An Example Of How Public Schools Can Truly Teach
One of the things I often comment on is No Standardized Test Left Behind, and the fact that children taught how to pass standardized tests. Below is an excellent example of how schools don't have to be wastelands.
TLC
__________________________________
'I'm just a number'
For a day, teachers recreate life in a Manzanar internment camp
By MICHAEL STRAND
Salina Journal
"We got yelled at, and I don't like being yelled at ... and we're all kind of scared ... we are all in trouble for something we didn't do."
--from the journal of Nealie Adams, fifth-grader at Garfield Upper Elementary in Abilene.
ABILENE -- Friday morning started with a surprise for many students at Garfield Upper Elementary School; after reports that a fifth-grade student had vandalized a local school, all fifth-graders were rousted from their classrooms, given numbered tags, marched to the rodeo grounds, and put in horse stalls for the day.
Each had been given only minutes to gather a few supplies and sell what they could for cash -- cash that would prove immensely useful in the new, closed society they were entering.
"Find out how much money your family has and what you can do to improve your conditions," said the bullhorn-carrying Dan Brown, who teaches social studies at the school.
The students, assigned five each to 21 different stalls -- each stall representing a family -- were told to get organized, and then the head of the family was allowed to leave the stall to buy cardboard to cover the bare dirt floors.
The point of the day-long exercise was to experience the uprooting and internment of Japanese-Americans at the beginning of World War II; altogether, 110,000 people were sent to the camps.
"It's weird. I've always been a person, a citizen and had rights. Now I'm just a number."-- Nealie Adams, aka No. 1000 C
Friday's exercise was part of a year-long study of the Japanese internment camps. The program was sponsored by Ball State University, the National Park Service, Best Buy and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Six Garfield teachers have visited the Manzanar internment camp in California, now a National Historic Site.
A woman who was interned in a Japanese camp is scheduled in a few weeks to speak to the Garfield students about her experiences.
And this February, two teachers and five students will spend several days at Manzanar, becoming experts on the camp; after that, they'll be involved in a live broadcast answering questions from students around the country. Garfield was one of four schools nationwide that was chosen to participate in the program.
No basic rights
"The kids are seeing what it's like not to have their basic rights," said principal Chris Cooper.
Each family was given different supplies. Some got scissors or string or tape -- and each student was given a different amount of money.
"It's not fair; it's not supposed to be fair," Cooper said.
It it forced students to think, pool their resources and quickly develop a functioning economy to allow everyone to get what they need.
Brown, among the Garfield teachers who's visited Manzanar, explained that those in the camps were paid a small stipend, ranging from $19 a month for a professional, such as a doctor, to $10 a month for less-educated workers.
With that money, they had to buy many of their supplies.
"I only got $20, and he got $120. I do not think that is fair. And some people only got $1."
--Nealie Adams
Matthew Allen, picked as the leader of family No. 1000, returned having spent $20 on two large sheets of cardboard; not long after, he returned with a deck of playing cards, which he bought for $5. He was later to resell that same deck for $20. Later in the morning, he was able to buy a small piece of cardboard for $5, and -- literally -- turn around and sell it to another family for $9.
In between fixing up their stalls and the frequent roll calls, always preceded by a siren sound, students spent time writing in their journals, describing what they were going through and how they felt.
Even in the stalls, some families had it better than others.
With a cold wind coming through, families in stalls at the edge of the barn ended up buying extra cardboard to use as windbreaks. Some got creative, building tables out of cardboard or using string to build clotheslines.
One family, Brown said, found their stall still had some old manure in it.
"I told them it was another problem they had to solve," Brown said, recalling that in the documentary film "Farewell to Manzanar," one man remembered his family's stall still smelled of horse urine.
Students participated in several exercises designed to help them understand what others had gone through.
In one, each was to count out 100 kernels of corn; when done, they should have had about 10,000 kernels, roughly the same as the number of people interred at Manzanar -- an area roughly the size of Eisenhower Park.
Another involved asking them to sign a loyalty oath -- with those who didn't spending time picking up rocks.
Regimented boredom
That a deck of cards might skyrocket in value might seem surprising -- except that life in an internment camp was a frustrating combination of strict regimentation and boredom.
"Boredom was a big part of life," Brown said, as he walked the stalls making sure no one was talking.
"Imagine at night," he told students. "Do you think it would ever be quiet in a place like this? You'd always have somebody coughing, or a family arguing -- and you'd hear it all."
Over time, he said, families interned at Manzanar nailed can lids over holes and gaps in the walls, to keep out the strong, cold winds that were common in the California mountains.
One exercise asked students to write about what other improvements they'd like to make to their stalls.
"Put a top on our stall, to make it a real home,"
--Nealie Adams
Long lines common
Besides boredom, long lines were a common event, and those were duplicated Friday.
Though it would have been easy to avoid the long lines, teachers planned it so that students were waiting for water, then waiting to use the rest room, then waiting to eat lunch -- though families with the most money were moved to the front of the line.
Inside the lunch room, two picnic tables, with a total capacity of two dozen students, was the designated eating area; the remaining 80 or so students sat in bleachers around the picnic tables, waiting their turns and watching the first group eat.
"People who lived in the camps talked about having to eat fast, out of consideration for the others," Brown said.
Family No. 1000 was in the first group to eat, based on the family's business ability: after starting with $30, they had managed to not only furnish their stall but end up with $125.
Another family member, Quade Baugh, didn't think it fair that those with money got to eat first.
"I think it's OK," Nealie said. "We were careful with our money. I do care about the others, but we were careful with what we had and the others weren't."
Paige Adams, whose family was last in line for lunch, had a different view.
"Eat faster, eat faster," she and others kept shouting at those who got to eat first.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Salina Journal
http://www.saljournal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=8714&format=html
TLC
__________________________________
'I'm just a number'
For a day, teachers recreate life in a Manzanar internment camp
By MICHAEL STRAND
Salina Journal
"We got yelled at, and I don't like being yelled at ... and we're all kind of scared ... we are all in trouble for something we didn't do."
--from the journal of Nealie Adams, fifth-grader at Garfield Upper Elementary in Abilene.
ABILENE -- Friday morning started with a surprise for many students at Garfield Upper Elementary School; after reports that a fifth-grade student had vandalized a local school, all fifth-graders were rousted from their classrooms, given numbered tags, marched to the rodeo grounds, and put in horse stalls for the day.
Each had been given only minutes to gather a few supplies and sell what they could for cash -- cash that would prove immensely useful in the new, closed society they were entering.
"Find out how much money your family has and what you can do to improve your conditions," said the bullhorn-carrying Dan Brown, who teaches social studies at the school.
The students, assigned five each to 21 different stalls -- each stall representing a family -- were told to get organized, and then the head of the family was allowed to leave the stall to buy cardboard to cover the bare dirt floors.
The point of the day-long exercise was to experience the uprooting and internment of Japanese-Americans at the beginning of World War II; altogether, 110,000 people were sent to the camps.
"It's weird. I've always been a person, a citizen and had rights. Now I'm just a number."-- Nealie Adams, aka No. 1000 C
Friday's exercise was part of a year-long study of the Japanese internment camps. The program was sponsored by Ball State University, the National Park Service, Best Buy and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Six Garfield teachers have visited the Manzanar internment camp in California, now a National Historic Site.
A woman who was interned in a Japanese camp is scheduled in a few weeks to speak to the Garfield students about her experiences.
And this February, two teachers and five students will spend several days at Manzanar, becoming experts on the camp; after that, they'll be involved in a live broadcast answering questions from students around the country. Garfield was one of four schools nationwide that was chosen to participate in the program.
No basic rights
"The kids are seeing what it's like not to have their basic rights," said principal Chris Cooper.
Each family was given different supplies. Some got scissors or string or tape -- and each student was given a different amount of money.
"It's not fair; it's not supposed to be fair," Cooper said.
It it forced students to think, pool their resources and quickly develop a functioning economy to allow everyone to get what they need.
Brown, among the Garfield teachers who's visited Manzanar, explained that those in the camps were paid a small stipend, ranging from $19 a month for a professional, such as a doctor, to $10 a month for less-educated workers.
With that money, they had to buy many of their supplies.
"I only got $20, and he got $120. I do not think that is fair. And some people only got $1."
--Nealie Adams
Matthew Allen, picked as the leader of family No. 1000, returned having spent $20 on two large sheets of cardboard; not long after, he returned with a deck of playing cards, which he bought for $5. He was later to resell that same deck for $20. Later in the morning, he was able to buy a small piece of cardboard for $5, and -- literally -- turn around and sell it to another family for $9.
In between fixing up their stalls and the frequent roll calls, always preceded by a siren sound, students spent time writing in their journals, describing what they were going through and how they felt.
Even in the stalls, some families had it better than others.
With a cold wind coming through, families in stalls at the edge of the barn ended up buying extra cardboard to use as windbreaks. Some got creative, building tables out of cardboard or using string to build clotheslines.
One family, Brown said, found their stall still had some old manure in it.
"I told them it was another problem they had to solve," Brown said, recalling that in the documentary film "Farewell to Manzanar," one man remembered his family's stall still smelled of horse urine.
Students participated in several exercises designed to help them understand what others had gone through.
In one, each was to count out 100 kernels of corn; when done, they should have had about 10,000 kernels, roughly the same as the number of people interred at Manzanar -- an area roughly the size of Eisenhower Park.
Another involved asking them to sign a loyalty oath -- with those who didn't spending time picking up rocks.
Regimented boredom
That a deck of cards might skyrocket in value might seem surprising -- except that life in an internment camp was a frustrating combination of strict regimentation and boredom.
"Boredom was a big part of life," Brown said, as he walked the stalls making sure no one was talking.
"Imagine at night," he told students. "Do you think it would ever be quiet in a place like this? You'd always have somebody coughing, or a family arguing -- and you'd hear it all."
Over time, he said, families interned at Manzanar nailed can lids over holes and gaps in the walls, to keep out the strong, cold winds that were common in the California mountains.
One exercise asked students to write about what other improvements they'd like to make to their stalls.
"Put a top on our stall, to make it a real home,"
--Nealie Adams
Long lines common
Besides boredom, long lines were a common event, and those were duplicated Friday.
Though it would have been easy to avoid the long lines, teachers planned it so that students were waiting for water, then waiting to use the rest room, then waiting to eat lunch -- though families with the most money were moved to the front of the line.
Inside the lunch room, two picnic tables, with a total capacity of two dozen students, was the designated eating area; the remaining 80 or so students sat in bleachers around the picnic tables, waiting their turns and watching the first group eat.
"People who lived in the camps talked about having to eat fast, out of consideration for the others," Brown said.
Family No. 1000 was in the first group to eat, based on the family's business ability: after starting with $30, they had managed to not only furnish their stall but end up with $125.
Another family member, Quade Baugh, didn't think it fair that those with money got to eat first.
"I think it's OK," Nealie said. "We were careful with our money. I do care about the others, but we were careful with what we had and the others weren't."
Paige Adams, whose family was last in line for lunch, had a different view.
"Eat faster, eat faster," she and others kept shouting at those who got to eat first.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Salina Journal
http://www.saljournal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=8714&format=html
posted by TLC's Place at 7:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home