Civic Engagement and the Student

Dear Families,

Whether through class discussions and projects, current events presentations, or registering voters on Sixth Avenue, the current election has provided an authentic opportunity for middle school students to consider what it means to be informed and active citizens. Last week in Middle School meeting, the class reps read a series of quotes without attribution to Senators McCain and Obama and asked their classmates if they could determine which quote was spoken by which candidate. It was not quite as easy as students thought and through this experience we affirmed the need for citizens to research the issues and to be thoughtful and critical thinkers. This activity served as a kick-off to our Mock Election project. In order to participate, students were required to register in advance of the election day and were informed that they would need to give up some time during recess and lunch on voting day if they wanted to vote. Students were also given a chance to review the ballot so that they could consider thoughtfully the set of issues questions on which they would be asked to vote.

There was a strong turn out of eighth graders who voted early on Tuesday because they would be at Minimester on Wednesday. The polls opened for fifth through eighth graders on Wednesday and while students had to wait in line to vote electronically in the computer lab, the polling place was well monitored by the class reps. Students were able to vote for President and Vice President and Representatives. They were also asked to consider a number of critical domestic and foreign policy issues, a slate of issues specifically relevant to young people, and a number of issues relevant to life in the Middle School. The results of our election will provide opportunities for additional discussion and inquiry as the real election approaches; the results of the questions specific to LREI will provide important information for the class reps and their on-going work.

As John Dewey observed in Democracy and Education (1916) “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” That shared sense of experience was clearly evident in the conversations and palpable excitement that surrounded our mock election. Moving beyond their relevance to this particular experience, Dewey’s words have profound implications for how schools conceive of the educational process itself. Schools that consciously organize themselves around this foundational idea are, through their very structure, educating students for active participation in a democratic society. We’ve worked hard to structure LREI in this kind of way and as Dewey observed elsewhere in Democracy and Education, “In static societies, societies which make the maintenance of established custom their measure of value, this conception applies in the main. But not in progressive communities. They endeavor to shape the experiences of the young so that instead of reproducing current habits, better habits shall be formed, and thus the future adult society be an improvement on their own.”

With that in mind, I encourage you to consider our students’ take on some of the issues that are at the center of the upcoming election (click here for a summary of our mock election results). They present a unique look into what is on their minds. I hope that their responses will inform the on-going dialog taking place at home about these important issues. Regardless of the outcome, on Wednesday, November 5th, we will run an extended morning homeroom so that students can share and discuss their responses to the election. We will also meet as a whole community at our regular Middle School meeting that afternoon.

Last week, our fifth and sixth graders traveled to the Ashokan Center in the Catskills for three days of outdoor and experiential education.

These are certainly core values that are well aligned with the LREI mission. Since the school’s inception, the notion of having students engage in direct experiences (i.e., going to the woods as opposed to simply staying in the classroom and learning about the woods) has been seen as a crucial pathway for developing student knowledge and skills. In this work we are guided by the assumption that our educational goals can be effectively met by allowing the nature of the learner’s educational experience to influence the educational process. At the same time, we are well aware that experiences alone are not in and of themselves inherently good for learning. The progressive educator therefore seeks to arrange particular sets of experiences, which are conducive towards particular educational goals. For the Ashokan trip, there are a number of underlying goals:

1. To build community between the fifth and sixth grade classes
2. To help students to better understand the impact that humans have on the natural world and the responsibilities that come with this interaction
3. To learn skills to allow one to move with minimal impact through the natural world
4. To gain insight into the value of labor and work that is often hidden or held at arms length in our consumer driven society

With these principals in mind, fifth and sixth graders:

• participated in a series of adventure-based activities in which group participants get to know one another better and learn how to work through difficult adventure-based challenges. The activities required problem-solving skills, determination and cooperation. They challenged students mentally, physically and socially, and required total cooperation and participation.
• took a night walk through the woods and a participated in a community-drumming workshop.
• experienced the “Age of Homespun” at the Ashokan pioneer homestead. They hiked out to visit the log house and joined the daily life of the Homesteader. Activities included cooking, spinning, shingle splitting, woodcutting, and games of the era.
• experienced blacksmithing, broommaking and tinsmithing. These activities put an emphasis on the apprentice system. The concept of community, roles people had within the community, how these roles have changed, and how the Industrial Revolution changed our lives were explored.
• participated in an “Orienteering and Survival Afternoon.” In teh woods, they learned the basics of Wilderness Preparedness, Fire Building, Shelter, First Aid, and Wild Edibles. Through games and practice, students also learned to use topographic maps and compasses to find their way. This may included a hike through the forest, use of the Ashokan compass course, “bushwhacking” to find a location on a map, and games on the field. Plant and animal communities, which make up each forest type, were also examined through observation and first-hand experience.
• participated in the “New Games Festival: These were fun, challenging activities which gave the students experiences that developed a sense of trust and cooperation among the group. These games were designed to de-emphasize competition, encourage creative play, spontaneity, participation and use of the imagination.
• participated in the “Ashokan Scavenger Hunt.” In this activity, students put all of their Ashokan skills to work. They used orienteering skills, their knowledge of survival skills and an appreciation of the environment to navigate their way through the hunt.

All in all, a mission worthy endeavor!

Click here to view the photo gallery for the trip.

On Monday, September 29th, fantasy author T.A. Barron visited the sixth grade to share his tales of Arthur, Merlin, and dragons. Barron’s most well-known series begins with The Lost Years of Merlin, where he imagines the famous wizard’s youth and adolescence.

The Colorado native regaled the students with booktalks and anecdotes about his family. For example, the children were surprised to discover that all of Barron’s own five children are named after mountains! Barron also discussed with the students the topic of heroism and what qualities make a hero. After a presentation in Frank and Margaret’s room, the sixth graders trooped downstairs for a book signing in the library of Barron’s newest title, Merlin’s Dragon. Books of Wonder was on hand to provide copies of Barron’s work, and T.A. Barron signed books and graciously posed for pictures with a few of his biggest fans. I encourage you to talk to your sixth grader about their author visit. We own his entire body of work in the 6th Avenue library, so come and check them out! They make wonderful read aloud choices.

It was a pleasure to see so many of you at yesterday’s Building for Action event. While our building plans are bold and innovative, the Building for Action campaign is really an affirmation of the mission and purpose of Elisabeth Irwin’s experimental school. In this way, the bricks and mortar of the project are invested with a special significance; they support our continued efforts to engage your children in authentic and engaging inquiry that draws on the most current ideas about teaching and learning.The Middle School has been fortunate to already be reaping the benefits of the Building for Action plan. Our new classrooms stand as an affirmation of the vibrant exchange between students and teachers that takes place every day. The new spaces have also helped to invigorate our on-going dialog aimed at understanding “what is best for learners.” To that end, we thought it would be useful to share with you a sampling of some of the rich and rigorous work that is taking place in our Middle School classrooms.

Fifth graders are . . .

• using tables, graphs, and rules to model solutions to problems like the Ice Cream Problem which asks, “With 31 possible flavors, how many different types of 2-scoop cones are there?”  They are also beginning to use the same algebraic principals to act out and model trips – steady, accelerating and decelerating motion.
• taking their first steps into the exciting world of French. They are getting comfortable with the pronunciation, picking French names, reciting the alphabet, counting, and talking about the weather.
• continuing and expanding on their Lower School study of Spanish with the introduction of new vocabulary and verbs
• creating collages of “things they like to do when they are not in school,” making sketch books that will be used in school and on trips and beginning a painting project that incorporates the art elements: line, shape, and color.
• learning important organization skills as they organize their files into folders on the server and on their flash drives. They are also continuing to work on improving their keyboarding skills.
• playing indoor soccer and doing fitness training.
• exploring the question, “What is music?” through discussions of John Cage’s Water Walk and their own musical experiences in class.

Sixth graders are . . .

• reading Beowulf and learning how to take notes as they read so that they can analyze the text in class discussions, working on current events and vocabulary and are beginning their study of feudalism. They have also found time to complete their first round of booktalks.
• investigating situations in which they need to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions.  They are developing strategies to solve problems like, “Blaine plans to paint a highway stripe that is 9/10 of a mile long.  He is 2/3 of the way done when he runs out of paint.  How long is the stripe he painted?” and “There are 12 baby rabbits at the pet store.  Gabriella has 5  1/4 ounces of parsley to feed the rabbits as treats.  She wants to give each rabbit the same amount.  How much parsley does each rabbit get?”
• practicing in-class dialogues and working on their accents and pronunciation in both Spanish and French classes
• creating collaged triptychs of a journey they have taken, binding and decorating their own sketch books and learning the basics of color theory by creating their own color wheel.
• scaling the Thompson Street climbing wall.
• gathering with the other fifth grade members of the Little Red Singers  each Tuesday to sing, dance, listen to and share music! They recently performed a swing jazz piece, “Dancin’ on the Rooftop” at our Middle School Meeting to enthusiastic ovations.
• using found objects to create full class planned improvisations to exhibit the expressive potential of timbre. In small groups, students are then creating pictoral representations for their sounds and then using these to create a musical score for a short composition.

Seventh graders are . . .

• reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver and are exploring the viability of a utopia as well as the complex themes this novel presents: perfection, fairness, justice, and the role memory has on an individual and on a society, to name a few. Students are learning how to use textual evidence to support their understanding of these themes and this thought-provoking novel.
• learning how historians use primary and secondary source materials to generate an understanding of early English settlement in North America, especially when those source materials present differing perspectives and viewpoints on important individuals and moments in American History.
• helping our fictitious bike tour company get off the ground.  By analyzing data in various forms, and with the help of graphing calculators, the class will decide on a bike tour price and look at variables that will affect profit.
• looking at the significance of the Scientific Revolution and have been conducting experiments with pendulums. They are also measuring and calculating mass, volume and density of irregular objects using measurement tools, mathematical formulas and displacement as part of our study of the properties of materials matter
• writing a composition using the new verb “etre” and some -”er” verbs from last year.
• reviewing Spanish verb conjugations and classroom vocabulary so that they can begin a study of family and the home.
• developing their mime skills and are about to embark on an exploration of theater in NYC over a century ago.  Vaudeville acts, melodramas and silent movies will be the focus of the class for the next month.
• creating their own PE games, which they will teach to the rest of the class.
• reporting on the important historical music events from the week and are turning these into podcasts.
• discussing how graphics can be used to communicate ideas as they create personal symbols for their silhouette project.

Eighth graders are . . .

• reflecting on their summer reading memoir about the struggles of school integration at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950s.  After learning about the intense conflict of racial politics and federal versus states rights during the civil rights movement, students are discussing current civil rights struggles and choosing one about which they feel particularly concerned.  Their final project is to create an art piece and reflective explanation about their cause in order to bring visibility to it for their peers and the school community at large.
• studying linear functions.  They will use what they learn to predict the consequences of leaky faucets. Stay tuned….
• conducting experiments to gain an understanding of Newton’s Laws of motion. These understandings will be used to design and construct Mousetrap powered vehicles that demonstrate these laws.
• reviewing fundamentals of Spanish grammar and vocabulary so that they can begin to study the imperfect, the new past tense as a prelude to their readings in Cuentos Simpáticos.
• completing  a composition using adjectives and verbs, both regular and irregular, to describe themselves physically and to describe an activity that they were involved in during the summer.
• are working on the climbing wall for fitness.  Students are challenging themselves on the wall with different challenges, like using only certain colored pieces or having two people cross paths as they work across the wall. On sports days, they are working on volleyball skills and strategy.
• learning Breachtian conventions in preparation for creating their own piece of political theater. This week students learned about “Geste” and the impact of ensemble tableaux.
• sketching out their ideas and exploring painting techniques as they prepare to paint the art room stools around this year’s theme of literary characters.
  Eighth graders are incorporating Literary Characters for this years theme.
• beginning an exploration of digital photography by going on a “Photo Scavenger Hunt” in which they were asked to look for a variety of things to photograph that included interesting textures, reflections and other artistic elements
• are creating original podcasts that examine music that interests them and answer the following questions: “why is this music important to you?” “what do you like about the sound of it?” “when do you usually listen to it?”

High School students Gloria Bardin, AJ Sims and Ryan Kim have constructed a Lego robot that controls a solar panel so that a set of arms points the panel to the sunniest space in the sky. Their project will be on display all summer at the Cafe Habana in Brooklyn (click here for directions). The Cafe Habana and Habana Labs sponsored this project, which was exhibited at the Feedback Sustainability Event at the Eyebeam Gallery in Chelsea. The robot will let patrons recharge computers and cell phones and bring awareness of sustainable power solutions such as solar power. For more information about the project, go to http://www.ecoeatery.com/lab/events.html

Congratulations also to the members of the LREI Model Congress Delegation. The delegates for the Model Congress this year were fifth graders Marcelo, Odelia, Lola, Danielle, Michelle and Simmon and seventh grader Diana. The group has been working with faculty facilitator Sharyn Hahn since the end of January to write bills, prepare speeches, read other students’ bills from the other schools that participate, and learn about and practice parliamentary procedure. The team spent the entire day at Packer Collegiate High School on Saturday, April 26th for the annual culminating event.

Nearly 200 middle school students from 13 area independent schools, including LREI, sent delegations of model legislators to the event. When students arrive at the event, they break off into one of 17 separate committees based upon the content of their bill. These committees are meant to resemble actual congressional committees and include Judiciary, Education, Health, Housing & Urban Affairs, and Science Space & Technology. After a morning committee session filled with heated debate and criticism, the bills that pass committee are reviewed in one of four full sessions. (House I, House II, Senate I, and Senate II).

As Sharyn notes:

Our delegates had a great time and learned a lot; they all are looking forward to next year! This year, all of our bills all had to do with the environment and sustainability. Diana’s and Lola’s and Danielle’s bills passed and were debated in the full sessions. The others had a tough fight in their committees! In the plenary session in the afternoon several of the fifth graders spoke out on various topics. I was impressed by their thoughtfulness and their courage to speak out in these large groups sessions.

A hearty congratulations to the LREI Middle School Robotics team who returned last week from their successful journey to Tokyo, Japan. They had an incredible experience as cultural ambassadors and performed well in the competition. They were also recognized by the tournament officials for their efforts to support the other US team from the Bronx so that they could also make the journey to Japan. Thank you for representing LREI so well!

A hearty congratulations to the members of our Rube Goldberg team who competed this past weekend in the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Competition at the Fay School in Massachusetts. With the support of Middle School science teacher Stephen Volkmann, seventh graders Aaron and Isabella and eighth graders Cameron, Emma, Maya and Nicholas worked diligently over the past few months to prepare for the event. This year’s event required teams to use a common set of materials to create a contraption that used multiple energy transfers to accomplish the simple task of blowing a bubble. At the competition, the teams were given a set of materials and under timed conditions the teams had to construct and run their machines. They were also required to give a presentation on their design and the associated scientific principles. The members of the LREI team completed the task successfully and were awarded the prize for Most Creative Design. Well done!