Skype Chat recap

My plan was to skype with my friend's 6th grade class from a reservation in South Dakota. Using SMART notebook, thank you school for downloading it onto my computer, I was going to record the chat and show it to my other 4 classes that didn't get to be part of it in the first place. Well, to cut the story short - at the end of the chat I went to hit save and my computer decided "delete" was a better option. So there is no copy of the skype chat out there - sorry other classes of kids.

In any case, the chat itself went well. You had my 22 juniors and my friend's 8 sixth graders, but it went well enough. Right when the skype chat turned on, you could hear her kids yell, "wait, why are they all white?" Awkward.

The questions both sides were asking were pretty good. Basic ones like "what do you do in your spare time?" "how far away from your school do you live?" and "what's your family like?" were able to provide a lot of info about both sides.

There was one kid in my friend class that would answer every question by first saying "shiiiiiiiiit" like he was wicked cool. My kids kept turning back and looking at me, "did he just swear? I think he just did it again ... Wow, this kid just won't stop ... This is hilarious!"

Skype Chat

No real funny stories or experiences have happened lately. I'm in the middle of my Native American unit as of now and it''s going well. We just started going over the Reservation system as of the 21st Century with a specific look at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (where I used to work). We've read articles, watched videos (20/20 did a Special about the Rez on October 14th), looked at pictures, and I told about my experiences.

Tomorrow, in one of my classes, I'm skyping with my friend who teaches on a the Pine Ridge Reservation. My juniors will be asking her 6th graders questions and vice versa. Today in class, we went over the appropriate and inappropriate questions they could ask. You can't just ask a 6th grader "what's poverty like?" straight out. Instead, what we covered today, was how to get answer you want but by asking the correctly phrased questions. For example, if you ask "how many people do you live with?" it is not intrusive, inappropriate, or rude. But you would be able to find out a lot about a child's home life if they answer that they live with over 10 other people.

In any case, we'll see how it goes. My students seem really excited about it. But who knows, they might get "stage fright" and not ask any questions tomorrow.

Random Assortment of Stories

 “I kind of just grabbed it and it was in my hand, so I just went back to my seat” – Student in the cafeteria

I started to overhear two students talking about how weird it is to go to a Catholic school. One girl said this high school is the first Catholic school she’s gone to and the guy with her started to say that he’s not even Catholic; he was Protestant and didn’t understand the “rituals” involved with Mass.

GIRL: “do you still receive the Eucharist at Mass?”

BOY: “I don’t wanna look unclean by not going up.”

GIRL: “seriously, what do you do?”

BOY: “the first time I went up, I just kind of give them a head nod and grabbed it, I didn’t know you had to do all this weird stuff [does the sign of the cross].”

GIRL: “did you say Amen?”

BOY: “no, I kind of just grabbed it and it was in my hand, so I just went back to my seat. Then it got really awkward, people started to ask me, ‘why do you still have the body of Christ in your hands?’ and then a teacher yelled at me. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Also today I had two guys point to their crotches while talking to me. Why? I don’t know either.

GUY 1: “so I got poison oak this weekend, all over. On my face, on my arms, and … [points to his crotch and makes an awkward expression]”

GUY 2: talking about a girl on an opposing volleyball team, “yeah she was really good at volleyball, she could jump high and everything but she hit me in the crotch [points] right when I walked in after she spiked the ball over the net so I didn’t like her.”

High school kids are great.

This morning, I had a girl from one of my classes run up to me in the hallway, “Chad [a classmate] got in a car accident!” she then proceeded to keep walking by, I asked if he was ok, “oh yeah, he’s fine. Whatever.” She was obviously concerned. 

Tone

Sometimes when I teach I try to create a tone for the class. As lame, cheesy, and stupid as that sounds. Today we are learning about the Massacre of Wounded Knee. I could easily have just lectured the information and told them exactly what happened, but that doesn’t do it justice. So instead, I try to create a tone for the room. On Friday I did my first run of this lesson and I’m doing it four more times today. I shut off the lights, closed the curtains, projected a picture of a snowy hill and valley and took a seat at the front of the class. I never normally sit down when I teach, and most times it freaks me out if I do. But for this lesson, I simply want to tell my students a story. I slowly get their attention and begin the story. It’s a depressing and kind of heavy story about the massacre of the Lakota tribe at the site of Wounded Knee Creek. In total, close to 300 Lakota men, women, and children died. I told them the story of the events of the day, about the three day blizzard that followed soon after and the mass grave that was dug after that.

The class was silent, we finished with fifteen minutes still left in the period, but I knew it wouldn’t be wise to keep going. I decided to stop and just answer questions knowing how heavy the class had been. The kids (juniors and seniors) looked a little stunned, they were silent and seemingly afraid to be the first person to make a noise. Eventually one girl asked a question which started a good discussion in class.

The bell rang and instead of them jumping up and sprinting out of the room, the casually took their time. As depressing a class it was, I know my students won’t forget it. They may forget the names of the people and the facts of what happened, but they’ll always remember the tone & mood of the room and the weight of the story of the Massacre of Wounded Knee.

Tatanka Sauce

While teaching about the importance of the buffalo (tatanka in Lakota), a student asks, "is it true that you grind up the bones of a buffalo to make buffalo sauce? And what part of the buffalo is the wing?"

Idiots.

Wall o' Horses

Today we learned about the Battle of Little Bighorn and went over Custer and everything like that. One of the weirdest aspects of the battle happened towards the end when Custer was grasping at straws in order to defend himself. Having nothing for protection to use as cover, Custer actually ordered his men to shoot their horses and make a wall to hide themselves. I tried to get across to my students how ridiculous of an idea this was and I think it worked. In any case, one of my classes just kept referring to "horse wall" throughout the rest of the class.

At lunch, a science teacher came up to me and asked how my day was going (seemingly out of nowhere) I said it was fine, but she continued "some of my students couldn't help but talk about your class during mine. Something about a wall of horses? I don't know what they has to do with marine biology but they thought it was essential to share with the rest of the class."

Oh horse wall.

Pirate Ship

I tried the "Reservation System" with a different class of mine. The only other class I tried it with. It didn't go the way I wanted, they loved it. The were pumped they got to push their desks so close together. The point was still made, they still understand the reservation system - they just have positive memories of it.

I walked past one of the kids in the hallway yesterday morning:
ZACH: Can we sit like the Great Plains again today?
ME: No sorry, not today?
ZACH: What about the Rocky Mountains?
ME: No Zach.
ZACH: Appalachian Mountains?
ME: No Zach
ZACH: Mississippi?
ME: That's not even a mountain range.
ZACH: We can twist and bend the desks like the river.
ME: No Zach.
I walk into the Main Office, Zach keeps walking down the hall. W hen I leave the office, I see Zach in the hallway walking in the other direction.
ZACH: What about a pyramid?
ME: I was waiting for you to come up with a new one, but no.
ZACH: Pirate Ship?
Me: Ok, I'll give you that one.

In any case, I guess the overall goal of having them remember the reservation system did work. The kids have been sitting with the desks all bunched together for the past three days now. We'll see how long that keeps going.