Thursday, December 13, 2012

December 13

After this morning's fire drill we watched a short video on "Comparative Government" which introduced the concepts of a unitary system, a federal system and a confederated system, as well the distinctions between democratic and non-democratic systems. I also went through part of a PowerPoint presentation on non-democratic systems (different types of dictatorships)and just got into the parliamentary democracy example of Canada. I will post this presentation on the IB 20 wiki. Please print it off and add it to your notes. We'll start the American system of government on Monday. Tomorrow is the day when we you will get your IA topic.
We continued the film study of "Blood Diamond" today in class. We'll finish with the film itself tomorrow, and the accompanying film study will be due on Monday. I assigned you a country for a Model UN conference. I have sent you a background guide for our Model UN conference on child soldiers already, so please check your e-mail accounts. Use the background guide as a starting point for your research. You need to know a little about the country that you are representing as well as that country's position on child soldiers. Look into what the UN has done about child soldiers, and what NGOs are doing about this issue as well. What is a child soldier? What are some underlying causes that leads to the usage of child soldiers? What are some possible solutions to this problem?

Today's class was spent writing your Market Economy and Mixed Economy Test. This took the whole period. I also gave you the topic for next week's debate: This house believes that government intervention in the economy is necessary. We agree with the proposition, so we'd agree in favor of Keynesian economics and the benefits of intervention. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week we'll be going down to Room 121. The debate is on Tuesday, and you'll just have to wait and see what we have planned for Wednesday and Thursday.

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