Marsalis: master teacher

I have been listening to several Wynton Marsalis videos these past weeks; not just his Jazz at Lincoln Center sets, but this Skain's Domain series of talks and interviews. Marsalis is so articulate, intelligent, intense, and tender that he cultivates an amazing cadre you young performers whose relationship with him goes well beyond musical instruction.

This video reflects the thoughtful, respectful, and inspired dialogue that he carries on with his students about their thoughts concerning their role as artists during the pandemic.

I learned a lot from these young people. Give a listen to the young man at about the 24:00 mark.
Skain’s Domain: An Intimate Weekly Conversation with Wynton Marsalis - Episode 7 from Wynton Marsalis on Vimeo.

Dear Class of 2020

9/11 Moment

This morning around 8:45 our principal paused our morning with a respectful announcement recalling the events of 9/11 and calling for a moment of silence. It was very well done. I followed up by making a small display of our original print-media from that time.

Food pantry launch site

We are happy to be part of the distribution team for the ACS holiday food pantry this week.

Broadening the discussion

I thought this info-graphic story in the New York Times provided a good way to broaden the discussion with students following the shootings in Las Vegas by aligning the quantity of the killings in Las Vegas to gun deaths in selected U.S. cities; prompting discussions about the episodic nature of news consumers, the emphasis we place on cataclysmic human tragedy versus incremental tragedy, and context for issues like gun control, "black life matters," media responsibility, etc.

Library resource person: bag-o-rocks

Our Health teacher is doing a great "Chenango County Rocks" project; students painting positive messages on small stones and then distributing them to be "found." Demand was out-pacing supply, so I shuttled over to the public boat-launch site during lunch to fetch a fresh batch of ... canvases.

Your history

Our friends at the Afton Historical Society are hosting a Beginning Genealogy Class on September 21st at the Afton Village Hall. This looks like a great opportunity to build that family tree you are always talking about!

Comparisons

I have been an advocate of "making comparisons" as a tool for higher-level thinking when students engage in research projects. This month's Dig magazine reinforces that notion with its theme of parallel lives; comparing "different times, similar struggles" through the lives of two protagonists: Patrick Henry / Sojourner Truth,  Fulvia / Benazir Bhutto, etc.

What I learned is that this form was made famous nearly 2000 years ago by Plutarch in his Parallel Lives or Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans; the inspiration for this issue ... and for its continued use.

So how about end-of-the-semester Global Studies or U.S. History students reaching back into their year to draw some comparisons about "different times, similar struggles." That practice might help them identify similarities in future events.

Hometown cool!

So my principal, who has been down to see our WWI exhibit (see earlier posts), sent me this link to the NYS Museum' s own WWI exhibit that opened April 15th : A Spirit of Sacrifice: New York State in the First World War.

Imagine my delight when I clicked on their link to images of selected artifacts and found several that are on exhibit in our school library courtesy of our Afton Historical Society! Cool!

New York State Museum, http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/about/press/kits/world-war-i-exhibition-photos

Our exhibit samples:

 

Historical Perspective from the State Department

Some concise pieces on the Milestones of U.S. Foreign Relations from the Office of the Historian at the U.S. State Department.

More about them from their web site:

"The Office of the Historian is staffed by professional historians who are experts in the history of U.S. foreign policy and the Department of State and possess unparalleled research experience in classified and unclassified government records. The Office’s historians work closely with other federal government history offices, the academic historical community, and specialists across the globe.

The Office of the Historian is responsible, under law, for the preparation and publication of the official documentary history of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series.
In addition, the Office prepares policy-supportive historical studies for Department principals and other agencies. These studies provide essential background information, evaluate how and why policies evolved, identify precedents, and derive lessons learned. Department officers rely on institutional memory, collective wisdom, and personal experience to make decisions; rigorous historical analysis can sharpen, focus, and inform their choices. The Office of the Historian conducts an array of initiatives, ranging from briefing memos to multi-year research projects.
The Office of the Historian also promotes the declassification of documents to ensure a complete and accurate understanding of the past."

*Wanted to add some italics of my own, but I figure you had your red pencil out too.

Politics/Math

A good article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a professor at Tufts University who is applying her understanding of 'metric geometry' to the issue of gerrymandering; specifically using it to help develop a more objective definition of "compactness" that might clarify that meaning in the courts.

She has taken the initiative to create  5-day summer course that focuses hoe mathematicians can better prepare to be expert witnesses. "The first three days of the program will be open to the public and available online, with lessons that put redistricting in legal, historical, civil-rights, and mathematical contexts. Attendees of the program’s final two days will participate in one of three specialized tracks on giving expert testimony, teaching, and working with geographic-information systems."

I think this article is a powerful instrument to share with students to illustrate the "real world" application of school subjects and the value of overlapping disciplines, so am sharing it with our math and Social Studies departments.

Declaration

A word from the Greeks

I really enjoyed this article in the June 23rd NYRB by Daniel Mendelsohn: How Greek Drama Saved the City.

It is a wonderful cross-curricular essay about how the Greek theater of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes during the "Athenian century" (509 BCE - 404 BCE) differed from our "private, personal, anonymous" experience of current theater; being, rather, a purposeful civic experience designed to entertain, but also to set before the gathered citizenry complex situations they might learn from:

"...the point of Sophocles' play is not that Antigone is "right" and that Creon is "wrong," but rather that each character has a valid point to make. The problem - and the source of dramatic excitement - is that each is unable to see any validity in the other's views."
...
It is in this way - by sensitizing its audience to such bitter conundrums, to the agonizing choices that come with being both an individual and a citizen - that Athenian drama could educate those who saw it performed."

Curating our local history

Got the go-ahead from the Afton Historical Society to post their annual historical calendars to the Internet Archive. The calendars document Afton history over a range of themes; from children's clothing to local disasters. We made one  word-searchable digital document from calendars created from 1987-2016 to aid in locating information.

This follows on the heels of our earlier project where we digitized and posted over 900 Afton Historical Minutes to the Internet Archive.

More ACS documents at the Internet Archive

I have scanned and added the 1901 Afton Catalogue, The 1925 Afton Catalogue, and the 1931 Aftonian Yearbook to the Internet Archive. They are also posted to the Archives section of our library web page.

I especially like the prologue to the the 1931 Aftonian that states, "It comes with a two-fold purpose, to give practice to boys and girls in English in Afton High School and to show the public what these boys and girls are attempting." It anticipates, or rather sets the precedent for, the "publicly presented knowledge products" that are expected as part of our current Inquiry Learning.

Good graphic for discussion

Image from the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/26/us/race-of-american-power.html?_r=0

"The Faces of American Power," a good graphic from the New York Times to prompt discussion in US History class about minority representation in the U.S.

Revealing history through participation

 

An 1850s ad seeking the return of a runaway slave to a Maryland plantation. Credit Swann Auction Galleries

An article in the New York Times about emerging databases that are utilizing runaway slave ads, has led me to these two interesting learning opportunities:

The first is “Freedom on the Move” through Cornell University. It involves a crowd-sourcing opportunity to verify the accuracy of primary source ads and to tag them with relevant information; perhaps a high-school exercise with an element of community service.

The other is “Pretends to be Free” from Historic Hudson Valley. Students read a selection of runaway slave ads and the accompanying classroom activities include creating an illustration, writing an ad based on the description of a classmate, and discussions based on a close reading of the sources.

These opportunities strike me as adaptable for entire classes or as alternative opportunities for select students.

Adaptive Design

I learned about the Adaptive Design Association and their work in the "maker" edition of the recent School Library Journal. This idea of designing with found materials to design and build unique solutions for people needing custom adaptations seems like a good fit for our makerspace.



Adaptive Design - Design the World to Fit Your Needs from Jaime Byrd on Vimeo.

One person: a force to be reckoned with

Three short film interviews at the New York Times about former Nobel Peace Prize winners that highlight that "one person can make a difference." I was especially taken with words and actions of Leymah Gbowee of Liberia.

Erasing Internet synapses

This thoughtful article at The New Yorker, The Solace of Obilvion, asks the question: do we have the right to be "forgotten" on the Internet? It explores efforts to have Google remove links to information that are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of time that has elapsed.'

It makes interesting points about the differing esteem in which Americans and Europeans hold free speech and privacy, and it explores the notion that Google is no longer just a "card catalog."