Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
We’ve had quite a number of Langston Hughes‘ poems recited in the mornings. This morning it was “I, too, sing America” and I ran into the above YouTube video, narrated by the author (the narration can be found at The Poetry Archive).
“I, too, sing America” was written in response to Walt Whitman’s “I, Hear America Singing” (Gonzales, date unknown), which ties into the story of advancing civil rights in the United States.
Education Secretary, Arne Duncan will be the commencement speaker at Clark Montessori in Cincinnati.
“Clark Montessori Jr. and Sr. High School shows an extraordinary commitment to encouraging their students to take responsibility for their education, get involved in their community and go to college,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “I look forward to congratulating them and celebrating their hard work as their 2010 commencement speaker.” – Official Whitehouse Press Release
Osmosis is the movement of liquids through a membrane, from areas of high to regions of low concentration. So, if you sprinkle sugar onto ripe strawberries, the concentration of sugar on the outside of the berries becomes very high. The juices will seep out of the strawberries’ cells, through the cell walls (the membrane), and create quite the delectable syrup. Add a few shortcakes and some whipped cream and ….
Note to self: try strawberries in the greenhouse this winter. Life sciences are next year and osmosis is a key concept.
Note #2: This is also a large part of the answer to the question of, “Why do we get thirsty when we eat salty foods?”
Considering child labor today, it’s worth noting how extensive it was in the past. The Library of Congress is an excellent source for public domain images, and has available the amazing photographs of child workers taken by Lewis Wickles Hine for the National Child Labor Committee.
Four hours away, Vicksburg, MS. is just within reach for an immersion trip so, since we were in the area, I scoped it out for a future trip. Vicksburg was the final town to fall before the Union could control the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy into two, so it’s historically important. The Vicksburg National Military Park is chock full of monuments and markers that give a good idea about the chaos and carnage of the battle for the town, and even a chance to observe practical application of simple machines and steam engines.
The park could complement Shiloh and Corinth quite nicely since Vicksburg’s importance was because of its control of transportation routes, just like with Corinth. It also has the salvage of the USS Cairo, an ironclad sunk during the Civil War. Much of he Hull is still missing so it’s a wonderful chance to see all the mechanisms and engines in a steam powered ship.
What I found most interesting, however, were the old watermill and farming equipment at Grand Gulf Military Park, about 45 minutes south of Vicksburg. They seem almost in working order, and if you’ve been discussing simple machines, as we have, it’s a great opportunity to see how they were applied in real-life.
The watermill is quite picturesque, making it a great subject for sketching or drawing. I like to combine art and science in this way when possible. Grand Gulf also has a small, submarine used by bootleggers during prohibition which is quite the curious piece of engineering.
[googleMap name=”Grand Gulf Military State Park” description=”Watermill and camping” width=”400″ height=”300″ mapzoom=”8″ mousewheel=”false”]12006 Grand Gulf Rd, Port Gibson, MS[/googleMap]
People, kids and adults, are still adjusting to the privacy implications of sharing information online. Not only are we figuring out what to post for the public on social networking websites like Facebook or our blogs, but we’re also deciding what information we want to give to the websites themselves as companies try to tailor a unique online experience for each of us (as with targeted advertising). Laura Holson has an interesting article under the headline, “Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline” about how some young adults are scaling back their online sharing as they realize how potential colleges and employers can use that information, especially negative information.
… people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. Younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and they may not have the same privacy concerns. But anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them have not had enough experience to understand the downside to oversharing. – Holson, 2010.
Sharing is a way to increase transparency, which is often a good thing. Learning more about each other may help create a more peaceful world. But privacy can be equally important. We all make mistakes, say things we should not, do things we shouldn’t, especially when we’re young. When we recognize those mistakes and learn from them, there should come a time when they are not held against us.
The web needs a statue of limitations, say five years, so anything about us on the web that’s older than five years should not count. Or perhaps, just as minors can’t be held fully responsible for their actions under the law, non-adults should be held to a different standard on the web.
It is, however, notoriously difficult to erase anything from the web, and I tend to be quite conservative when it comes to sharing things online. Yet the greatest power of the internet, I believe, is that it is based a philosophy similar to the constructivist approach to education. In education the student is constructing their own learning, whereas on the internet, society is constructing and organizing information in ways that look a lot like learning.
So our class Wiki is private, as are our students’ blogs. They provide safer spaces for students to make mistakes, but gives them that essential experience of constructing the internet, not just taking away.
Child labor comes up when we talk about the industrial revolution. When we discuss its modern incarnations, we usually think about sweatshops in the developing world. Human Rights Watch has a poignant video about child labor in the United States today. Their interviews with migrant farmer children, who are the same age as our middle-schoolers, are heartbreaking.
This blog is my experiment with how my own small and everyday choices for peace impact my life and others. – Peggy Pate-Smith (2010) in “Peace is a choice”
Everyday choices often have a far-reaching impact because we live in a world that’s so interconnected. I tend to think in terms of the environmental impact of my actions: Do I buy this pair of shoes that may have been made by child labor in China? If I get a new, better cell phone will the old one be recycled properly or will it shipped off to some developing country where its corrosion will contaminate the water supply?
Peggy Pate-Smith from Park View Montessori‘s Middle School in Jackson, TN has been thinking about peace. Her blog, appropriately titled Peace is a Choice, logs her thoughts on small and big matters regarding peace. I’ve found it a great place to find out about peace projects, many with a Montessori link, in which students might be interested in participating.
This year I decided to do an experiment with peace. My hypothesis is that if each day I make at least one conscious decision to choose peace in my life AND blog about it that I will find my life more peaceful. I want to move beyond imagining peace and make a deliberate effort to choose peace. Peggy Pate-Smith (2010) in “Peace is a Choice”.
Ms. Pate-Smith’s master’s thesis, “Implications of Peace in the Montessori Environment” won American Montessori Society’s 2007 Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award.