Blog Entry #3, Nicaragua: Living in Sabana Grande (Days 3-5)

Anything is possible.  A mini cab with a hatchback drew up at the corner by our Esteli hotel, and offered to take us to the bus station going north (there is another station if you are going south!).  Our massive luggage stuck out the back of this cab and had to be bungie corded together, but we made it to the station.  Once there, a brightly colored second hand bus with railings on top was ready for us.  A pig was already strapped up there, and was soon joined by giant baskets of produce and our own equally giant red suitcase and extra heavy duffel of art supplies. 

This bus stopped every five minutes for two hours, but it never stopped for long!  The driver’s helper had to swing new luggage up on top and then ride to the next stop hanging onto the ladder, since the bus always took off before he finished.  We began to worry how we would get ourselves and our six pieces of luggage off in time when we reached the solar center, especially since we didn’t really recognize our stop.  After reminding the driver 4 times where we were going, and driving for two hours through the rain, we were told to run for it.  Within two minutes, our luggage had been thrown down and we had been half helped, half pushed out the back door of the bus.  To our delight, Deb (who went ahead yesterday) appeared miraculously on the other side of the road before we even had time to ponder which way to go.   

The solar center at Grupo Fenix has grown an amazing degree in the last four years since I was here with Sac State students.  A “solar restaurant” has been built.  It consists of a beautiful and huge covered patio with hand made, primitive wooden tables and chairs; a kitchen building; a kitchen garden; and four solar ovens in back doing the cooking.  Today the lunch menu is chicken, rice, beans, avocado, tomatoes and cucumbers, and fresh made passion fruit juice.  We are thrilled to have landed from our bus ride to enjoy this bounty, under a lovely tile roof which keeps off the pelting rain. 

The sustainability projects in Sabana Grande have also grown, and are both diverse and interrelated.  Vet students from UC Davis have recently been here, working with teaching farmers to inoculate chickens.  The “solar mountain” now has a community built cob and natural wood conference pavilion, as well as orchards growing traditional and native tropical fruits, herbal gardens, and many acres of reforestation.  A daycare center has been built and is about to open.  And a group of high school and college students in Sabana Grande, inspired by our Da Vinci students, have formed a bicycle driven collective to work on various projects and  tours.  

Teachers Gaby and Emma in front of the new solar childcare center, built of cob (mud).

The new solar restaurant feeds Da Vinci volunteers and others from universities.

Peregrine School is well represented already, by a dozen Da Vinci high school students and their two teachers, who have been assisting them in installing a bicycle driven water pump in the school and in teaching science to the children for a week.  Now we have arrived, with Gaby Valenzuela, Emma Clancy, and me, as well as Deb Bruns, who has initiated this project.  Our task is to explore ways of making Peregrine a “sister school” with the village school here, San Miguel Arcangel, by creating shared books about their lives with kids from both places.  We will bring back materials, mostly in the form of children’s writings, drawings, and photos, which can help our students and parents to better understand life in this village.  Since Davis and Sabana Grande share many features as communities committed to sustainability and to agriculture, we feel that this partnership is particularly rich.  There are many things dramatically the same and dramatically different about our two communities, and both communities are open to sharing their experience. 

Staying in Sabana Grande for a week is a life changing experience for most Americans, even without the things one can learn about solar and photovoltaic technologies, sustainable agriculture, and natural building.  American students and teachers enter households where electricity is either not available or is available through solar devices which provide a limited amount.  As one woman said, “if I charge my cell phone, I need to go to bed at 8:30.”  I am currently typing this blog using my head lamp flashlight, because today was a cloudy day so my host family has no photovoltaic power for a light bulb. 

Dirt walking and horse or bike paths are the only roads in Sabana Grande.

Showers at our houses are small outdoor shelters where a large container of rain water has been collected on the roof and funneled in.  Dippers are provided.  The toilet is an outhouse, some distance from the house.  Don’t forget to bring a flashlight for night visits. 

Cooking is efficient here, since much research has gone into alternatives that can serve as a model to others nearby.  Solar ovens are present in most houses.  They are particularly good for slow cooking, cooking in the dry season, and coffee drying.  (Local coffee is grown and sold by the women here.)  In addition, there are elegantly designed “rocket” stoves of mud and brick which provide convection features and cleanly remove smoke.  They are very fuel efficient, an important thing since deforestation for firewood is a big issue.  Dishes are washed in buckets from the rainwater (it rains most of the night each night), and no hot water is available.  In this equatorial environment, it gets light at 6 AM and dark at 6 PM year round, so much cooking and clean up is done by lantern light. 

We share our meals with the family of the house, which generally includes three generations.  My household currently houses two Da Vinci high school boys and me, as well as three sons, two daughters, two parents, a granddaughter, and a ninety nine year old grandma who is blind and needs constant care.  The teenage boys and girls take turns helping the grandma when the mother goes to work.

 Bedrooms consist of a bed with a mosquito net in an adobe or concrete block room, with a bedside table and a rope across the ceiling to hang towels and clothes to dry.  It is generally very dark, with few windows.  The house is really just for sleeping.  Work is outside, and eating is in covered pavilions, which keep the rain off.  

One of many idyllic Brahman cows

The yard has an outhouse and shower stall, many chickens , a dog, and a milk cow and her calf.  Most families in Sabana Grande are farmers who work corn and bean fields which alternate with pasture fields for their cows.  Tortillas and beans from these crops provide the daily staple foods.  One wakes to the sound of tortillas being pounded by hand.  Most people have fruit trees around their houses, and currently in season are bananas, avocados, maracuya, and pitoya (a fruit which Californians call “dragon fruit”.) Tree covered mountains rise up in the distance behind the “sabana grande”, or rolling plain, we are on, creating a bucoloic scene.  Village life centers around the ceiba tree, which is thirty feet around and 600 years old. 

To say this way of life contrasts with Davis would be an understatement, and yet much is also the same.  A new and up to date agricultural trade school just opened on the edge of town, where regional farmers will be trained.  Young people more commonly go to school to learn this and other trades than in the past.  Agricultural fields, orchards, and cows are a common sight, as are bikes.  And much of the populace has made a commitment to sustainability in energy and agriculture. 

Visiting here makes one think more deeply about what sustainability really means.  Exposing our Peregrine students to the vibrant but different lifestyle, and massively smaller energy footprint that families experience here, will prove a challenge that we look forward to as we reflect upon this journey ourselves and prepare to share it with our students.  Thanks again to those of you who helped sustain this trip.

Village life is inspired by this massive ceiba tree, 600 years old, where people gather. 

Sister School Trip to Nicaragua Blog Entry 2: Nicaragua - An Introduction

Gaby, Lorie, and Emma stand in front of a 2012 mural, made by school children, centered around a hope for peace, with the Gandhi quote (translated): “An eye for an eye and the whole world will be made blind.”  

One of the reasons that Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Americas, after Haiti, is that it experienced many years of revolution and civil war.  This history is chronicled in Esteli, which we visited first and which served as a good introduction to Nicaragua.

Esteli is famous for its political murals.  These murals express many aspects of the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979 , the many years of war which followed, and the evolution of the country into a peaceful democracy.   In the 1970’s, many Nicaraguans became Sandinistas, revolting against Somosa, a cruel dictator who had ruled for many years, and against the international corporations, such as United Fruit, which worked hand in hand with dictatorial governments to assure that almost all Nicaraguans lived under essentially feudal conditions.   Like many other Central American countries, Nicaragua is populated by mostly indigenous peoples who traditionally farmed but did not hold title to their lands, and became easy prey for individuals and corporations who bought up land, and hired its original residents to work for almost nothing.

The Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, held democratic goals such as a decent standard of living for all; social, educational, and medical services; and land reforms which would allow campesinos to own the land on which they worked.   These ideals led to a socialist revolution, which in turn triggered a panic reaction in the Cold War United States.  A brutal civil war between Sandinistas (defenders of their their new revolutionary government) and Contras (highly subsidized opposition forces to the new revolutionary government), which lasted more than a decade and cost innumerable lives.  Various other governments, including the USA, fueled this conflict with arms, which extended the struggle for many years.

Ever since their revolutionary period, a cultural climate in Nicaragua developed which is open to cooperative movements and innovative solutions.  Projects involving Nicaraguans and internationals abound, and a spirit of possibility remains in Nicaragua paralleled by persistently difficult economic circumstances. 

In Esteli, we witnessed a collective of women, las mujeres ambientalistas, who recycle corn husks and other fibers, along with paper trash, from the largest market in the city to create a hand made paper operation.   These women turn market refuse into beautiful paper which is then made into greeting cards and journals.  This is one of many examples of kind of independent nonprofit groups which exist in Nicaragua.

This woman demonstrates for us how she and her colleagues make paper out of recycled materials.

On Saturdays, they work with school children to teach them to make paper too.This woman demonstrates for us how she and her colleagues make paper out of recycled materials.

We also toured the famous Esteli political murals which number over one hundred, in which school children and artists have been expressing their dreams for the future for thirty years.  The images below represent this work, which is ongoing and reflects the evolution of Nicaraguan society.  In these murals, images of gun toting revolutionaries morph over time into images of health care, children at play, and peace.  Likewise, dark colors gradually change to rainbows of hope.  The projects which we are about to experience in Sabana Grande represent a part of this tradition of small scale, collaborative, nonprofit projects-- a tradition through which Nicaraguan communities work steadily to make their lives better.

This woman demonstrates the idea that people of any age can learn to read.  A major literacy campaign has been an essential part of the ongoing Nicaraguan revolution.

A mural illustrates the importance of media, in the form of a radio station, to spreading the word and giving people voice.

 

The key to the future is in our hands… A world of hope, where nature is not abused.

Peregrinos arrive in Nicaragua! Sister school trip to Nicaragua - Entry 1

Deb Bruns, Maestra Gaby Valenzuela, and Teacher Emma Clancy in Nicaragua

It takes a community to raise a child, and it takes a strong community like Peregrine to create a sister school.  Since most Peregrine families have already contributed to the sister school project in Nicaragua through Gaby, Emma, and Megan’s fundraisers, and all will participate in learning from this project in the classroom, I thought that our community might appreciate blog reports, sent periodically, about this trip.  Please join us in Nicaragua and see what exciting work you are helping to support!

It is Thursday night, almost midnight, at our own Sacramento airport.  See Gaby and Emma straining under the shared weight of a black duffel bag.  This bag is stuffed with art supplies, and is in fact overweight, so a ream of paper needs to be traded out for some of the 200 toothbrushes and paste in the big red suitcase at the United Airlines check in.  (Art supplies were bought from Peregrine fundraising (gracias a todos!) and the toothbrushes and paste were generously donated from parent Ana Antoniu, dentist.)  Soon four of us -- Gaby Valenzuela, Emma Clancy, Deb Bruns (Peregrine International’s organizer and Yolo County’s Science and Environmental Education Coordinator) and I, Lorie Hammond -- are ready to wait for an hour or two in the fluorescent lit airport, in order to board the night flight to Houston and then Nicaragua.  By noon the next day, we arrive sleepy but excited in Managua, where we quickly board a cab to exit the hot capital city and approach the northern Segovia Mountains and Esteli, the third largest city in Nicaragua and the unofficial capital of the North.  Our destination, after a short rest and sightseeing in Esteli, is Sabana Grande, a village in Nicaragua’s formerly war torn northern mountains, near the Honduran border.

Sabana Grande combines many elements that make it a great partner for Peregrine School.  For several years, this town has developed a solar project, Projecto Fenix, which helps villagers to develop the skills to create electricity and environmentally friendly cooking and coffee drying through solar energy.  Susan Kinne, an engineering professor at the Engineering University in Managua, has developed this project with a spunky and creative group of women, Las Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa, who wanted to make their lives better and avoid having to go to the city to work as maids or to do agricultural work for others on farms, by creating work for themselves and self sufficient industries in their own valley.  (Sabana Grande means “the great savanna”, and is a farmable flat grassland in the mountains.) 

The Mujeres Solares, now assisted by many men, a youth group, and many internationals, are creating equipment which harnesses clean power for people like themselves who have never had electricity or running water, and selling this equipment to other towns who can learn from their example.  They are also reforesting a hillside, growing local fruits, drying coffee with solar, and many other things.  Peregrine School has sponsored DaVinci high school physics, and now biology, students from Davis to come to this village annually to share an alternative energy project they have designed.  This year it is a bicycle driven water pump; last year, bicycle driven generators for cell phones and the like.  Deb Bruns has been leading this project, which has now spread to a group of vet students, who are working with the village on more efficient animal husbandry. 

Our goal is to establish a sister school relationship between our two Peregrine Schools and the small school in this village, San Miguel de Archangel, which parallels us in size.  Their school has a preschool of 10 kids and two classrooms, one 1-3 grade and one 4-6 grade.  About 70 kids total.  We will work with these kids to photograph, draw, and write about their lives, and to create a book about it to share with our kids.  We will also have them write letters to establish pen pals with our kids.  This will hopefully be the beginning of an ongoing exchange, which can help our kids to learn what life is like for children in the developing world, while they share their own lives.  It will also reinforce the importance of our Spanish program, as a means of expanding our horizons through communication. 

Today, as an introduction to the country before we arrive in the village, we will tour this city of Esteli, a city famous for youth mural painting.  We will also continue to explore the beautiful, green countryside here, and to familiarize ourselves with the contrasts between traditional and modern, rich and poor, which so characterize developing countries.  We began this process on the way from the airport, when we watched horse drawn carriages carrying people, wood, and agricultural goods driving alongside semi trucks and taxis like ours.  We also saw creatively designed shelters of rough wood, metal sheeting and bricks creating housing and small highway shops, selling papayas, watermelons, hammocks, and a great variety of other things.  These shops stand alongside modern gas stations with 7-11 type packaged food and sodas, creating a bricolage of possibilities in a kind of “real time” which represents many times and realities at once.  

Bienvenidos a Nicaragua! 

A typical Nicaraguan dinner: fish (or meat), gallo-pinto (a mix of rice and beans), home-made salty cheese, fried plantains, and avocado

What does it mean to do cognitively guided instruction in math? A big concept in action

How to teach math is a big controversy in educational circles.  In the United States, math has often been taught by showing kids how to do a particular operation, then having them practice it until they can do it independently.  This would be called an algorithm driven approach, or doing “math basics”.  However, when worldwide annual math and science testing began in the 1995, with the Timms testing (timss.bc.edu/‎), people were shocked to see that American students did not do as well as their counterparts in places like Japan and Singapore.  Some people thought that kids in these places simply did more “drill and kill” practice of math problems, but when the situation was analyzed, it turned out that the countries that did best were ones which spent more of their math teaching time on understanding the number system and solving problems rather than on practicing operations. 

Many people wonder what a math teaching approach based on teaching for understanding would look like.  At Peregrine School, we use Singapore Math, which is considered a Cognitively Guided approach to teaching math.  In this approach, a lot of time is spent on discussion, dialogue, and problem solving.  The following lesson is an example.  

We are in Marcia Margoniner-Reilly’s first-second grade classroom.  Children are sitting at three tables, facing each other and able to see a white board in front.  A large box of ones, tens, and hundreds squares are on a demonstration table in front.

(M stands for Marcia, and S1,2,3… for student speakers):

Children are given number squares of 1 and 10. 

M: How many white squares fit in a 10 strip?  Children count by lining them up and answer: 10.

Now how many fit in a big square?

S: 100

M: Prove it to me.

S1: Uses 10 strips to cover the 100 square.  Then shows that each of these is 10, so 10 x 10 make 100. 

M: Are you sure that 10 x 10 make 100?

S2: I can prove it to you!  He puts all 100 small squares on the big one. 

M puts a number chart as follows on the board.  125=

Hundreds                                 tens                                            ones

1

2

5

M writes the number 125 on the board.  Kids are challenged to make it with the ones, tens, and hundreds squares they have.  They all agree it is as shown above.  They try some other numbers, first building them with the blocks, then putting them in the chart. They do this until everyone can do it easily.

M: Now I challenge you to think of a number you create for other people.  You will make it with the squares, and we will decide as a group how to put it on the chart.  She makes the big box of squares available.  Children get out lots of squares. 

(This is an example of how children can differentiate their own learning in this kind of open-ended setting.  One child, who is advanced at math, gets out a lot of hundreds.  Others get out simpler numbers.)

M: (Referring the child with big numbers)  Look, S2 is coming up with a big number.  He wants to scare us!  Are you making your number, S3?

S3: (watching S2) I am trying to figure out what he is doing.  Then she begins to build a number, saying “S2, you won’t be able to guess this one!” 

S2: I’ll bet I can!

(In this case, the student who created the challenging number has created a challenge for his peers.)

S2: (to S3) Oh, you’ll never guess mine!

S3: 50,000?

S2: No, not at all.  I’m not allowed to go into thousands.

M: Is that true?  I didn’t say that.

(Question: Students want to get more than 10 of the 100’s, but in this lesson they have not yet gotten into using cubes which represent 1000- so they do not have a correct way to represent more than one thousand.  These are the kinds of questions that teachers deal with when doing this kind of lesson.  Should they make game rules that keep student responses within certain bounds, covered by the concept of the time (standards for first grade are to work with numbers up to 1000), or should they let things go beyond these limits and then challenge the students to explain what happened?  The answer to this kind of teaching question will vary with each group of students.  If the students barely understand the concept at hand, going beyond might be confusing.  On the other hand, some students may have the ability to go beyond and benefit from it.)

M goes from student to student, asking them to place numbers on the chart on the board to represent the squares they see built on the students’ desks.  When they get to S2’s number, which has more than 10 hundreds, M points out that it raises an interesting question: what to do with numbers over 10 in any category?

As M moves through the children, several have more than 10 squares in a category, causing them to turn in the squares and get 10’s or 100’s to replace them.  This is the beginning of learning to carry numbers.  Students have practiced this with smaller numbers (up to 100), but not previously up to 1000. 

Numbers evolve as shown below:

Hundreds	Tens	Ones
8	11	15
	11 + 1=12	5
8 + 1= 9	2	5
9	2	5

Number= 925

S1’s number is ten one hundreds, ten tens, and ten ones.  This challenges the kids as they think about how to represent it.

Hundreds	Tens	Ones
10	10	10
10	11	0
11	1	0

M begins by discussing what we do when we have ten ones.  One kid knows that

5+ 5=10, but this equation throws things off, since it is not relevant. 

M: What should I do, put 10 in the ones column?  How many tens do we have?

S3: We have one ten, because 5 + 5 = 10.

M: But how many ones are there in ten?

S1: Ten! So we need to make another ten in the next row.

M: Great idea!  (See red numbers above)  Now how many ones do we have?

Students agree that is hard.  One comes up with the idea that no ones are left. 

M: Great. But now we have a new problem!  What about the tens?  Can we have eleven tens? 

S2: No.  Now we have to move a ten to the 100’s.

M: Right, let’s try it.  (See green numbers)  But now we have a big problem!  We have 11 hundreds.  Can we have that?

This leads to a discussion of thousands, which is the point of the lesson, to understand how the number system works up to thousands.  (Students have up to now been working with numbers only up to hundreds).  They found that if you have more than 10 hundreds, you need to add another column to the chart, and another column to the numbers we write.  The thousands column.

Students are now given a work sheet in which they have to transfer numbers back and forth from drawn squares of ones, tens, and hundreds to numbers written as usual.  They use their cubes to help do these conversions, and either draw the squares on their paper or write the numbers that represent the squares.  This is the independent work that follows and reinforces the discussion which took place. 

This math lesson illustrates how the strategy from my last blog, the collaborative conversation, is an essential tool in teaching math.  This conversation consists of a small group and a teacher discussing an issue or concept together. 

The essential parts of a cognitively guided math lesson are:

1.      The introduction of a question (How to represent big numbers with cubes?)

2.      A mini-lesson which demonstrates a skill or concept  (how numbers look as cubes and on the number chart)

3.      A challenge, presented to individuals or small groups, to solve a problem their own way (make your own big number with cubes)

4.      Group sharing and analysis of people’s solutions (how to write the numbers students created on the number chart). 

5.      Individual practice of concepts learned (writing your own numbers back and forth from drawn cubes to written numbers)

Cognitively guided math is challenging to teach because student solutions can take different directions that can lead to new cognitive challenges.  The teacher constantly defines the boundaries of the lesson, so that the lesson ends up taking a clear direction which illustrates the point s/he is trying to make.  At the same time, students are encouraged to come up with novel solutions and even to try out ideas which they know but which might not prove relevant, in order to learn from their own process.  Balancing keeping a clear direction with letting students experiment is a constant challenge.  There is no one way to do it.

This kind of math lesson illustrates how teaching is an art, in which new challenges constantly arise and require the teacher to improvise solutions.  Marcia illustrates a skillful approach to meeting these challenges.  Yet for each teacher, there are different directions which discussions can take, and a constant set of new decisions to be made.  The exciting part, for teachers and students, is that the challenges created by novel solutions shared by different students always expands the lesson in unpredictable ways, and in the end, causes everyone to see that the number system makes sense and yet provides constant new explorations.  

Collaborative Conversations in the Classroom

In the current evolution of California teaching standards, called the Common Core Standards, one skill that is emphasized is students' participation in "collaborative conversations."  A collaborative conversation is a teaching and learning event in which people talk critically and analytically about a topic under study in a small group.  At Peregrine School, this often takes the form of a conversation between one of our classes or a smaller group of students, and a teacher.  It can also be student to student without a teacher involved.  

In one of my recent classroom observations at the elementary school, teacher Chris Erickson was working with a group of 5-7 graders as part of his integrated language arts and history curriculum about the ancient world.  His focus is on the Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar, for its perspective on Rome, and as a piece of literature.  Since Shakespeare is hard for students this age to read, Chris is using several sources at once: a graphic novel version of the play, short passages from Shakespeare himself, which the students "translate" together into modern English, and a video of the play.  

Hopefully the following excerpt will give you a sense of how Chris talks informally with his students, even relating this theme to current TV dramas, while at the same time dealing with big questions and with critical dialogue.

*****

A sample of  collaborative conversation:  In the new state Common Core Standards, the “collaborative conversation” is an important skill which students practice in many contexts.  The goals of such a conversation are student engagement around a serious theme, collaborative contributions from many students, and critical thinking skills, such as debate.  The way in which Chris models this kind of collaboration with his 5-7 grade class is well illustrated by the following discussion.

Chris’ class is reading Julius Caesar in graphic novel form, as part of their study of Rome.  Eight kids are sitting around the table.  They take turns reading.  Some get dramatic and act out the action.  Others then edit them, saying “that’s not in there”.  Chris suggests that we can all see the pictures, so we only need to read the words. 

One kid comments on the killing of Caesar: “Why did they do this?”  Chris asks the question: “Was it a good thing to kill Caesar?”  He writes this question on the board, saying that the two speeches in this section are the arguments on both sides, and that this will be the question of the day. 

Garnet says: “I think it was right to kill Caesar because he would have grabbed too much power.”

Becca responds:  “I’m not sure.  There is no proof if he would have done this.”

Garnet says: “The strongest people get voted out first, like in Survivor. 

Julia: Yes, but in Survivor, you can vote strong people out, but you might need them to get enough food.  It’s a question whether you want them to get food for the future or if they pose a future threat.  The same is true of Julius Caesar.

Garnet: I think that people tend to vote out really strong people.  They are afraid of them.

Alex: I disagree.  They usually die.

Garnet: You didn’t watch the show!

Chris: Let’s bring this back from the show to the play.  What is the equivalent of food in Survivors for these Senators?  What might they want to keep Caesar around for?

Katrin: Caesar had a will.  Did he know he was going to die?

Chris: People have wills even if they don’t expect to die soon.

Julia: Why couldn’t they have had Caesar sign a contract, that if he did certain things, he would be out of power?

Chris: You mean why did they have to take such an extreme measure as to kill him?

Garnet: But he is really strong willed.  They would not believe he would follow the contract.

Rodrigo: He’s power hungry.

Luke: What happened with his wife?

Julia: Didn’t she have a dream? But I don’t believe that dreams really predict things.  Like if I watch a horror movie at 12:00 and wake at 3:00 AM, I might feel like the things in the movie will really happen, but they won’t. 

Chris: Let’s look in the novel and find Caesar’s wife’s dream.

Kids say that the wife realizes it’s the Ides of March.  It is bad luck.  She wants Caesar to stay home. 

Caesar responds: Cowards die a thousand deaths. 

His wife begs him to stay home.  Then Caesar agrees to stay home for her. 

Chris: This scene makes an important point.  You said that Caesar is stubborn, but here is evidence that he is not, that he changed his plan based on what his wife wanted.  Then he is influenced by Brutus.  Brutus tells him that if he goes to the Senate that day, he will be crowned Emperor.  So he decides to go, over-riding his wife but because of Brutus’ advice.  So he does change his min, twice.

Luke: But you can’t deny that he’s powerful and power hungry-

(he changed his mind and took a risk in the hope of becoming Emperor)

Rod: He was trying to look noble, says “You can trust me when I’m king.”

Chris- Romans didn’t want a king, but were willing to accept a dictator for life. 

Ethan- Makes a crying sound effect. 

Chris: Now let’s talk about the rhetoric and who is more persuasive.  We will break down the two speeches, for and against killing Caesar.  Chris passes out these passages from Shakespeare.

Chris- First we have Brutus’ speech to the Plebeians.  Who are Plebeians? 

Katrin: the middle classes. 

Students now “translate” the speeches into regular English, writing sentences in modern English next to each of Shakespeare’s sentences.  They do this together, as a group.  Chris explains that this is the speech in which Brutus tries to convince the Plebeians that he is trustworthy. 

Chris:  “Censure me in your wisdom.”  What does this mean?

Kids struggle and try out various responses.

Julia: Is it “only judge me using your wisdom?”

This goes on for about ten minutes, with each sentence analyzed.  Everyone is totally engaged.  When someone is too loud, Chris asks: “Are you getting this down?” Behavior is controlled through the context of the lesson.

Chris: There is a very famous line here: “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”  He was trying to tell the Plebeians that he acted out of love rather than out of hate in killing Caesar.  But it was love for Rome.

After everyone has written their translations, the class is asked to read the Shakespeare passages out loud, in parts. 

Chris says to the class: “I’d like you to read this in parts.  To see the Bard’s poetry drip from your mouths.”

Solving problems collaboratively at Peregrine Elementary

When are a pile of wood, old tires, and pieces of pipe precious commodities, rather than objects ready for a dump run?  At Peregrine School, these things are the precious materials from which airplanes and forts are constructed, and about which there is sometimes conflict.  Over a month ago, Peregrine elementary students were having a problem with resource distribution during building projects.  They met together, with our teachers, and came up with a set of rules.  Eight pieces of junk per student, sixteen if two students band together, and so on.  Every student signed the giant rule sheet, and it has been posted ever since.  In the last month, wonderful things were built:  Roman aquaducts moving water underground through pipes and in and out of sandbox cities, and a whole fleet of airplanes with moving propellers.  At the end of each week, the projects are taken apart so that new ones can be made the next.  That is also a student made rule.

However, this week, another building conflict occurred: the question of forts and how they are governed.  And this time the focus was more difficult, because it really was on exclusion and inclusion, an old theme, and on teasing and other mean behaviors.  This piece is on how Peregrine teachers help kids to unravel complex situations like this one (which, interestingly, rework age-old human conflicts related to inclusion, exclusion, territory, behavioral limits, and more).  Yesterday, I was impressed with the teachers’ skills and the kids’ willingness, so I would like to tell the story.  I also feel that as parents, you need to understand this, so you can help your child talk about his/her conflicts in a Peregrine/Cool Tools way. 

Conflict Resolution Session

All the students gathered in the dance room, as did all the teachers, in place of morning circle in the classrooms.  A two part process began, in which the teachers acted as mediators.

The students are asked to be “consultants”, and to tell the group what the problems are.  Students are told not to use people’s names, and are told that once they have spoken, their ideas become group property, are usually recorded on the board, and can be used as talking points for anyone.  Both participants and witnesses can speak.

A picture emerged.  Two groups of kids had begun to build forts on different sides of the playground, and to exclude others from their forts.  Some created passwords.  Some blocked others from entry.  A “war” between the forts emerged, although it was kept under wraps, since everyone knew teachers would not allow it.  There were, separately and in the context of the forts, incidents of teasing or ridiculing.  There were also instances when students raided each other’s forts for lumber.  Many students were not involved at all, but the two groups became unevenly matched, with many boys in one fort and only a couple in the other.  The two boys who ended up on the “losing” team brought the situation to the group. 

Several aspects of the problem were revealed, through discussion.  Teacher Chris wrote many student’s statements on the board, so that everyone could see them.  From many statements, a few key problems were identified.  Final statements were made by every member of the group.  The three key problems were defined as:

·         Forts themselves, do they lead to conflict?

·         War as a mode of play

·         Exclusion from forts

·         Teasing or ridiculing others

The process took an hour, but all students were attentive and involved.  They listened to each other, and everyone weighed in.

Teachers Brittany and Marcia took over, and began the second part of the discussion: possible solutions.

Students voted whether “war” was a good game to play on the yard.  All but two or three voted that it was a bad game, that should not be allowed.  It was agreed that it would not be allowed.

The same discussion occurred related to exclusion from forts, either through passwords or other means.  Everyone agreed that even if forts were kept, there could be no exclusion.  Anyone could enter a fort, up to the point of safety.

Around the question of forts, several solutions were proposed.  One student adamantly felt that forts themselves were the problem, explaining that they were the foundation upon which other conflicts get built.  Others felt that forts could stay if they were not exclusive, but merely settlements, and if anyone could enter another person’s fort.

In the end, the group voted to keep the forts but to outlaw the sides and exclusion.

Finally, students agreed that teasing and ridiculing are already “red light” behaviors at our school, and that they wanted help from teachers in making consequences for students who do these things.  (At another meeting, students had agreed that if students tease or put down others in the yard, they need to sit at the “red table” for the rest of the recess and, in cases of repeated incidents, there are more consequences.)

Everyone voted to accept the proposal: our latest playground constitution.

Central to the proposal working was the idea that when students feel a rule has been broken, and especially if they feel hurt or left out, that they tell a teacher so that the teachers can help them to manage the situation. 

I was very impressed with how all students collaborated, with the expert help of teachers, to solve such a complex playground problem themselves.  They were civil, expressed various ideas, listened to each other, and came up with a viable solution.  This solution will no doubt need amendment, but that will be the next meeting!

Important thoughts for parents:

It is important to understand that unlike at some schools, there is an ongoing process driven by students and teachers together to solve playground disputes.  Students who feel upset by things that happen at school need to tell their parents and teachers, but the action that is taken will fit into the process that the students and teachers have set up.

For example, if a child feels that s/he has been excluded from a fort, s/he can use his/her “cool tools” of walking away, using a purple voice, etc. to try to solve the problem him/herself.  If this doesn’t work, s/he needs to tell a teacher what is going on, so that the situation can be mediated right away, in context, before it gets out of hand.  Learning to use “cool tools” and to tell teachers what is happening is the responsibility of the child, because it helps that child to learn to be an effective problem solver.  Obviously, if a child is much younger than the party in conflict, the teachers will step in sooner, and less is expected in the way of problem solving techniques.  But our ultimate goal, through all of our mediation on the playground and through discussion, is to teach the students to mediate their own conflicts, since they will need to do so as they get older. 

How can parents help?  Parents of course need to listen to their children.  Learning to be a social being is a hard, sometimes painful process.  Then, after hearing their child’s problem, parents can help us most by asking the child if s/he has talked to his/her teacher about this problem, and encouraging him/her to do so. 

We hope that parents can join with us in supporting the process which children are going through, in learning to solve their own problems collaboratively.  We believe that this process is at the heart of what our students are learning. This is not a small matter, nor a small part of the curriculum.

It would be easier for teachers to swoop in and say: “No more forts”.  But less would be learned.  I personally am uncertain whether forts can work as non-exclusive centers, since the word “fort” comes from a conflictive base.  But if there continues to be conflict, the students will come to this conclusion themselves.  And maybe they will surprise me and be able to manage forts without conflict.

Should you as a parent tell your child’s teacher when s/he feels stressed by behaviors at school?  Absolutely.  The child needs to feel s/he has a voice, and has been heard by all adults.  But to support our approach, it is important that you:

1)    Encourage your child to speak to the student with whom there is conflict him/herself, and if it doesn’t work, to tell the teacher him/herself.

2)    Understand that the teacher may not answer you with a “solution” of the sort you might hear at a different school, such as “we will get rid of those…. ” or “---- will be punished…”

3)    Some students think that if they tell their parents, and their parents talk to the teacher, that their side in an argument will prevail.  Some of these arguments, such as “forts or no forts”, are ongoing, and must be resolved by the group. The teacher will feed your child’s comment into his/her process that is ongoing with the group. 

It is important to note, however, that if a student does something actively harmful or dangerous to others, there will be consequences, taken by teachers, to assure that it stops.  Behavior management of particular students is separate from this group process, and ongoing, since the safety of the students is our highest priority. 

Why do this?

This is not an easy way to solve problems.  I was extremely proud of our teachers yesterday, because they showed great skill in guiding the students through a long fact finding and solutions discussion, and were able to set good boundaries so that no one got upset. 

Why would they want to do this instead of simply to lay down rules themselves?

The answer is important.  What our students are learning from being creative problem solvers in their academic work will mean little if they are not also problem solvers in the social world.  They are all prospective junior high and high school students who will need to make decisions about their own behavior and to mediate conflicts between their friends without adults always present. They are also prospective twenty-first century citizens who will have to work collaboratively, sometimes with people with different cultures, languages, and values.   And they are future citizens of a democracy.  Learning to define problems without anger, hear others’ points of view, and solve their conflicts in a collaborative way, are basic skills for life.  The world would be a better place if all people, let alone nations, learned to do this.  Although we do not want to see kids hurt or upset, we are in a sense glad when problems like this emerge at our school, because they are such great learning opportunities. 

Parents: please feel free to talk to your child’s teacher or to me if  you have questions about these matters.  Having you on board is an essential part of making this work.  

Reggio Rocks! Peregrine teachers shine at California Association for the Education of the Young Child (CAEYC) conference in San José

Coffee cups in hand, a crowd of teachers from all over California gathered around Carl Mack’s sticky board, writing their opinions on the qualities that define leadership.  By 8:00 AM, the room was jumping with one hundred and ten people.  Peregrine teachers Megan Forcum (head teacher of the school’s Escuelita program), Gabriela Valenzuela and Emma Clancy (head daycare teacher), guided by Carl Mack. Ph. D., our research partner, and introduced by Lorie Hammond, Ph. D, our academic director, began to speak.  An hour and a half later, the audience did not want to leave. 

What topic was riveting enough to engage its audience so early on a Saturday morning?  Two enmeshed themes emerged:  how Peregrine School inspires leadership in preschool children, teachers, and parents, and how this is done through a Reggio-Emilia inspired approach.

The journey to San José goes back at least a year, when Lorie asked our colleague and mentor, Dr. Carl Mack, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Alliant University, former Superintendent of Del Paso schools, and a former Peregrine grandpa, to work with our teachers on developing leadership.  Since Carl believes that leadership begins from the bottom up, he began by watching the Escuelita class.  Soon he reported that leadership was already well-developed among that teaching team – in fact, that it was so well-developed, that rather than helping the teachers out, he preferred to do a research project on how they work.  That project, which was done cooperatively with Escuelita teachers, developed into a proposal to the state-wide preschool conference, CAEYC, and will soon be a published article.

After Carl introduced his research team and the project, and Lorie introduced Peregrine School, Megan, Gaby and Emma began.  Megan presented the many ways in which leadership is built at Peregrine School- among parents, children, and teachers.  Family projects such as the making and sharing of family posters, families sharing cultural artifacts and performances, and the incorporation of family themes into classroom fantasy play were developed.  Our families and staff are the world, since they come from many countries and speak many languages;  their presentations embodied the world theme which Escuelita embraces.  This theme has led to a study of the Brazilian rainforest, among other things, as exemplified by El Gran Capoquero, or The Great Kapok Tree (by Lynn Cherry), a book which has inspired a 3-D rainforest mural in Escuelita and will provide the theme for this year’s school play in May.  This tree is capped by a 15-foot long boa constrictor, made of nothing more than pantyhose, cotton fluff, and paint!  Hence a theme initiated by Brazilian families (preservation of the rainforest) is expanded by the genius of Escuelita teachers into a mural, a play, and months of meaningful engagement by the children. 

Megan then explained how another Reggio-inspired project, the light table, has resulted in a collaboration with the children involving various things that can be viewed and explored on the light table, such as clear plastic objects, jars and bags of water, clear mosaic glass, glass balls in water, and much more.  Eventually this theme of light resulted in studying light through the windows and the creation of tissue paper stained glass frames to cover the windows.  Along the way, art, shapes, geometry, math, color and of course light were studied.  Most importantly, social interactions were initiated in meaningful ways among the two- to four-year-olds eagerly clustered around the light table to view each new surprise set out there.  Gaby joined in at this point to discuss how leadership and organization occur in Escuelita, supporting the children and the structure of the day and making exploration possible. 

In many schools, teachers and children are tired during when the after school daycare hours roll around, and the program often declines into babysitting.  But Teacher Emma explained how Peregrine’s daycare program is a great time not only to expand themes from the morning program, but also to freely explore children’s interests which may not fit standards that teachers are pursuing.  One example of this is her study of cars, which emerged completely from the children, and has persisted for four months.  “The children wanted to play with the cars every day,” Emma noted, “but we noticed that they always did the same things.  With them, we began to explore new possibilities.”  These possibilities ended up including the creation of two and three dimensional models of cars, explorations of wheels and how they move, cars on ramps of different heights and slopes, the creation of various maps on paper of Davis, upon which the cars could drive, and finally, the creation of giant cars made of soft blocks, which several children could enter and “drive”.  Along the way, trains and airplanes were explored, but never with the passion the children feel for cars.  Some children even sleep with their homemade cars at nap time!  Four months later, the study is far from over.  Every day, the children ask for the cars.

The presentation ended with Carl’s summary of all the kinds of leadership he sees in the Escuelita classroom, and with a testimonial to how this setting gives a voice to children, teachers, and parents alike.  “It is like a big soup,” he said, “with lots of ingredients, yet they all mix together.”  The audience seemed to agree that the result is delicious, and were still asking questions when the next group came in to use the conference room. 

Families who want to see Megan, Gaby, and Emma’s part of this presentation, which shares how Reggio-Emilia inspired activities operate at Peregrine School, should come to the parent meeting at the Peregrine’s Early Childhood Center on Portage Bay West tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.  Dinner and childcare will be provided.  Please call Kathy for a reservation, at (530) 758-8845.  You don’t want to miss it.