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| From Kyle Armstrong, Associate Head for Academics October 2010 |
Greetings from Swain. I hope everybody had a wonderful first six weeks of school. As we anticipate the brilliance of fall, please take a few moments to read about what our students and teachers have been up to inside the walls of our great school. Much of this e-newsletter pertains to the fostering of leadership and communication skills among students and teachers alike, skills we think are central to our mission. Enjoy!
Students
Student Senate
I have a strong passion for the Swain community, and I want to make a positive difference · Swain is like my second home, and I would be honored to give back · I will take my responsibilities seriously, and I promise to fight for longer recess · Swain teaches you to be kind, patient, and independent, and it made me the person I am today · I want to make this school the best it can be, which includes building a four-square board for the lower school
These are some of the many statements
 | | Candidate Marcy '13 lays out her goals |
made by sixth through eighth graders during Student Senate elections last month. In order to run for the Senate, students had to complete an application stating why they wanted to run (and it had to be endorsed by three teachers), create posters that were displayed in the Ehle Lobby, write speeches, and then deliver those speeches in front of the entire middle school. Overall, more than 20 students participated in this process, one designed to foster leadership and communication skills.
Ultimately, seven Senators were elected by the middle school student body, but we are proud of all of the candidates for going through the process of talking to the community about why they wanted to be an elected leader in our middle school. In addition to the posts of Senator, the student government also consists of four committees that meet on a regular basis to discuss events, advertising, fundraising, and technology. Thanks to middle school history teacher Mrs. Krista Kelly for organizing and facilitating such an important process, and congratulations to all of the students who participated!
Three Cups of Tea - All Community Read
During our staff pre-planning meetings in August, faculty spent time together discussing the themes of Three Cups of Tea and planning activities to use in their classrooms surrounding those themes. Many wonderful lessons resulted, included the following.
Mrs. Glenda Akers' Prekindergarten class and Mrs. Karin Reger's fourth grade class combined efforts on a hot, dry day last month to hold a school lesson outside in the dirt. The fourth graders drew patterns and pictures in the dirt, and then the PK students attempted to copy those patterns using only sticks as pencils. The idea behind the lesson was to help the students empathize with the boys and girls of Korphe, Pakistan who - before Greg Mortensen (and the people of Korphe) built a modern school - had school lessons outdoors on the side of a mountain. This is one of the discussion points from Listen to the Wind (the kid-friendly version of Three Cups) that our four-year-olds had with their teachers, and the fourth graders did a wonderful job helping to lead this activity.
Here is what some of the four-year-olds had to say about this exercise:
It was hard because when you needed a new piece of paper, you had to clean off the dirt · You can't make pictures with colors...only brown dirt · You can't take your paper home to show your mommy
 In a related lesson, eighth grade math students under the tutelage of Miss Megan Kocon spent a math period outside using only chalk. Their mission was to calculate the cost of building schools of different sizes for students in Pakistan. They took into consideration teacher salary, cost for supplies, and construction costs. Throughout the lesson, students spent time thinking and talking about the value of a dollar and how different life is (and used to be before Dr. Greg's first school) for eighth grade students in Pakistan.
In second grade, Mrs. Carol Scerbo and Mrs. Louise Christensen took a field trip with their students to Pakistan to visit the beautiful school in Korphe and the bridge that needed to be built in order to get to the school. Using Google Earth as their guide, second graders, on individual computers in the tech lab, navigated the globe to find Pakistan, and then they searched through the Karakoram Range to find the village of Korphe.
Then, in Lower School Town Meeting, several second graders and their teachers demonstrated this activity on the SMART Board in Rogers' Commons. In addition to this exercise, second graders also created flags of Pakistan and attached to them pieces of writing that compare life at Swain School to life in Korphe. Their flags of Pakistan were constructed out of ripped pieces of construction paper, modeled after the illustrations by Susan Roth in Listen to the Wind. The students also learned about the flag of Pakistan, which, according to modern interpretations, includes colors and symbols that represent prosperity, peace, progress, and knowledge.
Paperclips
During Middle School Town Meetings in October, students in grades five through eight are in the process of examining the documentary film,"Paperclips". This is a true story about a middle school in Tennessee that wanted to learn about diversity. Set in a rural, almost exclusively white community outside of Chattanooga, Whitewell Middle School simply began a tolerance unit on the Holocaust in 1998, and the results were heartwarming.
As an extension of the September Swain School virtues of tolerance and acceptance, middle school students are watching the entire documentary, and then the eighth grade students will lead the middle school in discussion. Outside of classroom lessons on issues of tolerance and diversity, Town Meetings (both Lower School and Middle School) provide a great backdrop for community discussions and activities on the aforementioned topics and more. Check out the Paperclips trailer.
Did you know that during WWII, many Norwegians wore the paperclip on their lapels as symbol of resistance to the local Nazi officials?
Faculty
Every year - courtesy of funds from the Swain Association and our own professional development budget - many of our teachers spend time at conferences, workshops, and visiting other schools. This past June, Mr. Robert Wagner spent a week in Austin, Texas, attending a workshop focusing on the Theatre of the Oppressed. This theatre form, established by Augusto Boal in 1971, is a way of thinking, acting, and teaching in a manner that promotes problem solving and liberation.
Mr. Wagner is actively promoting Theatre of the Oppressed with our students and teachers. He is incorporating the concepts into his drama classes, visiting classrooms and leading occasional Town Meetings to present conflict resolution strategies through drama, and hosting a weekly after-school session for faculty development. In short, Mr. Wagner has embraced the idea of professional learning, and he is spreading his knowledge about a very reputable theatre form to all levels of our learning community.
Below are some reflections from Mr. Wagner regarding this philosophy of teaching and living:
"It's a way of thinking and being that promotes freedom." - Barbara Ward, Swain art teacher
As educators we continually strive for a student-centered classroom - a space where learning excites, and academic growth happens collaboratively. In my time here at Swain I have seen many fantastic moments where teachers employ different techniques to achieve this classroom environment. I knew I found a technique that worked in my class on the day a sixth grade student, Gabrielle, nearly sprang out of her chair on noticing the ancient form of puppetry she chose to research influenced the creation of the Muppets!
Each Monday, my sixth grade students study puppetry. Based on my prior experience I felt that it would be good to start the class off with projects on the history of puppetry. Instead of telling the class why I thought the project was necessary, I presented the students with a question: "What is the purpose of studying the history of puppets?" The group took no time to respond, saying, "It's an interesting way to learn about other cultures," and "we can learn how different puppets work," etc. We made a purpose list on the board. I told the class that these were the requirements for their project. In essence, through a conversation about purpose and meaning, the students created their own project. We then worked together to make a list of minimum requirements for the project. "Are we allowed to do more than that(?)" they asked. "You can do whatever you want, I just think it's important that we have some basic expectations," I replied. With that, they set off on their research.
I have never seen a group of students more excited about a project. Some groups chose to fully produce a puppet show in the classroom, while others decided to explore how to find video of traditional puppet performance and imbed the video into power point presentations. They are investigating what they are interested in. They feel ownership for what they are doing - allowing them to work hard, collaborate, and make connections. It is a project of their own invention, so they know that they hold responsibility for the outcome. I'm certainly not the first teacher to have a classroom operate in this way, but I feel grateful to have practiced techniques for running a 'liberating' classroom at the conference for Theatre of the Oppressed in Austin, TX last school year.
The conference for 'Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed' taught me about the history and uses of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). World famous theatre director and politician Augusto Boal developed the TO movement while working at the Arena Theatre in São Paulo, Brazil. He believed theatre interested in social or political change must have its focus on the audience, not the actors. The power of the theatrical event
 | | Mr. Wagner engages with his students |
should be in the hands of the masses. Therein lies the philosophy of TO. In its purest form, a TO performance allows the audience to participate in the production and practice possible outcomes and ways to enact social change. At the conference I had the opportunity to work closely with Boal's son, Julian Boal, to explore how TO might be useful in my own life and workplace.
I'd like to take a quick moment to define 'oppression' as it pertains to education. My friend, Elinor Vettraino (I met her at the conference), recently published a book, Youth and Theatre of the Oppressed. In her article titled 'Silent Screaming and the Power of Stillness: Theatre of the Oppressed within Mainstream Elementary Education', she defines oppression to a group of nine-year-olds as "something that makes it difficult for you to play a real part in the life of the classroom or to feel as though you really get something useful out of being in the classroom." For everyone involved, TO provides a forum for practicing ways to overcome the things that get in our way of 'playing a real part in life.'
Born out of struggles against an oppressive dictatorship in 1960's Brazil, TO has evolved into a technique educators and community organizers use to transform their given population. They inspire individuals to act as agents of their own destiny, instead of blindly accepting the systems, rules and guidelines around them. Teachers can engage with TO in the classroom as another way to encourage students to think critically about all decisions in the room. Ideally, students learn that responsibility lies in their own hands. If elements of the community they work in make them unhappy, they have the capacity to work to change it.
Sometimes this change takes time, and sometimes it is immediate. I saw fantastic results with a small mirroring activity I've been trying with many students. Mirroring is a simple drama exercise where students work in pairs. They face each other as though looking into a mirror. One person takes a leadership role and moves in slow motion, and the other is the reflection and tries to move in exactly the same way at the same time. For me, the liberating educating process is in performing these activities and reflecting on possible meanings. After Mrs. Fragin's third grade class performed the mirror activity for several minutes (switching leaders every thirty seconds), I proposed an open-ended question to the group: "What skills do you need to do this activity well?" My directions never fully explained what a 'good job' looked like, so their idea of successfully completing the task was their own creation.
The first few responses were a simple regurgitation of the directions: "you need a partner," "you have to move slowly," "you need to know what a mirror is." Really, we could dig deeper into any of these responses with some further questioning, but my gut told me to investigate Tom's response: "You need to make really good eye contact." This was a new idea; I had not mentioned eye contact during the lesson, or any time during this school year. Tom drew upon his own experience and noticed eye contact helped him and his partner.
My response was another simple open-ended question: "Why?" On this prompt many hands shot up in the air eager to reply. Many of the responses from this third grade class included acting skills I did not fully understand until college, such as eye contact helps you stay focused, eye contact helps you pay attention to detail, and eye contact lets you know you can trust your partner. I responded: "Let's try the activity again with all of these fantastic ideas in mind." The room had transformed; many of the groups that struggled now moved in perfect unison. The class found their own answers from their own experiences. I moderated the discussion, but they made the discoveries. I am excited to have this type of learning happening in my classroom.
I believe the games and exercises in TO inspire positive change. As a teacher I do not simply pass along these ideals, I (try to) live them. So even when we are not playing 'mirror,' 'the Columbian hypnosis,' or having a 'slow motion race,' I try engaging the students in a way that promotes their power and freedom without negating my own. This is a challenging task. To explore positive solutions to this problem, ten curious teachers agreed to meet with me each week for a TO workshop. The faculty TO meeting is our chance to rehearse being the people we want to be so we can enact that in the real life classroom. By modeling this transformation, I remain hopeful the dominos will tip as the students rehearse their own personal change in the classroom and can enact their transformed selves in all aspects of their lives.
- Robert J. Wagner
Book Recommendations
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. A suspenseful page-turner about life in a future where 'big brother' is watching. The first book in a masterful trilogy written by Collins. Currently being read in our weekly book club for seventh grade boys (and recently read by the Swain Book Club, an adult group that meets monthly).
Outcasts United by Warren St. John. A true account about refugee teenagers in Atlanta, GA, who find the game of soccer to be a uniting force. Explores the concepts of diversity, acceptance, and cultural intelligence. Suited for teenagers and adults alike.
Thank you for taking the time to read about life at The Swain School. Best wishes for your family, and I hope to see you at next week's Founder's Day activities (Wednesday, Oct. 20 at
10 a.m.)
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