Who Gets To Write History? - Year 4, Week 3
Week 3 was filled with goal setting and the beginning of exhibition preparation! Our learners continue to ask themselves deeper questions such as, ‘What am I passionate about?’ and “how can I use my passions to change the world?’
spark studio
What do you do when a learner says they have done all the work in the Studio? How could this be? We just started school! We as guides know this IS NOT true! The beauty of the work is that yes, many of the same materials appear day after day and year after year, but there are sometimes dozens of ways to use the same tools. This is what keeps the work timeless, ageless and almost never ending.
• Perhaps the learner is ready for extensions for a material they’ve been working with.
• Maybe the learner is ready for more collaborative work where they use the activity in a different way, with a friend.
• The learner is stuck in a rut and needs to be taken out of it! Maybe if they are a child who is constantly attracted to the math area, some direct guiding across curriculum areas would help stimulate their curiosity.
One of the most vital tools available is observation. Scientifically applied observation skills allow guides to assess situations, learners and strategies without judgment. Observation is a critical component of lesson planning and management of the Studio. Another tool is simply taking time to talk and get to know one another to discover personalities, interests all the while forming relationships. The best part is getting to know each other!
elementary studio
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." - Winston Churchill
Elementary heroes have had the opportunity to dive into history head first. We are starting from the beginning of time. How was the universe created? Who were the early humans? Where and how did they live? How does this history affect me today?
When we think about these huge questions, heroes begin to understand that they are living history right now. We have written our own creation of the universe stories, compared and contrasted early and modern humans, and will imagine our very own playground as a place for them to settle their “nomadic families”. Through this exploration, heroes are exploring timelines, creating their own cave paintings, and will be writing their own history of big moments throughout their lives.
We are continuing to fine tune our studio standards and look at it through a historical lens, by comparing past contracts and freedom levels, to determine what's worked in the past and what needs to be tweaked. As this session progresses heroes are becoming more and more familiar with the Elementary “Forest School Way”, and working more and more toward mastering the state of Flow. Looking back at the past can make us all stronger and wiser heroes on this journey!
middle school studio
What kind of writing did you do in Middle School?
Most of us probably had a lot of practice writing five paragraph essays, book reports, and research papers. At The Forest School, learners master the Story Arts — the ability to be an effective storyteller across a variety of mediums. This could look like scripting a short film, creating an animation, or writing songs.
This session, learners are doubling down on the medical knowledge they're gleaning in the Medical Quest. For Storytelling, they are creating a Medical Funding Pitch. To do this, they are researching an underfunded illness or disease and then crafting a compelling argument for why more funding is needed to research treatments and cures. Their pitches will combine data tables, personal narratives, and budget requests as they put forward a theory of change. Perhaps the coolest part is that they will send these pitches to real people — funders, grantors, politicians, or news editors. This is not a "school project," but rather a practice in the type of communication skills that are useful in solving real world problems.
That type of practice is a lot more engaging than writing essay after essay.
high school studio
“Who Made the Hero’s Journey?
Nobody. And everybody.
The reason the Hero’s Journey is so effective is because nobody ‘invented’ it – instead it is a pattern that was identified by comparing and contrasting popular human stories throughout history and discovering that common patterns emerged.
When someone enters into their hero's journey a few things happen; Each person chooses to set outside of themselves in order to better themselves. A test of character, strength, and skill come into play. This week in the high school studio, each hero's character was tested when faced with the challenge of completing 2 quest challenges they found difficult. Some rose to the occasion and for others, courage was put to the test.
The studio took a deeper dive into trying to solidify apprenticeships, they conducted stars and stepping stone interviews with masters of their fields, and took a first stab at practicing their exhibition pitches.
Traditionally, photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that employs images in order to tell a news story. Remember, storytelling at The Forest School is more than just words. Heroes worked together to create combined stories using the photos taken in the two previous weeks that tell stories about their lives. To end the week. heroes looked at the history and present tense of virtual reality as they created and turned 5 minutes of a current or old movie into all virtual reality.
As a studio, we are in Act 1 of the hero's journey:
Act 1
Ordinary world
Call to adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the first Threshold
Stay tuned to see how heroes work through all 5 phases!
-Onward
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