Do people have the right to revolt?

I think that people do have the right to revolt, no matter what. If the people realize that there is a major problem with the government of a country and how it is being run, then they do have the right to trigger reform of the government or overthrow the government and create a new one. However, just because the people have the right to revolt doesn’t necessarily mean that it will actually work. If there is only a small group of people motivated enough to actually revolt, the revolution won’t be all that successful if they don’t have enough followers. In a revolution, there is definitely strength in numbers. The more of the population that supports the revolution, it is more likely to be successful in creating a new government. I think that if most of a population can be swayed to go against the government, they must be going against it for a good reason. If the reason for revolting isn’t necessarily a rational or good reason, not as many people will see it fit to revolt. If the reason isn’t a big reason that affects everyone, there will probably be a good number of people who don’t think it’s worth it to revolt, even if they agree that there is a flaw in the government. People have the right to revolt at all times, but the reason for revolt has to pass the test of the people before the revolution can actually start and possibly end up being successful.

Project Based Learning vs. Traditional Learning

When I first heard from my teacher that history class would be mostly project based learning this year, my immediate first thought was “oh no.” I am the type of person who likes to have structure in their learning, and the less structure there is, the harder it is for me to learn. Unless I’m genuinely interested in the subject, I find that it’s hard to motivate myself to be productive during class. In most cases, I would prefer to sit and take notes instead of doing research for a project. With notes, everything is laid out and you know what information is important and what you “need” to know. One part of project based learning that has been difficult for me is focusing on topics and ideas that I want to know about, instead of focusing on the stuff that I “need” to know just to get good grades. I think that often times, students are more focused on memorizing material to get good grades rather than focusing on things that they are actually interested in. A less structured classroom and project based learning allow students to learn about topics that relate to things they’re interested in. Although it is more difficult for me to figure out the “big picture” and the basics of a concept, such as the Renaissance, project based learning has allowed me to be more engaged in my own learning because I have the ability to go in whatever direction that I want. 

After spending almost two months on our Renaissance project, I’ve had a chance to adjust to the classroom dynamic and the new style of learning, and I’m slowly getting better at it. There are definitely a few things that I still need to work on, but the project-based learning has been a good, healthy challenge for me.