Post date: Oct 23, 2014 11:58:45 PM
Dear Room 29 Families,
It was nice to spend a little time with you on Wednesday evening talking about your kids and the amazing year that is 8th grade. This whole group of kids and parents has such heart, soul, and spirit, and you are all living evidence that the philosophies upon which this school was founded are working so very well. Thanks for the dialog and for giving up your evening to gather and share.
Your kids have just finished week 4 of their social studies intensive with me, and I can say with high confidence that they have learned a great deal and had their views heard, challenged, and expanded. Since the last time I wrote to you (10/12), the kids have been working on three things.
1. First, they added their input to a very rough draft of a DCS Constitution. Debby Perry came to class one morning to give the kids some background about the school as well as information about the charter, the board, the administration, and various parent and kid committees. The kids had to then add bullet point statements under one of the categories (preamble, articles, rights, amendments). The results are quite impressive.
2. The second big endeavor was an "each-one-teach-one" activity about the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. I assessed their learning in three progressive steps including a group "drag-n-drop" activity online, a practice test & question analysis using wireless student response pads, and finally a traditional on-paper multiple choice test (scores are in Powerschool). I handed those back today and explained how anyone who had a less than perfect score could reclaim any missed points through a "question-answer-reason" process described here.
3. Then, this week, each kid chose an amendment to the constitution (or a portion of an amendment) to learn much more about. Here is the list that has a link to each of their documents and the 6 things that I've asked them to learn about their amendment. They will work on this for 20 minutes each day next week and teach each other what they've learned.
The 100 minutes that we have each morning is a lively and engaging time and in the last week of the 6 we will have more debates, analyze source documents, and hopefully instill an even greater curiosity about civics, current events, culture, and (dare I say) politics.
Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any input regarding the social studies intensive -- this is my first attempt at this subject and I want to make any modifications necessary to give the kids the best experience possible.
Chris