Javier de la Plaza - Assignment #2

 Blogger #2 

This project has been very interesting and informative to me as I have learned alot about the government of the United States and about the governments of other countries. To begin with, our project was about gender equality, this was a very interesting topic to get as there is a lot of information to talk about and I believe that it is always good to talk about gender equality as it's a topic that hopefully in the future is not as controversial as it is today. My part of the presentation was about the perspective on gender equality in the United States compared to the perspective of other countries. To make it easier to understand I decided to separate it into two different views: the liberal and the conservative as this would make it more relevant to the elections that we are having right now and also easier to understand for the audience. It was very interesting to learn about the different views around the world over gender equality and it also made me appreciate the advancements that we have in America compared to other countries in the world. The rest of my group also talked about different things like the history of gender equality on how it has progressed through the years which I feel like its good for everyone to know the past of our country and how it has not always been that women have had the right to do many things that they are able to do now.  Another thing that was talked about in our project is the amount of important women that are in the world that fight everyday so that women  have more rights, the one that was the most interesting for me was Malala Yousafzai who is an activist and a Nobel peace prize winner. I think this time our group was way better prepared to present as we had way more time and also had some groups ahead of us that we use as examples of things we should and shouldn’t do. Personally I didn’t feel as nervous as the first time because a lot of the information that I had was easier than the one in the first presentation and because I did my part by myself I organized everything more my way. I also think our slides had a very big improvement so it was very audience friendly. In general I think we deserved getting a 100 as I feel like everyone in the group did a very good job presenting and everyone had good slides with good information on them. But even if we improved from the first presentation I think we could still do better with some other things like, putting more videos on the slides, talking more to the audience so that they could interact with us and making the presentation longer with less information on them. To conclude I think our future presentations would get better as I feel like we keep making improvements every time we have to present and our slides would look even better. 

Now the second half of this blog would be about my opinion on the presentations from the other groups in the class. I think all the groups did an excellent job presenting each of their topics. For me group 4 had a very good slide about “Education Policies” and how this is related to the election I really liked how the slide look and the information they gave on school funding which I believe is something very interesting to talk about as everyone has a different opinion on how schools should be funded or if it's better to take your kids to a public or a private school. They also talked about property tax which I think is important for everyone to know about as in the future we would all be affected by this. I think it was good that they gave both political parties opinions on each of the different subjects that they presented. Another group thatI liked their presentation was group #1 when they presented for the second time as the slides looked way better with not as much writing and more important information. I think they did good on repeating the presentation as they probably weren’t ready the first time but in total I really enjoyed their second presentation and how they talked about Immigration Policies and how each political party differs on their views. Which I also think is very important for a country like the US in which many people immigrate here and it’s a big reason why the US has been one of the best countries in the world. In my opinion this topic is very subjective as I understand both perspectives on this topic but I slightly agree more with the democrat side that is not as strict with Immigration policies. I really valued our professor's encouragement of open discussion and critique of societal values. This openness allowed us to reflect on our own perspectives and recognize the importance of challenging outdated norms. I believe these discussions are essential, as they foster empathy and understanding—qualities crucial for societal progress. This experience taught me that addressing topics like gender equality in a classroom not only broadens our horizons but also strengthens our commitment to driving meaningful change in the future. This experience has really shown me how important it is to stay informed, speak up in discussions like these, and try to make a positive difference—especially with the election coming up. Talking about these issues has helped me understand more about what's going on in the world and has made me want to keep pushing for fairness and justice, not just in school but everywhere. I’ve realized that hearing different perspectives really matters because it builds empathy and helps us see things in new ways. Experiences like this remind me of how powerful education can be—not just for clearing up misconceptions but for motivating change and helping us build a more fair and just society. In the end, I think knowing more and being willing to talk about important issues is what can really make a difference in the world.