Newsletter: Week Eighteen

Dear Families,

I hope you all had a wonderful break. I don't know how you all felt but it seemed to me that it was longer this year. Our crew visited family in St. Louis and then spent our final week at home doing yard work, riding bikes, and playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark house at night. As much as we all enjoyed it I know everyone was ready to get back to school.

I owe you all a HUGE thank you for the generous gifts and beautiful holiday cards I received last month. They were amazing. As for the class gift, we’ll be using the recording equipment in the coming weeks so we can begin laying down a few tracks for our end-of-the-year class CD. This week we started thinking about which songs we should do first. Focusing on original songs, we're thinking "Reading is Thinking", "The Plant Song", and "Building Community." Look for these CDs to be completed in May.

I’d like to share one of my favorite moments from our week...On Thursday Connor shared a news article about a no-kill animal shelter. This led to a discussion of how there are far more stray animals than there are homes to place them - as well as the role of spaying and neutering. Ellis looked over at me and said “It’s kind of like a circle. The animals at some places are there too long, get killed and more come in and then they get killed and more come in – over and over.” I shared this thought with the class, explaining it was a cycle. Without missing a beat Chase said “That is NOT the circle of life!” I couldn’t help but laugh. He was certainly correct. Sharing news articles is often one of the highlights of the day. Please continue to be on the lookout for great articles to read with your children.

Speaking of the news, we have had a number of conversations over the past few weeks about the elections happening in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond. We’ve noticed over the past few months there have been a number of different front runners. Now that the elections have come it will be fun for us to see how it all plays out. I often get the question “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?” Hmmm, what an important question! I've tried to answer this question a number of times but I might ultimately send them home to ask you and then have them report back to us what they learned. With twenty-two different families we would be sure to receive a nice variety of definitions and perspectives. Be on the lookout for that!

We spent time this week exploring the question, "What is normal?" Most responses, including not acting crazy, doing what you're supposed to, and not being wild, focused on behavior. I then asked the kids to work in groups to create a mural of what they thought a "normal" kid would look like. It was interesting to see how each group created a picture depicting themselves (their own gender, race, clothes, favorite movies, favorite foods, etc). I next asked them to show me what abnormal would look like. In their presentations of these illustrations we learned that many believe that normal/abnormal changes based on certain factors - such as gender (boys wearing pink shirts or liking Tinkerbell; girls wearing cowboy boots). This really made me think about how the concept of normal works to create stereotypes and to isolate certain individuals from their peers. I began considering whether there is a difference between using the word normal (which implies a judgment) and using words like typical or common (which do not). This may well serve as the basis for discussion next week.

While the kids were working on their murals I played a CD of African tribal music. One of the kids said, "This music is definitely abnormal!"

"Why?" I asked. "What makes it abnormal?"

"Because it's not American," said one of the others at the table.

I raised my eyebrows.

"But if you were from the country where this comes from you would be used to it," someone else offered. "It'd be normal to you. So there's really not any such thing as abnormal music."

Understanding our tendency to define normal by our own qualities and preferences will serve next week as a launching point into a study of other cultures. We'll consider the potential dangers of seeing the world in terms of normal and abnormal. I can't wait to hear what everyone has to say. As a part of this study, I'm going to ask the kids to come home and interview a family member about a time when they felt they were treated badly, or were made to feel uncomfortable, because of a difference that others may have perceived as abnormal or unpopular. This may have been due to their hair, clothes, speech, family structure, home, economic status, religion, political views, food preference, choice of friends, music tastes, etc.

If you would enjoy coming in to join any of these discussions we would love to have you. I can't remember whether or not I made this clear at the beginning of the year but we would ALWAYS love to have you in to visit the classroom. Whether it be to sit and observe, share a story, work alongside your child, or just hang out, there is never a bad time to drop in. Just let me know you're planning to visit so I can make sure we'll be in the classroom at that time.

I hope you are all enjoying this wonderfully warm weekend weather!

Chris