How it could have been

While rewriting history, students noted that every event in history is linked to many other events. Changing one event would require changing many that came before it and occurred alongside it. With that understanding, students suggested the following:

Explorers could have been kind and asked set up trade agreements instead of acting for profit and out of greed.

Colonists could have cohabitated, cooperated and coexisted with Native peoples.

Instead of slavery, workers could have been paid and been given proper living quarters. If they were treated like people, all would be more happy and productivity would be up. Joy comes from when everyone benefits.

Diplomacy, compromise and agreements could have been made instead of the use of violence during the French and Indian War.

Revolutionary War- Was it necessary? Canada gained independence without such a devastating war. Diplomacy could have changed how this went down.

Native Americans could have been given the same rights. Land could have been shared or even gifted to them. Early Americans could have lived more like the natives, respecting traditions and living more closely to the land.

To avoid the Civil War, the North could have let the South be a different country instead of forcing them to be a part of the Union for economic reasons. There could have been better diplomacy and compromise, or they all could have elected a different president.

Spring Big Circle

On Friday the Red Fox Clan led the school in the welcoming of spring. The other clans were led through a sense meditation, looking for signs of spring/tracking and a game or two. Adults who participated shared so highly of the abilities of the children to facilitate activities for people of all ages. Check out the pictures for a visual report!

Patterns of Control and Division

This week among other things we are stepping back and taking a bird's eye view of our country's history from 1492 - 1870's. Students have read vasty different perspectives of the same stories, noticing omissions and varying motives of the story tellers. Students have expressed discontent of reading the same thing over and over again: one group gaining power and wealth at the expense of many. We all seem to be active creators in our society and individual lives. So we begin asking ourselves, "How should things have been over the first 400 years of our country?" And, "Why has history deviated from how it could have been?" Specifically we are looking for patterns of control and division in our country. We will search for these patterns not only as we progress chronologically in our country's history, but also within our selves. Driven by profits and power, millions (billions around the world) lead lives of great struggle and suffering. If we are driven by profits (money and getting our own way?) and power in our own internal worlds, what parts of ourselves are left struggling and suffering? What could things be like in our lives if we become skilled at observing how we create division in ourselves and subsequently acting to address such creations? We will work to segue this into individual projects in which students will observe their thinking and self talk and practice interrupting behaviors that are unbeneficial.

Spring!

As the earth continues to evolve under us, we came across an interesting article for you to check out: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/03/02/chile.quake/index.html?hpt=Mid

Another interesting and short article on the hypothesis of the expanding earth (thanks Eric) to check out: http://www.geologynet.com/tectonics1.htm

We have not spoken about the expanding earth hypthesis at school, so it might be interesting for you to introduce it to your child(ren) to fuel the investigation of geology happening everywhere.

We continue to be in full swing, from students taking part in revision/editing meetings with each other to running their own book group discussions. Investigations in math include geometry, percent/ratio/proportion and probability. Students continue to make headway on their earthquake reports, now working on illustrations. We hope to have these published around Open House/Author's Tea time in our effort to raise some funds for those struggling in Haiti and Chile.

Trial, Earthquakes, Essays and more

We had another successful trial chalk full with critical questions and answers. Three groups (the poor, wealthy elite and the British) were charged with the mistreatment, suffering and deaths of thousands of men, women and children. The British (Faolan, Will and Finn with lovely British accents) were accused with focusing purely on profit and being undiplomatic. The Poor (Milo, Peyton and Raven) were accused with allowing the minority wealthy elite to manipulate them into fighting a war and not uniting to change the terrible living conditions underwhich they lived. The Wealthy elite (Jesse, Isaac and Kiva) were charged with things such as fueling racism to divide people so that they could stay in control. Also, the elite were charged with writing the Constitution with the interests only of the wealthy in mind. Our prosecuter/judges (Iona, Ben and Rasulan), with the aid of Ariel and a visiting Elizabeth Downes, assigned responsibility to all the groups, finding the wealthy elite as having more responsibility than the other groups.

Students have been interacting with resources on earthquakes, taking notes on a wide variety of topics. They took detailed (and not so detailed) notes and are going through the process of writing topic sentences, determining how to organize their facts, and writing reports. While writing, students are seeing that the quality of notes they took are having a big impact on their ability to retell facts.

More writing... this morning Faolan and Ben led two peer editing groups. The kids have been working on 5 paragraph essays, responding to questions inspired by their bookgroup book (Three Cups of Tea and The Giver). The focus of the groups were revising their supporting details to be more clear and powerful. Every student listened and gave thoughtful feedback with no adult prompting. On the flip side, every student shared their writing and made changes in several places. Beyond revision, minilessons were taught on introductions, conclusions, and how to present one's ideas in the most persuasive ways. Students are having more conversations about writing and subsequently I am reading great progress.

Revolutionary War Trial Preparations begin

Prosecutors, British representatives, rich colonial elite representatives and the representatives of the poor majority of colonists began meeting today in preparation for a trial. Each group is being charged with the suffering and deaths of thousands of men, women and children before, during and after the Revolutionary War. Each group will defend themselves during prosecution. Stay tuned for frequent updates.

Solstice and More

Hello Blog, it's been too long.

Our big project with Flying Deer this fall culminated in making delicious acorn flour and selling it at the Holiday Fair. We spent a great deal of time documenting our work and calculated that it took 3 hours to make each cup of flour! Students worked together to make a brochure that described the process, classification, identification of oak trees, and how to use acorn flour.

We continued our study American history up to the Revolutionary War. To help us gain greater understanding of the time period, we utilized historical fiction. Students read My Brother Sam is Dead and Johnny Tremain as bookgroup books. While learning about what it could have been like for children and their families during the war, students focused on vocabulary and taking a greater lead in discussions. Two book groups began today, Three Cups of Tea and The Giver. Both have powerful messages for us.

We are beginning our exploration of plate tectonics and the physical structure of the earth. Beginning with the earth's layers, we'll move to convergent and divergent boundaries and all of the fascinating earth processes that arise (haha).