Sculpting an Act of Faith and Charity

   

4th grade donated over 700 cans of food with this sculpture.

     At the holiday assembly, the 4th grade unveiled an impressive sculpture of the American Flag. It was a work of art consisting of 373 cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup and 174 cans of Starkist tuna cans. But like any collaborative project or novel approach to learning, there were doubts. Would it work? Would it be appreciated? And considering the many needs of building a classroom community, teaching/learning the curriculum, and meeting the diverse needs and interests of an energetic student body, would it be a worth the time invested in this learning experience? So the teachers, Mrs. Aberman, Mrs. Mraz, Mrs. Nedwick, and myself and our students, slogged through the doubts, looking for reasons to believe and persevere.     Students and teachers discussed construction strategies, engineering and mathematics, elements of design, and we experimented in the computer lab by building short towers of cans and wondered how high we could build, before they toppled. We had begun collecting cans in early November. Parents quickly responded to our requests for donations. And while we had ambitious designs on completing the sculpture in time for the Thanksgiving assembly, things...you know... happen. Still we persisted and took advantage of the extra time to sort through questions across the grade level and experiment with ideas that were sprouting across the grade level. We debated whether we should build a single layer construction or a double layer.     The original Canstruction sculpture from which we drew our inspiration, used a double layer. But a double layer meant asking parents for nearly 100 additional soup cans, to match our original goal. A single layer could be built against a backboard, but would probably mean that we'd lose the bend in our sculpture that would make our flag look like it was waving in the breeze. It was clear that students wanted to keep the flag-wave, but acknowledged that we didn't have time to collect more cans. Fortunately, in visiting the rules for creating Canstruction sculptures, we learned we could use tape. YES! So teams of students began binding the cans that we had and later stacked them in columns on stage.     Today, this sculpture only lives in memories and photos. Shortly after we unveiled this beautiful work of art, we deconstructed it, and donated over 700 cans of food to the Soup Kitchen at St. Peter's Church in Portchester, NY. Looking back, it was clear that this project was not just about collaboration, engineering, and design. It was an act of conscience shared by parents, students, and their teachers.  - Paul Tomizawa

Screen Time. The Good Kind.

The look of rigorous learning.

     During the Hour of Code, one common sight among students and adults engaged in programming was the prolonged, unblinking gaze into a screen. And a head prop. It was as if the brain activity was so consuming and heavy that it was necessary to support the head with one or sometimes two hands.      More to the point, not all screen time is bad. There is passive engagement, such as watching videos, that can be considered a "lean back" screen activity. And then there's "lean forward," in which children are actively engaged-- creating, problem solving, communicating.      The American Academy of Pediatrics recently reworked their restrictions on screen time for children under the age of two. Now pediatricians are encouraging the use of positive media. Recognition that today's children are intellectually engaged with technology, pivoting the focus of our culture from consumption to creation. - Paul Tomizawa

Indoor Growing Season

Mr. Fitzpatrick demonstrates
the hydroponics system.

“Repeat after me,” Mr. Fitz(patrick) cheerfully instructs. “Hydroponics.” The kindergarteners repeat the new word in staggered unison, as you might expect at this age. “We’re using water to grow plants.” And with this, these young learners entered the era of Sustainability.
     The students had come to Mr. Fitz’ art room to learn about the new hydroponics vegetable garden that was being installed in their classroom. In a hydroponics growing system, plants are placed in nutrient-rich water that is fed through a tube and up a vertical structure by a motorized pump. It’s a common hydroponics system that requires no soil and uses less space than a typical garden plot.
     “Criss cross applesauce. So everyone can see,” Mr. Fitz reminded the excitable group of students as they leaned forward and ever higher for a better view. “Are the roots going to stay wet? Yes! And it’s going to pump the water with all the nutrients to the roots of the plant.” In this case, basil, beans, and tomatoes.
     Several Edgewood classrooms are engaged in the hydroponics experiment. It’s part of a larger effort in support of the school’s Compact Committee theme Sustainability. And it’s a reminder that today’s school is more than just Readin’, ‘Ritin’, and ‘Rithmatic.  - Paul Tomizawa

Persuasive Writing

Everyone’s got an opinion. And parents aren’t going to like to hear this, but Scarsdale teachers are training elementary students to strengthen their powers of persuasion through a literacy unit on Writing Opinions.This unit is a K-5 writing strand and it is aligned with the national Common Core standards. In a recent writing workshop in Mrs. Blackley’s 5th grade class, Kristin Smith, a staff developer from Teachers College coached students on how to structure a well-reasoned opinion. She emphasized the use of supportive research.

While other Edgewood teachers observed this fishbowl-styled professional development lesson, Ms. Smith instructed students to review the list of reasons they had given to support their written opinions and to look for a fairly common mistake-- overlapping reasons. For example, she explained, “It’s good exercise and it’s good for your health” are not two reasons. They are one and the same and should be combined and rephrased. “But what if I don’t have a third?” She assured students that opinions are better supported with  “two good ones, than one that sounds the same” as the others.
This session also reminded students that they are writing for an audience and that the purpose of rewriting and restructuring their arguments was to ensure that their reasons were compelling and persuasive. So, fair warning parents. Don’t be surprised if those backseat or kitchen table arguments in the future become a little more challenging to squash.

Facing Their Future

For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real          
- Allentown by Billy Joel

Billy Joel originally called this song Levittown, but changed it for musical and thematic reasons. Musically, Allentown (PA) sounded better. But it also had a familiar problem. A depressed factory town suffering from global realities. What happens when traditional practices do not match changing needs?

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all

Today's college graduates are facing high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Graduates are finding themselves unqualified for the high-paying jobs that are offered, but overqualified for the low-paying jobs they are taking, often 2 or 3 at a time to meet their expenses, which include massive student loans. 

The world is well into another industrial revolution. Corporate and national economies are highly interdependent and technology dependent. The global economy has a voracious appetite and it's clear that today's graduates cannot satisfy that hunger. It's clear that traditional practices do not match changing needs. So if today's public school system was designed to feed the needs of the 18th Century Industrial Revolution, isn't it time for the system to evolve to meet the industrial needs of the 21st Century? 

Yet today, many school districts across the country continue to adopt curriculum, sometimes provided by their state eds, that emphasize standardized teaching and learning for the sake of preparing students for high stakes tests. It's a policy that's failing children. It limits their growth by telling them what to do, rather than asking them how they will do it. Educators and policy makers must give up outdated practices and curriculum that do not inspire today's learners. Children come to school wanting to explore, wanting to create, wanting to contribute. It's time for a curriculum that is facing their future and allows them to tinker, invent, collaborate, and communicate with the world. It's time for an Educational Revolution.