The day of our student-led conferences, the morning index card drawing prompt was this:

And most responses were variations on this:

Like last year, our conferences took the form of families taking part in the kinds of activities we engage in each day, so that they could have a visceral sense of what school life is like for their daughters and sons and brothers and sisters.  Unlike last year, when I led all of the activities, we decided to put the “student” into “student-led”: members of Div. 2 would now do the leading and explaining (with me occasionally dancing like a monkey to fill in the gaps).  I am happy to report that no one vomited (at least that I know of…).

Families and students alike took part in our morning focus ritual:

 

The evening prompt was from Bruce Lee and got at the heart of much of our work this year: “Observe what is with undivided attention.”

The results were, as usual, totally individualistic and absolutely fascinating:

 

In the days leading up to the conferences, our class voted on the essential activities we thought families needed to engage in, in order to get a clear picture of our class.  My undying curse of Full Cellphone-itis meant that I could only get shots of a few of the activities, but after families created their own Alter Ego names, they obligingly took part in an emotional check-in, Kindness Ninjas (thank you, Ms. Geddes!), breathing exercises, and a discussion of how to help create a respectful, inclusive, and positive work environment.  Then, using the Random Deck of Terror®, parents were given partners and worked together to tackle the daunting Skyscraper Challenge!

 

Much to the students’ glee, parents then reflected on their partner work. : )

After, there was time for students to share letters with their families explaining their learning process and then show them highlights from their work:

 

Along the way we added three new champions to the Abe Gaitens Memorial Mental Math Contest Hall of Fame:

And connections were made in the Interconnectivity Contest, in some cases with parents and siblings helping score points.

Thank you so much for being so game, Hard Coder, Chemistry, Sweet Marie, Bluestone, Pushdraw, Octain, Island Fairy, Wei, Lily Potter, Skywalker, Snakeness, Queen X, Seven, Raindrop, Einstein, Rose, Foucault, Mr. Z, Fudgie, Pippie, Milo Dog, Will Smith, Daisy, Titi, Amoura!, Narwhale Kitty, and Sunny I and Sunny II. There were so many moments of tenderness and joy: it was a privilege to sit on the sidelines and observe.  

And students, I was really proud of the way that you all explained and led activities with confidence and clarity – and I (and Mr. Kojima) were thankful to you all for resisting the impulse to spew chunks.

The next day, the morning index card prompt was this:

 

 

 

 

If all goes according to plan, this will be the first (hopefully! time and energy permitting!) in a series of retroactive posts, sharing some of the work we did last term.

So, about 5000 years ago, we started an Art/Career/ADST project inspired by the work of writer/illustrator Todd Parr, specifically by his book It’s Okay to Be Different:

There were many tie-ins here: to the work we have done in experimenting with a certain kind of mindset conducive to the creative process; to our year-long focus in Career Ed, actively trying to create a respectful, inclusive, and positive work environment; and to dig into the slow-down process of the Curricular Competencies of the Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies curriculum.   This was also the first in a series of activities experimenting with reaching out to the Suncrest community, as leaders within the school, to do our part to help extend that sense of positive inclusion outside of the walls of our portable.

By reading the book and looking at other samples of Todd Parr’s work, the class generated criteria for successfully creating art in his style.  

From there, we did a lot of practicing, both in copying various pieces of Todd Parr’s art, and in applying the criteria to other activities, such as our morning index card art work:

Once we had the style firmly in hand (which is a great expressive alternative to stick people for those who feel less than confident in their artistic abilities), students generated ideas of what messages might be good for either themselves to say out loud to the world or for others to see and find solace and a sense of belonging in.

The project outline for this work can be found here: Todd Parr Art Criteria

A big part of this project was the drafting stage, coming up with a prototype of each work of art and then adjusting that prototype in response to further exploration; sketching the various aspects of each part of the design, trying each out several different ways until the right combinations were found, and color-testing each aspect as well. The basic idea here was attempting to honor what Bruce Lee taught us about finding the proper balance between inspiration and technique, how too much of either can distort your approach and the end result, and, in the words of the enchanter Dallben from The Book of Three, how “[in] some cases, we find more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”  This has been and will continue to be our approach to all types of work, not only art, but across the curriculum, trying to focus less on the end result and more on exploration. 

Eventually, though, drafts in hand, we did get to work on the final products:

 

The results (which I am going to have a veeeeeeeery hard time giving back) were displayed in the hall, across from the gym:

(I won’t tell you how long it took me to do the math to get those all up in an aesthetically pleasing and balanced array.  It’s okay to be slightly obsessive compulsive…)

 

The rubric used for assessment can be found here: Todd Parr Art rubric

One of the best parts, for me, has been seeing students of all ages standing in the hallway in front of the display, carefully reading all of the speaking and thinking bubbles that you all took such care in drafting, and hearing them point at different works of art that they found themselves in – “Oh, that one is so me…”  MACC-sters: it worked!  It worked because you dared to take some risks, and because you dared to take pride in your work.  Keep it up!

 

 

Come the New Year, I’ll post a recap of events from December, but in the meanwhile, here’s some photos from the last week of school.

Making gingerbread houses:

 

The final products:

 

Pancake breakfast (I don’t know if I am disappointed or proud to report that no one even came close to breaking the record of 14 pancakes set last year…):

 

White Elephant, with our Christmas Snake Plant and Special Guest Star, Pikachu:

And finally, here’s the face we present to the world:

And here’s what’s constantly simmering, just under the surface:

 

Rest up, folks.  See you in 2018!

Just sayin’…

(a full-sized version of the image can be seen here)

…AKA Foggy Teacher Brain (FTB) (it was sitting in the photocopier…), your homework sheet for tonight is posted here:

1. The Book of Three: read the selections from the novel and stage adaptation versions of Flesh and Blood – “1964” in the novel; and in the script, page 23, beginning with Susan’s line, “Come on, Billy,” through to page 25, ending with Susan’s line, “Don’t you worry.  I’m going.”

In your comp book make notes for discussion:

• How are they the same?
• Were any big sections omitted from the book in the stage version?
• Was anything of importance added to the script?
• Was anything compressed?
• Was anything adapted/slightly altered/changed?
• Was any of the prose transformed into dialogue?
• Why do you think the changes/additions were made?

Also consider, how might this inform your work creating the adapted script for your section of The Book of Three?

2.  The Book of Three (on-going): in light of yesterday’s discussion about the single-point rubric, look at the work you have done so far and think, “Have we done something that brings this up to the ‘Exceeding’ column?” If so, make a note of it on your rubric.  If not, and if you are interested, what can you do?  How will you know you have done it?

Stay in open communication with your partner(s).  Who is doing what?  When do you need it done by?  What can you be doing at home to support this work?

The Ideating and Prototyping Text rubric and all associated materials are due on Friday, December 8.  You are welcome to submit before then, if you are ready.

3.  Science: I will be conferencing with people to review your Science notes, beginning tomorrow. Please refer to criteria sheet (available here, if you have misplaced your copy), as well as the feedback you received on your Medieval Wales research.  This hopefully does not come as a surprise – it was talked about many times, several weeks ago!

A few highlights from the past few weeks:

▪ Our Class Agreement

While enrolled at a field school in Haida Gwaii, I attended an environmental education/place-based learning conference at the Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay and had the opportunity of learning from Susan Chung, who, along with its founder, Stanley King, has developed the co-design process (aka The Social Art of Architecture), in which architects, educators, and students work together to visualize, design, and implement the building of school gardens and other multi-use school work spaces.

As someone who lives (and, if I’m not careful, will most likely die) by Oscar Wilde’s adage, “Talent borrows, genius steals,” I have experimented with incorporating their work into the building of class agreements – the basic “rules” which govern a classroom community.

I didn’t have the wherewithal to take a “before” picture, but the process began with a simple drawing of a bucolic setting on the whiteboard: a river, some grasslands and mountains, and a person in a canoe.  As a class, we imagined that we had come across this beautiful place and decided we wanted to stay.  Taking suggestions from students as to what we would need in order to live here, I drew additions – a cabin, sources of food and fresh water, wifi (!) – and then passed the pen off to them, to continue to add whatever they desired.

 

As you can imagine, this becomes a very loud and chaotic process.

In the midst of the chaos a couple of students tried to create an oasis…

But to no avail.  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the horror of Division Two Town:

 

Not even the animal shelter survived, despite its force field:

I’ll leave it to the child and adolescent psychiatrists to explain why, every time I do this exercise, it always ended with nuclear bombs falling.  Things got so bad that one of the students tried to get back in the canoe and leave:

…and everyone was able to comment on the frenetic, distractive, and overwhelming feelings the activity generated.

This led to a discussion about the nature of urban sprawl – what happens when those with money do whatever they like, wherever and whenever they want to do it.  

We looked at Division Two Town…

…and discussed what it would be like to live there.  What would it sound like?  What would it smell like?  How would it feel to actually be there?

From here, we spoke about the need to create a class charter and some basic guidelines that would help us create a workspace conducive to learning.  Primed by earlier brainstorming done in response to the videos we had explored (and shown in earlier blog entries) about the lunch program in a Japanese elementary school; Gabrielle Hamiltion’s restaurant, Prune; and Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability – as well as their own experience with past class agreements – students then worked in small groups to come up with a list of what they considered essential agreements…

 

…and we worked to combine those ideas into a list of possibilities.  Armed with stickers, students each chose what they considered the top three choices…

…which we then tidied up…

…signed…

…and, hands on hearts, pledged allegiance to. 

Some items are already providing to be more challenging than others, but I think you all came up with a list that would do any democratic society proud.

▪ Science Observation Experiments

After polling to the class to gauge comfortability levels with things like dirt and bugs, students were put into small groups to build a science experiment in which long-term observation of changes over time is the focus.  These experiments (mostly taken from David Suzuki’s book Eco-Fun) will also give us information for subsequent science work looking at First Peoples’ knowledge of biodiversity and interconnectivity.

Once in their groups, in order to give them a sense of purpose and focus, each student chose a job: Engineer, Assistant Engineer/Safety Inspector, Lab Manager, or Deep Thinker.  A description of the responsibilities of each job can be found here: observation experiment job cards

After working as a group to come up with an inquiry question with which to guide their work, the Deep Thinkers and Lab Managers worked up a hypothesis while the Engineers and Safety Inspectors got to work!

 

Once the building process was complete, groups then turned their attention to a close observation of their experiments, recording their work in an observation log, and also further developing their note-taking skills by conducting research into areas of choice relating to their experiments.

 

This work has direct ties to our writing program, in which precise, descriptive language has been our focus, taking what we learned from Wu Mei at the beginning of term and focussing on the small details in order to gain an understanding of the whole.

Our six groups are:

Plant in a Box!  Will a plant grow from seed in a box, through a maze, toward a small hole letting in sunlight?  Will a plant that has already sprouted in full sunlight be able to do the same?

 

What a Load of Rubbish!  What will decompose first, a grain of rice or a banana peel?  Will anything happen to a buried plastic glove?  How do soil and air aid in the decomposition process?

Acid Rain!  What will happen if four seemingly identical plants are watered with tap water, rain water, water with a little bit of vinegar added, and water with a lot of vinegar added?  How will those plants compare with succulents given the same water types?

 

Forest in a Jar!  What will happen to a small ecosystem if it is placed in a mason jar with a set amount of water? 

 

Worm Farm!  How do worms interact with soil?  Will stratified layers of soil change as a result of worm activity?

 

Ant Factory!  ‘Nuff said.

 

The criteria for the observation logs can be found here: Observation criteria

The rubric for the observation experiment unit can be found here: Observation log rubric

The criteria for research notes can be found here: Research notes

▪  Ancient Civilizations

Building on the work we started with our examination of Medieval Wales, students worked in small groups to decide who, from a list of people of mixed ages, genders, and abilities/knowledge sets, should be sent by NASA to colonize an inhabitable planet in a near-by solar system, in order to rebuild human civilzaiton.

 

The activity sheet we worked from for this task can be found here: Socials Re-Civilization Game

After about 20 minutes of discussion, groups shared their choices and offered justification for their reasoning.

We looked at commonalities in the choices and from there built a web detailing what we thought were the defining characteristics of civilizations.

These same small groups then worked to choose an ancient civilization as their avatar for the amazing computer game, Civilization V.

 

These were the results:

This vital choice now made, groups had their first planning session, plotting how they would attempt to win the game – through a diplomatic, cultural, or economic victory – and generated questions about their civilizaiton’s great leader, with which to fuel research and practice note-taking skills.

 

And after a brief tutorial by some of the grade 7s who had heroically sacrificed silent reading time to beta-test the multi-player mode of the game (ah, the things some people will do in the noble name of education…)…

…we were good to go.

In this game, you begin with governing a small village, which you attempt to grow into a full-blown civilization through exploration, cultivation of resources, development of technology, diplomatic alliances, trade, military maneuvers, and careful city management in order to maintain the health, wealth, and happiness of your citizens.  

Groups divvied up jobs – Chief Strategist, Data Control, Archivist, and Professor of History – and during game sessions we use this very well researched game to fuel discussion around topics relevant to the progression of ancient civilizations – hopefully giving students the information they will need for their subsequent analysis of our own civilization and whether it is on the rise or the fall – and groups record the immediate and long-term effects of each action that they choose to take. 

Information such as the project outline and session logs can be found by visiting the Social Studies tab of this blog. 

Although some times we seem to love this learning tool a little too much, it does seem to generate 100% engagement.

 

▪ Math

We continue with lesson and enrichment work, and continue to focus on partner work in order to share strategies and knowledge.

 

Thank you to Shawn from the graduating class of 2017 (and current UTP student) for allowing me to use his work as an example of clear communication of math concepts.

After sharing this example with the class – as well as Max’s excellent example of how to show your work with clarity and organization – the most recent assessment we did showed a huge improvement in all students’ ability to clearly communicate their understanding of various topics.  Thanks, Shawn!  Good work, Max!

▪  Socratic Circles

This learning technique, in which students work together to gain a deep and thorough understanding of a text, was so beneficial last year in the development of both reading and oral language learning outcomes, that we jumped right into it again this year.

In a Socratic Circle, the inner circle discusses a set text while the outer circle observes the dialogue and after gives the inner circle feedback on how they talked to and with each other; and then roles are reversed.  

A copy of the chapter of Matt Copeland’s work explaining the benefits of Socratic Circles can be found here.

This term, we have been exploring Scott McCloud’s masterpiece, Understanding Comics, in preparation for our Applied Skills project, a class-made graphic novel of our current novel study, Lloyd Alexander’s classic book set in medieval Wales, The Book of Three (more on that in later posts).

 

These past two weeks, we have used the ideas generated in these discussions to jump into a hands-on exploration of the techniques McCloud examines, employing old Dazzler comics to look for various forms of transition (aspect-to-aspect, action-to-action, etc.) and effective ways of using word-to-picture ratios.

 

▪  Halloween!

 

Pumpkin carving made the Pumpkin Patch go from this…

…to this:

And unfortunately my old full-phone curse reared its ugly head at an inopportune time, so I only was able to capture a few of your amazing costumes, which I will use as my peace-out.

 

PS: Joshua, whatever that creepy body-face thing is, it has worked its way into my nightmares, both waking and sleeping.  If I arrive bleary-eyed in the morning, you know who’s to blame!

 

 

“Names have power.”

― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

 

Personally, I am thankful for being the teacher of the children of so many talented chefs!

Families: I – and we – cannot thank you enough for the generosity you displayed on Friday with your contributions to our Thanksgiving feast!  As one student said, it was great training for the actual Thanksgiving day: all of our stomachs were very well stretched. There was so much food that we had to use both rolling carts and have a separate table for desserts.

 

Students each introduced their dishes, telling us the name, the main ingredients, and why it was important to their family…

 

And then we dug in!

 

At the risk of sounding gluttonous, I can’t wait to eat all of these dishes again in Term 3!

Other highlights from the last few weeks:

• We continued to build our capacity for team work with cooperative juggling (thanks again to Mr. Grundy at Parkcrest for introducing me to this great activity.  Check out all of the laughter.)

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

• We explored several math strategies in preparation for beginning our Number Theory unit.  Here’s the class working in pairs in the fiendish Skyscraper activity, which I learned from the Math Guru, Peter Liljedahl, of SFU.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

• We had the first round of the Abe Gaitens Memorial Mental Math Contest (when my sisters and I were young, our father used to do a variation of this exercise at the dinner table, reciting a string of numbers and operations that we had to hold in our heads, mentally calculating as we went, in order to attempt to come up with the correct answer).  Congratulations, Peter!

• I had the privilege of meeting all of you for our Parent Conversations; in case you missed it, here were the messages the class left for you:

• We watched the first episode of Chef Gabrielle Hamiliton‘s season of The Mind of the Chef through the lens of Depth and Complexity:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

• We had the Welcoming Assembly, for which the Grade 7s were all glad they wore deodorant:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

• We started reading The Book of Three (more on that later!)

 

• There was the triumphant return of Giant 6-Square (accompanied by the triumphant return of hometown hero, Shawn!):

• And we began our Writing unit, focusing on descriptive writing.

Riffing off of Wu Mei‘s advice “to recognize the whole through the observation of a small part,” and building off an exercise from the Learning to Make Choices for the Future place-based education manual (teachers, see the appendix for pages and pages of great activities), students were each given a laurel leaf from a collection of seemingly identical laurel leaves.  They had two minutes to study their leaf in detail.  I then collected all of the leaves and mixed them up, and students had to use their observation skills to sift through the pile of twenty-four until they were sure they had found their own.

Students then wrote in their comp books, describing their individual leaves in exquisite detail, paying attention to all aspects of the leaf, front and back, leaf and stem, using precise word choice and figurative language, so that someone else would be able to identify their leaf from all of the others.

 

After about 20 minutes of writing, students shared their writing with their podmates, who gave them advice that prompted another 10 minutes of so of writing.

Finally, students named their leaves and used stickers so that they would be able to identify them easily, and each pod mixed up their leaves and their comp books and traded leaves and books with a neighbouring pod, who in turn tried to identify which leaf belonged to which comp book. Each correct identification earned a point each for the reader and the writer.

Students then put what they considered to be their most descriptive sentence up on the board:

 

The next week, we repeated the exercise with sunflowers.

 

Here, students wrote individually about the flower their pod had received, and again used the peer editing process to help generate further ideas and more minute and specific observations.  And again, comp books were passed to another pod, whose job it was read through the descriptions and determine which flower belonged to that group.  Working together from the descriptions, pods created checklists of traits that the sought-for flower needed to have:

 

We had a 100% success rate in identification!

Again, students wrote what they considered to be their most descriptive sentence on the board.  I was so impressed with the results that I ran to find Ms. Driussi, so that she could be witness to these wonderfully specific images created with words:

 

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of everything we’ve been up to, but it was all my bedeviled phone had room to contain.  More soon(ish!).

And I leave you with the latest in our The Strange Contortions of Silent Reading series:

 

 

 

(Lynda Barry, Down the Street, Harpercollins, 1988)

“Every year, when you’re a child, you become a different person.  Generally it’s in the fall, when you re-enter school, take your place in a higher grade, leave behind the muddle and lethargy of the summer vacation.  That’s when you register the change most sharply.”

– Alice Munro, “Child’s Play”

I, for one, can attest to the fact that leaving behind “the muddle and lethargy of the summer vacation” is a task not strictly confined to the young.  In many ways, coming back was like slipping back into a comfortable and familiar sweater; in others, it was like hitting a brick wall.  And in the mysterious ways of Time, 8.16 repeating days in it almost feels like this new group has been inhabiting Portable 2 forever (surrounded by and occasionally bumping into the spirits of our friends from Grade 7 last…).

Truth: it is I who is really the stranger here, as most of you already had the 2015/16 school year together, as the original (1.0) Suncrest MACC 4/5 class; but as discussed, so much has happened in the year prior to this reunion that you really are meeting again as new people, with the opportunity to create a palimpsest of those past experiences and the freedom to take what worked and slough off what didn’t, to rewrite the script of past relationships and ways of being with the pens of your new selves.

To that end, we have been engaging in a lot of work to re-get-to-know each other, to welcome the two new friends that have joined us from Armstrong and Cap Hill, and to create a space where each and every one of us feels safe and celebrated for being our true selves.

People Search!

 

(Here’s the document we used for the People Search: First Day People Search 2017_18)

Crazy 8s!  With ever-expanding rules!  In random groups!

(Including special guest, Lori Driussi, who put the “pal” in principal by joining us for an entire morning session, and arrived with her own Elvis deck – things got serious when she announced that she had been practicing the night before… And, proving that principals are people, too, Ms. Driussi had to be gently chastized for continuing to talk after the lights were flickered on and off – one of our signals to bring the room to focus.)

Discussed our Hopes and Fears for the year!

 

Increased our capacity for team work by throwing balls at each other under the strange sunless sky!

 

Played King Pong!

(One of my favorites, due in part to the titular “Human chain!” aspect that last years’ class invented, whereby teams can rescue balls from no-persons-land by forming unbroken human chains; in the rush of competition, people who seldom interact are suddenly grasping ankles and hands and working together for the common good.  Cue laughter. Thank you to the incredible Mrs. Vennels of SD44 for introducing me to this game.)

Worked in randomly assigned groups to discuss when and why school becomes hard, pre-thought strategies for dealing with feeling overwhelmed, and reminded ourselves of the good feelings that are generated when we finish something that was hard!

(Advanced warning: in the coming weeks, we will explore why the response, “Not my problem” – which appeared in various forms more than one, two, or ten times –  to the question, “What can you do when you see someone else is overwhelmed or stuck,” is detrimental not only to the person who is struggling but also to you, and to our class and school as a whole.)

Learned the concept behind the Wing Chun form of martial arts from a fictional version of Shaolin abbess Wu Mei and applied that thinking to our school work!

 

Applied aspects of the Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies curriculum to making name plates for our desks!

 

(The criteria sheet for our Name Plate project can be found here – and also under “Projects,” “Subjects,” “Art” on the main navigation bar on this blog page: Name Plate Art Criteria)

 

Meanwhile, we:

Watched a video about lunch at an elementary school in Japan!

And brainstormed how we could incorporate some of the Big Ideas expressed in the video into our own classroom!

And we:

Simultaneously worked on throwing and catching, strategic thinking, and team spirit with Long Ball (thank you to my Obi Wan Kenobi, Mr. Grundy, at Parkcrest!)!

 

Had our first Dictionary War!  (So intense!)

Continued to hone our group work skills (are you sensing a theme, yet?) in the Survival Simulation Challenge!

In this work, students were assigned into groups using the Random Deck of Terror®, and then each student was given a specific role within the group (thank you to the divine Mrs. Pitt, principal of Morley, for this and so many other student-centric ideas).

Groups worked within a set time limit to rank the survival items in order of importance, with special emphasis placed coming up with creative uses of each item.

 

Groups submitted their choices…

And we found out how they fared against the expert knowledge of Mark Wanvig, a former instructor in survival training for the Reconnaissance School of the 101st Division of the U.S. Army:

“Steel wool?!?!”

(MACC-sters, can you spot my – what is it? I’ve lost count – 17th mistake, in the photo above?)

The team with the least numerical difference between their ranking and Wanvig’s ranking won, which also gave us a chance to practice celebrating wins and losses equally:

“Gecko’s, you won!”

“Yay!”

“Everyone else, you lost!”

“Yay!!!”

And finally, students privately assessed the people in their group, including themselves, in regards to how each functioned as a group member: Group Work Assessment Form

Concurrently, we:

Started/restarted the practice of Morning Index Cards, to help us all begin the day from the same place, and to practice drawing without judgement!

(Our focus last week – which included self-as-spy and You at Your Best – was on personal identity, part of our big work together this year.)

Humored my tennis obsession by watching some highlights from the US Open and reading commentary in various news sources and tried to distill what we viewed and read into something applicable to the classroom!

From Venus Williams, Petra Kvitova, and Sloane Stephens, we learned perservernce.

Here are your definitions:

My favorite quote of the Open was from a commentator who, after Nadal‘s semi-final match against previous champion Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, said, “The match was over after Nadal lost the first set,” meaning that Rafa had used the first set to carefully learn about del Potro’s game and form, and was willing to sacrifice the set to do so, before applying what he had learned to a relentless clamp-down of a win.

In addition to perseverance and studious patience, there was also a lot of rich discussion about good footwork as a metaphor for, well, everything, and we learned a lot from Sloane Stephens’s amazing show of good sportspersonship.

After that we:

Found out about the overarching question that will govern a lot of our work this year!  And decided which terms would need to be clearly defined before we could begin to explore the question!

(Psst: project outline for our first mini-research project on Wales in the Middle Ages can be found under the “Socials” tab in “Projects – Subjects” on the navigation bar.)

Began our work understanding the concept of Depth and Complexity, using the icons developed by Bette Gould and Sandra Kaplan!

First, we practiced as a class, applying the icons to our own classroom.

Then, in randomly assigned pairs, students took a walk around the school and worked together to apply one of the icons to Suncrest, and then pooled their findings with the rest of the class. 

Next, students worked individually, applying the icons to their own homes.

And finally, we explored Brené Brown‘s incredible Ted Talk about “The Power of Vulnerability,” viewing it through the lens of Depth and Complexity.

 

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of everything we did during those first almost-two weeks (although is has been kind of exhausting to type it all up and resize all those photos… and I imagine is has been fairly exhausting to read and view all this, too!  Trust me, I’ll run out of steam in a few weeks, so soak it up while you can).  There have been so many other conversations and explorations and games and sharing of knowledge and many, many days of math diagnostics – and, of course, a lot of before, during, and after school 4-Square, 5-Rectangle, and Giant 6-Square.  It’s been heartening to watch how quickly you all have come around to things like strategic thinking in PE games and how naturally good sportspersonship seems to be coming to us as a group – and it is wonderful to see so many hands in the air, eager to share opinions and ideas, and, as always, it is humbling to bear witness to the nuance and idiosyncrasies of your creative processes.

And so, newly (re)formed Division 2,  unlike Arna and her cousin Marlys, I promise you will never be subjected to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” on the accordion, and trust me, I will never throw chalk.  However, I make no guarantees about not making you pretend to be angry trees in front of the library windows… 

Stay tuned…