Week 25 -- Pi, pi, shoplifting, and justice

Recording our gravity car trials in science 

The Place Out of Time trial has begun in earnest, and we spent part of this week unpacking the opening arguments of the plaintiff and the defense. As mentioned previously, our case involves the true story of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation overturning the conviction of a homeless man who shoplifted approximately $4.70 worth of food because he was in “a state of need.” It’s a very interesting story, and it’s well worth reading a little about it. It captures a lot of what’s in the political climate of our country at the moment, while being far enough removed to allow some perspective.

Our trial in the Place Out of Time courtroom is a fictional extension of the story. The plaintiff in our case is the shopkeeper whose merchandise was stolen in the first place. She asserts that human need and dignity are obviously important matters for a society to address, but the fact remains that it was her store and property that were affected. A law was broken, and she was directly impacted. Doesn’t this ruling send a message that anyone can come in and take her property? She makes a compelling argument, and the defense has the job of convincing us that the court’s ruling should stand. Everyone is wrestling with this issue, both in-character and as themselves.

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Winter came back for a bit this week:

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Henry pits readers against each other. 

Meanwhile, a conversation that began during our weekly library time with Rachel led to this week’s journal prompt: “Novels versus Graphic Novels!” Students were encouraged to explore the pros and cons of each as a storytelling medium, and to write about how they interact with each. It was a unique prompt, in that kids were given the option of responding in prose, text, or some hybrid of both. Some kids who enthusiastically leapt to respond in a comic format realized that it can take a lot longer to write and draw a story than they realized. Many of the responses were playful and clever. Ask your child how they responded!

Joey had the books themselves fight it out. 

In math group, we spent some time working in our Singapore books, but as with every March 14, pi was front and center. On Tuesday, 3/14 (Pi Day), we watched some videos about pi, including one of Vi Hart’s infamous anti-pi rants.

One of the points of her video led us down a bit of a rabbit hole, as we started talking about scales of magnitude and the spaces in between things. This was vividly illustrated by playing with the very illuminating internet tool/toy The Scale of the Universe. Please do yourself a favor and spend several minutes playing with it right now. We also watched the classic Eames film Powers of Ten.



Of course, we are essentially obligated to bring in some sort of actual pie as part of all of this, a task that Sam dutifully took on as our school’s foremost expert on pi, pie, and homophones.

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.

Week 23 -- Filling in the gaps, fear is a LIAR.

In science, we're continuing to work with our gravity-powered cars. 

After a relaxing week off, we got right to work with an extension to our Place Out of Time timelines project. By now, almost everyone has a detailed timeline of the life of their character posted in the appropriate spot on our giant timeline in the middle school commons. However, most of our characters are clustered in the twentieth century. This week, we have spent some time populating the gaps in our huge timeline to provide more context for the scope of human history. For example, before this week, there were no events recorded in the entire 1400s. Now, there are notes about the world-changing voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, and another noting that the game of chess was in its modern form by 1475. Each student has been tasked with putting up at least five cards on the timeline this week, with more to come in the weeks ahead. Also POOT-related, Sam led the entire 5-6 group in a discussion about dignity, which is a concept that is the heart of the issue framing Place Out of Time this year.

Calculating averages for each of our trials

We also concluded our read aloud on Monday afternoon. The climax of When You Reach Me is mind-bending and unexpected, revealing the fact that many tiny details along the way were actually clues, laid out like breadcrumbs for the reader to discover. It’s a lovely book that tightly-plotted and bittersweet. Ask your child about “the Laughing Man” and see what they’ll reveal about the story.

Our journal prompt this week was “fear is a liar.” Kids were asked to respond to the idea, considering what it might mean, evaluating the validity of the statement, and coming up with examples that might argue the point either way. Students wrote about how fear was both useful (it keeps you from harm), but also occasionally counterproductive (roller coasters are fun, planes are useful).

Of course, the impending Music Cafe tends to take over the week, so focus quickly shifted toward that by the end of the week.

In math group, we celebrated a couple of kids completing assessments and moving into new books, worked collaboratively on some problems (ask about Danielle, her pet crocodile, the parrot, and the monkey), and had an always-popular math game day.

Week 22 - Archigram and ice capades

This week, we began digging into the issue that will drive many of our Place Out of Time conversations over the course of the semester. It concerns an Italian court decision that overturned the conviction of a homeless man who had shoplifted a small amount of food. The court declared that his act couldn’t be considered a crime because he was in a state of need. To unpack the issue a bit, we went through an extremely simplified example of how societies function. (Ask your child about the desert island example.)

On Wednesday, we took a field trip to see the Archigram exhibit in downtown Ann Arbor. It was recommended to us by Amy Kulper, who met us at the exhibit, sent us on a scavenger hunt, and guided us around some of the work. Take a more detailed look at some of the work we saw here. The exhibit ends this weekend, but we’ll be processing some of what we learned in the weeks after the break.

We also spent some time writing this week. Everyone has posted their Place Out of Time resumes on the site, and have moved on to responding to some prompts. One asks each character to talk about a turning point in their lives. Another asks what they brought with them to this strange (and imaginary) gathering. We also responded to a journal prompt, considering this quote from Albert Einstein: “It’s not that I’m smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

In math group, we wrapped up with Flatland, celebrated some math milestones with a game day, and spent some time working on our Singapore progress. Students are more than welcome to take their books home over the break to make further progress, if your/their plans allow it. Have a wonderful break!

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 

Week 20 -- Snow, poetry, timelines, and Flatland

We had Monday off, and we were all greeted on Tuesday morning with a blanket of snow, but no snow day. Instead, our warm-up was “write a poem about what you would have done/how you’d be feeling if today had been a snow day.” Responses varied, and I was a little surprised to find that not everyone loves snow days. (Others, of course, decidedly do.) I didn’t specify the form, so there were rhyming couplets, acrostics, haiku, and acrostic-haiku, which may be something that was just invented. The bulk of our homeroom time was devoted to Place Out of Time research, including creating a timeline of the major events of each character’s life. The finished results will soon be going up on the wall next to our classroom, so the next time you’re in the building, come take a look and see how the lives of Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, or Jazz Jennings line up with one another.

Bora/Peter Jackson posts the timeline of his life (so far).

We’ve also been making quick progress through our current read aloud book, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. The mystery is getting…substantially weirder, and only Evie has a good handle on what might happen next (because she has already read the book.)

This week also saw the return of our weekly journal prompts. We responded to the quote, “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” We respond to these quotes completely individually and in (relative) silence, so I was surprised to see how many kids ended up using math problems to articulate their interpretations. Without consulting each other at all, several students talked about knowing how to solve a math problem is a good thing, but understanding how the math actually works is also very important.

Speaking of math, we spent one session of our math group watching a short film adaptation of the novel Flatland, then another class session discussing it. Flatland is populated by two dimensional creatures who are largely oblivious to the the heretical notion of a mysterious third dimension. A couple of rabble-rousing free-thinkers defy the powers that be, with the help of a unique guide. After the film, we spent time thinking through what it would be like to live in a two-dimensional world. Can a Flatlander tie a knot? How would you play tennis? What would a picket fence look like? How can a Flatlander have a digestive system without being completely bisected? We also dipped our toes into the idea of what four dimensional objects might look like, which strained brains mightily. On Friday, we retreated to our Singapore books to rest our brains and exercise our skills.