Week 24 -- Greetings from Livonia

Middle school trip to Livonia 

If you encounter one of these brave fifth or sixth graders, be sure to ask them about the food-related science experiment that they participated in at the hands of seventh graders Nick and Owen. (This is their reactions to eating haggis, but before being told what haggis actually is.)

We began the week on Monday digging further into Place Out of Time. We had an interesting in-character conversation (ask your child about "the POOT switch") about their thoughts and experiences breaking social and/or legal boundaries. The issue we're examining with Place Out of Time is if it should be socially and/or legally acceptable to steal something in order to survive. Most of our characters seemed to be in favor of breaching social boundaries on occasion. Transgender activist Jazz Jennings, for example, had thoughts about the social norms that she has felt compelled to break, based on her gender identity. Al Capone felt great about violating legal boundaries, as doing so made him quite wealthy.

Out of character, we had a discussion about the the differences between the ideas of nationalism versus global citizenship, which are two concepts that have been discussed a lot in the world lately. We specifically talked about the nature of the relationship between the United States and Mexico, as well as the role that China (and other parts of Asia) plays in manufacturing things inexpensively for the world. Our journal prompt this week also related to the discussion. Kids were asked to respond to the following quote:

"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit." — Eli Khamarov

Responses varied, as you can imagine. These are thorny issues that don't have easy answers. Exploring them together gives us much to think about as we increase our awareness of the nuances of a complex world.

Though this sounds like this may have been a pretty heavy week, our work and conversations have been spirited and engaged.

Spirited and engaged were taken to a new level on Thursday, when the entire middle school traveled to Livonia for a day of socializing and activity at the Recreation Center there. It was a make-up trip for our canceled snow tubing trip (thanks for nothing, global climate change!) and the kids had a great time swimming together, playing basketball and other games, and more. It was a great bonding day, and an excellent way to celebrate a three day weekend.

Weeks 12 & 13 -- Time for school, biomes, and grandfriends

We only had two days of school before the Thanksgiving break last week, and we used part of them to begin watching the documentary Time for School. This fascinating film is a longitudinal look at five children from around the world as they progress through some form of schooling system. The filmmakers first visited them in 2003, and have followed up with films every few years ever since. We made note of many things as we watched, such as the amount of family and/or cultural support for school each student experienced. We compared and contrasted the experiences of these kids with each other and with ourselves.

We experienced a potent display of support from family and community on Grand Friends day, during which we welcomed several family and friends into our classroom and shared some of what we’ve been doing at school this year.

Much of the rest of our homeroom time has been spent working on our Into the Biome projects, in which students are working in teams to create a food web game based on different biomes of the planet.

In math group, we’ve been continuing our exploration of various ways to multiply numbers. Ask to see the Ethiopian method, or the one where you draw intersecting lines. They’re like magic tricks, but looking closely at them reveals hints of how they work, and also firms up the conceptual understanding of multiplication.

Monarchs & monarchs

The last several weeks have been informed by learning about two types of monarch, both of which have been cast aside by Americans. One was intentional (King George III, during the American Revolution), the other has been an unintended consequence of the rise of industrialized farming in the United States (the migrating monarch butterfly). 
You may recall some of our work earlier in the year inspired by Last Chance to See, a powerful and entertaining book by Douglas Adams. In it, Adams and naturalist Mark Carwardine travel the world in search of some of the most endangered animals on the planet. 

It is a sad truth that there are endangered species in every region of the world, including our own. Rather than view this as an immutable fact beyond our control, our class has opted to actively work to reverse the fortunes of a familiar, but threatened species: the migratory monarch butterfly. 

The monarch is striking and iconic. If asked to picture a butterfly, most people will likely conjure a monarch in their mind. It is a widespread species, but the insects that we see in Michigan are part of a remarkable annual migration that becomes more miraculous and mysterious the more you learn about it. 

There is (of course) a Wikipedia article about this migration, but in brief: Monarch butterflies take part in a migration that begins in the mountains of Mexico, passes through the continental United States, and concludes in Canada, where they reverse course and head back South. The remarkable thing about this is that the annual migration takes five generations of monarchs to complete. The butterflies that start out in Mexico are not the ones that arrive in our state months later, but their grandchildren. How these butterflies know to consistently follow these paths of their ancestors is a mystery to science.  

It's also a phenomenon that is in danger of disappearing. 

Monarchs are wholly dependent on milkweed, on which they lay their eggs during this long journey. Familiar caterpillars soon hatch, feast on the leaves, create a chrysalis, and emerge in their adult stage two weeks later. 

Milkweed, formerly quite plentiful, is being wiped out en masse as an unintended side effect of the proliferation of industrial farming. Pesticides meant to protect crops have eradicated milkweed populations, significantly fragmenting and reducing a vital resource for the monarchs. 

Happily, there are simple things that people can do to help. 

The most passive is to learn what milkweed looks like, and take care not to remove or poison it if you happen to have it on your property. Milkweed has a bit of a public relations problem. It has the word "weed" right in its name, and it tends to grow in unpredictable places from year to year, confounding gardeners of a more controlling nature. One of the many things we hope to do is to work to rehabilitate the reputation of this important plant. 

A screenshot of recently spotted monarchs.
Visit this link for an interactive version. 

Our class has opted to take a more proactive approach. We have spent the last several weeks researching and planning a monarch waystation, which we're developing on the campus of Summers-Knoll. It is taking shape just outside of the windows of the 5/6 classrooms. As of today, there are two raised beds (constructed by Chris Swinko and his 3/4 class) that will eventually be stocked with native flowering plants that will bloom throughout the spring and summer, and milkweed that has been cultivated from local sources. 


It has been quite a project. This is an interdisciplinary affair, born in Science class, but taking significant portions of our homeroom time. Science Teacher Lisa has a certified monarch waystation at her home, and she has served as an inspiration, mentor, and guide in this endeavor. 

Our grand plan goes beyond simply creating a waystation at school. We also hope to cultivate and distribute milkweed to all who are willing to grow it at their homes. This means that we've been trying to grow our own milkweed from seed. Teams of students have been attempting to cultivate seeds in our classroom and in the greenhouse, experimenting in order to determine the most effective ways to grow milkweed from seed. 

We've also been tracking existing monarchs. Studying monarchs is an excellent way to engage as citizen scientists, with enthusiastic hobbyists and naturalists collecting and sharing data about milkweed and monarch sightings. Kids can be found checking this site daily. (Ask your child about it!) 

The project has offered many authentic opportunities for genuine science. For example, rather than simply buying topsoil from a retailer, we are trying to "mine" our own campus for material. One day found all of our students working in teams to collect soil samples from various places on the Summers-Knoll grounds to determine the best site to take soil. 

When it was determined that the most fertile soil seemed to be in our woods just beyond the playground, we decided that we needed to do a mini-environmental impact study. What would it mean for us to move into a previously undisturbed area to remove several dozen cubic feet of soil? To find out, we trekked carefully into the woods to see what was living back there. 

What we found surprised us all. 

We are currently attempting to identify the source of a clutch of eggs found beneath a log near our vernal pool. Our initial suspicion is that our small woods may be home to a population of reclusive salamanders. We are trying to verify this through online research and reaching out to herpetologists. Stay tuned for updates! 

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I also mentioned that other monarch earlier in this post. As part of our background preparation for our upcoming Spring trip to Philadelphia, we have been studying colonial America and the American Revolution. We've been using a number of sources in order to get a well-rounded look at this period of history. We have read selections from Joy Hakim's A History of US series, watched selections from the HBO series John Adams, and listened to selections from the recent Broadway phenomenon Hamilton. We've also done a close reading and discussion of the United States Declaration of Independence, and we've been barreling through our current read aloud book, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. 

Taking stock of the greenhouse inventory

Researching milkweed, native plants, and monarchs

Attempting to grow milkweed from seed, attempt #1

Moving the raised beds to their new homes

Searching for ideal sources of soil

Soil samples settling for close observation and study

POOT: The Place Out of Time banquet

We began our first week back after Spring Break with a couple of field trips. 



The first was to the University of Michigan School of Education for the annual Place Out of Time banquet. There were a couple hundred students in attendance from Michigan and Ohio, ranging from 5th graders through high school. Check out this video to get a glimpse of the event (apologies in advance for the wobbliness of the camera): 

Chatting with Joanna at our weekly morning assembly

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On Tuesday, we took a trip to Hill Auditorium to hear a performance of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. 

(I confess that this would be much more effective if there was audio.)

Guest Speaker: Sam French, writer and director of Buzkashi Boys

On Wednesday, March 30, we welcomed Academy Award nominated director Sam French to our school. Sam was in Ann Arbor speaking at the University of Michigan, and we were lucky enough to have him address the Summers-Knoll middle schoolers for an engaging question and answer session about his work. 


In preparation, we watched Sam's short film, Buzkashi Boys. It's a notable film for many reasons. The most overt is probably the fact that it was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film in the 2012 Academy Awards. Perhaps more importantly, it was filmed entirely on location in Kabul, Afghanistan using local actors and a largely local film crew. The story also followed up on our study of the Time for School project. Shugufu, one of the subjects of that documentary, is also a young person trying to make her way in Afghanistan. 

Sam French was a thoughtful and gracious guest. He shared anecdotes and answered questions for well over an hour, discussing a myriad of topics. We learned about how difficult it is to find actors to cast in a country where the arts had been brutally suppressed for decades, the perils of trying to work with horses, how a simple change in weather can force changes in a filming schedule, and some background on some of the stunning locations featured in the story. He also shared some thoughts on storytelling and filmmaking in general. 

Here is a trailer for the film, and below that, the full film itself: 

Pi, Pie, and Politics

Music Class

We've had a busy week! Here's a sampling of what's been going on lately. 

On Monday, our class led the weekly, school-wide assembly. We opted to talk about our work in the Place Out of Time project. After a quick explanation of what Place Out of Time (POOT) actually is, we demonstrated the "POOT Switch." This is the switch found in our classroom that I periodically flip for classroom conversations that are conducted entirely as our POOT characters. It's a fun (and slightly terrifying) aspect of the POOT experience. When the POOT switch is flipped to "ON," kids know that I will only address them as their characters. If they attempt to respond in any way as "themselves," they know that I will treat them as if they are still their character, but having some sort of episode. POOT works best if everyone is buying into the concept, and this is invaluable (and fun!) practice. 

We've prepared for this activity in two ways. First, we've learned some of the basic rules of improvisational theater. There are many schools of thought in improv, but there are some fairly universal tenets that are actually pretty useful tools for everyday life. The most ubiquitous of those rules is "Yes, and..." 

The basic idea is that when you are improvising, you must accept whatever is given to you, and then build on it. If I address you as if you are former President Richard Nixon, you not only have to accept it, but add to the conversation. You can never "negate" something that's been offered, or the whole thing falls apart.

The second concept that we've used for this activity is "No Permanent Damage." We're all filled with all sorts of fears, both rational and the opposite. How can you distinguish a fear that is keeping you safe, from a fear that is keeping you from experiencing something positive? 

Here is a simple test that you can conduct any time you're deciding whether or not to engage in an activity that is causing you apprehension: If you're feeling nervous or unsure about something, ask yourself, "By doing this, am I exposing myself to a risk that could potentially cause me true and permanent damage? Might I lose a toe, go blind, or earn an unsightly scar?" 

If the answer is no, go ahead and try it! For example, the worst case scenario of improvising as a historical figure in front of your classmates is that you might be a little embarrassed if you say something truly ridiculous. Embarrassment isn't permanent damage, so you can feel safe giving it a whirl. 

Everyone involved did a great job of rolling with the questions that I asked them, and part of the fun of the exercise is wriggling your way out of answering a question that you are unsure about. For example, I asked Kaz (portraying futbol legend Pelé) how his children felt about his fame. Kaz had no idea what the real Pelé felt about this, so he responded with, "I don't talk about my children publicly." Brilliant! 

Monday was also 3/14: Pi Day!


We combined our math group with Sam's to discuss the concept of Pi in a number of ways. The most important thing that came from the day was talking about how mathematics is much, much more than arithmetic. 

A significant part of elementary and middle school math revolves around learning arithmetic: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It gets dressed up a bit the further along you get (fractions, decimals, ratios, percentages, etc), but it's ultimately all still the same thing: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They are crucial tools to learn, but they're still just tools. Math is much more than that. 

Sam returns! He shared photos of his new daughter Maddy, as well as pie! 

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This election season... Oof. As you might imagine, the kids have it on their minds. We used it this week to demonstrate some applied mathematics that goes beyond simple arithmetic. 

The branches of government. We've gone over this a few times over the last few weeks as we've tried to understand exactly what the President of the United States can and cannot do. 

We talked about how the United States has a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. A direct democracy would find us voting on each and every single proposed law at the local, state, and federal level. Few of us have the time for this, so we elect representatives to vote in our best interests instead. It's a useful system, but there are issues with it. One of them is that people have been using math to game the system for generations: Gerrymandering. 

We talked about gerrymandering as a concept, and looked at some examples of it in action. First up is a very clear model of how it works: 

Here's the political cartoon that first articulated the practice: 

Here are some notoriously gerrymandered congressional districts in the United States: 

Finally, we tried our hands at manipulating elections. Here's one of the exercises we did together: 

In this particular scenario, the Democrats outnumber the Republicans. However, it is possible to draw four districts (with six "cities" each) that allows the Republicans to win the election. (It must be noted that all political parties have been guilty of engaging in this practice.) 

Math and civics! It turns out that they have a lot to do with one another!