Week 21 -- Writing resumes and eating cake

The focus of our homeroom time remains learning about our Place Out of Time characters. Over the course of the week, the timelines of our lives have been completed and posted in the Middle School Commons, allowing us to see how our characters relate to one another in time. We also began speaking in character with one another, having first learned a little about the rules of improvisational acting.

Ella and company fixing our class decor

We’re also wrapping up the composition of our character “resumes,” which are brief (about 3-4 paragraph) introductions written in the first person. These will be posted on each character’s profile page on the Place Out of Time website.

One of the many ways that we’re learning about these figures is by seeking out documentaries and docudramas that feature them. Since we happen to have both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in our class, we watched some key selections from the 1999 film Pirates of Silicon Valley. The entire class learned about the birth of the personal computer (as well as a bit about how stocks work), and we got to see how actors dramatize people who actually exist.

Scenes from our weekly cleaning of the lunchroom 

We also got to spend some time with the 7/8s this week. They’re engaged in a unit about food, and they baked a variety of cakes from historic recipes. They were kind enough to invite us to sample their efforts, while telling us a bit about what they had learned.

In math, we continued exploring the concept of Flatland, this week moving to an adaptation that hews a little more closely to the original novel, including aspects that parody social conventions and stereotypes. We also spent two days this week working in our Singapore books.

The daily lunch session of Magic: The Gathering 

Hawk Island Snow Tubing!

It has long been a Summers-Knoll tradition that the entire school goes ice skating together on the Friday before mid-winter break. Our tiny school, however, has grown into a small school, and we're now large enough that having all of us on an ice rink at once is a bit unwieldy. Last year, the middle schoolers inaugurated a new tradition: While the lower schoolers went ice skating, we traveled to Lansing to Hawk Island Park to go snow tubing. 

Here's a sampling of the photos (and a couple of videos at the end) that I was able to snap before a blizzard moved in and jeopardized the survival of my camera. 

(I'd attempt to label everyone, but it's difficult to make out who everyone is in bulky snowsuits.)

Soccer with Friends School

We had an exciting morning today. First, we held auditions for our upcoming school play Alice in Wonderland. 

Immediately afterward, we hosted the Friends School In Detroit for a cordial soccer match in County Farm Park. It's part of our burgeoning interscholastic athletic organization, which our own Karl Sikkenga has been masterminding. Read more about the schedule on Karl's blog. 

It was a lovely way to spend the morning, and everyone had a great time! Ask your child about the game! 

Nik takes a shot.

Maestro 

 

Friends! 

Reflections Night is this evening!

We hope to see you all at Reflections Night tonight! 

The kids have been practicing all morning. Here's a sneak peek:

Place Out of Time: The importance of reflections

Our Place Out of Time experience is nearing its conclusion, and the middle school gathered this morning to begin talking about the value of reflection. We opened with a few quotes. The first two come from John Dewey.

• “We do not learn so much from experience as we do from reflecting on our experience.”
• 
  
• 
  
• “Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only the particular thing he is studying at the time.” 
• 
  
• – John Dewey

(New vocabulary words for most of the group: "pedagogical" and "fallacies.")

The third came from a source a little more familiar to many of us: 

• Harry stared at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.
• “ What is it?” Harry asked shakily.
• “This? It is called a Pensieve,” said Dumbledore. “ I sometimes find, and I am sure you
• know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my
• mind.”
• “Err,” said Harry who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.
• “At these times” said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, “ I use the Penseive. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into a basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you
• understand, when they are in this form.’ 
• 
  
• - Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J. K. Rowling
• 
  

This lead to a good discussion about the value of externalizing an experience in order to really process it. By getting it out of your head and onto paper (or onto a screen), you can look at things from a new perspective. 

It is perhaps worth noting that I looked like this for the duration of this discussion: 

(If you look closely, you might notice a hint of dry erase marker on my face.)

I used myself as an example. As a teacher, you have to earn the respect of your students. Were I to get dressed each day, look myself up and down, and leave the house without looking in the mirror, my day might look a lot like this: 

For some reason, I am failing to command their respect.

A mirror provides an external reflection that gives one instantaneous feedback on aspects of your appearance that you would otherwise be unable to see. 

Dumbledore's Penseive serves a similar function. By getting his thoughts out of his head, he's able to parse through them from a different perspective. 

There are any number of ways to reflect on something, but we started with a simple format: 

1. What?
- What are you reflecting on? Be objective. Don't add commentary or emotion, simply describe what Place Out of Time is, as you might explain it to a new student or a parent. 

2. So what??
- Now that you've objectively articulated the basics of the project, begin writing about your own experiences. What was the value of the experience? What did you learn? What skills did you develop? What was particularly challenging? Where did you exceed your expectations? Where did you fall short? What did you like and dislike about the experience? 

3. Now what??? 
- After thinking and writing about your experience and performance, how can you learn from it? What were the causes of your struggles, and how can you address them? Where did you thrive, and what does that say about your interests and skills? 

After our discussion, we began writing our reflections (and I washed my face). We'll continue working on them the rest of the week. 

Place Out of Time banquet!

We kicked off the week by attending the annual Place Out of Time banquet on Monday! We'll be posting a more detailed write up soon. In the meantime, take a look at this amazing gathering of luminaries from throughout time: 

Our own Lady Gaga addresses the assembly.

Charles Taylor, Calvin Johnson, Michael Jackson, Harry Houdini, and Pope Francis engage in a spirited debate. 

5th and 6th graders popping up on other blogs...

I periodically make time to check in on all of the other Summers-Knoll blogs to see what's happening around the building. It's always fun and interesting to see the work that other students and teachers are doing. 

I was happy to see some of our kids popping up on other blogs, and I thought you might enjoy a glimpse of our kids through other lenses. 

For example, here's an entry from Joanna's class blog recounting the day that we visited to help the 3/4 class electrify their cardboard homes. (Here's our blog entry about that day, to refresh your memory.) 

Karl's 7/8s recently completed a round of exhibitions of their work, which many of our class attended. Some of our kids wrote blog entry recaps of their experiences: 

Margaret writing about Nico's exhibition 

Sydney writing about Isobel's exhibition

Adi writing about Aristea's exhibition

Kaeli writing about Mike's exhibition

There's always a lot going on at our school. Be sure to check in with the other blogs to see what everyone is up to! 

Math: Budgeting

In middle school Math today, students formed family units and received paychecks. Their task: create a family budget based on a list of nonnegotiable costs (house payments, car insurance, food, etc) and potential wants that the family might have (cell phones, entertainment expenses, clothing). After creating workable budgets based on their shared resources, they were thrown some of life's curveballs: How does your budget change if one of your family members loses their job? What if a baby comes along? 

Ask your child how their family did today!

Happy New Year!

We're right back into the swing of things, after a long, restful beak (and a few snow days). Here we see Sam talking to the entire middle school about the mathematics of cities (our theme for the next two months). 

The conversation covered a lot of ground, and was largely guided by a read aloud of this article: Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem

Holiday break!

We made it to the holiday break! We wrapped up a fun and productive week with a school-wide morning assembly, then we adjourned to the middle school to clean, pack up, and put the finishing touches on our group commercials. Have a lovely break!

Middle School Student Government

Full middle school assembly this afternoon on the topic of student government!

Go see The Odyssey!

I hope everyone is planning to see The Odyssey! I saw it on Thursday and it was delightful. 

It must be seen in person, so this is the only photo I could post that wouldn't give anything away... Saturday is the last night! 

Scenes from Monday

We hit the ground running today after the long holiday weekend. Here's a quick look at a hectic and productive Monday: 

Danny has been tasked with a math problem: What is the most efficient way to package these golf balls, using the least amount of packaging possible?

This afternoon was devoted to a full rehearsal of our play, which took over the lunchroom and the middle school commons. 

Those not in the play spent the afternoon working with Dr. George on the greenhouse project. Today was spent preparing and starting work on the compost furnace that will heat the greenhouse in the winter. 

Installing the ground cover involved an honest-to-goodness story problem straight out of a Singapore Math book.  

Measure twice, cut once. 

Installing the liner...

Back indoors, Evan was recruited to construct assorted props for the play. 

Finally, though the Gaga pit has been stored away for the season, some kids weren't quite ready to let go: 

Morning Assembly: Play Rehearsal

...And we're back! 

After what was hopefully a fun and restorative long weekend, we're back at school. We kicked off this morning with an all-school assembly , rehearsing a scene from The Odyssey. 

Opening night is Thursday! 

The Music Cafe

Our first Music Cafe was last night, and it was remarkable. Kids performed solo, in duos, and in small ensembles. Many played different instruments for different pieces, exploring and expanding their musical horizons.
The kids all chose what songs they would perform, leading to a wonderful hodge-podge of different styles and genres. It was all orchestrated by our Music teacher Josh, whose boundless, good natured enthusiasm and positivity inspires kids to take risks that would probably shake the average person to their core. It was a delightful evening, full of talent and goodwill. (Videos will hopefully be coming soon!)