Hi everyone,
I have been wanting to write so may blogs lately to address all sorts of issues that have been on my mind. I also have wanted to stick to inspiring and hopeful subjects. I have wanted to write a blog which I will call "Hope and Patriotism in the time of Trump" but last school year I was too busy, over the summer I was too busy, and now a new school year has begun.
Our first day back at work we watched a video of one of our students - a second grade girl - who likes to memorize speeches. She recited MLK's "I have a dream" speech with adorable passion. I broke down crying watching it because that morning, after a blissful week of camping with my family, I had driven to school listening to the news about Charlottesville. Here we were, 50 years after MLK gave that speech (and his life) and we have exhibitions of hate like this. It hit me harder than I expected.
Well the incredible kids I get to teach do give me hope and I am proud to have a job where I get to help guide them on their path to becoming positive change makers. So I thought this would be an appropriate time to share the project they did last spring in my class.
They had a semester 'expedition' called Being Human in which they studied in Science things like human evolution, genetics, and neurology. In Humanities they studied world religions, philosophy, the Holocaust, and tolerance. For their final product they were tasked with creating creating an interactive kinetic sculpture which played on the theme of Tolerance. Throughout the process students really grappled with engineering challenges and often had to redesign and work through failures and road blocks. The learning was rich and the end products were incredible. The diversity of ideas and depth of thought that went into these pieces were inspiring.
I have never worked harder as a teacher nor had as much fun. Guiding 20 students through different engineering challenges - learning as we went - was intense. It was also a blast to be able to use a skill saw in class everyday and to have students going at it with hammers and saws. The most rewarding part was the process of working through the failures and coming out triumphant.
I think looking at the photos and reading the artists statements is worth a look, especially today as we see so much hate. Knowing that 7th grade students are thinking about xenophobia and fighting for LGBTQ rights (these kids do make their parents take them to protests on the weekends) is inspiring. These are the leaders of tomorrow.
I have not shared a Google Folder before, I hope everyone can see these photos. If not, let me know and I will post them on my blog, I am hoping I can skip that step and save some time.
Towards Tolerance...
Danny
Here is the link to the folder...
Engineering Tolerance Project
I have been wanting to write so may blogs lately to address all sorts of issues that have been on my mind. I also have wanted to stick to inspiring and hopeful subjects. I have wanted to write a blog which I will call "Hope and Patriotism in the time of Trump" but last school year I was too busy, over the summer I was too busy, and now a new school year has begun.
Our first day back at work we watched a video of one of our students - a second grade girl - who likes to memorize speeches. She recited MLK's "I have a dream" speech with adorable passion. I broke down crying watching it because that morning, after a blissful week of camping with my family, I had driven to school listening to the news about Charlottesville. Here we were, 50 years after MLK gave that speech (and his life) and we have exhibitions of hate like this. It hit me harder than I expected.
Well the incredible kids I get to teach do give me hope and I am proud to have a job where I get to help guide them on their path to becoming positive change makers. So I thought this would be an appropriate time to share the project they did last spring in my class.
They had a semester 'expedition' called Being Human in which they studied in Science things like human evolution, genetics, and neurology. In Humanities they studied world religions, philosophy, the Holocaust, and tolerance. For their final product they were tasked with creating creating an interactive kinetic sculpture which played on the theme of Tolerance. Throughout the process students really grappled with engineering challenges and often had to redesign and work through failures and road blocks. The learning was rich and the end products were incredible. The diversity of ideas and depth of thought that went into these pieces were inspiring.
I have never worked harder as a teacher nor had as much fun. Guiding 20 students through different engineering challenges - learning as we went - was intense. It was also a blast to be able to use a skill saw in class everyday and to have students going at it with hammers and saws. The most rewarding part was the process of working through the failures and coming out triumphant.
I think looking at the photos and reading the artists statements is worth a look, especially today as we see so much hate. Knowing that 7th grade students are thinking about xenophobia and fighting for LGBTQ rights (these kids do make their parents take them to protests on the weekends) is inspiring. These are the leaders of tomorrow.
I have not shared a Google Folder before, I hope everyone can see these photos. If not, let me know and I will post them on my blog, I am hoping I can skip that step and save some time.
Towards Tolerance...
Danny
Here is the link to the folder...
Engineering Tolerance Project
