Thursday, July 13, 2017

Productive Scholars!!!

 
One thing you don't expect is how passionate the scholars can be once they're very into their individual projects. We have 5 group projects and 2 individual projects. Dan, Rachel, and I really wanted to leave it up to the students as far as what to do. We asked them to tell a story that goes beyond the stereotypes that sometimes follow refugees, particularly those from Syria. These students took it and ran with it!
 
We have 3 physical projects- an essay, skit, and portrait- and 4 digital projects- a spoken word, book, poetry, and a picture essay. Each project is a testament to each student's hard work this past week.  

Reflection 4 Day 4

Wow. What a day. Our students--every single one of them--came up with an introspective way to represent their story of migration on their T-shirt and in relation to the props they used in their picture of themselves in their T-shirts. The energy in the room today was electric--the kids were excited to finally be creating their digital representations of their shirts, one of their Balfour educators from another program came into the classroom for a while so that they could model and explain their shirts to him, and we even had about 10 minutes of time at the beginning and end of class so that they could finish what they have called "their" game of Guess Who--where they draw out a card with 3 facts about someone in the room and try to guess who the person is. They LOVE that game:) This week has been wonderful for both Derya and I, and we hope that at the end of their journey tomorrow they will take away the love and understanding they have shown for each other into all facets of their lives forever. They are great kids and deserve the best always.

Day 3 Balfour Galactic Reflection



Day 3 Balfour Galactic
Today we decided to start with a parking lot where students could ask any questions they'd like if they were still unsure about anything related to or about inequalities on the pink sticky notes. Then I briefly introduced the Tanzania library project with them and told them to ask any additional questions on the orange sticky notes (we will Skype with the Peace Corps member on Thursday and she will answer the questions and more), we ended by starting and continuing to work on our global inequality local maps. Students used various art forms to express these such as magazines, words, symbols and more to show their communities and inequalities present there. We felt like it was a great session and were especially impressed with their questions and ways they expressed their communities. Today, (Thursday) we plan to Skype with former Peace Corp member, Ellen Jorgenson, explore how music art forms are educational with Julie, and continuing to work on their maps.