Peter Pan

Since we finished Gwinna a few weeks ago, I've been reading Peter Pan aloud to the class. I love this book, and the children are really enjoying it. But it is startlingly different from the Disney movie! One of the first things the children noticed was that Peter himself is not always a kind or thoughtful character; while he is brave and fun and in some ways principled, some kids have already mentioned that he sounds like a bit of a bully. There are also all sorts of adventures in the book that never made it into the Disney film.

One question I've been asking the kids to consider as we go along is, "In what ways is this book different from a book that might be written today?" We began simply, noticing that the language is a bit different from ours, the people wear different clothes and have different routines (much earlier bedtimes for children!)... but gradually we are approaching some of the points that make this book slightly tricky for modern readers. Women and men are not treated equally. English people and Native Americans are not treated equally. And, as one child remarked today, a modern book might have characters who doubted or questioned themselves more, and had internal conflicts to address. We've begun writing journal entries and having class discussions on these topics, and it's possible that they may come up at home as well.

This is a wonderful book, despite its political incorrectness. Shakespeare also had standards and beliefs that don't align with our modern culture; all these works are worth enjoying with children, but they do need to be set in context and discussed. The children are bringing a good deal of perceptive attention to my questions about the time when this book was written, and it's a joy to see their focus deepen and their understanding broaden.

Christian Bök (Tuesday's visit)

Today, we were honored by a visit from Christian Bök. He gave a thrilling performance of three sound poems: "Seahorses and Flying Fish," part of a sound poetry sonata, and"Synth Loops". The children were electrified—we all were! Afterward, he taught us all how to begin beatboxing. After some enthusiastic applause and thanks, our class returned to our room and had a short discussion about the nature of Dada art. Ask your children what they thought!

With Christian's gracious permission, I took a short recording of his performance, with the intent of posting it here. Unfortunately, I can't get it to load—but you can easily check out his work (sound poems, univocalic poems, and his xenotext project) on YouTube. I recommend it!

Christine Hume (Monday's visit)

Our school has two special visitors this week: Christine Hume (Juna's mother), and the Canadian poet Christian Bök.

Monday

Today, Christine came into our room during our usual math session and gave the children an introduction to the sorts of constraint poetry Christian Bök uses in his writing. We looked at two univocalic poems (each of which uses only one vowel or pair of vowels throughout): "Ants and Aardvarks" and "Fireflies, Spiders, Crickets". The children then got to write univocalic poems of their own using the letter "i" (some of which were read to the class)! Christine also played a recording for us of Christian performing a sound poem: a poem containing no words at all, but only evocative sounds. The rhythms of that performance were so compelling that some of the children got up and started dancing! After Christine went on to the next class, we wrote a sound poem of our own together, and the children even thought of including elements that would be impossible in a solo performance; the final line is split so that one half of the group makes one sound, and the other utters two sounds in sequence. Our sound poem is entitled "The Snake, the President, and the Dodo Bird":

ptc rrr hhh

stoorB eeeeeeee

_______ whistle

ffffffffffffffff rrrps—hhhh

The Physics of Flight

Our class had a special visitor yesterday: Jamie Saxon, who is a graduate student in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, came in to talk with the kids about some of the physics behind flight. Last Friday, the whole school had watched a DVD called The Way Things Work: Flight, which mentioned that it is the faster movement of air over the top of a wing that creates lift. So, Jamie spoke with the children about the nature of pressure and force, the energy contained in objects of various masses and positions, and the conservation of energy. In the end, we had arrived at a simplified form of Bernoulli's equation, which describes the relationship between high speed (velocity) and low pressure: P + ¹/₂ρv² = Constant

(P = pressure, ρ = density, v = speed)

Understanding pressure by experimenting with lifting a table in the kitchen:

it was much easier when more people helped, spreading the force required over a greater area!

We pushed around a desk to learn about the nature of work (being force multiplied by distance)...

and in the process learned some things about the nature of equations.

Using balloons, funnels, and ping-pong balls, we learned that by blowing or pushing air through an inverted funnel, you can hold a ping-pong ball up inside the funnel—despite the fact that you're blowing down on it! The ball is held up by the low pressure area created by the fast movement of the air on either side of it. You can try this at home: all that's really needed is a funnel and a ping-pong ball!

In the end, each of the children got a strip of paper to take home, with Bernoulli's equation printed on one side and the terms of the equation defined on the back. If you blow across the top of the strip when it's hanging in your hand, the paper will rise—not because the air is slipping around to push it up from the bottom, but because you're creating a low-pressure zone above it!

Field work

Our class has had so many special events this week!

On Tuesday morning, we took a trip to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Two museum docents were kind enough to take us on an hour's tour, focusing on Renaissance art, and on some works that didn't come from that time or place at all, but which might—or might not!—have been influenced by the Renaissance. On Thursday afternoon, some of the children made collages based on favorite works of art they'd seen at the museum. I heard a number of children say they'd like to go back sometime...

On Thursday, we were joined at Summers-Knoll by a class from the University of Michigan for a special playtime adventure. The children and students chose new names and powers for themselves, and rushed into a magical other world (sometimes known as County Farm Park) to embark on several quests. Most barely made it back through the gate in time!

On Friday, Mark Moellering was kind enough to take us to the Detroit Masonic Temple for a tour of a few of its historical rooms. How lucky our class was this morning, to tour some of the private parts of such a beautiful building! We saw a Renaissance ballroom, a medieval chapel, and more... It was a long tour, but the children were interested and polite throughout; I was very proud of them.

It has been a great (though exhausting) week—and this Sunday is Curious Epicures! We look forward to seeing you there!