Reflection of Museum of The City of New York

Reflection on Trip to The Museum of the City of New York

I really enjoyed going to the Museum of the City of New York, where we learned about social issues. I think it’s kind of interesting how I've

also been talking about social issues in a community service program called What’s Up. It’s fun to get to use what you talked about in one place, and share ideas you created with your fellow classmates. I enjoyed the museum, because the area we were in didn’t just focus on one issue, but several, like women’s suffrage, religious freedom, gay rights, etc. I liked this because it helped show which people fought for what they believed in, but also what “means of persuasion” they used to try to convince people that what they were fighting for was right. I thought it was also cool how we got to look at some pictures of posters for women’s suffrage, and how we were supposed to figure out which side it was taking and what it was supposed to say, because I thought it was a good way to learn why people wanted women to have rights, or why they didn’t.

I don’t get the chance to go to a lot of protests and things like that, but I think it would be cool if we were able to either reenact or make our own protest in class where we split into two sides. We would be able to make posters and write up arguments for each side, and we could have one day that we spend having a debate until we reach consensus. I think this would be cool, first because it would be a lot of fun, second because we could learn a lot from it, but mainly third because we would be able to have the feeling of being in a protest. We would also get to know how it feels to win or lose, and how hard people work to get what they want. After the trip, I really wondered what it was like to try to fight for what you want, and not something like dessert after you've had too much, but for something far more important like gay rights.

After the trip was over, I felt intrigued to learn more, and I think that means it was a successful trip for me. I learned what people fought for and how they fought, which I think would be really cool to try out. I learned a lot from the videos we watched and the pictures of posters that we looked at. I think I really want to learn a lot more about specific people who made, or at least tried to make, a difference. I also thought the trip was cool because it showed me there were issues a long time ago that we will probably learn more about, but we are also learning about a topic that is still current. I think that is awesome because we can learn about older protests, but also newer ones. We can relate much more to the newer ones, which will probably give some people stronger voices in an argument about the issue. Overall I really enjoyed going to the Museum of the City of New York.