Learning Experiences

This week has been very busy but I have learned a lot and have had many new experiences.

Wednesday (5/11)
Today was spent working on my portfolio for my Elmira College education class and brainstorming some ideas for the Islam Unit assessment. For the assessment we have come up with a performance assessment that asks students to re-write or recreate a news article or story that portrays religious extremism as a general belief, into something that correctly shows the actions as extremist. They will be able to choose how they want to do this, for example a letter to the editor, a rewritten article, a news broadcast skit, a poster presentation, etc. I think this assessment will be great because it gives them the opportunity to be creative but also makes them use higher level thinking. Im really excited to see what the students come up with.

The wife of one of the humanities teachers Mark Tweedie, from Belfast Ireland, is in charge of a Girl Scouts program in the school and asked if I, and any of the other girls, would like to help out. Emily, Heather, and I stayed after school to help with the Daisy Scouts, the youngest group of 1st graders. They were working on a recycling/ reusing project where they took their favorite old t-shirt and created a design for a pillow that they were going to turn the t-shirt into. Our job was to help them stuff the t-shirt pillow and then help them sew it closed. Once that was done they would decorate it with markers, yard, buttons, etc. I worked with Kate, my teacher Ken's daughter, and had a blast. She did most of it herself, even the sewing once I showed her what to do. Once the Daisys were done with that project they could do other things like make bracelets with beads, which Emily helped them with. At the end of the hour they had a snack and sang a song, finishing up with a special group hug. It was a lot of fun and I loved working with the little kids.

Thursday (5/12)
Today was an amazing day at ISA! Normally we don't observe Brian's 9th grade history class but he asked us to because there was going to be a really cool activity. In that class they are learning about human rights and the international laws for humanitarian aid set during the Geneva Conference. He started off class by having students read the list of laws and discussing them so the students thought it was going to be a really boring class. Then, all of a sudden a group of 10th graders in all black clothes and ski masks with pretend machine guns burst through the windows and door, shooting and yelling (we of course knew this was going to happen and Brian played along yelling and dropping to the ground). The students were then broken up into 3 groups.
The first group stayed in the room. Some of the 10th graders played dead and wounded soldiers on both friendly and enemy sides (including Brain who played a soldier on the students' side with a wounded ankle). The "wounded" soldiers each came with a card saying which side they were on and what their injury was. The 9th graders in that group had to decide who to help first- Brian who was on their side but with only a hurt ankle or an enemy soldier with a serious injury. Brian played his part well, yelling at the students to forget about the wounded enemy, they should help him first- even though the law says you have to help the person with the worst injuries first, no matter what side they are on. After they have decided who to help (which never was the enemy soldier with the worst injury) they had to lift them onto a stretcher, bring them across the room, and take them off of it- all without spilling a container of rice put on the injured person's stomach to represent their blood and organs (it spills, they die). Once they completed the task they discussed why they chose the person they did to save.
The second group was in a narrow hallway with pieces of paper scattered all over the floor. The paper represented land minds and one student in the group had to be led across the mine field carrying a box of aid. However, this person was blindfolded and had to be told where to go by the others. Once the student got across the 10th graders running that station acted as solders who set up a road block and wanted the supplies. They then had to talk them out of taking the supplies so they could get to the people who needed them. Once the activity was over they talked about how much of the supplies from red cross or other organizations actually get to the people who need it.
The third group was set up in another room with pictures of different things taped to water bottles. The pictures included people in camo posing for a picture unarmed, an army helicopter, school children, a child soldier with a machine gun, an ambulance, a forest, etc. The students were given tennis balls to represent bombs. They didn't know anything about the targets, such as if the people in camo were actually soldiers or not, they just had to pick who to bomb. If the bottle with the image fell over- it meant it was destroyed or the people were killed. However, when they threw balls to hit the target they picked, other water bottles with pictures would fall over too or also get hit by the ball- showing that sometimes other things get destroyed, not just the target. So if they threw the ball at the helicopter and it also hit the school children, that meant they had killed both- showing the consequences of bombing. They also discussed the problem with not knowing exactly what each picture or target was. Were the people posing for a picture actually soldiers even though they were unarmed? Should they hit the picture of the child soldier who was obviously armed but a child nonetheless.
This was an amazing activity and really showed the challenges and hard decisions of war in a way that the students could understand. I would love to do this with my class in the future!