Today after the talk by author-photographer Richard Sobol, we make connections between our unit concepts and the ideas that Mr. Sobol demonstrated for us through his presentations.
Comment on the following in a concise 200 word comment to this post:
- What connections can we make between ideas that we discover in our lives and ideas that we discover in our work? Does life begin where work ends, or are they integrated in our experiences? How?
- What connections can we make between our school mission statement and the Delicious Peace coffee cooperative?
- Do you see a pattern emerging between what you study and the world? Explain.
Follow up: Read each other’s comments and reply to 2 comments made by your classmates.
The Learner's Toolbox 
Ideas that we discover in our lives and in our work help us learn or become wiser. Ideas, lessons, and knowledge that we find anywhere can help us improve ourselves. Ideas that we discover through our work doesn’t need to apply to us only in our work but it might be able to help us live better. The same goes to ideas I don’t think life begins when work ends. If life begins when work ends, then we wouldn’t get to live life since work will never end. At almost every time in our life, we have a type of work to attend to. Work is integrated in our lives. We learn from our work and learn to live at the same time.
Our school statement mentioned making a difference in the world. The Delicious Peace coffee cooperative wants to spread peace throughout the world. Both Concordian and Delicious Peace aim to making a difference in the world. Delicious Peace wants to make a difference in the world by spreading peace. Concordian nurtures students to be someone who makes an impact on the world.
We have to apply our understanding that we gain from studying and adapt it to the world. Studying educates and prepares us for the obstacles of the world that we will face later. Both studying and the world has problems for us to overcome. The difference is that in studying, there are teachers to guide you. This will prepare you for challenges that you have to solve on your own later in life.
I agree with your points stating that work is integrated in our lives. I am surprised by how we have similar ideas about work and life. I really agree with how you said we wouldn’t get to live life since work will never end. It is true because work takes almost a lifetime and people will need to live life along with their work.
Prim, what challenges and obstacles do you foresee that you will be able to tackle with what you are learning and what you understand?
Challenges and obstacles that we will face in our work will need tactics and wise decisions in solving. What we learn would help on that area since “book knowledge” isn’t the only thing we learn from school. We learn to solve everyday problems and we build skill with that. What we study helps too. All the subjects that we studied help us to be more intelligent and witty. Being smart can sometimes help us make better decisions. For example, if you study Business and when you get older you face a problem dealing with business, you can use your knowledge in Business to help you solve the problem.
I think that the connections that we make between ideas that we discover in our lives, and what we learn about are evident in every day life. One of the most visible connections for me is learning appreciation and respect. Some of the aspects of the dystopian novels that we’ve been reading in class have opened my eyes more and learning about the world and current events has also really inspired me and made me grateful for what I have. Another thing that school has taught me is how to respect others and their opinions. Doing work with groups or hearing about the beliefs of other people has made me accustomed to accepting different points of view and taught me how to work with other people. This will help me in life later on because when I’m older, group collaboration and having respect for others will help me be successful, and in this way work and life are integrated. The school mission statements talks about “nurturing young people” to “become people of dignity, integrity, and compassion”. I see a connection between this and the Delicious Peace Coffee Cooperative because of the Coffee Cooperative’s ideals of accepting others for their religion and backgrounds and being able to work together for better, which has a lot to do with dignity, integrity, and compassion for others. I am starting to see a pattern between what I learn at school and what I see in life. As I get older, I am beginning to be able to see through community service work I’ve done and through what I’ve learned how important it is to have the qualities listed in the mission statement and how these directly relate to being a successful human being.
Charlotte, I can see how your mention of the service learning you are passionate about is how you integrate the school learning and the relevance you see in your work and in your life. How would you extend this integration into the insights about narrative arc in dystopian literature–how we create solutions to perceived needs and problems, and the consequences of those solutions?
One of the connections we can make between ideas we discover in our lives and ideas we discover in our work is the sense that we are always meeting new people, whether it’s at the grocery store or at school. Life and work are integrated into our experiences in that everything that happens to us in both shapes us into who we are.
The Delicious Peace coffee cooperative relates to the ‘moral and intellectual leader’ part of our mission statement. The man who thought of the idea was a moral and intellectual leader because he realized in face of their differences, people of other religions could work together to best benefit everyone. He showed that everyone could get along despite the problems that were happening in the rest of the world.
One pattern that I see emerging between what we have studied and the world is the sense of segregation. In both The Handmaid’s Tale and Never Let Me Go, segregation and suppression are major themes that have been and continue to be appearing in the real world. We already have experienced glimpses of the happenings in these two novels through slavery, apartheid, and the Holocaust, and are still experiencing racism, sexism, and prejudice today.
I agree that every experience shape us. Every obstacle that we had overcome help us to be stronger. Every mistakes we’ve made help us learn and not to repeat our mistakes.
I agree that the man who made Delicious Peace coffe cooperative is moral and intellectual. He was very thoughtful and wanted peace. If everyone is like him, then there wouldn’t be wars.
I didn’t think of relating this to the novels that we are reading. Nice perspective on that. 😀 I agree that segregation appears in both those novels and the real world. Though we all try to eliminate these segregations in the world, we can’t eradicate it completely. There are still lots of bias thoughts.
Chelsea, what you see as the major themes that connect both human history and literature are valuable insights. There are connections to the solution found by the Delicious Peace village cooperative. Why did the leadership in the cooperative work? How did they pull their community together and what were the consequences of these actions?
The association between life and work for me, is summed up in the word called ‘experience.’ We unconsciously develop experience in our daily routine where we barely realize it. Because of the integrated experiences that inaugurates in everything we do each day, I believe experiences that happen to us in life could be summed up in both our work and what we do. The product of what we gain from these experiences could vary from head to toe. But generally, I believe that wisdom and knowledge in certain areas where we had developed experiences would be the main achievement where we could achieve through our learning. Concordian International School has stated in their mission statement about how they would nurture their students to develop compassion and to be able to make a difference in the world. The comparison of this similarity could also relate to the Delicious Peace coffee cooperative. The fact that JJ Keki, founder of the cooperative, has not just only unite the different religions in Uganda together but also create a new way of living for the Ugandans to survive is a gargantuan achievement that definitely made a difference in this world and also a clue that illustrates his compassion towards his fellow nation. From what I have heard today from Mr. Sobol, it’s undeniably true that these worldwide patterns of life could relate to our school life study. The systematic extent of novelty or newness in learning and in today’s world is a blatant relationship between the building blocks of how these two things relate. Each and every definition of how the world today and our daily school learning changes exemplifies the way of how parallel these two topics are alike to one another.
I feel that the part “we unconsciously develop experience in our daily routine where we barely realize it” is very, very well said. We do gain more experience from each and everything we do without really realizing it ourselves; I also agree that experiences that we gain from living and working could vary from head to toe, as you said. At the same time, these varying experiences that we have gained unconsciously during our lifetime also teach us various life lessons that, this time, we actually do learn it consciously if we bother to pay good attention. Your comparison between the things that we are currently studying about and how it parallels with today’s world is very thoughtful to me. I like your use of vocabulary 😀
Pat, what do you mean by this sentence, “The systematic extent of novelty or newness in learning and in today’s world is a blatant relationship between the building blocks of how these two things relate”? How does novelty strengthen the relationships between ideas? Your comment about wisdom as a byproduct of learning is interesting. How could you demonstrate wisdom at such a young age? Or is there a bias in my question? Can you elaborate on this?
Our lives are filled with various and unique experiences that can sometimes be unthinkable of. However, work is more limited. Ideas we discovered from our lives can apply with your work because work includes collaboration with others too. Work is a part of life, but sometimes ideas we discovered from our work can help us make tomorrow a better day than today. No, life does not begin when work ends, but they are integrated in our experiences. We live our lives everyday as well as doing our work so work is definitely integrated in our experiences and our lives. Both work and life are integrated in our experience. We gain new experiences everyday as we work and as we live life. They all give us different ideas to consider in our everyday lives. I think one connection is the last part of the school’s statement and his project. The school’s statement said “who want to make a difference in the world.” This is similar to his project. He wanted peace between the three different beliefs as well as making money for the poorer ones. He wants to make a difference in the world by creating peace within different beliefs and making money for the poorer people. Yes, we study about ideas that would make the world a better place to live. The world is also improving itself into a better world. What we study and the world are applied with the same concept.
I agree that work and life are integrated and that the man who started Delicious Peace coffee cooperative wanted to make a difference in the world. We learn many ideas and encounter many experiences. These things will help us improve ourselves. In our everyday life, we have to work too. Life can’t just when work ends. It’s all in a bundle. We can’t choose to work for a week and live life for a week. The man who started the Delicious Peace coffee wanted peace throughout the world. There should be more people like him. He wants whats best and he puts his ideas into action. He didn’t just thought of make peace but he put his words into action. My comment was similar to yours. We have a similar perspective. 😀
Your way of referring to different comparisons show great analogy skills in terms of understanding how the question relates to your opinion. Plus, I like the way you know how to not just tell but identify does these difference effect us. The way you used your opinion like saying “Yes” was also a blatant way to exemplify your agreement towards the question. Great Ending Too! 😀
I agree on how ideas we discovered in life can also apply with work and vice versa. As we humans go through different stages of life, we tend to gain new experiences along the way. Those experiences (both in work and life) teach us lessons that we can develop further as a human. Life doesn’t begin where work ends; life begin since our eyes were opened. As we know, there is no perfection in this world, and there are times when we humans have the need to change something. Like what you said, JJ Keki wanted to make a difference in the world, because he felt that there is a lack of peace in the society.
I am a strong believer in the integration of life and work. Since we live while we work, we would gain experience along the way to add to our life, whether it be the ‘work’ part or the ‘lifestyle’ part. I am also a strong believer in the mission statement, as I have been here forever. The Delicious Peace campaign was also a campaign that fully supports the mission statement. I believe we share a common thought. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.
Volk, how is the world “improving itself”? Why isn’t JJ Keki’s idea spreading if it is so good for people? What barriers do you see and why are they still persisting in spite of the work of people like Sobol and Keki?
Mr. Richard Sobol has a very interesting life. He basically follows what he wants to do. As he mentioned during his second presentation, he said, “Working in a fifty-story building and wearing grey-suit does not work for me. It was not the job that I wanted to do.” He discovered that he was infatuated by photography, story-telling, and making film for documentaries. That was an idea that Mr. Richard discovered in his life. Now, he wanted to make his idea and dreams into reality. So, he started to work for prestigious magazines such as the Times, and since he developed a new interest in involving politics into his journaling interest, he started to work with government officials. This is the idea that he discovered in his work. In here, we can see a link and make connections. He used his personal interest in life and make his personal interest into his career. He discovered his personal hobbies in life and when he make his hobby into his career, he did not only improved a lot in his interest but he also worked on it to make money and support himself. The reason why he was successful was not only because he worked hard but also because he integrated his life idea and his work idea together and he enjoyed working on his job. Not only did he earn money, he worked happily and enjoyed taking photos. I do not think that life begin when work ends. You can put your personal life interest into the work and so when you are working, you are also living a life that you like because it involves you going deeper into something you like to do. Basically, our life is integrated in our experiences through many aspects such as working. Your life begin actually when work started because when you start working, you can experience many new opportunities and gain far more experiences than when you are not working. Life involves experiencing and going out to the world. Since working is going out to the world, you are living your life by working.
The school statement states that the school, “promotes academic excellence while nurturing young people to become moral and intellectual leaders, people of dignity, integrity and compassion, who want to make a difference in the world.” The Delicious Peace coffee cooperative was first established because a survivor from the 9/11 attacks wanted to use what he have to make a difference in the world. CIS school statement wanted us, students, to make a difference in this world as well. The unique thing about this coffee cooperative was that the survivor from the 9/11 attacks wanted to promote peace in the three main religion of his community. He believed that fighting to the extent of unrest and death was and is not worth it. His cooperative sign showed that even though the three religions that were at odds with each other, they could work together to improve the community. This showed us that the survivor was a moral and intellectual leader. He was a moral leader in a way that he was one of the people to lead the peace movement by promoting peace and working together with different religions. He was an intellectual leader in a way that he was able to link daily works into the idea of promoting peace. He allowed many small farms to plant coffee fruits and sell it to the cooperative which not only helped to improve the economy of the local place but also improve the life of the people there since they could earn a living by selling coffee fruits. The cooperative have dignity because it’s goal did not involved entering fights that will result to deaths and unrest but instead, it promotes peace between religions which also promoted peace in the community. In my personal opinion, I believe that people who enter deadly fights because of differences in beliefs did not maintain their dignity and I believe that people who respect other’s personal beliefs and try to promote peace in their community are people who maintain their dignity. The cooperation had compassion as well because probably some people in there, including the survivor had been through places near death because of differences in belief and he had compassion on the community because he did not want people to suffer from religious differences. He promoted this idea to the cooperative and this idea probably affected the whole community. Life in farming must have sometimes been hard in his community so if his cooperative buys coffee fruits from farmers throughout the community, many families can have food and basic needs and this is showing compassion since the cooperative helped farming families.
We are studying about the dystopian literature and the factors that we could see in a dystopian world. Part of the reason why a dystopian world emerged was because of beliefs. Beliefs are a very strong force that is the center of almost every aspects of life that affect the world such as politics, law, morality in many fields..etc. Religious war, which could create a dystopian world, is a fight that results from differences in beliefs. I see a pattern in how beliefs affect the world as a whole. In the Handmaids tale for example, the people believed that status symbol is very important so they established handmaids as a result of what they believe in. They do not believe in freedom of speech and they created fear throughout the world inside the handmaid’s tale. In the world right now, freedom of speech and idea has created unrest in different parts of the world. The movie published in Youtube, which believed that freedom of speech is really important, a clip that insulted other religion. This led to deaths in army camps and caused tension in country. USA believed in freedom of speech while the Middle-east believed that their religion symbols are sacred. Their believes clashed together which created unrest. As long as humans continue to have different beliefs, their would always be times when beliefs will clash together and create unrests.
it wasn’t “infatuated” I was supposed to write
, “find interest in”
I agree that it was important for Mr. Sobol to make connections between what he was personally interested in and his work to be happy in life. I agree that we as students can also draw from this when we choose our careers later. I also agree that life does not begin where work ends. I thought it was interesting that you said “you are living your life by working”. That is something that I hadn’t thought of. 🙂
Miriam, you stated that as long as beliefs are different, there will be unrest and conflict. What is the solution? Is there potential for one belief to be a human universal? What would be the consequences?
Thoughts or ideas that we have everyday can help us learn or become wiser. just by thinking we can already learn, by using the knowledge we already know with the ideas that come to mind will make us improve in so many ways. Ideas that we have everyday can make thing we do either better or worse, by thinking positive, we get positive ideas, therefore makes us have positive reactions or actions also vise versa with negative thought. If we don’t have passion with oure work, we get negative results because we always have a negative mindset, therefore we need to have passsion for our work, then everything we do is positive and then the result is positive. Work is integrated in our lives, it is something we all have to do, and we can all learn during it.
Concordian INternational School statement quote’s “making a difference in the world”. we as students should live by this throughout there lives. Its states “Integrity”, “Leadership” and “Compassion”. Using all these atributes can help spread The Delicious Peace Coffee through out the world. be being a leader we can make a different. Being a leader with intergirty and compassion, can make the world a better place and spread the peace.
We can apply the academic knowledge we learnt in school to make a difference in the real world. We go to school just to learn the fundamentals to prepare ourselves to face the obstacles in the real world.
I liked that you said “by thinking positive, we get positive ideas, therefore makes us have positive reactions or actions”. I think that’s a good outlook to have. The only criticism I have is you might want to proofread your work a little. (Just some capitalization/spelling errors 🙂 ) All in all, I thought your response was well thought out and written.
I agree with you and charlotte when you make connections between ideas in life and ideas in work by saying” by thinking positively, we get positive ideas.” It is true because when your ideas in life are positive, you’ll mostly get positive ideas in work as well. When you think positively, it’s most likely that you’ll bring it to action, which is working. It is true that when we think positively and we are passionate in making our positive ideas into action, we’ll most likely get a positive result. I agree that we go to school in order to prepare ourselves for the real world. Your comment have good insights but I also suggest that you could check your grammar and spelling errors as well. Overall, your comment was pretty good
I really agree with you. Why be negative when you can be positive, right? This also relates to passion for work, which results in better results. Since work is an unavoidable part of your life, might as well have fun with it and learn more. JJ Keki demonstrate “Integrity”, “Leadership” and “Compassion” you mentioned in the mission statement, and with those attributes, big changes can be made.
Daven, how could humans use wisdom to address the conflicts that arise from beliefs? How are mindsets formed or changed, and what are the consequences when they change?
According to Richard Sobol’s presentation today, I personally think that the connections between ideas that we discover in our lives and ideas that we discover in our work is that they are both inspirational, and those ideas are what shape us to who we are now. The ideas that we discover in our work are mostly limited, while the ideas that we discover in our lives give us an image of the real world. Richard Sobol introduced himself as a traveling photographer. He’s constantly traveling around the globe to places where stories of wildlife and traditional cultures can be found. Since he’s a writer, a photographer, and a traveler at the same time, it means that life doesn’t necessary begin where work ends; they are integrated in our experiences. There is no exact starting point of life. Working is also considered as life experience, it is when you get to interfere with things you’ve never seen or done before. As we discover those ideas, we have more life experiences, which later on builds up to knowledge. When we have more knowledge, we tend to be a better person, which leads up to our school mission statement. The Delicious Peace coffee cooperative is an organized group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish people. They created this group in order to enhance the idea of peace while developing their economic. JJ Keki, the founder of the cooperative, shows a good example of a good leader because he allow people that has difference race to work together and achieve one goal which matches the school mission statement “moral and intellectual leader” and “who want to make a difference in the world.” JJ Keki and the members of the cooperative believe that they could make a difference in this world by spreading peace to all human beings. The pattern that is emerging between our dystopian novels and world is the purpose of life. For example, The Handmaid’s Tale, the handmaids only have one purpose in their life, which is to produce babies. According to the presentation today, the purpose of the coffee farmers of Uganda is nothing but to collect coffee beans; no matter how young or old you are. That is their only purpose, and they get money from that to pay off for educational fees.
I never thought of the comparison between handmaids in The Handmaids Tale and the Ugandan coffee farmers ever before – but now that you said it, it’s a perfect comparison in my mind (thank you). Both handmaids and coffee farmers do have only one (but different) purpose in their lives – to produce babies or to pick coffee beans. The difference is still there though – handmaids are actually valued in the novel’s society, as their rank is actually higher than Marthas, etc. Unlike that, coffee farmers in Uganda, regardless of gender or age, work extremely hard to pick coffee beans and only their work is valued, not as much of them as people, who are just like us but less fortunate.
Thoughtful comparison Dear 🙂
I agree with Naam that your comparison between HMT and the Ugandan farmers was a great insight. Thanks! You said “The ideas that we discover in our work are mostly limited, while the ideas that we discover in our lives give us an image of the real world.” Can you expand your discussion? How is work limited, if it is integrated into life and life itself is a limitless learning experience?
I believe that the idea of a line drawn between ‘life’ and ‘work’ is rather inaccurate in the 21st century. Since the nature of the modern lifestyle means one thinks about personal lifestyle at work, yet one also works during their downtime, thanks to the invention of the cellular network. The line does not exist at all if one is successful at finding a job one loves. Just as Confucius said all those millenniums ago on how a man that does a job he loves, he wouldn’t have to work a day in his life. For example, our guest speaker for today, Mr Sobol lives in his work, as travelling around to tell stories via his photography is his work, yet also his passion and his life. Ideas we learn in our ‘work’ as students, not only do they prepare us for a professional career, many of them teaches ethics to help us live a good life. Life and work are integrated in our experience, for example an entrepreneur might travel around the world to get life skills and broaden a perspective of the world, which some may eventually lead to his/her next preneur. Especially to those with high individuality, life and work experience shape his/her character. Just as how MYP teaches you on its profiles such as being open-minded, daring to take risks, etc. would contribute to both the lifestyle and the future work of the student.
The school mission statement, the one that I’ve been trying my best to live up to for my time here of over a decade and will try to do so forever, stresses mainly on how a leader cannot only just be intellectual, but must also be of moral, dignity, integrity and compassion. In addition to that, there is no use of having all those qualities but not using it to make a difference in the world. The Delicious Peace cooperative lives up to the mission statement by promoting peace between the religions to do something great. Therefore using intellectual capabilities to uphold the moral and dignity of peace, through being compassionate towards fellow human beings and conclusively making a difference to the society.
Our current study focuses on dystopian literature. A dystopia usually happens from the absence of morals and respect of dignity. It is, however, started by the intellectuals, the totalitarians establishing control are not uneducated. Just like how Mustapha Mond is educated with all the thoughts of Pascal, Shakespeare’s literature, etc. Or how Gilead started by a group of people seeing the opportunity to grab absolute control. The main pattern is how the unrest in the world is always started by the educated, usually to the fullest extent. Uneducated people are not capable of finding holes in the law to corrupt and gain personal benefits. This links back to Concordian’s mission statement on how a leader must be moral and intellectual leaders, with the stress of the word ‘moral’, in order to create a positive impact in the world.
Fuji, do you think that the IB education you are engaging in right now is preparing you to change how “The main pattern is how the unrest in the world is always started by the educated, usually to the fullest extent”? How? What do you think are the consequences of your particular education? And is this all academic? How does it transcend academia and permeate Life?
Our lives and our work are integrated into our experiences as a whole. Work is a part of life and therefore, these two are not separated but merged in our experiences. What we do in our work affects and usually improves our lives. For example, the work in my life currently is to study in school. The school mission statement promotes not only “academic excellence” and integrity but also compassion. Compassion means sympathy or concern for others’ misfortunes. The Delicious Peace cooperative aims to not only grow good coffee for sufficient income, but also to create peace between different religions after the founder almost became a victim of the 9/11 attacks. JJ Keki, the founder of Delicious Peace, was motivated by the misfortunes of the 9/11 attacks, caused by differences in religions, to create the cooperative. This shows how his compassion is able to change his own life and the lives of others, such as coffee farmers in Uganda, for the better. What we study in class is to help us make decisions and change the world later on. Reading dystopian novels help us realize that human ingenuity is not always good, and fulfilling our needs can harm others. Knowledge and concepts that we understand in class apply to the world, using work to improve our lives, and like the Delicious Peace coffee cooperative, the lives of others as well.
I agree with your post. I found that a lot of concepts that I had thought of were similar to those in yours. As you said, what we do in work affects and usually improves our lives, and this is often true, in the factors of experience and income, but I think there are many cases were work can also bring trouble. Some examples are the illegal drug trade, prostitution, or the involvement of gangs. Withal, work usually, as you stated, does bring positive outcomes.
Fon, I really agree on what you said work is a part of life and these two are not separated. I like how you define english terms such as the word “compassion” because it really helps to clarify your ideas deeply that JJ Keki was concern about others and he really wanted to create peace between religion races. I also agree that the result of human ingenuity is not always good, because sometimes we only focus on achieving our needs without thinking about how it would effect others.
It’s well thought that human ingenuity is not always a beneficial thing. As we see in the texts that we are reading, human ingenuity created a technologically and scientifically advanced world in Never Let Me Go and Brave New world. Just like in Never Let Me Go, fulfilling to our medical needs by creating clones could create a medically advanced world but in the same time, where racism and discrimination made a morally corrupted world. It’s good where you pointed out that what we are learning now, which is knowing what caused a dystopian world could actually be applied to the real world. Our knowledge and concept of this unit would help us know how to prevent a dystopian world and can be used to improve our lives.
I also agree with how you stated the fact that human ingenuity is not always good, including the fact that the process of fulfilling our needs can harm others as well. To add upon Miriam’s statement on the example in Never Let Me Go of how people created clones in order to fulfill the social need. As mentioned, clones, or known as students, are created because the people are in need of medical science. However, after the people have fulfilled their needs upon saving their loved ones, they then discovered the truth about clones. But due to the selfishness of the people of letting go of the thing that once saved their loved ones, and the fact that in the upcoming future, the people may be in need of the students once again, the life of the students are predetermined upon the fact that the people are fulfilling their needs.
Fon, your statement “his compassion is able to change his own life and the lives of others, such as coffee farmers in Uganda, for the better” rings true. But how do we take what we study in class and create solutions for the world outside our school walls? How do our decisions affect the solutions we create?
In a way, work is based on what happens in our life. Whether you’re talking about work as in assignments or career, it is partly based on what is going on in our life. People encounter different things, and so they gain different experiences. Experience is one big thing that separates us from others, it’s one of the things that makes us different. So then work is life, but then life is also work. When you work, you are living. You are gaining new experiences, you are meeting new people, and you’re constantly doing new things. Life too is work, without work, you can’t live. Even if you have the money, living aimlessly is like not living at all. Basically life and work is integrated and therefore cannot be separated; it’s all part of your experience which makes you, you.
The Delicious Peace Coffee cooperative relates to many parts of our school’s mission statement. JJ Keki may not have as much education as we do, but he was a leader of integrity and compassion. He’s got the IB profile of Risk Taker and Open-Minded, too. Despite the differences of the community, Keki strive to unite everyone together. He opens his mind and accept their differences, and found a way to compromise. He was also a risk taker as to take that big step to do what the others won’t. In the end, what he was doing is for his community, for his nation. It is because he have these qualities in the mission statement that made this Coffee cooperative possible. Mr.Sohol too was an example of the mission statement. He took his knowledge of photography and finds a way to spread this story around, which in his own creative ways he did portray a clear understanding of the community for us.
Seeing his presentation, I can relate it to texts we have studied. In Never Let Me Go and The Handmaid’s Tale, we are reading the book through the main character’s perspective. The society they lived in are pretty much isolated from the rest of the world, it’s different. But in this community, people with different ethics are all unite. IF only there wasn’t segregation in the world, and the earth’s citizens are all open to differences and are willing to work as a group, nothing is impossible. We the students, as the world’s next generation, are being taught that way. Looking back to the history, there was racism. In the world today, it is not as big an issue as it is. At home, or in school, we are taught social education. Seeing the success of the Uganda people and their Coffee Peace project is an example saying that “This is what we can achieve, if only people work together,” and this is what we will achieve, since we are taught to work that way. The main problem in the world though, is because people cannot agree.
I love how you can use such simple words to describe your ideas, it’s really easy to understand. Plus, you gave us supporting ideas to back up your opinions, which made me understand why you would think in that particular way.
The way you compare JJ Keki AND Mr. Sobol himself to IB Learner Profiles is a really good way to compare your thoughts of the school mission statement to the Delicious Peace community (because as students, we’re taught to know the Learner Profiles very well). JJ Keki wanted to make a difference in the society, which made him a good leader. Good leaders not only need to be able to lead others, but they have to be open minded and want the best for the society.
In a way that you end the last sentence is reason of why there’s this concept of utopian society. Because in our current society, we’re living in a society where we’re free to say what we want and express ourselves – and of course, everyone’s different, so we all view things differently. If one day the whole world agrees on everything together, I think that day will be the day that humans are turning into ‘copies/clones’ of each one another. So I think that sometimes fights and wars are not necessarily the worst thing, it at least proves that every human beings are still unique. That’s just my opinions, though.
Pond, your statement that open-mindedness and risk-taking helped JJ Keki to achieve the peace in his community is something we appreciate. It’s true that we learn these qualities through the action we take as a result of what we understand. My challenge to you is, how do we address the conflict between people’s beliefs? If the challenge is that people cannot agree, how would your open-mindedness and risk taking qualities help to promote understanding?
Referring to Richard Sobol’s presentation, life does not begin where work ends; it integrates in our experiences, considering that both photography and writing are both his life and work. If life can only begin where work ends, it means that both photography and writing can be either life or work, but from his presentation, he clearly demonstrates that they are integrated in his experiences (throughout his author-photographer work). In other words, the ideas we discover in our lives will always be a part of the ideas in which we discover in our work.
Whereas for the connection between the school mission statement and the Delicious Peace coffee cooperative, for the founder (JJ Keki) to unite the different religions (which are not usually seen together) together in Uganda, it shows that he is a “moral and intellectual leaders,” and is trying “making a difference in the world.”
The pattern that I see emerging between the things that I have studied and the world is the desire of human beings to have a better life. For example, the novel The Handmaid’s Tale shows how Offred, one of the handmaids wants to escape from Gilead (later succeeded in escaping), and the desire to have a better life beyond the walls of Gilead. In other words, although the people only earns 40 baht per a kilogram (I think, according to Mr. Sobol) of coffee beans, however, one of the reasons is because human beings desire to have a better life.
I found it interesting and agree with what you said on how things like photography and writing can be integrated into both life and work, like in Richard Sobol’s case. I also agree with the connection you made between The Handmaid’s Tale and the people of the Delicious Peace community and how one of the ultimate needs and themes is the want for a better life.
You said that life doesn’t start when work end is really interesting, I didn’t thought of including Mr Sobol’s life himself as an example (since most of us just explained about the connection between life and work with our personal experiences), great interpretation!
Human desire can be dangerous (in Offred’s case), but it can be innovative as well – like the people in the Delicious Peace community, and how they work hard to both develop their lives while making coffee for the world!
I really like how you view the life and work connection through his writing and photography. Using that to view the connection really makes it clear that his life and work are integrated into his experiences, which have been written into books for other people to experience as well. Some ideas I wrote in my reply are quite similar to yours, for example having a better life through work. For me, this also sparks the idea of loving what you do, making the fact that work and life are integrated good. Mr. Sobol clearly enjoys what he does, but on the other hand there are people who suffer because their life and work merge. I also agree with the ‘desire of humans to have a better life’ and liked the way you connected Delicious Peace cooperative with The Handmaid’s Tale problem and solution.
I also share the common thought that many works are fully integrated into a human lifestyle. Since jobs are being created more and more, and people are really doing what they love, the thought of a boring work and a fun lifestyle is not really present anymore. I agree on your connection about the response to the Handmaid’s Tale about how people always thrive towards achieving a better life. Even if it means just by a very little bit.
Gaem, you stated that a desire for a better life leads humans to strive for solutions to needs or problems. You also stated that “the ideas we discover in our lives will always be a part of the ideas in which we discover in our work.” How do we extend the integration of ideas into work/life that “makes a difference” in the world?
The presentation today by Mr. Sobol was a way to portray life of people all around the world – how different the other people are so different than we are, and it showed me how little I am to the world.
Life and work are, in my opinion, one element, without work, life is meaningless. We, as a human, are occupied by work – that’s how we spend time. The idea of life and work are woven into one human being, we interact with work while living our lives, and time doesn’t wait for us to do each one at a time. We, as human beings, have the freedom to do things we want to. Though, in order to survive, we have to work. Therefore, it proves that by enjoying life, we have to be able to balance it out with work.
“Concordian International School promotes academic excellence while nurturing young people to become moral and intellectual leaders, people of dignity, integrity and compassion, who want to make a difference in the world.”
Like Delicious Peace, Concordian aims for students to become a compassionate person, wanting to use our knowledge to make a good difference in the world. Delicious Peace is a community where there are no boundaries between religions; people work together as a team to build this community. They use their knowledge in coffee as their way of living, while promoting peace between religions. JJ Keki, even without a highly education, he can lead people – a person has to be well rounded in order to lead the others; and Concordian students are well rounded.
As for the pattern that I see clearly from the presentation and the texts I read in class (Handmaid’s Tale and Brave New World) is the importance of freedom and the ability to do what we want. People seek for freedom and rights. Delicious Peace is a community where people are free to believe in the religion they want to. The other pattern is the difference. People who live in different environments have different ideas and their perspectives are different – it can causes confusion or arguments (like how we might look at the community within the presentation in a strange way). Difference can cause problems, yet it can be innovative – like the Delicious Peace community.
I found it interesting the way you end the last paragraph with “difference can cause problems, yet it can be innovative, “and how you tie it back to the Delicious Peace community. Although Uganda contains people with different religions (Christians, Jewish, Muslims), which may cause problems, considering that different religions have different beliefs, but for JJ Keki to unite these religions together as one in Delicious Peace community, like you mentioned, it can be innovate.
I really loved how you put your thoughts of life and work in words. Work is just part of living our lives, or else life is meaningless. And yes, you don’t have to be smarter than others to lead others; you just have to have the quality. Just as you also commented on my reply, freedom is an essential part of human life. We need our freedom, to have fun and to be ourselves. It comes down to others; will they be willing to compromise with us? For example, we all hang out as friends despite the difference between each of us. What makes the relationship work is because we are willing to accept the difference of others. Rather than being disgusted by it, we use differences as a way to define how unique a person can be. If everyone can live as they want without having to be afraid of prejudice, the world would be much happier.
Lee, your statement that “difference can cause problems, yet it can be innovative” is such a strong statement in light of what we have been discussing since the school year began. To see this from the patterns that emerge in the literature and the lives of the Ugandans whose religions did not get in the way of their community is highly appreciated. Extend the learning: how is innovation a product of lack or need? Is this always the case? What are your thoughts?
Everything and anything we do in life gives us experience and teaches us something; good decisions, bad decisions, school, work, and especially people. Good decisions make you grateful, and bad decisions make good stories. School gives you heartaches, and work gives you stress but also money. To me, life, rather than beginning where work ends, begins where work starts and even before that. Experience is a collection of all the things we have done, things we have been done to, and all those times of struggle or happiness we all face periodically in life. Work is integrated in our experiences because work is a very big part of our lives. A big part that can’t just be separated by drawing a line.
I remember the class where we learned that reading about other worlds can also be considered as an experience. So from experiencing Mr. Richard Sobol’s life today, I can make a connection with Concordian’s mission statement to the Delicious Peace corporative. I see a connection from the part “become moral and intellectual leaders” to the corporative, especially the word moral. The founder of the corporative not only used his intelligence to help upgrade lives of those in poorer areas like Uganda, but also used his moral; not to segregate people by religion, and even reconcile the religious gap in that area. “It is one of the few places on earth that those religious symbols are seen together” Mr. Sobol said.
The pattern I see emerging between what I’m studying and then world is the connection between the themes of novels and the things that are really happening in the world. Some themes such as gender inequality and racism still exist in many areas of the world. Themes like distinct separation of classes and social ranks are not usually brought up into discussion in public society but I believe that it also still exists in various areas. Novels, dystopian or utopian, are reflections of our society, if not much then little.
The comparisons you used in the post is a great way to make me and probably other readers be able to comprehend what you’re trying to say clearly. I also thought the way that you could straightforwardly identify the similarity between the theme of the novel to the world today, like racism and gender inequality, showed your perception between those two things. Your use of Mr. Sobol’s saying during the presentation was also another great use of explanation. 😀
I think the last paragraph made your connection of the texts we are reading and what we are experiencing in our life very clear, and makes the second paragraph a lot clearer to me. I like how you used segregation and differences between social classes to connect our experiences to the text. The first paragraph also helps in exploring our experiences and its different sides. I agree with the last sentence in how the literature reflects on our society and I think this is the case for most – if not all – literature. Your thoughts also made me think that most authors are inspired or motivated by real life problems that they want to share with other people. Therefore, it connects the real world to text, then the text to us.
Naam, there are some very wise observations here. I am struck particularly with the relationship between what you said about life begins even before work does, and that there exists perpetual problems like gender inequality and racism. How do our life and work address these problems? Do you think we can apply JJ Keki’s model of cooperative work to solve some of these conflicts? How?