We're at the end of the school year. Everyone has taken the final. They are graded, and the grades are entered. We're winding down, and really, the kids are ready to be done. I want to start off this post by thanking all the students and parents for pushing me to be an even better teacher. It's been a good year, and that's on you as much as it's on me.
As it's the end of the year, I don't have anything content related to share, per se... But I wanted to give a shout out to some students who have been helping me out.
If you remember the beginning of the year, one of the big topics of our class was culture. We listed 10 ingredients of culture: food, dress, religion, language, customs, etc... You get the idea. The past nine weeks, I've invited some of my students who are fluent in Spanish to help me learn. Any student who was fluent, or was interested in learning Spanish (and had 3rd lunch) was invited to have lunch with me.
The rules (though they were sometimes broken) were that they could only speak Spanish unless I asked them for a translation. I had to speak Spanish as much as I could, and English when I couldn't.
I invited students who weren't fluent as well. But I didn't want them to just show up with no intent to learn. They had to prove they were trying to learn as well. I've been using the free app, Duolingo. It's not perfect, but it's really helped as well. Alas, only a couple students started to learn, and they quickly dropped out. No hard feelings though, we're all busy.
Still, in a class where we discussed culture, language, loss of language, and increasing human capital, I thought it was worth sharing that I'm trying to practice what I preach.
If you want extra credit for reading and discussing the blog, tell me if you've ever considered learning another language. Are you planning on taking one next year? How do you plan on continuing to increase your human capital over the summer? Write your responses on a scrap of paper, and have the adult you read and discussed with sign the paper.
Put your name, date, and hour on it. Turn it in tomorrow or Thursday.
At the end of our fictional Banananovia Story, there are a couple ladies who are walking down the street clinging to their culture even as it is disappearing around them.
They are mocked by young Banananovians, but they do their best to maintain their dignity. Heads held high, they continue down the street.
Even though they continued wearing the traditional clothes, and speaking the old language, there was nothing they could do to stop the onslaught of globalization.
It reminds me of a scene from The Matrix. "You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability."
Sometimes, there's just nothing you can do. (Granted, the Matrix analogy doesn't completely pan out if you've seen the movie... but you get my point.)
While Banananovia was fictional, we are becoming a world culture (or monoculture.) Yesterday we discussed the Columbian Exchange. Globalization was already happening before Columbus, but boy did he speed things up.
We read an article from 2012 which states, "There are some 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world and it is estimated that they are disappearing at a rate of one every two weeks..."
We also watched this short video. If you were absent, watch it:
If you were absent and want the points, or if you want extra credit, write a short summary of the article and the video, "Marie's Dictionary." Discuss them with an adult. (If the adult doesn't have time to read/watch with you, explain to the adult what the stories were about once you've finished.)
Then, have the adult sign your summary. Turn it in tomorrow for extra credit. The end of the marking period is going to be here soon. Make sure you're keeping up.
I hope you're all having a great weekend. I know I am.
Yesterday we tried something new. I knew it would be chaotic. I knew it had every chance of going poorly. And it did. It was awful. But knowing that in advance made it okay. (I'll add that I warned the kids of this potentiality as well.)
If you haven't heard, our students all have their own school google drives now. I've been using my own personal drive to make up tests and quizzes that they could take online - but now that they have their own there is so much more we could potentially do. The problem is, never having used it myself with the class, it was a little overwhelming. I thought, why not jump in and see what possibilities are there.
(I had watched several videos on the subject, but they only go so far... If there are any teachers out there reading this blog and thinking of using google docs in the classroom, you know what I mean. Sometimes you just have to jump in.)
After setting up their google accounts - which took longer than I thought it should - we started off by watching this video: (It's good. You should watch it. Seriously.)
Then, I had them answer some questions. But answering questions on google docs is different than just answering questions... In first hour, I ended up with this:
And that was after about 5 minutes of typing. I learned a lot. And the students learned a lot. It's true, they may not have learned a lot about social studies, per se, but about collaboration and technology. And the sooner they get that, perhaps the sooner we can incorporate it into the classroom more effectively.
That's not to say they didn't get anything social studies related out of yesterday's lesson. The video alone is powerful. So often I teach about globalization as something happening somewhere else. That the British colonized India. And Japan invaded Manchuria. And America fought the Revolutionary War to be free of British colonization. When I was in China and I felt guilty about eating the occasional Big Mac, it was easy to see America's influence "Americanizing" another country. Sometimes I think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that America is still Americanizing America. ...If you know what I mean...
But that (as I said) wasn't the only point of the lesson. Integrating technology, and just figuring out how it works was yesterday's push.
Did I have a student delete the entire document before I learned how to secure it? ...Yes. More than once? ...Yes... (I thought the students would be on my side on this, and help me out. Help us all out. ...There's always one though, right? You'd think after 9 years of teaching I would have lost some of my naivety.)
Did I have a student write in all caps, THIS THING IS ANNOYING ME after the first question because having 30 kids collaborate on the same document at the same time is perhaps a little overwhelming? ...Yes...
I mean, in her defense, people kept typing in the middle of where she was typing.
Finally, in 8th hour, I set the parameters to "view only" instead of "able to edit" or "able to comment." Students downloaded it and worked on it individually and then shared it with another student who could comment on the work.
Ideally, I would share this in smaller groups. Then they could still have the collaboration piece without being overwhelmed. I could make up a rubric for how much each student participates within that group, and I could see the comments they leave. ...That may be enough of a disincentive to keep students from deleting the whole page.
I see a lot of potential here. A lot. This is, as they say, the tip of the iceberg.
If you're here because you want extra credit for reading and discussing this blog with an adult, you should have read and discussed the post. Tell the adult how you think the lesson went. What did you think about the video? What did you think about having the whole class type together at the same time on the same document?
When you're finished discussing, write down at least 3 sentences from your discussion, which will prove you were here.
Then, have the adult you read and discussed with sign the paper. Turn it in to me next time you see me.
If you're interested in seeing the questions from the video, here they are. If you're a teacher from somewhere else and want to copy that, feel free. Be aware there are some questions that are tailored specifically to my class. All the best.
Written language is amazing. I mean, if you think about it, we are communicating without speaking. You are reading my thoughts. I am thinking this right now.
Ok... now I'm daydreaming about going to a Pedro the Lion concert. But I guess you're still reading my thoughts, as I'm still typing them. I've got to stop doing that.
We talked about ideograms, and pictograms. We looked at the development of letters, and language as a mnemonic device.
For instance: Hey students, let your parents (or whoever you are reading this with) figure this out on their own...
Maybe you can read that? If not, the student you're reading and discussing the blog with probably can. (If the adults are still having trouble, give them a couple words and see if they get it...)
If you already know what that says, it's pretty easy to read. If you don't already know... well it's pretty tough. Chances are, when people wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh they already knew the story but were writing it as a mnemonic device to help remember it. Hopefully this (and writing in Cuneiform yesterday) helps my students remember that all ancient civilizations have a written language. If you want the extra credit, read and discuss the blog with an adult. Then, on a scrap piece of paper, write the following: "Mene mene tekel upharsin" and have the adult you read and discussed the paper with sign it.
