Nikole Grove

Period 5
Humanities 1100

THE HUMANITIES EXPERIENCE

Going into this class, I was well prepared. Ive discussed many of the ideas of the subject
with my mother, father, brother, uncle, friend- you name it. However breaking the subjects up
and piecing them back together again made a bigger experience for me than I couldve conceived
going into that classroom in January.
The two subjects that particularly caught my eye were the Identity and the Happiness
and the Good Life units. Both were introspective of the human experience amongst humans
solely. The Nature unit was fun and almost made it into this little reflection however I must
stand my ground with these two intriguing subjects.
The reason Identity caught my eye (and mostly, ear) was because of its willingness to
make us question ourselves. Rarely do humans knowingly look inside themselves and ask who
they are and how they became that way, and rarely do the citizens of the United States look at
themselves and realize just how privileged they are. It made the whole class thing and discuss in
an interesting fashion, posing questions and answers mostly for ourselves about what we believe
is how the world functions. We looked amongst race (which was quite fascinating since, to the
best of my knowledge, we are all white) and how that impacted who people were as well. These
circle back to privilege again. The conversation became alive as we discussed how skin color,
gender, and sexuality can oppress or reward us by society. Not only did it reward ourselves by
thinking our own lives through but we learned the perspective of others which we dont usually
obtain out of close companionship.
It was the same with Happiness and the Good Life. While it somewhat touched on
subjects outside of Religion, it did finally come back to learning the basics of religion and
philosophies that have made people happy- or have tried to. Being a non-theist myself it was
mind opening to see religions being discussed not as if they were fundamental truths but stories
and books and a way of life that are, mostly, still practiced. We learned about the religious
history and the values that these religions obtain. It explores the pathways to happiness, whether
it is the Talmud, the Quran, the Noble Eightfold Path, mankind himself, or the Bible. In a Utah
classroom, this conversation was vital to the understanding of students outlooks, and my own,
towards religion and why it would be wrong to just assume that just because its different meant
that it was bad.
The combination of these two subjects is mind-blowing. Most Americans get who they
are from what they believe in, shaping their values and a lot of their identity though it may not be
so stark in their personalities all the time. The combination of religion with identity ends up
shaping what you can wear, say, or even to what you eat. We base our identities off of whichever
God there may be (which in my case is none but that affects me nonetheless) and make us pursue

the path we believe is right and what it tells us. Learning about these subjects in an objective
point of view really is fascinating and while equally terrifying, beautiful.