, through the use of Peter, Geoffrey Trease suggests that hiding from one’s problems, examining solutions to fix it, then facing it is the best way to overcome difficult times.

In the first couple of chapters, Peter gets himself into a heap of trouble, facing the possibility of death many times. This trouble is sparked when Sir Phillips arrives with his horsemen to the wall oh his family’s land. This wall was in their possession but Sir Phillip still wanted it down. Peter, taking responsibility of the problem thinks quickly and decides to throw a rock at Sir Phillip; however the rock did reach its target. This is when Peter runs away, knowing that Sir Phillip, his men, and the Law are after him. However, Peter is the protagonist in the story and usually, in novels, the protagonist overcomes the problem without the need to run away. Geoffrey Trease uses his message in order to explain why he chose Peter as the protagonist.

The oddity of using a protagonist that runs’ away not facing their own problems is explained when the reader examines the author’s theme. Geoffrey Trease is illustrating throughout the book that even though one may hide from their fears and problems, they must face them with greater knowledge on the problem and fix it. His message explains the necessity for Peter to run away because from running away, he has found refuge from Sir Phillip and can find ways to solve that problem; in this case, stopping a conspiracy. In the conclusion of the story, Peter comes back with help from the Secret Service to put an end to Sir Phillip and his evil crew. However, either hiding from one’s own fears or facing them is examined in this story. Hence, through the use of Peter, he illustrates that running away from one’s own problems and facing them with greater wisdom is essential to overcome one’s problems.

Geoffrey Trease's message also coincides with real life incidents from people’s lives. For example, when the Canadian troops had to back out from the Afghanistan terrorist’s forward defences. They retreated and hid, like Peter in the novel. Indeed they hid like Peter but also parallel to Peter’s actions, they waited for defences and attacked with greater wisdom from aerial images. Therefore, Geoffrey Trease’s message does not only serve a use for a story, but to real life incidents too.

Question 3 revised

The question was “What kind of hero is Peter? Or is one at all? First we need to understand why he was recognized as a hero. Peter Brownrigg, a plain 15 year-old boy who lived in Elizabethan England time. He is a runaway boy who becomes a boy actor in London. He was trying to run away from Sir Philip. He coincidently overhears the fact that Sir Philip was planning to asasinate Queen Elizabeth. They go on an adventure with Kit (Katharine Russell) and Tom Boyd. In the last moment they got to stop Sir Philip’s assassin.

What is a hero? It said, “A man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength” (http://dictionary.canadaspace.com/definition/hero/). Did Peter have exceptional courage, nobility and strength? Also a hero could be mentioned person to be admired. In ‘The Canadian Dictionary’ has emphasize the fact a true hero is should be admired. Also one of my favorite actors, named Jet Li (yes, he does kung-fu movies) once had said in a movie, “Hero shows you how to solve the problem - yourself.” The problem was solved in the conclusion of the story to end as a happy ending, but he doesn’t seem to be qualifying as a hero.
Now we can ask ourselves what is can Peter Brownrigg to be recognized as hero? In the question it mentioned something called “accidental heroes”. Peter went to investigate the situation because it was queen’s order which he had to obey. This story takes place in Elizabethan England, which is around 16th century. During the time the kings or queens orders were absolute. To me, he doesn’t seem to be doing an exceptional brave job with his own will.

An example of true hero in the past is Joan of Arc. She has all the circumstances as a hero. First Joan is a woman, who has no need to fight in a war, but she believed her courage and belief. She wasn’t scared of death and headed straight to the battle field with army. In today society lots of woman respect her bravery also she represents great part of woman’s rights. Comparing to Peter Joan of Arc has far more bravery, also should be much more respected and admired.

Peter Brownrigg does not qualify as a hero in any ways, also he did not work for to be recognized as one. He did not have courage or strength to be a hero, also his order to investigate was an absolute. In this essay, it has stated several more reasons why Peter is not hero.

Resource

http://homepage.smc.edu/jones_janie/ta%202/3shakespeareanera.htm

This website is a good, simple reference to help you understand more of the Shakespearean time period.

Question 1 Response

In the novel, Peter is the protagonist who runs away from Sir Philip, the antagonist. Typically, the protagonist would not flee from the antagonist. The author might have made this unusual decision for the main character so that the story would be more entertaining and realistic. By describing the Shakespearean England through the eyes of a typical peasant of the time and not through the the nobles or other higher members of the hierarchy, the story can be expressed in the opinion similar the majority. Back in the time of the story, most of the people were somewhat like Peter, and so this choice of a protagonist must be more suitable.

Having Peter run away from Sir Philip would also tie into how the author sends his message about running away from one's troubles. The novel began with Peter getting in trouble by trying to hit Sir Philip with a rock. It didn't turn out good so he ran away in fear of being caught by Sir Philip and his people. Later in the story when Peter realizes that Sir Philip was in the conspiracy to kill the Queen, he had to go back and face Sir Philip again. At the end of the story, Sir Philip was caught and executed, thanks to Peter being brave enough to go back and face his troubles.

From reading the novel, hiding from one's troubles can go both ways. When Peter first ran away from Sir Philip, everything seemed to turn out for the bad. His parents were upset and he was scared himself. During his journey with the traveling actors, he went through many tough times and worked very hard to keep himself alive. It also caused him to later risk his life to protect the Queen by finding out about the conspiracy. However, at the end of the novel, he ended up with a pretty good life. He's married and has kids. Thinking back, it might be worth all of it. But if his journey ended anywhere before he got married, then it would have been more trouble than the one he started out with.

Whether to avoid or to face one's troubles depends on the situation. Sometimes, both facing and avoiding troubles could mean getting into more trouble. Sometimes, it could mean solving the problem right there. If trouble is in the form of breaking a vase or something, avoiding it would mean to lie about who did it. In order to cover up a lie, one usually has to cover it up with a bunch of other lies, which is more trouble. Facing it would mean to confess and get it over with. Sure it may mean punishment but it saves more troubles. For the Jews who fled Nazi Germany to avoid their troubles, that proved to be better than going straight up to Hitler and facing him.

In my opinion, facing my troubles would be better in most situations than avoiding them. It normally saves the burden of the constant worrying on how to avoid the trouble. Facing it and getting it over with would be more relieving to me. Unless the punishment is really great, I think facing your troubles would be the better choice.

question 3

The question was “What kind of hero is Peter? Or is one at all? First we need to understand why he was recognized as a hero. Peter Brownrigg, a plain 15 year-old boy who lived in Elizabethan England time. He is a runaway boy who becomes a boy actor in London. He was trying to run away from Sir Philip. He coincidently overhears the fact that Sir Philip was planning to asasinate Queen Elizabeth. They go on an adventure with Kit (Katharine Russell) and Tom Boyd. In the last moment they got to stop Sir Philip’s assassin.

What is a hero? So I decided to search it up. It said, “A man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength” (http://dictionary.canadaspace.com/definition/hero/). Did Peter have exceptional courage, nobility and strength? Also hero could be mentioned person to be admired. In Canadian dictionary it has emphasize the fact a true hero is should be admired. Also one of my favourite actor, named Jet Li(yes, he does kung-fu movies) ones had said in a movie, “Hero shows you how to solve the problem - yourself.” Yes, the problem was solved but it didn’t seem like he took the situation seriously but an accident to solve the problem.

Now we can ask ourselves what is can Peter Brownrigg to be recognized as hero? Also in the question it mentioned something called “accidental heroes”, but Peter went to investigate because it was queen’s order which he had to obey, by looking at their culture back then in the 16th century. To me, he doesn’t seemed to be doing an exceptional brave job with his own will.

An example of true hero in the past is Joan of Arc. Because she has all the circumstances as an hero. First Joan is a woman who have no need to fight in a war, but she took her courage and belief, she wasn’t scared of death and headed to the battle field with army. In today society lots of woman respect her bravery also great part of woman rights. Comparing to Peter Joan has far more bravery, also should be much more respected and admired.