Survey Results for Week of October 28

The pace of the class. 3.93

The challenge of the class. 3.79

Respect to students by Mr. O. 4.64

Respect to students by students. 3.57

Respect to Mr. O by students.   3.64

What went well in class this week?

During the past week a lot of things went really well. I continue to like the homework asignments that give to us. I like them becasue you give us a variety of choices to choose from and this makes it easier to learn from. A lot of people learn from visuals so letting people be able to choose to do a visual for their homework asignments are great. I also like how we are continuing to do small groups. I like this becasue we all get to talk about the reading and make it easier to comprehend. I have a hard time comprehending a lot of the readings but after i am put into a small group i can listen to how others felt about the reading and make a more logical conclusion.I also like how we are learning about different philosophers and their works. It is very interesting to learn about different views on life. It is crazy to think about how people from so far back had the same beliefs as many today. I hope we can do some more learning tpes in the class jus to change up what were doing.

This week I think the class did a good job acquiring a solid understanding of Stoicism. Many aspects of this philosophical perspective are vastly different than those attributed to our own almost hedonistic culture. In addition, Seneca's writing style can come off as condescending, but as requested by Mr. O'Leary, we were able to 'get past that' and examine the pith of his essays. By the time the class did the 'Stoic Guidelines for Living' jigsaw activity on Friday, everyone seemed to have wrapped their minds around Stoicism, and could fluidly discuss it. I think more than anything else we developed a respect for Stoics, and an appreciation for the inner strength and determination it would take to be one.

i felt that the readings of the last belief papers went well, everyone stayed focused and didn't talk. i also appriciated when chris sujested to switch thursday's homework with the weekend's mr O agreed to, most teachers wouldn't have that respect for the students and wouldn't consider their requests. it is nice having a teacher that i know will consider problems and help with them.

I really enjoyed the readings that were assinged this week. They were all very interisting and seemed to have a lot of meaning behind them. I especailly enjoyed 'On the True Good as Attained by Reason', as it made some very intriguing and controversial statements that inspired a healthy debate in class the next day. In addition to being very interisting, the readings were also written so that getting the meaning

I think the overall contribution of the class went very well this week. I was very surprised how many more people contribute to the group every day. I think that putting the statistics on the board was good as well. It showed how simliar our minds think, but I think that everyone who picked the quotes or ideas picked them for very different reasons.

I thought that the stoicism readings were interesting, especially the example of the Roman messanger that burned his arm to the bone, to show the impressive strength of the Roman Empire, convincing the King not to attack. I felt that the jigsaw on friday was helpful because I heard so many different interpretations of Stoicism.

One of my small group discussions went particularly well this week and it was the conversation regarding Seneca's 'On Fate'. Mike and I had similar pithy quotes on how life sometimes delivers wild beasts and we as humans must endure them in order to reach the good. After all, 'clear skies follow the cloudy [and] day succeeds night..' Seneca concludes this quote with, 'it is by means of opposites that eternity endures'. I completely agree with this quote and so did the rest of my group. We ended up having a lengthy discussion on degrees of the wild beasts and if one person has had many consecutive encounters with negative events, can they really ever experience something so great as to completely lift their spirits. We concluded with life is about finding a balance point in which each individual can reach their own state of happiness, no matter what life throws their way.

Our discussions were well-directed, though a little repetitous. I enjoy the topic of stoicism, because, though it is not as apparant as is in Roger, I was raised in a very stoic household. It has been easy for me to support the views of stoicism because I already know them and understand the situations in which they could be applied. I particularly enjoyed the Stoic Mental Health Clinic assignment because all I had to do was go back into my memories as a child and write down what my mother used to tell me while I was in my room, controlling my emotions. Many of the laws of stoicism really rang true with what I believed to be right; all fault can be traced back to the individual, happiness is only found within yourself not in others, and one must accept all consequences for bad actions that have been committed.

The stoic readings were very interesting and new to me. Seneca's essays were the first time I've read about stoics and their philosophy was very intriguing to me. I've always been somewhat unemotional and able to control my anger but I never knew that it was an entire way of thinking. The readings last week taught me that not only was stoicism already a part of my life; it was the way that I enjoy living. While I do not agree entirely with everything Seneca says, I do find that what he says about true pleasure is correct. I am very glad to have learned that the way I already live my life in general has been contemplated and refined by some of the highest intellectuals.

This week I liked disaggreeing with all the suff we were reading. I know I definately don't agree with stoicism so now I can better affirm my own beliefs. Sometimes starting with what you don't agree with teaches instructs better than starting with what you should agree with.

This week I think the best part was the chance to have a variety of styles of homework. I perticuarly like the annotation style, because that was my favorite part of the pithy quote assignment. Also, I liked the jigsaw that we did. It allows us to have an in-depth discustion, with out having to spend all ourtime reading our pithy quotes. I don't like spending allot of time in one place, and the jigsaw allows me to move around, yet still have time to have discussions.

This week is, I believe, the only week out of the entire quarter that I have had all of my homework complete before class each day. Really done, too, not just scribble-something-down-during-lunch. Yeah, I know that it is practically the final week before the end of the quarter and it should just be a given that work will be in on time. I have a long history of bad work habits so this is a biggie for me, plus I still have all of next quarter to keep it up.

This week went well because there are differences in the nightly assignments. For example, Alegra, Tory, and Taresa all brought in visuals. This is a great thing because they are able to express themselvs better through their visuals. It's a great moment to see somone to break out of their shell. i also thaught that the descussion of the animals and humins went well, I could see alot of people were realy thinking about the topic.

Yet again, I really got a kick out of the jigsaw activity, it really is mind-boggling to see us all mostly agree.

What could have gone better?

I really dont think that there is much more that could be done to make the class better. However i do think that we should try some new things during class becasue if all we do is read writings,write about them,and then discus them, the class is going to become pretty repetative. Don't get me wrogn though i still liek what were doing its jsut getting a little bit harder for me to pay attention to because we do the same thing everyday. Another change that i would have is that we don't always come together as a large group in the end but rather stay in small groups and have an indepth converesation. the reason that i think we should do this is becasue when we come back together as a large group we tend to get off subject and we tend to rarely get through all 3 groups. Those are the only suggestions that i would have for the class. other then this the class is still great and my favorite.

Things went pretty well this week, so there is not a lot to report. I supposed I can cite the 'Stoic Guidelines for Living' jigsaw activity we did on Friday, as something that could have gone a little better. As we corroborated our findings there were times that the members of the class ignored Mr. O'Leary and continued arguing their points with each other. However, while this could be labeled disrespect, such a zeal for discussion of Stoic philosophy, could also be called enthusiasm.

A little less talking during the line-up sharing.

I saw much disrespect from the class this week. People were talking when others were trying to promote an idea. I also think the groups were too large on Thursday.

I think we could have been much more focused during the line-up for groups. Things just got a bit roudy and everyone had conversations of their own. We could have saved a lot of time.

I think when we have large group discussions, we should go back to using the method of timing teh amount of time each group has. Our class tends to go off on tangents that are a lot of the times very interesting, but one has to stop and think that maybe not everybody is interested in the conversation. The benefit of switching the topic/group every few minutes is that people are kept on their toes and that everyone has a chance to participate. When only a few people are keeping the conversation going and those few people are the same every time, you know that there is a problem.

I was going to say that pretty much everything was good, but then I thought back about it some more and came to the conclusion that there is sort of a self-segregation happinging in the class. Certain people tend to sit on one half of the room and certain people tend to sit on the other. While I don't feel as if I don't know everyone, there are definitely people that I know a lot better than others, and this is something that will always happen. It just seems like we have become complacent, unlike at the beginning of class, when we had to sit with different people every day. I switched it up at the end of the week in an attempt to rectify that.

I was not impressed by the fact that in one of my small group discussions about pithy quotes although I was trying to make sure that everyone shared their ideas and work no one else seemed to care and continued to chat about star fish rather than listen to quotes. Everytime that I would try to jump into the conversation I was either cut off or ignored and never even had a chance to share even when I was trying to. I do not know if everyone got the chance to share, but I was unimpressed with the group for only thinking about what they had to say and not about the amount of information they could have learned from hearing other opinions of the group.

It has been a little difficult, I admit, because in most of my small groups, many of the group members have mistaken stoicism for pessimism. Although it does not bother me all that much, because after all, I cannot control the thoughts of those around me, it just makes me sad to think that my fellow classmates are missing the beauty behind this philosophy. I think that if we could explain the differences between stoicism and cinicism, it would not only help their understanding, but my own as well. Perhaps it is my own fault for not explaining properly stoicism as opposed to pessimism, but I think that it is more difficult for a peer to be heard by their own peers, than for a teacher to be heard by the same group of people.

Last week went very well and the assignments were all thought provoking, however, I felt that respect was slightly lower than usual. It definitely seemed like more people were interrupting each other than normal and not contributing as much during the small group and large group discussions. This may have been caused by the difficultly of the subject, I'm not sure, but I hope next week is better as far as respect goes.

Once again, I don't see much room for improvement. I think we all know what to do form the moment we step in the door. However, this week we seemed to have some trouble focusing, and giving the proper respect to our classmates when we lined up with the randomizer. I know that I don't pay as much attention as I should, and feel that the majority is the same way.

This is apparent in my respones to the survey questions above, but I thouhgt that the class as a whole was very disrespectful this week. Throughtout the entire semester, this class has been my favorite, the one that I look forward too day in and day out. This class has been so great because of the very respectful atmosphere that we as students have created, and the vigorus discussions that this atmosphere has allowed to grow. Unfortunetly, this week the atmosphere of the class got a lot less respectful as students continually talked when Mr. O and/or other students were talking. This occured mainly during the line-ups, but class discussions were no immune to this disease. Hopefully, this was nothing more than a short slip up and the class will return to form in the very near future. If it doesn't, second quarter will be a lot less enjoyable than the first was.

This week i felt that the class seemed less organized. Everyone seems to be talking more and not working as hard in small groups. I feel that i didn't concentrate enough in class and so i didn't get as much out of it as i usually do. I felt that the standards for the class have almost been lowered because everyone isn't as focused and taking the class seriously enough. i also was wondering if you are still going to check homework? because i dont think you did last week.

Unfortunately there just isn't enough time in a class for us to fully disscuss everything I would like to; alas not even daylight savings time can remedy this problem. I think jigsaws, timing and other things that get the discussions moving faster are the best things we can do.

Identity someone who inspired you this week, someone who achieved something above and beyond expectations.

I would like to recognize Chris Brandais. Chris is an extremely friendly person, and goes out of his way to help others. He's the first to lend out his personal belongings, whether is be his pen, his chair, his coat, or his copy of the Family Guy DVD. Chris always has a smile on his face, and its a pleasure to have him in our class. I also believe Jordan Reynolds deserves praise. Jordan sometimes seems to hold back in large group discussions, but in small pithy quote groups she always has very interesting things to say. I especially enjoyed hearing her opinions on Epicurism, and I look forward to hearing more from her in the future.

There are a lot of people who deserve my praise but a few are going to get it. One person who is going to recieve my praise for this past week is Roger. Roger continues to surprize me with his visdom. When we first came to the class i nkew he was smart and i knew that he had things to say but i never thought that he would be able to continue producing such great ideas amoung the group. It really inspires me to try hard all the time. If he can do it everyday of the week i think that i should be able to do it once and a while. I am also going to give my priase to courtney. Courtney seems to be shy most of the time until your in her small group. I had the pleasure to be in one of her small groups this week and i was blown away with some of her thoughts. I was also very impressed on how she was able to go off other peoples ideas and build them into a stronger thoughts and make them more well rounded. It proved to me that the quiet can come up with the most astonishing ideas. i am very impressed with both of you and thank you more inspiring me to do better in this class.

This week I was very impressed by Allegra Hyde. She created some interesting graphics surrounding pithy quotes that not only showed care and effort but, successfully described the readings. I especially liked the picture of all of the people on the road to life, those taking what comes and those grumpy folks, aka Americans, who complained about each and every little thing. I feel that Allegra was a good person to have in a group because even when she does not agree with you she still listens to others' ideas. She also shares her opinons well and I learned a lot by hearing her talk about the twenty Stoic ideals and which situations required which ideals.

Dan Dubois inmpressed me this week with his avid desire to completely convey his ideas and understanding of the reading which progressed throughout the week. He seemed to show a true comprehension of the concepts addressed on the topic of stoicism in both the readings as well as the project assigned to display each student's complete understanding of what it is to be stoic. While most people simply put the words, 'Get over it' as their answers to the Stoic Mental Health Clinic assignment questions, Dan actually identified each problem with one of the beliefs of Stoicism on the front of the paper, showing how deep his understanding went. I praise Dan for his consistently quality work in this class, as well as his courage for trustingly bearing his soul to this class. I encourage him to continue to do so, because I enjoy discovering what else lies hidden within the depths of his mind.

I feel that elegra deserves praise this week. I appreciate the time and effort she puts into her visual representations of the readings. they clarify things very well, and i like that aren't targeted at one particular point in the reading but represent the entire philosophy. i especially like the one with the pictures of her. it was a perfect way to convey her meaning.

I really enjoy how much Dicky puts himself into this class. He always has a solid opinion, and explains it well.

I would like to praise Roger this week for a rather unique reason. It was his birthday on Friday and he did not come to school, and this act of defiance is certainly most courageous. If his birthday is indeed the reason he did not come to school, then his action was one not many could take. Most of us lead our lives with the notion that a birthday is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, while Roger has the alternative, stoically view. Yes, the stoics would have most certainly done the same thing as Roger did. Seneca would not have celebrated his birthday with cake and meaningless objects; he would have continued life in a normal, sensible way. I personally don't see any problem with a birthday celebration, but I commend Roger for his defiance in a time where one's birthday has lost its meaning and instead become an excuse for money spending. By refusing to celebrate it he is closer to stoic perfection than many of us will ever become, and may we all learn from his example. If he was actually sick on Friday, please pretend he wasn't.

Teresa had a lot to contribute in small group this week and I was impressed by what she had to say. Not only does she bring up good points but she does so in a way, that in luei of better words, I would describe as subtly hilarious. I also give kudos to Roger this week because, although I don't neccasarily agree with philosophic views, he backs them up thoroughly, and quite aptly, reasonably.

This week I thought that both Roger and Mike deserve praise. On Thursday mike posed the question as to weather or not animals were more good then people and if we were were better then them. Roger challenged that thought in what I thought to be a very respectful manner. The two parties went back and forth reaching some understanding but only a little. They both made me think about this for a long time, they both had very good points to their ideas and were able to portray them in a respectful and brilliant manner. Great job guys! I want you to know I will be looking forward to more of these conversations!

This week I would like to extend my kudos to Tory and Allegra, for their graphics. They have been the only ones that consistently do graphics, and I am amazed at the level of detailed, and how easy it is to understand them. They have been a great help to myself, and others, and hope you will continue to create these masterpieces. Thanks Tory and Allegra.....you are appreciated.

This week I would like to have a Mr. Richard Backes recognised, so stand up. Yes Dicky, please stand up. Ever since the begining of this class, Dicky has had some really good input on whatever topic arises that day. He has many idea that a good deal, as well as myself agree with. He is also very polite and waits for other people instead of interupting someone's sentence. He adds a lot to the group and I feel he deserves to be recognised. And you may sit down now Mr. Backes.

This week I would like to praise Mike for his great contributions during class discussions. Mike always seems to have something to say and no problem saying it, but this week he went above and beyond his usual performance. He made good point after good point this week, often times going directly against whoever had just spoken. Mike's performance on Thursday (at least I think it was Thursday) was especially exempalry, as he faced off against Roger several times. Roger also put forth a good effort then, but he gets praised too much as it is. Mike is the one who I thought truly earned praise this week and for that, Mike you are apprecaited.

This week my praise goes to Tori and Allegra. I admire their efforts in making graphics to share with the class based on the previous nights readings. It shows that they are very inventive and creative and for that I really appreciate them. It changes the pace from having everyone share pithy quotes and it proves to be very interesting when they bring them to share to the large group. I value the opinions of both Tori and Allegra and enjoy seeing their creative side. Well done!

This week, Dan and Chris inspired me by coming in to school on Friday in their Halloween costumes. While this was not by any means academic, or something only members of our class did, it tore up the monotony of the usual apparel-monotony, and I applaud them.