Tuesday, April 23. 2013

Today's schedule is C-AG-D-A-B

C Block Social Studies 10 - To start the class today we'll go over the work from yesterday on the fur trade and the relationship that developed between Aboriginal Peoples and the HBC and NWC. Do not forget that you have a Compare/Contrast chart that you need to hand in along with question 2 from page 135 of the Horizons text. Next we'll take a look at the Metis, Bison and the Red River Valley. I'll have you finish the class by completing questions 1 & 2 on page 142 of the Horizons text.

D Block Criminology 12 - Today I want you to continue with your brainstormed list of all the reasons you can think why someone would commit a crime. Yesterday we collected some of your ideas on the board; we'll finish that up and try to categorize them into crime theory clusters. After that, we'll begin our look at the nature vs. nurture debate by focusing on the history of psychological and sociological criminology.

Next, we'll look at the difference between deviance and criminal behaviour (acts that are criminal but not deviant and deviant but not criminal). What is deviant behaviour? A simple explanation of deviant behaviour could be any action that violates cultural norms (formal norms like laws - or informal norms like nose picking). This is a difficult concept because what an individual or sub culture in society defines as deviant is contextually situated (meaning what I think is deviant may be different for you; it is subjective - influenced by personal considerations).

Take smoking in public. You may think that this behaviour is acceptable because an individual has the choice to consume a cigarette and they are merely harming themselves...no problem right? You may, however, think this behaviour is unacceptable. Second-hand smoke is hurtful to others because they could be harmed by someone else's behaviour. So what is deviant in many cases is subjective. What is criminal is the codification of what a society as a whole deems as deviant. Homicide is criminal because as a society we believe that taking another life is unacceptable and deviates from the accepted cultural norm that we wish our country to be like.

So using the text and your brains you need to come up with a list of things that are deviant but not criminal and a list of things that are criminal but not deviant. After you'll need to take one act from either list and explain why it should be criminalized or why it should be decriminalized.

B Block Social Studies 11 - So today you'll continue your Decade on a Page activity that reviews the 1920's in Canada. Using chapter 3 in the Counterpoints textbook (pages 48-72) you need to identify the important events, changes in and challenges to Canada for the following four topics:

1. Arts, Culture, and Leisure
2. Government, International Autonomy, and Political Parties
3. Industry, Jobs, and Wealth
4. Society (race, gender, social class), Urbanization, and Values

You'll need to look at: prohibition in Canada and branch plants in Canada; William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Halibut Treaty, the Chanak Affair, the Statute of Westminister and the King-Byng crisis; Aboriginal title and cut off lands (including Joe Capilano), racial segregation and immigration laws, Emily Murphy and the Person's Case; as well as the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, the US influence on Canadian culture and other topics that we'll go over today in class.