Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
Engine room,
It could never die, never,
Because it is nine months my mother make me check out she heartbeat.—David Rudder (1988): from Engine Room
Despite those nine months, scientists have identified a condition called beat deafness, where people just can’t find the beat.
The article claims it’s rare. My wife tells me it must be genetic.
A wonderful and facinating interpretation of what pi sounds like if you translate the first 33 digits into sounds.
The poignancy and romance of exploration are distilled in Stan Rogers’ ballard “Northwest Passage“.
Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage,
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
–Stan Rogers (1981) from Northwest Passage.
The Bounding Main website has the lyrics, including footnotes about Franklin and the others mentioned in the song, as well as major geographic features like the Davis Strait and the Beaufort Sea.
History and art collide. The music sticks in the brain then seeps down to catch the throat. I think this is a great way to get into (spark the imagination about) Artic exploration.
The next step is, of course, Shackleton and The Endurance.
Saudade:
Pronunciation: (from Forvo)
Definition: Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade. (from Jason Wire at MatadorNetwork)
The beauty of the words in Jason Wire’s list, “20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World” is that they express somewhat complex emotional concepts.
Last week I had to explain the English word, nostalgia. Its meaning was a little difficult to convey because, when you think about it, to feel nostalgic you need to have had a certain amount of self-reflection. Self-reflection is typically not a strong point of early adolescence, which is why we have Personal World every day.
Then I came across Jason Wire’s list, and there are some wonderful words on there, but the one that resonates right now is the Portuguese “saudade”. I like how it is subtly different from nostalgia, but I also like that there is an entire genre of music, fado, that embodies the word.
NPR has a great review of fado artist, Ana Moura:
Also, in looking up the pronunciation of the word I came across the Forvo website. It has recordings of people saying words from around the world, so you can hear the sounds of words from native speakers. I chose the one in this post, a female Portuguese voice (), because it seems to capture the poignant emotion of the word quite well.
When sorting through the many issues around immigration and globalization it is nice to be able to highlight the small things that make it seem worthwhile.
The East Village Community School in New York City is selling a CD, as an arts fundraiser, of songs performed by its students. The songs and musicians have roots that span the globe, from Mauritius to Tibet to Spain to Ireland to name just a few.
The CD in $15 and you can order it from the School’s website.
NPR’s Weekend Edition had a nice article on the parent driven project:
We did poetry in the mornings last year at the end of our community meetings as a substitute for musical appreciation. However, the inestimable Anna Clarke, sent me the link to NPR’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. The 8-13 minute long pieces include excerpts of the music, an interview with someone connected to the music and commentary by the NPR reporter. First on the list is ‘Adagio for Strings’ by Samuel Barber.
I’ve also caught their series on 50 great voices which is a great place to discover some truly iconic voices from around the world that I did not even know about.
An excellent Project Song article on NPR follows Moby and singer/songwriter Kelli Scarr as they write and record a song over the course of two days. The song itself, called Gone To Sleep, is quite good but the article, where they follow the artists in the process of creation is quite fascinating.
One of the small group assignments last week was to pick two anti-war songs and present their meaning and context. They had a choice of music ranging in time from Frederick Weatherly’s “Danny Boy” to Green Day’s “Holiday”, but they chose two Vietnam Era songs, “Imagine” and “War”.
These turned out to be inspired choices. Not the least because both had music videos that closely reflected the songs’ different approaches to conveying the same message. Lennon’s “Imagine” is peaceful, aspirational, but somewhat subversive, while Edwin Star’s “War” is militant with its rejection of conflict.
The lyrics also provided an excellent contrast in the poetic use of language to convey meaning. After showing the two music videos, the students took the songs apart, stanza by stanza, and you can read the stridency in the punctuation and use of capitals in the lyrics of “War”:
WAR! good God y’all huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…say it say it SAY IT!
WAR!…uh huh yeah huh!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…listen to me
We had a great discussion. I found this to be an excellent assignment that merged the poetry we’ve been studying in Language Arts with the history and peace education of Social World.
John Lennon – Imagine
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