Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart is one of the best-known and best-loved novels in the whole of modern African literature. Written by Nigeria's Chinua Achebe in the 1950s, it tells a story of the Ibo people of that region in the late nineteenth century. In one sense, it is a highly politicized treatise on colonialism and the particular forms of blindness inherent in that system. In another, it is a classic Greek tragedy.

We finished Things Fall Apart on Tuesday after reading a chapter a day together for a little over three weeks. Our conversations were organic, enlightening, and honest. The kids took a bright and interestingly angled perspective on the trials of Okonkwo, the meanest, strongest, and weakest man in Umuofia.

The kids are producing two pieces of writing on Achebe's novel.

The first is testimony from Okonkwo on the case before the justices at the Alhambra--in other words, they wrote a monologue for him as if he were one of the characters in the Place out of Time project at U of M. The second piece is more classic. The Greek concept of hamartia has two meanings: tragic flaw and tragic error. Apply both to Okonkwo. Cite the text.

Spoiler Alert: Things Fall Apart does not end well for Okonkwo. After we finished chapter 25, we used collection to hold a moment of silence for Okonkwo, whom we mourned even though he was one of the least sympathetic characters any of us had ever seen. We still felt for him. What a book.

May 23

Friday, May 23, is a big day at Summers-Knoll. We will have Reflections Night here at school instead of over at Allen Elementary. Personally, I love this change: Reflections is a means of seeing where our children have been and what they have achieved as artists and performers over the course of the year. Josh, Tracy and Monica are cooking up great plans for the event's layout and format.

For the sixth, seventh and eighth graders, May 23 will also be a Project Day and a Hosting Day as well. At 2:00 on the afternoon of May 23, each of the six Mythology Circles will be showing off projects in the upstairs domain.

Brazil's mythologists, facilitated by Nico, are focusing on the crucial importance of futebol to that nation's identity. Specifically, they will show a project that engages the coming World Cup in that country--specifically, the 'lost Final' of 1950, and the controversies about spending $18,000,000,000 on the tournament, in a nation where millions live in poverty. Margaret and Jonathan are also working on this project.

Ghana's storytellers, led by Isobel, will present a play based on the legends of Anansi the Spider, the trickster hero of West African myths. The play was written for, and will be performed by, students in Val's kindergarten class. Kaeli and Trent are Isobel's partners in this endeavor.

Britain's defenders, led by Jianmarco, will also produce a play. Theirs will explore the story of King Arthur. They have adapted a young-adult script of the Sword in the Stone into a modern setting. Lee and Lily are the other planners, writers, and participants in this project.

China's student sinologists, under Mike's leadership, are creating a board game with echoes of Risk. The playing surface is a map of China during one era of the Warring States. The objective is to win control of all twelve: Yan, Zhao, Zhou, Qi, Qin, Chu, Shu, Lu, Song, Han, Wei, and Zongshan.
Karenna and Denali are also working on this project.

Australia's anthropologists, led by Maya, are looking at Aboriginal concepts surrounding Dreamtime, the mythical primordial state when the world was soft and unformed. Their project will engage this belief through various forms of art, a central aspect of Aboriginal worship. Matthew and Saul are also engaged in this work.

Mesoamerica's historians, facilitated by Aristea, are creating a card game modelled after Fluxx and named after Xquic (pronounced Shkeek), the Eve of the Mayan creation myth. The game will comprise forty original cards, designed by the students, covering four distinct elements of early Mesoamerican civilization. Nik and Ryan are the other artists and designers.

It is a Hosting Day because we will be welcoming a dozen students and faculty members from the Friends School in Detroit as part of our Detroit Project exchanges. Middle schoolers from Friends will spend some time in a facilitated conversation with their compatriots, touring the school, and viewing the Mythology Projects before heading back into the city at 4:00.

Lastly, it is an Exhibition Day for six of the seventh graders. They will be introducing each of the Mythology Projects as well as reading aloud from their writing on the subject. This will comprise their final Exhibition. More to come, in a new post, on Exhibitions for the remaining students.

Isobel and Mike: Avalon Breads Exhibition

This was the tastiest Exhibition of them all.

After working for an hour at Earthworks Urban Farm over on the east side of Detroit, we drove over to the Cass Corridor for Mike and Isobel's Exhibition at Avalon Breads. They set us up at a table in the midst of a busy afternoon at the bakery/cafe on Willis Street. (On the way over, we passed the Museum of Contemporary Art, where we had gone with Monica a month before.)

Isobel and Mike set us up with delicious cookies. Then someone knocked over Karl's coffee, which spilled all over Aristea, so there was a little delay. Then, while we ate, Mike and Isobel explained that Avalon was founded in 1997 to help brighten up the Midtown section of the city. Several businesses in the immediate vicinity of Avalon hadn't been there when they first opened the bakery.

Like Earthworks, Avalon was founded after some meetings with representatives from the Boggs Center, a social activist group devoted to improving the lives of Detroiters. Avalon's motto, Eat Well, Do Good, reflects their dual mission of social justice and great food. (Food is love, after all.)

Isobel and Mike proposed that we have some SK events catered by Avalon. The chief financial officer of the company said earlier that she liked that idea and that it would be feasible, because Avalon delivers products to Ann Arbor every day. We also hoped that there might be some opportunities for Avalon people to teach baking at SK, or hold lessons that we could organize and attend in the city. However, in spite of numerous invitations, no one from Avalon responded or came to the Exhibition, so we are skeptical about future collaborations.

We are grateful to Denali's father, Budge Gere, for helping out with transportation.

Aristea and Trent: Earthworks Urban Farm Exhibition

Maya and Lily took some notes on Aristea and Trent's Exhibition, which occurred at Earthworks Urban Farm on the east side of Detroit.

We started off with taking a look through one of the greenhouses. Aristea and Trent told us all about Earthworks. It was very interesting and we learned a lot about how Earthworks helps the city. The farm has been around since 1997. There have been other farms in this area of the city since the 1880s. Earthworks was founded on the principles of a Detroit activist named Grace Lee Boggs. They then introduced us to Denis Rochac and Roxanne Moore, who are the Education Coordinator and the Farm Manager. 

They added some thoughts to the Exhibition about the term 'food desert', which has been used to describe neighborhoods where people can't get to grocery stores easily. Denis and Roxanne heard a speaker observe that 'food desert' makes it sound like those people are living in a total wasteland, which isn't really the case. 

After Aristea and Trent had conducted their Exhibition, we got to do some gardening. We were moving tomato seedlings from small trays to big trays. We all got our hands dirty and had a good experience. We were pleased to hear that Aristea and Trent were going to help us to continue connecting with Earthworks. Overall the exhibition was fabulous.

Mythology Circles

We're doing some work with the sixth graders over the course of the next five weeks. Twice a week, we meet in groups of three. Each group comprises one student each from sixth, seventh and eighth graders (except one, which has one six and two sevens). The six groups are reading mythology from Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, Ghana, and Mesoamerica (modern-day Mexico, Guatemala and Belize).

Between now and May 23, the groups will read aloud together, compose and respond to three writing prompts, and plan a final project which will be on display at a public gathering on the afternoon of Friday, May 23. The seventh graders, who are facilitating each trio's work, will take a few minutes to present those projects and to take questions.

Below is the table of contents from the Mythology coursepack. The Brazilian readings are on pages 6-32; Mesoamerica, pp 33-45; Ghana, pp 46-74; Australia, pp 75-97; China, pp 98-129; Britain, pp 131-180. 

MYTHOLOGY
Map of the World	Public Domain	1
What Is a Myth?	Marcia Worth-Baker	2
The Angel with Bent Legs	Alex Bellos	6
Pele the Malandro	Simon Kuper	20
Tales of the Amazon	Daniel Munduruku	25
America's First People	Larry Gonick	33
Mayan Hieroglyphs	Duiker & Spielvogel	36
Popul Vuh	Goetz & Morley	37
Ball Game	Larry Gonick	42
A Deadly Sport	David Rodriguez	43
Zero	Charles Siefe	44
How Spider Became . . . . .	Peter Eric Adotey Addo	46
"We Oppose President Stomach!"	Dorliae & Wangboje	61
The Ghana Empire	Lisa Klobuchar	72
Ghana Rises	Larry Gonick	73
Dreamtime	John Haywood	75
Uluru	Roff Martin Smith	77
Art, Magic & Sorcery	John Haywood	80
Dreamtime	Oodgeroo	84
The Ch'i-lin Purse	Fang & Lee	98
Following the Dao	Jennifer Oldstone-Moore	117
Speechless	Lao-Tzu	119
Seven Meditations	Lao-Tzu	121
The Dragon's Tale	Demi	129
St George and the Dragon	James Muirden	130
King Arthur	Roger Lancelyn Green	131

Nico and Jianmarco: Kidpreneur Exhibition

Jonathan and Denali made some observations about Jianmarco and Nico's Exhibition. Though the subject of the session was an organization called Kidpreneur, the Exhibition took place at the D-Hive on Woodward Avenue.

The Kidpreneur lesson was inspiring. I know that, for us, it would probably be more interesting if we could participate in the program; but we're too old, since the organization has activities for kids ages 9-13. 

Nico and Jianmarco started out the lesson by telling us about Kidpreneur and how it was founded. It's a new group founded by an entrepreneur named Thanh Tran, who teaches kids coding, the laguage of the future, and how to set up a business. Unfortunately, Thanh just moved the office out to Wixom, so we set up in the D-Hive next door. 

Then we were engaged in an activity through a website called Hour of Code. Hour of Code is basically exactly what it sounds like, a place you code for around an hour doing small puzzles with the code. The Hour of Code is designed for kids to make it easier for them to write code but anyone can use it for practicing code all around the world.

I think we could both tell Jianmarco and Nico spent time on preparing their Exhibition, since I got a lot out of it, even with me not really being not able to participate in Kidpreneur. Thanh founded the group partly because he believed that his two kids were not getting enough information about technology.

We hope that Jianmarco and Nico can continue their relationship with Kidpreneur to teach code to the kids of Summers-Knoll.

Lily and Maya: Detroit City FC Exhibition

Here are some notes from Aristea and Trent on Maya and Lily's Exhibition, which took place in the front office of the Detroit City Football Club.

First, they introduced themselves and Donovan Powell, who is the general manager of the team. They told us what he is in charge of to clear up any confusion between names and people. They also mentioned that last year Detroit City FC averaged about 1,800 fans per game. 

The history: there are 5 Detroit residents who wanted to expand the soccer community in the city, so, in December 2011, Detroit City FC was started. The first coach was coach Kylie Stannard and the assistant coach was Cale Wasserman. Although due to other obligations they could not stay, the present coach, Ben Pirmann, has had a lot of success. They play at a football field at Cass Tech, which seats 2,500 people, although the most who have ever been at a game was 2,634 (some must have been standing). Last year the team didn't lose a game until the playoffs.

They have a long list of sponsors, including the Detroit Creative Corridor, Nike, and El Guapos. Lily and Maya hope we can collaborate by going to a game, maybe volunteering at a game, meeting some of the players, and other soccer-related activities.

Over all I loved the Exhibition. We played a fun medics-and-doctors soccer game that Lily and Maya made up at County Farm Park after we got back from Detroit.  I look forward to helping Detroit City FC.