Reflection on Project
1. What did we learn about in this project?
During the Truth of War Project, we learned a tremendous amount of things about the Vietnam War. We learned through watching Ken Burns’ documentary, through reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, and also examining documents about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and other events that happened during the time of the war. The first thing I can remember learning about in this project, was the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This incident was a big part of Vietnam War history because it triggered a lot of conflict between Vietnam and the U.S. Throughout the project, we learned a great deal of information about all the different people involved. Leaders of Vietnam and America, the soldiers, and also a lot about the civilians from both places. A huge part of learning about the veterans was having them come in and talk about their experiences. We asked three veterans to come in and tell us their perspective, being in the war. It was really interesting meeting and talking to someone who had been through all of the things we were learning about. They really deepened my understanding of how painful war is, mentally and physically. In the long run, this project was very inspiring. I will never forget this project and how much deeper my understanding of war is.
2. How did we exhibit our learning?
For the final product of this project, we did not create individual pieces, however our final product was the exhibition. We had to figure out how we wanted to convey information in our exhibition while still making it fun and interactive. For the exhibition, our class split up into groups and we were each assigned a room. The rooms were, “The American Homefront, Soldiers on the Battlefield, Soldiers’ Emotions, Vietnamese Perspectives, America Divided, and Retrospective.” My room was “Soldiers on the Battlefield.” When you walked in, we gave you a dog tag and told you to put your name on it and put it on your neck so that if you died we could identify your body and send you back to the correct family. We would then show you where all the traps were. There were three different kinds of traps and we would explain each one and how they worked. Our room was themed like the jungle. We had trees, vines, fog, and twinkle lights. We also had a medic scene. A wounded soldier with a medic helping and wrapping the wounds. There was a mural that another student and I painted. It was a helicopter landing to come get the wounded soldier and also another soldier was “keeping watch”. On the other side of the room, there was a guerrilla soldier dressed in a ghillie suit hiding behind a tree. On all the walls of the room, we had infographics about the traps the medics and lots of other things. Overall, I would say that our room was a total success and I think that people got an immediate feel for being in Vietnam.
3. How did you strengthen your skills during this project? How did you stretch yourself?
During this project I really think I could have been more of a leader. I did apply myself and did what I was told, but I think I could have taken more charge. I think that to expand on my leadership, I could have signed up to be a project manager, this would have been a good opportunity to show that I can be a leader, and to practice more facilitating. I also think that if there is another opportunity to do this, or something similar to it, I should take the chance. Another example of something that was challenging for me was putting my idea into the actual exhibit. I think I could have helped with the design more and also with the infographics. The majority of my time was used to paint the mural, although it did take a while for both of us to get it done, I could have tried to spread my time out more so I could help make an infographic. In the long run, I think I did well with working with my group, but I could have helped facilitate more and also arranged my time with work and the mural differently. Although that was the biggest weakness of mine during this project I do think I grew in collaboration. This project, compared to past projects, has been my strongest in collaboration. I was on task the entire time and really tried my hardest to get my ideas out there . I worked well with my group members and my group got along really well. That was one thing I was really proud of my group for, we all shared out our ideas and all of us working together went really smoothly. There wasn’t any conflict and we pulled our room together and it went really well. So basically, I am really proud of my group and I for working really hard and ending up with an awesome and realistic looking room!
4. How did this project change your thinking? What enduring understandings will you take away?
During this project, I really expanded on my knowledge of the soldiers’ emotional perspectives, during and after the war, and how dramatically different their lives are afterwards. This really opened my eyes to PTSD and how traumatic it really makes life after the war. This also made me think about how you really can’t truly understand what veterans went through or say anything is true about war unless we were there, this and this brings me to think about the truth of war. I truly don’t think there is a “truth of war.” There are so many components that make up war and the people involved. There is too much for there to be one answer. For example, in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, he tells a lot of stories about his and others’ experiences while being in Vietnam. He then springs it on you that everything he is saying could be lies, but how would we know? Basically, I think that if you want any information about war, talking to a veteran in person and trusting their telling the truth is the best way to get it. I think that you can get information about war from old news channels, movies and books but nothing compares to having someone who was there tell it to you in person. Like I said before, I do not think there is not one truth of war, there are many, and you just have to have the right sources to understand it.
During the Truth of War Project, we learned a tremendous amount of things about the Vietnam War. We learned through watching Ken Burns’ documentary, through reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, and also examining documents about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and other events that happened during the time of the war. The first thing I can remember learning about in this project, was the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This incident was a big part of Vietnam War history because it triggered a lot of conflict between Vietnam and the U.S. Throughout the project, we learned a great deal of information about all the different people involved. Leaders of Vietnam and America, the soldiers, and also a lot about the civilians from both places. A huge part of learning about the veterans was having them come in and talk about their experiences. We asked three veterans to come in and tell us their perspective, being in the war. It was really interesting meeting and talking to someone who had been through all of the things we were learning about. They really deepened my understanding of how painful war is, mentally and physically. In the long run, this project was very inspiring. I will never forget this project and how much deeper my understanding of war is.
2. How did we exhibit our learning?
For the final product of this project, we did not create individual pieces, however our final product was the exhibition. We had to figure out how we wanted to convey information in our exhibition while still making it fun and interactive. For the exhibition, our class split up into groups and we were each assigned a room. The rooms were, “The American Homefront, Soldiers on the Battlefield, Soldiers’ Emotions, Vietnamese Perspectives, America Divided, and Retrospective.” My room was “Soldiers on the Battlefield.” When you walked in, we gave you a dog tag and told you to put your name on it and put it on your neck so that if you died we could identify your body and send you back to the correct family. We would then show you where all the traps were. There were three different kinds of traps and we would explain each one and how they worked. Our room was themed like the jungle. We had trees, vines, fog, and twinkle lights. We also had a medic scene. A wounded soldier with a medic helping and wrapping the wounds. There was a mural that another student and I painted. It was a helicopter landing to come get the wounded soldier and also another soldier was “keeping watch”. On the other side of the room, there was a guerrilla soldier dressed in a ghillie suit hiding behind a tree. On all the walls of the room, we had infographics about the traps the medics and lots of other things. Overall, I would say that our room was a total success and I think that people got an immediate feel for being in Vietnam.
3. How did you strengthen your skills during this project? How did you stretch yourself?
During this project I really think I could have been more of a leader. I did apply myself and did what I was told, but I think I could have taken more charge. I think that to expand on my leadership, I could have signed up to be a project manager, this would have been a good opportunity to show that I can be a leader, and to practice more facilitating. I also think that if there is another opportunity to do this, or something similar to it, I should take the chance. Another example of something that was challenging for me was putting my idea into the actual exhibit. I think I could have helped with the design more and also with the infographics. The majority of my time was used to paint the mural, although it did take a while for both of us to get it done, I could have tried to spread my time out more so I could help make an infographic. In the long run, I think I did well with working with my group, but I could have helped facilitate more and also arranged my time with work and the mural differently. Although that was the biggest weakness of mine during this project I do think I grew in collaboration. This project, compared to past projects, has been my strongest in collaboration. I was on task the entire time and really tried my hardest to get my ideas out there . I worked well with my group members and my group got along really well. That was one thing I was really proud of my group for, we all shared out our ideas and all of us working together went really smoothly. There wasn’t any conflict and we pulled our room together and it went really well. So basically, I am really proud of my group and I for working really hard and ending up with an awesome and realistic looking room!
4. How did this project change your thinking? What enduring understandings will you take away?
During this project, I really expanded on my knowledge of the soldiers’ emotional perspectives, during and after the war, and how dramatically different their lives are afterwards. This really opened my eyes to PTSD and how traumatic it really makes life after the war. This also made me think about how you really can’t truly understand what veterans went through or say anything is true about war unless we were there, this and this brings me to think about the truth of war. I truly don’t think there is a “truth of war.” There are so many components that make up war and the people involved. There is too much for there to be one answer. For example, in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, he tells a lot of stories about his and others’ experiences while being in Vietnam. He then springs it on you that everything he is saying could be lies, but how would we know? Basically, I think that if you want any information about war, talking to a veteran in person and trusting their telling the truth is the best way to get it. I think that you can get information about war from old news channels, movies and books but nothing compares to having someone who was there tell it to you in person. Like I said before, I do not think there is not one truth of war, there are many, and you just have to have the right sources to understand it.
Our Mural
Original Image
Mural