Week 10 -- The votes are in

Our warm-up for Wednesday morning. There was a lot of stress in the air.  

A few minutes before school began on Wednesday, one of the students in our class said, “I have a feeling that today is going to be a very odd day…” It was indeed. One thing that I think most people of all political leanings can agree on is that this has been a notably odd presidential cycle. 5th and 6th graders, even the ones that seem savvy and sophisticated about such things, can have a difficult time processing it all.

Leading up to the election, we talked a bit about political parties and how they work. The general idea was that not every Democrat believes the same thing as every other Democrat, nor does every Republican believe the same thing as every other Republican (and the same is true, of course, for other political parties). This drawing illustrates the way different platforms are created, and how coalitions are built. 

Rather than doing a post mortem on the late night results of the election while emotions were still so high, I opted to address the matter in a more roundabout way. We spent most of our homeroom time on Wednesday watching the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men. It’s an excellent film, and it was a soothing balm for anyone who was feeling unease about people in general, and the United States specifically. It portrays unconscious prejudice, overt bigotry, and casual indifference to others, then counters them with a passionate rebuttal of reason, logic, and decency. The trajectory of the story shows that one person of principle can stand up against a crowd and truly make a difference. It happens through reason, patience (along with some anger, which is right in the title), and consensus-building. People find that they are able to work together as they start listening to one another, and ultimately, everyone in the room has valuable things to say. The film is timeless in some ways, and dated in others. The stuff that’s out of sync with us today are things that are useful for driving conversation. Most glaringly, it’s called 12 Angry Men, and indeed, the entire cast is white and male. Were one to imagine casting this story in 2016, it would be a stark reminder of how far we’ve come.

(Here's a blog post from the last time we watched it in class, two years ago.) 

The film also allowed us to get at some very basic aspects of our judicial system, such as “innocent until proven guilty,” “a jury of one’s peers,” and “burden of proof,” and we spent part of Thursday reflecting on it through a written assignment.

Our journal writing prompt for the week 

We balanced out the week with some less intense stuff, such as a journal prompt (“In what ways is writing a more effective communication tool than speaking?”), play rehearsal, and good old Scholastic News.

We only had two days of Math this week. One day was devoted to Singapore work, and the other was spent practicing some problem-solving strategies that we’ve learned this year. Some students are opting to take the AMC-8 next week, so part of Thursday was spent registering for them for the test next Tuesday.

Week 11: Fear itself

As with much of the rest of the world, Paris, Beirut, Syria, and the United States were on our minds this week. 

When we left school on Friday, the news from Paris was just starting to break, which meant that we hadn't discussed it at all at school. By Monday, almost everyone had already talked about the terrorist attacks with their families, which allowed us to talk about some of the fallout of these tragic events, as well as some historical context.  

An example of the fallout was the domino effect of United States governors declaring that Syrian refugees were unwelcome in their states. 

Article: More than half the nation's governors say Syrian refugees not welcome

Our kids have been raised to believe that being charitable and kind is a core value, so this development required some conversation to understand. We talked about why so many people might object to the arrival of these immigrants, and we eventually got to the idea of fear. What follows is a stream of images that we had conversations about: 

First, I introduced them to the following very famous quote: 

Everyone had heard the quote, but no one knew who had said it or why. When told that it was a quote from FDR's inaugural address, some people guessed that it might refer to World War II.  

In fact, it was in reference to the Great Depression. The economy had crashed, unemployment was up, and people were scared and desperate.  

Though there was some help available, it was far from enough, and people weren't always welcoming. Many Americans had to travel far and wide in search of food, shelter, and work. The images of Hoovervilles, breadlines, and groups of desperate people looked very similar to images that we're seeing in the news of late. 

Not long after, something happened that really stoked fears in the United States. 

When the Japanese attacked the United States base at Pearl Harbor, fear and suspicion reigned, with drastic consequences for many Americans. Though many Japanese Americans had lived as citizens of the United States for their entire lives, they were distrusted and ostracized. 

Despite their protestations, their allegiances were suspect to their countrymen. Xenophobia and fear led to Executive Order 9066 (signed by President Roosevelt, apparently giving in to the fear that he had earlier warned against), which laid the ground for the internment of over 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent. 

We talked about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Again, the camps looked familiar. 

Every wave of immigrants has generated some degree of backlash. We're also seeing evidence of this in Esperanza Rising, our current read aloud novel. 

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The kids who are in 5th and 6th grade today were born after 9/11. They are coming of age in a world where terrorism is a looming specter. Those of us who are older were raised with a different fear. 

The fear of nuclear war was a potent one for many who came of age from the 1950s through the 1980s. In addition to a cultural anxiety, it also inspired a wealth of literature. We delved deeper into the idea of metaphor by reading a short story called 'The Wheel' by John Wyndham. On the surface, the story seems to have nothing to do with nuclear annihilation. Upon reading it a little more closely, we found a portrait of a culture crippled by its own fears. We are finding that each generation is confronted with issues unique to its time. How will these young citizens react to the challenges of their time? 

Week 10: What makes a border? Why do people want to cross them?

As discussed last week, we're taking a deeper look into the nature of geography and borders. 


On Monday, we spent some time examining and discussing this image, making note of the various physical features. 

People pointed out mountain ranges (green on one side, less so on the other), lakes, rivers, areas that seemed greener than others, and coastlines. We then started talking about these features in terms of what it might mean to live there. Rivers irrigate crops. Oceans allow ports. Deserts can be inhospitable. Where would you want to live on this map? Where would you want to avoid? 

We also talked about how these features might form natural borders for people (and other life!). Oceans, mountains, and deserts have historically been difficult to cross, thereby separating people, cultures, languages, and religions through long stretches of history. People living on one side of a vast desert or giant mountain range might have very little in common with the people who live on the other. 

We eventually looked at this image with the political labels turned on: 

Before the labels were revealed, a few kids had recognized the region we were examining, but they knew little about it. For example, no one knew about the longstanding tensions between Pakistan and India. We discussed some of the current and historical issues in this part of world as a way of illustrating how the physical and the cultural can intersect and influence a border. 

With all of this in mind, we then examined maps of a fictitious landmass. Everyone was tasked with the following challenge: 

Given these physical features (coastlines, rivers, and mountains):

... and these regions of differing religions:

... and this map of the languages spoken in each region: 

... what borders do you might imagine would exist on this landmass? 

Here's a sampling of what people came up with: 

As you can see, there were plenty of ways to divvy things up. 

Later, we shared and discussed our maps, making note of similarities and differences. We talked about what was challenging about creating borders, and what influenced our decisions. How important was it to have a river or coastline for each country? How did religion or language enter into each borderline? What role did the mountains play? 

Then we extrapolated further: What would it be like in the countries where there was one predominant religion, but also small pockets of another? What about countries with more than one language? Would citizens coexist peacefully, or would there be friction? What if a country with a minority population in its borders lacked a sufficient water source? What if there was a scarcity of farmable land? 

We unanimously agreed that this was indeed a tricky process. It was easy then to see how the evolution of nations and states in the real world has been even more complicated and messy. 


All of this informed a discussion about a contemporary issue that is currently on the minds of many: The mass influx of refugees to Europe. 

Visit this link to view an astounding animation of the number of refugees entering Europe from 2012 to the current day. Here's a screenshot of a moment in time, but you'll really want to check out the animation in motion. It's a little staggering: 

Each white dot represents 25 people. We watched the animation a few times and discussed many questions: Why are so many people going to Europe? What causes someone to leave their home country for another? Why are so many people fleeing Syria? What about Somalia? What's happening in sub-Saharan Africa in general? And why are so many people going to Germany? Why France? 

We discussed some of what's been going on in those parts of the world, which hopefully provided at least some small amount of context for the tragedies that have since been in the news over the last few days. I'm sure there will be many more conversations to come next week. 

The latest development in our current read aloud book Esperanza Rising has given us another view of this issue, as Esperanza and her family have just crossed the Mexico/United States border, fleeing their own troubles for the promise of a better life in California. It will probably come as no surprise that things get complicated.