Moving Right Along

Last Thursday and Friday was our 4th meeting of 20% Time.  Students published their second blog post, watched and evaluated the second TED talk, and conferenced with me about their project.  This time, I had to institute a deadline for all blog posts and comments.  After the first blog post, several students took awhile to publish a blog, which didn't allow some students to complete their comments. Some students still have not commented yet on their assigned people's blogs. We will see how this works and see if I need to further regulate posting and commenting.  For the most part, most students finish publishing and commenting in a timely manner.  Of all of the things that we did these days, the one that I enjoyed the most was conferencing with the students.  I got a chance to find out how things were going with their projects, find out where they were stumbling, and offer advice to them to help them achieve their goals.

I spoke with one student, whom I usually conference with on a regular basis, to find out how organizing an art show for the local high schools was going.  Savannah's 20% Time Project is to organize an art show for the seven high schools in our valley at our local mall.  A few weeks ago, she met with the director of our Westfield Mall to look at vacant stores where she could have her art show.  Savannah has decided on a spot and is currently working on a calendar for the art show.  She has decided to, not just have one art show, but have 4 art shows spanning 4 weekends.  She will have our high school go first and by themselves that she can work out any "kinks" that may arise.  The next 3 weeks, she will pair 2 high schools at a time.  Savannah will be sending out an email to the other high school teachers about the art show and getting their students pieces in the show.  She has sought out the help and mentoring from her AP art studio teacher.  All-in-all, Savannah is doing a wonderful job and it just shows that if a student is PASSIONATE about something, they will put their heart and soul into it.  I am extremely proud of her.

I spoke with another student, Jared, about his project, in which he wants to create an entire music album.  At first, I thought, this was a very lofty idea and then I come to find out, after conferencing with him, that he has 6 out of the 10 songs written; music and lyrics.  He also has the introduction written.  Jared intends to play every instrument and provide the vocals to his album.  He then shared and showed me the lyrics to some of his songs and all I can say is "WOW!!"  The inspiration for some of his songs come from personal experience, which you can feel the emotion in his words.  It was truly amazing!!

TED Talk #2- Birke Baehr

"What's Wrong With Our Food System?"