Open letter of reflection

When I first signed up for this course, I expected to talk mostly about torture, and the democracy surrounding the practice. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the class delved into a number of topics, not only torture, that were relevant and controversial in our society today. Being a young person in today's society has helped me, I think, to have a more open mind towards many of the issues that we talked about, and it was good to see so many people get charged up about these issues. I think that it is largely up to our generation to fix the things that we see as "problems" in today's culture, and without classes like this, I think that people would be much less informed.

What really struck me about the class, however, was how open everyone was to talking about these issues, debating these issues, in a non-confrontational and respectful way. I think that many of the topics that we covered were topics that easily flare tempers, and it was reassuring to see that our small class community could talk about things without coming to blows. Now, I understand that our classroom community is one that does not represent the majority of people in today's society. But if we can come together as a small unit, even, and begin to create change, then I think there is opportunity for the masses to follow.

Overall, I think this Humanism and Human Rights class was a brilliant mind-opening experience for myself, and I hope that I can take the values that the class seems to have come to accept, and use them in the future to create change. Now that I have been fully informed on so many of today's controversial issues, I feel that I can look back to the class, and the UDHR to better understand my own personal value system.