Salvador Ortega presented on his experiences with Habitat for Humanity in Thailand and fencing, connecting them to the four ways of knowing. For his GCW trip building houses with Habitat for Humanity, he discussed how emotion and perception helped him understand the gratitude of the families and impact of community service. For his seven years of competitive fencing, he explained how reason helped him develop strategies, while emotion sometimes caused physical reactions that reason helped overcome.

1. Salvador Ortega
Period 5
Senior Seminar Presentation Script
Intro: Hi my name is Salvador Ortega and I will be talking about the Ways of Knowing
and how they connect to what I have experienced in my life.
I am half American and half Spanish and I have lived in Thailand for since I was a
freshman. Before that I had lived throughout the United States for 14 years.
Question:What are the four ways of knowing?
The four ways of knowing are Reason, Perception, Emotion, and Language, which are
used to help us understand how we know what we know.
-Reason- reason is how we think of things logically, there are two main types of reason,
Inductive and deductive. Inductive reasoning is when people make generalizations based
on individual incidences, ex. 90% of humans are right handed, Joe is a human; therefore
Joe is probably right handed. Deductive reasoning is thinking about things logically, ex
all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal, Sherlock Holmes uses deductive
reasoning.
-Perception- Perception is how we view the world, and how we take in the information
around us and how we interpret it.
-Emotion- Emotion is internal feelings that we have that can cause us to act and can cause
us to act irrationally at times of extreme emotion.
-Language- Language is how we interact and communicate with other people.
Q: What experiences will you choose and what ways of knowing will you connect to
it?
I will be talking about my GCW trip to UdonThani for Habitat for Humanity and I will
discuss Emotion and Perception for this experience. Another experience I will be talking
about is Fencing and I will discuss Reason and Emotion.
Q: What is your first experience that you will talk about?
My first experience that I will talk about is my GCW trip to UdonThani for Habitat for
Humanity where we built two houses for two Thai families. I will connect emotion and
perception to this experience.

2. Q: Why did you choose this experience?
I chose this experience because it was a very meaningful form of community service. I
really enjoyed actually building two houses for underprivileged families and it was very
rewarding to see the instant gratitude on the family’s faces while we were building the
house and once they were finished. This was an amazing experience that taught me how
to work together with a large group of people and how fortunate that we are because not
everyone can even have something as necessary as a house.
Q: What does this experience say about you?
This experiences says that I do care about the community that I live in because I am
giving back to those that are less fortunate and that I can work well together with my
peers.
Q: How does emotion and perception connect to your experience with Habitat for
Humanity?
I think that knowing about emotion helped me to understand what I experienced on my
GCW trip to UdonThani because looking back I can see how emotion played a role with
me, the people that we were building the house for, and everyone who helped contribute
to building the houses. I can also see how knowing about emotion helps me to understand
the people that I was working with during the build. I think that I can relate the James-
Langue theory because looking back I can see that peoples emotion caused physical
responses during the day. For example, when we were working you could tell that people
were quite happy that they were helping out because their attitudes were happy, and they
had smiles on their faces pretty much the whole time. Another example that I can think of
is that when we presented the families with their new houses there you could see the
gratitude on their faces and this would make you smile and feel proud that you had
helped less fortunate people. Perception also helped me to understand this experience
because looking back I realized that I always thought that I could not make a difference
and that people could not help other people out that much. However, after the experience
I realized that you actually could make a direct difference and impact on someone else’s
life and that it was quite easy to do since I am very fortunate and I have been taking that
for granted. So knowing about perception helped me to understand why my perception
changed.
Q: What is your second experience that you will talk about?
My second experience that I am going to talk about is fencing. I have been fencing for 7
years now so it is a big part of my life. I will connect this experience to reason and
emotion.

3. Q: Why did you choose this experience?
I chose this experience because fencing is one of my passions and since I have been
fencing 7 years it has had a large impact on my life. I have stuck will fencing for a while
and I’m proud to say that I am pretty good at it so it is something that I want to share with
other people since it is a unique sport.
Q: What does this experience say about you?
This experience says that I am very dedicated to things that are of importance to me and
that I enjoy. It also says that I am patient since in fencing you are not supposed to ruse
when you are fighting and it takes time to become a skilled fencer.
Q: How does Emotion and Reason connect to your experience with fencing?
I think that knowing about emotion has helped me to understand what I am experiencing
while I am fencing competitively. I can relate the James-Lange Theory to this experience
of emotion because thinking back I can see that my emotions made a physical impact
upon my performance. For example, I can remember being in the top 8 at nationals one
year and feeling extremely nervous because they make you fence on a platform and have
cameras on you and everyone watches. I can remember being a bit rigid and not as
relaxed as I had been earlier because I was nervous and that produced a physical reaction
of me being stiffer and unable to move as well as I had been. Another example that shows
a physical reaction to an emotion is when I see that I am up against someone that was
undefeated for the previous rounds, I have a bit of fear in me and at first I start off slowly.
Reason can also relate to this experience because you have to be aware of everything
while you are fencing and you cannot allow your emotions to take over or else you will
make mistakes. So you have to use reason to stay calm and plan our a strategy of what to
do and also predict what you think your opponent is going to do. Looking back on that
specific example I can see that I calmed myself down and just came up with a strategy to
counter what he had been doing while I was observing him earlier. This helped me to
overcome my emotions and by using reason I was able to succeed. So I think that know
knowing about emotion and reason I can look back and reanalyze my experiences in
fencing to help better myself since I plan on continuing fencing when I am at college and
hopefully after that as well.