Leadership

1. Leadership is essential and necessary to everyone. Leadership is part of our lives and we experience it every day, whether it is in school or at work. Humans need a leader, its part of who we are. Depending on the person and their personality, we need to either tell people what to do or be told what to do. Usually we need someone to fallow, someone who knows what to do, someone to guide us the right direction. We need to feel secure and know that all the weight is not on our shoulders, but on someones else's.

2. From a followers perspective the ideal leader is someone who knows everything, who knows what to do even in the worse circumstances. A leader should be strong, powerful, take initiative and confident. Also leaders should be trustworthy, good listeners, and kind to others. They should respect the followers and let them participate.

3. It is very hard for a leader to have all the qualities that the ideal leader should have. All the traits are truly impossible for one person to embody. Its hard for a person to be powerful and strong as well as kind. Its also difficult being confident and take initiative as well as being a good listener and involving others. The qualities are complete opposites, making it extremely difficult for anyone to be a perfect leader.

4. There are many leaders in my life. In my family my mother is the leader. She tells my brother and I what yo do and helps us out in many situations. She is a good listener and knows a lot about many of of the things we go through. In my group of friends there is also a leader. That person is someone who in hard situations always steps up and tries to find a solution to the problem. In my job, my boss is the leader. She is in control of the whole store and makes important decisions. At school, each class, I have a different leader. The teachers teaches whatever way he/she wants and assigns work and projects according to what he/she believes is appropriate.

5. A particular leader I admire is Martin Luther King Junior. He was a good man who fought for what he believed in. Martin worked for racial equality and civil rights. He was liked and respected by his followers. Martin did not believe in violence and had the ability to move a crowd with only his words.

6. A good follower has a few responsibilities. They have to trust the leader and need to be able to take orders and ideas without always knowing the end outcome of things. This is important because it's hard for the leader to always make sure everyone understands everything perfectly. Followers also need to speak up and tell the leader if they don't like what was decided and together they have to make some type of compromise or agreement. This is difficult to do, because these responsibilities conflict with a leaders responsibilities. Leaders have to be strong and sometimes aren't able to please everyone when making a decision. The followers can't always do and agree with everything the leader says or thinks, because no one is perfect and leaders need help.

7/8. Where the Wild Things Are is a great movie that has the theme leadership in it. This movie tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to his own imaginary world. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are wild and unpredictable. Max tells the creatures that he was the king from where he came from, and he has "special powers". Since The Wild Things desperately want a leader to guide them, they crown Max king, and he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds out, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and exciting and scary things happen. The main leader of this movie is obviously Max. His style of leadership could be described as going with the flow. Max never really had leadership experience before he became king, so he simply ruled liked he wanted to. When the creatures where in the process of building a home, Max was a good leader. He let everyone participate and share ideas. He established some ground rules and put one of the creatures, Carol in charge as well as himself. In conclusion Max was both a good and bad leader. At the beginning of the movie he lied to the creatures and promised them something he couldn't guarantee. This was bad because he lost their trust for not being honest. Max was also a good leader because he always tried his best to make everyone happy and always had a positive approach to things. The followers were all the creatures. They were all unhappy and all they wanted was happiness. They didn't know what to do and Max promised to help, so they fallowed his lead hoping he could do something. As a whole leadership was a very big part of the movie. except for the beginning and the end, Max is in the island acting as a leader. He makes good and bad choices which change the outcome of certain events.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

1. Geography has a major impact everything around us. It has affected history, wars, lives, and more. Every country varies in shape, resources, vegetation, work, technology etc. The Europeans were “geographically blessed” according to Jared Diamond. The Spanish were placed in the perfect spot. All around them they had other countries and cultures, which influenced them and helped them grow. Unlike the Europeans, the Incas weren’t so lucky. The Incas were isolated from the rest of the world, because of their geographical location. They Incas didn’t know how to write or read, they had never even seen a book before. They had never been introduced to cuneiform, like the Europeans had. The Europeans became “accidental conquerors” because their success in conquering wasn’t really based on their hard work, but more on luck itself. They were positioned in the middle of everything. Europeans got to take ideas from other countries; they got gun powder from China, and heard about new technologies and weapons from Asia. They were able to conquer natives and obtain gold, because they had things that the natives hadn’t even heard of. This made Europeans seem intimidating when they showed up with guns, horses, and different equipment/clothing.

2. Pizarro had steel while the Incas had bronze. This gave Pizarro and his men a great advantage over the Incas. Steel was much stronger and more advanced than bronze. The Incas made their tools and weapons from bronze, which made them weak compared to the steel swords the Spanish processed. The Spanish had more advanced knowledge and technology, which is why they were able to create steel. It was a long and complicated process, in witch iron was infused with carbon. The Inca didn’t have the sophis

ticated technology the Spanish had, because of their isolated geographical location. The Inca didn't even know there was such a thing as steel, their lack of knowledge was advantageous to the Spanish. This helped Pizarro defeat the Incas and conquer them.

Horses were very important back then, they were similar to our transportation today. Horses weren't just used as a mode of transportation, they had other uses that made the Spanish very powerful. A horse was somewhat of a weapon, Pizarro used it to intimidate others. Pizarro and his men looked powerful, important, and even godly, which scared and intimidated the Incas. The Incas couldn't compete with horses, the only kind of animal they raised were llamas. Llamas are not very useful animals and they were specially no help when it came down to war. The Spanish had an easy victory over the Incas, simply because horses were large and powerful animals, that the natives had never seen before. It wasn't the Incas fault they weren't introduced to the same things the Spanish were introduced to. The Incas lived far away from other civilizations and didn't get to experience the mixture of cultures the Spanish did.

3. Jared Diamond's theory on geography is still relevant today, but not as much as it used to be. Geography still has an affect on some components in our life. Now a day we have the technology to change what was once permanent. We no longer have to be stuck with the resources that surround us, we have certain types of transportation that carry resources from one country to the other, so that everyone has the opportunity to experience different things. Technology is universal, we have computers and the internet which display information that is easy to reach. Traveling is also much easier now that we have cars and airplanes, we can go to different continents in much shorter amounts of time. Where Diamond's theory would apply would be in countries like Africa that suffer from poverty. Countries in poverty don't have the money to pay for technology or resources. The rest of the country has an advantage over these poor counties. In this situation they would be like the Incas, isolated from the rest of us, unable to get what others have. Some children don't get what others have and it's because of their location in the world.

4. In class we have been learning about many important events and ideas. We have done four activities, watched the movie Guns, Germs, and Steel, talked about the legend of El Dorado, read about the Mongols, and took notes and discussed about the Middle Ages that all share one idea. They all share that exploration is at the heart of the human experience. Humans love to explore, it's in our nature, we long to find a way to explain the unexplainable, but the reasons vary from person to person. Some like to explore and seek for competition, excitement, adventure, to find answers, for purpose or a sense of accomplishment. Whatever it is we all have a sense of exploration in our hearts. In the movie Guns, Germs, and Steel, we learned that Pizarro and his men went on an exploration to the new world, and that is how they ended up defeating the Incas. They were seeking for gold and pride. when talking about the legend of El Dorado, We learned that it as based on a true story, it was the search for the city of gold. Once we read about the Mongols we saw that they used exploration to create and expand their huge empire. After taking notes on Middle Ages, we knew that Europe was in the dark age for about 1000 years. They weren't doing so good because the Europeans weren't exploring yet.