Our 1st Year, Session 3, Week 2
Animal Farm
During D.E.A.R (Drop everything and read) some of our older Eagles have taken a liking to listening to Mr. Molley read George Orwell’s Animal Farm out loud – the story of animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.
The book is a great backdrop for some of the tools they have been taught and are implementing as they learn to speak to each other with kindness, use teamwork, control their emotions, settle disputes, and avoid “being petty” by asking for Eagle bucks.
Peer critiquing other’s writing with kindness (warm and cool feedback) has made tremendous progress and their work is getting better and better.
If they are to successfully self-govern their own school they will need more than these skill sets.
We introduced and discussed “Grit”, the power of passion, self control, and perseverance to achieve their goals.
How do we build and maintain Grit?
Ancient Civilizations
Each week we learn and have discussions about ancient civilizations – and this week we focused on the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, Ashurbanipal and the building of the Library of Nineveh!
We have been diving deep into Greek Culture for our quest this session and Eagles have made salt dough maps of Greece, ancient yo-yos, using a loom to make hats, and an Abacus that can be used for a week when they do math!
We learned about Aristotle and the concept of “Philosophy” was introduced with discussions about the senses and how we interpret reality: Ex. Do we all perceive the color red the same way?
Eagles listened to greek music, enjoyed greek food, and learned about greek rhetorical appeals:
- Ethos: which tells the audience about your credibility and experience (for example, why they should trust you)
- Pathos: which uses emotion to appeal to the audience (many advertisements use pathos, for example)
- Logos: which uses logic to explain why what you are saying is right (for example, Sojourner Truth, who fought for women’s equal rights)
These lessons are helping them in writers workshop to write their “pitch a field trip” speech at the end of the session to convince the guides and classmates to buy into their idea for a field trip!
The 3 Deadly Traps
Eagles have been learning and working on the 3 traps will derail you on your heroes journey:
Resistance: It’s so difficult to take the first step;
Solution = Take the first step
Distraction: I’m too distracted by day-to-day life to stay focused long enough to master something; and
Solution = Focus
Victim Mentality: Life isn’t fair. The world is against me. I’m a victim.
Solution = Gratitude”
This week an Eagle had a challenging task that should have taken about 30 minutes of focused hard work to complete, but instead took 4 days to accomplish it.
This Eagle chose to put it off, look to others to do it for them, and complain and whine about doing it. RESISTANCE!
Some of the other Eagles did not take to kindly to this behavior and refused to “give them a fish” or “help” when they didn’t want to do the work.
“Nobody wants to help me! It’s not fair!” was the familiar cry of VICTIM!
The Eagle finally overcome resistance and we celebrated!!! ……But then they were faced with a new problem: DISTRACTION!
Other Eagles had already moved on and were doing fun and exciting projects now and this Eagle refused to do the required work at their desk alone with quiet focus- they made the choice to remain near the action.
Constantly distracted and looking over at what they were doing certainly wasn’t helping this Eagle achieve the goal…
This went on during quest time for 4 days, and finally ending with a change of attitude, tactics, and a better understanding of themselves.
This Eagle finally overcame that challenge independently and it was celebrated- a lesson much more important that reading a few difficult paragraphs about Greek Gods and making a paper plate map of Greece.
We’re proud of this Eagle’s perseverance, the other Eagle’s adherence to their contact, and our patience as guide’s paying off.
Not every lesson needs too be learned with such a struggle, but this one was well worth it!
Outside PE!
Eagle’s enjoyed playing outdoor sports this week during PE!
