Epistolary novel

As your children may have informed you, our class has undertaken the group project of writing an epistolary novel (or, at least, an epistolary short story). The students have been taking turns writing letters in the novel; while the individual letters are left to the discretion of each student, the whole class is responsible for editing the novel for coherence and narrative flow. Thus far, I think the kids are doing a good job of striking a balance between enjoyably silly material and a serious concern for the progress and form of the novel; they've all participated quite passionately in our class discussions about where the story is going.

We've also been studying the difference between 'S's on the end of words that indicate plurals, and 'S's that indicate possession (basically, which words need apostrophes and which don't). To that end, yesterday I handed the kids a brief plot synopsis of our epistolary novel, with a number of errors to be corrected. I chose to use a plot synopsis for the exercise because I thought it would get them interested. They were even more interested than I anticipated, and have been talking about using this synopsis for the back cover the of the novel, should we ever bind and/or publish it! So here, for your reading pleasure, is the plot synopsis I wrote (without errors):

"If Aloha's pills aren't taken, her crazy spells may get worse. But, if the company of devils and skeletons gets its way, she'll have to take those pills! The location of her headquarters is hidden. Will all her enemies find her there? Will her schemes succeed, or will she be foiled by her enemies' plots?"

As You Like It

Our class has begun work on a production (to take place at some unspecified point in the future) of Shakespeare's As You Like It. I firmly believe that students should be introduced to Shakespeare much earlier than high school, since it is rather like learning a new language: best done young. Thus far, we have acted the play through once without Shakespearian dialogue; I told the story, the kids acted it out. Today we began using an abridged version of the script, and we'll be working our way slowly through over the next few weeks. Here are some rehearsal pictures:

Group rehearsal...

Rosalind and Celia

Drama games

Acro-balance

I'm not sure everyone knows that I've been doing some acro-balance with the class over the last several weeks. Acro-balance is a fairly obscure form: it is, essentially, a series of two-person acrobatic poses, one passing into the next. It's almost all a function of counterbalance, rather than muscular strength. I'm using it as an additional form of physical education, and as a trust-building exercise within the class, since partners and spotters are to some degree responsible for other people's safety. Thus far, we begin our (brief) sessions with some stretching, to get warmed up, and then proceed to two or three ground-level counterbalances. I'm hoping that if we stick with this over the year, by the end we may progress to slightly more advanced positions. We are taking it quite slowly—partly due to the difficulty of finding time to spend on this during the school day—but the kids seem to enjoy it a great deal. Here are a couple pictures of myself doing acro with some friends near the start of the year, so you can see what I'm talking about (the kids are not doing this sort of thing, yet):

One group finished some work early, yesterday, and had time for a brief round of Balderdash. It was a fascinating set of definitions:

Obsequies

- to squeeze an obtuse triangle

- funeral rites or ceremonies

- a group of objects that are transparent

- a sequence of identical objects

- something with no symmetry

the Mahabharata

Over the last few weeks, as some parents may have heard, our class has been listening to snippets of the Mahabharata whenever we have a few spare moments. The Mahabharata is one of two great Hindu epics (the other being the Ramayana), and of the two, the Mahabharata is the longer and the less clearly compiled. To the best of my knowledge, it is originally an ancient Sanskrit poem, some 15 times as long as the Christian Bible. The version I grew up on is the one I'm sharing with the kids: a 9-hour stage script by Jean-Claude Carrière and Peter Brook. (There is also a 6-hour film version.) I've told the kids some parts from memory, and some have been read from the script. It's a powerful story, with equally powerful language, and the characters often make strange choices even as they state their own profound and particular beliefs about the order of the world. We have not finished the story yet; we are still caught in the great, world-ending battle that takes up the last third of the script.

I'll include a passage here, simply because I love this poem and I want to give you a taste of the kind of lines we've been hearing and discussing during class and during recess.

(Yudhishthira, son of the god Dharma, unknowingly is examined by his father:)

VOICE: What is quicker than the wind?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Thought.

VOICE: What can cover the earth?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Darkness.

VOICE: Who are the more numerous, the living or the dead?

YUDHISHTHIRA: The living, because the dead are no longer.

VOICE: Give me an example of space.

YUDHISHTHIRA: My two hands as one.

VOICE: An example of grief.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Ignorance.

VOICE: Of poison.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Desire.

VOICE: An example of defeat.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Victory.

VOICE: Which animal is the slyest?

YUDHISHTHIRA: The one that man does not yet know.

VOICE: Which came first, day or night?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Day, but it was only a day ahead.

VOICE: What is the cause of the world?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Love.

VOICE: What is your opposite?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Myself.

VOICE: What is madness?

YUDHISHTHIRA: A forgotten way.

VOICE: And revolt? Why do men revolt?

YUDHISHTHIRA: To find beauty, either in life or in death.

VOICE: What for each of us is inevitable?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Happiness.

VOICE: And what is the greatest marvel?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Each day, death strikes and we live as though we were immortal. That is what is the greatest marvel.

An unusual week...

This is an exceptional week for Summers-Knoll in many ways, and especially for our class: the Tantre Farm field trip is tomorrow, the Howell Nature Center trip is on Thursday, we're gearing up for the Curious Epicures this coming weekend, and POOT is launching. It seems as though ordinary school work will have to be crammed in around the edges for the next few days; among other things, we're still creating our North African tiling to help decorate Cobblestone Farm on Sunday! All of the madness notwithstanding, I am bursting with pride over the résumé drafts that were brought in this morning. I see the kids taking great care with the style and content of their POOT writings, and I was overjoyed to hear their thoughtful contributions to our discussion of free speech on Friday. Our kids are doing a fantastic job of entering into the world of this Place Out Of Time, and I know they're going to hold their own admirably in the coming weeks.

The Man Who Counted

Each morning, as we begin math class, we've been reading a short selection from The Man Who Counted, by Malba Tahan. The book, written by a Brazilian mathematician, is a series of Arabian Nights-style stories that center around the character of Beremiz, a brilliant mathematician who is also known as the Man Who Counted. In each story, Beremiz solves at least one difficulty put before him by the beleaguered inhabitants of Baghdad, and explains the mathematical and arithmetical relationships through which he sees the world, as well as demonstrating principles of friendship and charity. As we get further into the book, we've begun trying to solve the problems in advance of Beremiz, and I was particularly pleased by everyone's efforts this morning. Beremiz was explaining that using four fours (the numeral 4, four times), and no other numbers, it is possible to create a set of equations that yield each number from 0 to 10. For example, (4/4) — (4/4) = 0. I'm including the photograph of the equations we came up with for each of the eleven numerals. The kids did a great job!