The Rangeview building is nearly quiet this afternoon. It isn’t that the exchange students all went to the beach today but that this year’s National Academy has run out of time.
The machines still hum but the electricity of rigorous academic work is missing. From a discussion of constitutional citizenship befitting an intelligent people to an afternoon of panel presentations, our Friday was heavy with hard work and world-making ideas.
This is the Academy that forever has the story of the L.A. quake during a lecture and 100 different strategies for propping a door open. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so many ice cream sandwiches in three weeks time!
As the group made their way to the exit this morning, we all wondered about Infanta’s super early super shuttle. It looks like she made it. There was an emergency mission to reunite Zeke with his toiletries at LAX. There might be room here for a joke about his short-shorts but I’ll let it pass. Todd had just one more moment of frustration when the van driver couldn’t find his reservation but it was no problem for Mir. He took the opportunity to have one more cigarette.
But there’s too much that’s happened here to simply walk away. What will you do with it all?
Politicolor is a space to talk through it. The 2007 crew has used Politicolor to share their work during the Academy and express their appreciation. And, remembering time with new friends or out of this world experiences is exactly how Politicolor got its start.
What do you want to remember? Alumni, don’t hesitate to join the conversation by telling us how the Academy has “haunted” you this past school year. This crew from 2008 might need your help to find solid ground as they return to school. If anyone would like to share their work from the Academy (either the writing project or the panel presentation), e-mail me and let’s share it.
So, one more afternoon of crafting questions to continue the conversation….
What thoughts did you have as the National Academy drew to a close?
How is the work of the Academy threatening to reverberate through your teaching and thinking?
What are you most proud of when you review your writing assignment or panel presentation?
Did a colleague’s presentation provoke a new degree of clarity or spark a new curiosity?
Okay, I’m gonna drop the book on the floor of this room.
The National Academy permeated my self and my classroom, in the year after the summer of ’07. The most concrete way in which it did so was through the introduction of the middle school We the People curriculum.
I’m a Montessori teacher, and we don’t take kindly to text books. However, with the incredible foundation of the Nat’cademy firmly underfoot, I thought We the People to be a great frame for the house we built. And it was.
This year, I intend to introduce Will’s boxes and many more primary documents. I’ll allow greater access to the philosophers of the Academy, too.
The theory is now crucial to my teaching. Furthermore, Will has been a huge influence on my teaching style. Flip back to Mutter’s postings at “To provoke: More Serious Questions about Constitutional Thinking” and “Will’s Pedagogy: A Fragment”, as well as Stepwinder’s “A Federalist Education” for a sampling!
I hope the class of ’07 can soon hear from the class of ’08 to swap notes.
I find my self teaching psychology this semester, as opposed to contemporary issues, history, or government. I just found out about this change of assignments on Thursday (after school started Wednesday, the 6th!). On the one hand, my bachelor’s is in psych, but on the other, the paradigm of my day was deconstructive in focus. Reconstructing, for example a multiple personality, was not covered in undergrad, and I didn’t pursue graduate work (the psych profs were downright psycho!).
That was 30 years ago (man, am I old or what!) and my thinking has shifted toward constructivism–tremendously boosted by the 2007 NA. The challenge for me will be to tie together different approaches (behavioral, cognitive,etc.) for my students. Any ideas?? I love to be taught, not just to teach!
Laura