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Volume VII, Issue No.6
In This Issue: Making Character Count
"So What?" Why Teach Fourth Graders World War II's Moral Dilemmas
As teachers we are always searching for meaning in our teaching. We try to connect students with what we are studying so it becomes real for them, so that they invest themselves in the learning. As educators we want our students to leave our class remembering what we have taught them. We hope what we have taught resonates with the students. This seed for meaning was planted last year while I was teaching physiology to my class of fourth and fifth graders at Alternative Elementary II in Seattle, Washington. Steven Levy, fourth ngrade teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound school designer, came to visit our school. After spending an hour or so in my classroom he spoke positively to me about what he had seen, but then asked me a provocative question. "So what?" he inquired. "Why are you teaching them this?" Taken aback, I provided an answer that I think satisfied him. I carried that "So what" around with me for the summer and through the planning of my next expedition on World War II. My students’ passionate response to such books as Number the Stars by Lois Lowry and Lisa’s War by Carol Matas in past years showed me how taken this age group was with the real lifenandndeath predicaments of people during World War II. From this point emerged the guiding question, "How did World War II affect and how does it still affect people’s lives?" This kept us on a clear path. I discovered, however, that I was really teaching about the moral significance of World War II. It was an expedition about themes, moral dilemmas, and multiple perspectives, and discovering our individual perspectives about war, freedom, racism, and morality. Rather than creating an expedition based upon the learning of facts, we explored lessons that could guide us through and apply to life’s continuous questions and dilemmas. How did we get to a place where the students’ passion and understanding of the enormity of the topic led to deep thinking and work of the highest quality? From the beginning the students understood the importance and immediately saw the relevance and pervasiveness of World War II then and now. But their investment in and understanding of the topic emerged as we went forth. One of the first assignments was to create a family history, researching where their family was living and what they were doing during World War II. They told their stories through an object that represented the family’s World War II experience. The evening presentation was dramatic and rich. The students shared their stories around a table set with the family objects. The grandfather of one of the students was stationed in Alaska at an army hospital during the war. One evening the tribal chief’s son was brought into the hospital with a lifenthreatening wound to the abdomen as a result of a dogsled accident. The grandfather performed the anesthesia for the operation that saved the son’s life. In return the chief presented him with the skin of an unborn baby seal. That sealskin was sent from California to lay upon the table as the granddaughter read her history. Nobody in the family had ever heard that story or known about the sealskin. A common refrain from the elders of many students was that nobody had ever asked before. Researching the family histories set off a deluge of sharing in the classroom. The students were eager to discover their connections to the war and in turn to discover their connections to elder family members. The family history stories illuminated the choices that the grandparents made in response to the war. The stories showed how the choices people make during war can be the choices between life and death: one’s own life and the lives of others. One set of grandparents were sitting in a soda shop when they heard that Pearl Harbor was bombed. They decided right then and there to get married. My own grandparents, who were living in Germany at the time, received a letter prohibiting my grandfather to become a judge because of his Judaism. They decided to leave their family behind in Germany and move to the United States. For their next large project they wrote historical fiction stories from a perspective that was different from their family history. The students devoured this assignment. Each student wrote a story that was remarkable in its voice, compassion, historical accuracy, and sophistication. It was remarkable how thoroughly and convincingly the students took on the perspectives of their characters. In order to write these historical fiction stories the students were exposed to multiple perspectives of the war through literature, video, and visiting lecturers. I learned the true importance of showing all perspectives following an incident that unsettled me. At the very beginning of our expedition a parent came to me concerned because her son had announced at the dinner table the previous evening that he was glad that his ancestors were French and not German. I was stunned at first because it revealed that the students were making judgments that one side was "good" and the other "bad" before even having progressed very far along in our study of the war. I saw this exchange as a blessing. It indicated that I needed to spend a lot of time making sure that the students saw the perspectives of all sides of the war. The next day we began reading Parallel Journeys by Eleanor H. Ayer, a book that chronicles the realnlife stories of two German youths. One becomes an impassioned member of the Hitler Youth, and the other’s Judaism forces her to hide and survive a concentration camp. We explored China’s view of the war through videos and discussion as there were few resources on the war in the Pacific, and I could not find one piece of children’s literature from the Chinese perspective. We spent a lot of time discussing the tension between Japan and the United States that led up to Pearl Harbor, and we read two children’s books that chronicled the Japanese perspective of the Atomic bomb; Hiroshima by Lawrence Yep and Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. There are a million perspectives of World War II, and we could not look at them all. I chose the perspectives to study according to the backgrounds of the students, by the major players of the war, and by our regional history. We spent a large amount of time looking at the internment of Japanese and Japanese American citizens because internment happened in Seattle. The Puyallup fairgrounds, where all the students visit for the annual fair, was a relocation camp where citizens lived in horse stalls until they were sent to internment camps. We looked at the plight of African American soldiers and nurses during World War II through video and discussion. Students were only able to understand the prejudice in Europe toward Jewish people by comparing it to the African American experience in the United States. My goal was to provide the students with an understanding of how one’s perspective differs according to one’s position, and with the lenses to identify perspectives beyond one’s own. I also saw this work as a loss of innocence. The students learned that countries, including their own, do not always behave well during war. They learned that one country is never unequivocally on the side of good. This was for many their first lesson in the existence of moral ambiguity. As we explored multiple perspectives, we landed upon the moral dilemma of individual responsibility versus collective responsibility. The student who said he felt relieved that his ancestors were French was making a case for collective responsibility and for historical responsibility. Through role playing the student’s statement with a more dramatic example, the students grappled with the dilemma. In the end, each student came to the conclusion that an individual should not be held responsible for the acts of the leaders; an individual should be held responsible for solely his/her own actions. These dilemmas and investigations led to a remarkably deep level of thinking. The students were able to embrace difficult issues and analyze these issues to develop their own answers. Their work reflected their level of thinking and understanding, in part, because I gave them assignments that fulfilled the state writing standards and were still meaningful and clearly significant to the students. Journal responses only occurred in the face of something provocative or intense. Other writing consisted of three large pieces that were revised numerous times: the family history project, the historical fiction stories, and a letter to the legislature to support House Bill 1572 to provide money for education about Japanese internment. The students also wrote impassioned letters of thanks to two people who shared their personal experiences of the war. I think that part of what pushed the students’ work to such a high level was their need to have their work live up to the expedition. The students recognized the difference between sharing personal experiences and sharing skills. Because real people shared their thoughts and feelings with the students, the students felt that they had to share theirs in return. All of the students’ work was done with great care, compassion, and intensity. The students felt the depth and importance of the topic and threw themselves into their work. Anything less than full effort would have been an insult. A seed for meaning was planted with me and it grew into a living idea that changed my teaching. As I throw more seeds out into the winds, I ask myself what can I possibly teach next year that will be as rich and meaningful for the students? My challenge is to take the lessons I learned and the themes that arose and apply them to my next expedition. I must choose a topic that is rich in moral questions and ripe in its ability to generate many perspectives. The topic must address difficult choices and seethe with significance so that the students themselves can see it. If only I can see it, then only I learn. If the significance is obvious to the students they will be free to explore the deeper questions of the topic rather than remain stuck at the one question, "So what?"
Vivian Scheidt teaches fourth and fifth grade at Alternative Elementary II in Seattle, Washington.
Intimacy and Caring on the Playground
Itis time to line up! Fourth graders, recess is over. Time to go inside." I would call out the familiar words that sent 22 ten year olds chasing softballs around the playground, dragging bats and gloves and scurrying to join the line. It was September and we were all getting used to the routines of a new school year at the Rafael Hernandez Two-Way Bilingual School in Boston, Massachusetts. Once my class assembled, we would file in the back door of the building and head up the three flights of stairs to our classroom. Then the complaining would begin. They had had trouble playing softball again. Red-faced boys and girls, out of breath from climbing the stairs, would begin to recount the problems from todayis game. "Itis like a war," Alfonso began during a class meeting. "Kids are cheating. Everyone is yelling and fighting with each other," Susana added. "The boys wonit let the girls play. Itis not fair!" Lisa said. "We never get to finish a game because people spend the whole recess time arguing," Orlando said. It seemed that recess time had become the biggest crisis my students faced in school. We had worked hard those first few weeks of school to develop a sense of community within the classroom. As a teacher I value a high level of cooperation and communication among my students. Unfortunately, most students do not land at the classroom door with a neatly packed social-awareness tool kit. For many children, skills like turn taking, active listening, perspective taking, and including others need to be taught. From the beginning of the year, we practiced these skills daily. I actively modeled appropriate vocabulary and helped children recognize the important role of body language, facial expressions and gestures. Although these skills evolved quickly in the classroom, we seemed to be starting from scratch out on the playground. To address the problem, we began with a classroom strategy my students were already familiar with—the class meeting. We had already used meetings to develop a set of class rules and to share student work. Throughout the crisis on the playground, our meetings became a daily ritual. The open forum gave children an opportunity to share their concerns and work with their peers to find solutions. Together, we came up with a few simple ground rules for this new type of meeting: Talk only about what you personally saw or experienced. Because so many children were involved in the game, it was impossible for each child to personally see, hear or experience everything that happened. This rule helped children focus only on what they were personally involved in, so that we might be able to piece together the full story of what happened. They quickly realized that the truth would become distorted if they tried to comment on things that they had not directly experienced or witnessed. Listen to others when it is not your turn to talk. Initially, one child would say something, and then the 21 other students would react by calling out, challenging what had been said, and defending their own position. By simply listening to what was said, and speaking only when it was their turn, students could focus on the sequence of events that had created a problem with the game. As I wrote their comments on the board, children were able to identify the words and actions that had led to the conflict and caused it to escalate. Do not name names. This was perhaps the most helpful ground rule. Initially, children would point to their peers, say their names and accuse them of cheating, hitting, kicking, and so on. This only made the conflict worse because it left students feeling defensive and picked on. Instead, we chose to have children tell the story of what they experienced at recess from their own perspective, without using the names of their classmates in their story. A child might say, "When a boy grabbed the ball away from me and stepped on my foot, I got really angry and didnit want to play anymore." Omitting the other childis name from the story left the class free to hear the speakeris perspective without having to defend the other child or take sides. This process of storytelling helped us piece together the different sides of the tale. Children were able to see that others might have experienced the same situation in very different ways. The ability to appreciate someone elseis perspective was crucial in helping us resolve this crisis. Talking about the softball game in a calm, reflective way was a major challenge for the children in my class. Slowly, they had mastered the ability to listen and attempt to understand someone elseis point of view. The children gradually realized that they shared a common goal. They all agreed that, "Kids need to remember that itis only a game. Weire supposed to be having fun, not fighting. If we spend the whole time fighting, then we wonit have any time left to play. People just need to calm down and listen to each other. Thatis the best way to solve it." From here we were ready to address certain issues one at a time. Whether or not girls and boys could play together was a major source of disagreement. Most children thought we should have separate teams for boys and girls. A few children thought girls and boys should play on separate days. No one thought girls and boys should play together on the same team. Girls were concerned that the boys would dominate the game and that they would not get a chance to play. Boys were concerned that the girls did not know enough about softball, and that allowing them to play on the same team might compromise the game. We explored several different options, and then held a secret ballot vote for the final decision. The class voted unanimously to have separate teams for boys and girls. Rather than alternate days, they decided to play boys against girls. This outcome brought enthusiastic cheers from the class. I secretly hoped that they would eventually find a way to play together on the same team. Decision-making was the second major issue we grappled with. Through our conversations, we realized that most of the conflicts arose out of disagreement over a decision in the game. Too many children would try to get involved in making the call and often one child would assume the role of leader by force. Inevitably, someone would get hurt. We needed a way to clearly designate a leader for each team before the game began. Children also needed to be certain that everyone would have a chance to be the leader. The class decided to designate one female captain and one male captain for each day. Anticipating that there might be times when the team captains would be unable to reach a decision, the class also chose to have a designated umpire. It was the umpireis job to watch the whole game, not to be part of either team in order to remain impartial. While we were talking about team roles, one child suggested that we also needed to designate a person to be in charge of retrieving balls that went over the fence. The "ball-getter" became the third officially designated role. We used a calendar to give everyone a chance to sign up and keep track of their turn to be the captain, the umpire and the "ball-getter." Finally, we took on the issue of rules and cheating. As we spent more time talking and listening to each other, we realized that we did not share a common set of rules. Some children realized that their classmates might not be cheating on purpose. It could just be that they were playing by a different set of rules or assumptions. I asked whether we had any experts who could help us write down the rules for softball so that everyone could learn them. About ten hands waved enthusiastically in response. These children wrote their names on scraps of paper and tossed them into a baseball cap. I chose six names to be the authors and four to be the review panel. After the authors finished writing and editing the rules, we printed up a rough draft for the entire class to read. The review panel met with individual children to hear their suggestions for revisions. The whole process took several days. In the end, we had a list of 22 rules that everyone in the class could agree on. We printed up the list and gave each child a copy. Children carried the list of rules with them throughout most of the school day. They would review the rules at lunch before going out for recess. When there was a disagreement at recess, they would take the rules out of their back pockets and read them out loud to the opposing team. Within a few weeks, most children had committed the rules to memory. By late fall, the teams were beginning to integrate boys and girls. This happened spontaneously, without much discussion or debate. One day there happened to be many more girls than boys at school. Some girls went over to the boysi team to even things out. By the end of the week, both teams were fully integrated. I also began to notice that their problem-solving skills were spilling back into the classroom. I observed a small group activity about magnets with great interest as the students spontaneously negotiated a system to make sure that materials were distributed fairly and everyone would get a turn. During an expedition about electricity, one child developed an elaborate electrical circuit using light bulbs, wires and switches. When others expressed interest in creating the same type of circuit, he held his own meeting to coach the other students through the steps he followed. When even more students wanted to replicate the circuit, he drew a series of eight diagrams that could lead them through the process step by step. One day in early spring I was watching the children play softball at recess. They had accomplished so much in such a short time. I watched as girls and boys played together as teammates, rather that competitors. Children easily assumed the roles of captain, umpire, and "ball-getter." A few times, a team member went to the captain to challenge a play. Taking the role very seriously, this captain would then discuss the concern with the captain of the other team. Usually they were able to agree to either keep the play or call a "do-over." A few times the umpire needed to intervene when they could not agree. Their ability to work together was natural and effortless. I realized that it had been quite a long time since they had needed my help to solve a conflict during a game. I could hardly believe that this was the same group of children who struggled so desperately to play together in September. As I began to walk away, pondering how far they had come since then, I heard a shrill voice calling out. "Out! Youire OUT!" As I snapped back around, I could see the two boys begin to argue. One was convinced that he had touched the base. The other was just as convinced that he had not. There they stood, eyeball-to-eyeball, chests puffed up with tension. The game came to a grinding halt. I moved in closer, certain that they would need my help. I tried to anticipate what would happen next. Before I could reach them, the first child had shoved the second. He pressed the ball against his chest and yelled, "I said youire OUT!" Just then, the team captain walked up. In a cheerful tone she said, "Cimon guys itis only a game. Recess is almost over. Letis try to finish the game before we go inside." Without a word, the second child conceded and quietly walked away. The game went on. "They solved it on their own." I whispered, as if to convince myself. I extended recess by about fifteen minutes that day to see what might happen next. It gives me much satisfaction to say that the game continued without incident. With the memory of Septemberis recess crisis slowly fading away, my students have mastered some important life skills. They have learned how to understand another personis point of view; how to negotiate with each other; and how to resolve their differences without hurting anyone. Perhaps most importantly, they have learned how to come up with creative solutions for some of lifeis challenges. Hopefully, these skills will continue to evolve and they will be able to apply them to a new set of challenging situations, both on and off the playground.
Janette Roman teaches fourth grade at the Rafael Hernandez Two-Way Bilingual School in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Spirit That Animates and Pervades
Outward Bound is rooted in service. You might say service, rather than adventure, is the central idea in Outward Bound. Kurt Hahn, who founded Outward Bound, thought compassion the most important quality of all to keep alive in individuals and in the world at large. He believed that training for rescue service- stoked the fires of compassion. The point of the physical rigor of an Outward Bound course, the point of getting fit for it (or, in some cases, trying to get fit doing it) is to be in good enough shape that you can be ready to help someone when he or she needs it. Hahn also appreciated the more mundane aspects of service. One of the things he watched for and commented on in his studentsi behavior on expeditions was whether they cleaned up the pots and pans and voluntarily took on the little service-chores of expedition life. Hahn understood the connection between character and service. "We are crew, not passengers," he wrote. "We are ennobled by consequential acts of service to others." The service at the center of Outward Bound is what makes it different and sets it apart from the other programs that take people into the wilderness. It involves more than adventures in wild and beautiful places. It offers a form of education that brings out the best in people, and the fact that there is selflessness in it gives it power and purpose. Josh Miner, the American teacher who brought Outward Bound to the United States, often reminded listeners that Non Sibi, "not for oneself," was the motto of Gordonstoun, Hahnis school in Scotland. Recently when some Outward Bound board members asked Josh to clarify just what constituted authentic Outward Bound, he said it boiled down to two things. It was Outward Bound if people accomplished things they would not have believed they could do, and if they worried about others more than themselves. Outward Bound began, in fact, as a program to train young men for service in the British merchant marine. It took only a 50-year hop, skip, and jump from that to Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, a framework and design for comprehensive school improvement that uses the pedagogy and philosophy and ethic of Outward Bound to "do school," kindergarten through twelfth grade, to make the learning of reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and science more hands-on, more project-based, more full of fun and adventure, and at the same time just as rigorous academically as Outward Bound is rigorous physically. Both teachers and students in Expeditionary Learning schools learn by doing. And the schools themselves develop a culture not unlike that of a small expeditionary team, where all the members have to help each other, serve each other, or the group will not make it where they are trying to go. So a good Expeditionary Learning school has an internal service ethic that it practices and works on and expands to the community around it. It is no surprise that powerful learning is connected to acts of service. Paul Ylvisaker, the former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote, "There is no learning without challenge and emotion." Service, especially person-to-person service, is full of both. Some Outward Bound instructors and Expeditionary Learning teachers alike have made the mistake of thinking service was a requirement they had to add on to their Outward Bound courses or learning expeditions. Service should not be a component to satisfy a requirement, but the spirit that pervades and animates. It is much easier to get to academic work of a high standard through projects and expeditions driven by a service imperative than it is to get to powerful service experiences through expeditions driven by the need to meet curricular requirements. More and more, teachers in Expeditionary Learning schools begin planning a learning expedition with the idea of serving others. The examples that Emily Cousins and Amy Mednick have gathered in this book provide evidence that starting with service, putting service at the center, enhances rather than sacrifices academic rigor, motivates both teachers and students to go beyond what they think they can do, connects learning to life, and provides the powerful learning experiences that teachers and students alike remember for the rest of their lives. Greg Farrell is president of Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound.
"Kristina, Kristina." My mother was calling me from her garden in the backyard of our stone house in Celle, Germany. I came running out of the house, my hair covering my big brown eyes. Freckles dotted my face like grains of sand on a rock. I had on my favorite blue dress which I have had since I was six; it still fits because I am still small. Now I am going to help my mother garden, one of her joys. Her garden has tulips, daisies, carrots, and tomatoes. I was helping my mother plant peas when Kristoff, my 19-year-old brother, came home from playing soccer with some of his friends. His pants were too short, because he has grown tall so fast, and his blond hair was streaked with mud. He has been going to the university since the fall and is learning psychology. He hopes to become a professor. I am in my second year in school. It is January 23rd, 1940. Three days before Grettle, my younger sisteris birthday. Grettle is going to turn three. She is going to have a cake with pink roses. We had just had a new yearis party, and Iive been thinking about all the things that happened last year. In September, the Allies declared war on our country, and then Mama became very distressed when Kristoff and I had to join the Hitler Jugend. Now those things seem like dissolving memories. I am not understanding anything the fuhrer is saying. I liked it when I was free like a bird, able to run around the yard and jump from branch to branch. Now I am in the Hitler youth, not free at all. Finally, Grettleis birthday came, and I helped Mama bake Grettleis cake. It is a wonder that our family can bake a cake, because I know our next door neighbors donit have such wonders. They have to survive without sweets and other good things because of the war. Our father owns a machinery business, and he works with the government, so we get all the sweets we want. A few days ago, Kristoff got a telegram form the Hitler Jugend. He had to report to the Flieger Hitlerjugend, the Hitler youth training camp for the Luftwaffe, the air force. He had to leave the next day. I knew nothing of this telegram, nor that Kristoff was leaving us. But before I knew it, my brother was gone.
"My Own Sorrow" by Lily Harris, a fourth grader at Alternative Elementary II in Seattle, Washington, is a historical fiction story written for a learning expedition on World War II.
Four old Chinese scrolls lie in a trunk in my Grandmais storage. They have laid there untouched for fifty years. Once they were hung on a wall for good luck. Each scroll shows a different scene, a different season. Beautiful birds and flowers decorate the white satin in colorful embroidery. Also lying in the dusty darkness are many loose pearls, a pair of worn jade earrings, and a gold bracelet that shines even in the darkness. The scrolls were a traditional present from Grandmais godfather to her. The scrolls were for good luck. The jewels were a gift from my grandmais mother. My grandmais grandmother had passed the jewels down to my grandmais mother. Later in her life my grandmais mother divided up the jewels between her five daughteris. My grandma Julia was the youngest. My dadis mother Julia lived in China at the time of WWII. My grandma was ten years old when Japan invaded China. My grandmais family was evacuated from their city into Chinais capital, Chung King. Because of the bombing in the city, my grandmais school moved into the mountains. At the beginning of each week my grandma would walk up to her school, then at the end of the week she would walk down the mountain back home. My grandma told me it was a very long walk. On the other side of my family, my motheris dad lived in Jackson, Mississippi. His dad wasnit in the war because he was too old (over forty) and because he had served in WWI. My momis grandfather had a prosperous Victory Garden. My granddaddyis shed, is still gathering rust and smelling of the earth, just waiting, as do the scrolls that lie in my grandmais trunk waiting to be taken out once more. They have seen many generations pass by, and have heard many stories. And so the scrolls lie, waiting in the darkness.
This excerpt of her family's history was written by Kona Sher, a fourth grader at Alternative Elementary II in Seattle, Washington.
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