Throw Forward

"I am holding this string up so it can get air."
Marz is home! Her wet boots ^ are drying on the windowsill.

She'd told me on the phone that the Wilderness Training was like war games, and I was amazed to hear more about how the expert trainers taught survival skills:
Beyond the expected "how to tie a tourniquet", it culminated in a 2-hour long "mass casualty event"--everyone assigned to a different role, with some camp counselors instructed to lie in the woods and act horribly injured... complete with fake blood, others to haul them out, others to triage, and tend wounds...

Good skills to know! if you're leading children in the wilderness---or who knows what civilian disaster might arise...
I'd like to learn some of that.

She did not enjoy the relentless obligatory camaraderie of camp life ("like war games, but with singing"), nor did she feel confident enough to lead children afterward.
(In fact, what they practiced in a week is supposed to be a month-long course.)
So she's home.

 She still plans on college in the fall.
"I am bookish," she said.
Meanwhile, she's here, and I'm happy about that. She's got a project to work on....
_______________________

And I am thinking on a summer-long project for myself.
Pro-ject: throw forward

Creative/educator Ken Robinson suggested that for good schools: instead of atomizing education (subjects separated and taught in 50-min chunks to students segregated by age and abilities)--CHOOSE PROJECTS.
Everyone with a stake, from students and teachers to admin to custodians (I'd include them!), actually choosing = "democratic schools".

Teachers have a lot of leeway, he pointed out, even in schools as they are.
I see that.
Yesterday, for instance, the English teacher told students the class is done--they don't have to be there.
???
Where are they supposed to go, though? They are freshman. And, the building exit-doors are locked.
 I suppose they could sit in the library and talk--they'd like that.
I'll catch a few in the halls and suggest that.
No one got up and left class... They sat and watched a video of a book we've already seen videos of.

If I were a teacher I'd work with students to come up with year–long (or semester-, or even week- long)  project.
Because we want practice, learning to do that in our own lives, right?---choosing projects to work on, so we are not just consumers of entertainment.
(I don't have internet so I cannot spend the summer binge-watching media.)

Walkabout

I said I'm proud of my young self. I sometimes forget that I left high school building when I was only15 years old:
My final semester (during which I turned 16), I home-schooled myself because I chose to do a program called Walkabout:
With the guidance of a couple teachers, you chose PROJECTS in five areas, and found resource people in the community (mostly not teachers) to guide you--and then you only came to school once a week for group meetings.

I had been surprised how HARD it was to have nothing but free time.
I watched a lot of daytime TV.

But at the end of the semester, I'd done a few things I'm still remember with pride:
learned to play "Blackbird" on guitar (I'd never played guitar);
took a trip into Canada with my older friend Chuck;
written and illustrated a book of poetry;
struggled through reading some French existential literature in French--(reading Camus' The Flies was the basis of my movie 40 years later, Orestes and the Fly!).

What else do I remember with pride of accomplishment that I did in high school?
Aside from reading a ton of books (mostly on my own, during classes), it's mostly BOREDOM I remember, and anger at bad teachers:
like the tenth grade English teacher, who was a harridan. Her primary method of control was shaming students in front of the class.
I hated her.
Everyone said, "Oh, but she's a good teacher because you really learn grammar in her class."

At the end of the year, she had us write out what we'd learned. People told me that's what they said: they really learned parts of speech.

I wrote, "I learned I do not want to be like you."

Which was a total FAIL, in fact, because it was being like her to say something mean and shaming like that.
(Now I'd put it in the positive:
"I saw a style of teaching I would not want to emulate--I am inspired to strive instead for a democratic classroom, with respect for all.")

It helps to remember I was fifteen---the same age as the children in English class--they say snarky things to the teacher, but--throwing forward-- they might.could grow out of that.

I could try making a movie... or a series of small movies?
I've wondered about stop-animation with toys...

And I've got printmaking---perhaps make it a project---instead of free-standing images, create pictures to tell a story.

The girlettes' faces are so hard to get right! I messed this one’s up--I do like the lines though, so I will hand paint the features or cut a jigsaw piece to print to fit: