Friday, October 11, 2013
Delta safely in SLC
The Delta squadron arrived safely for dinner in the company of the Great Salt Lake. We are on schedule for our departure to JFK. Kids are happy and looking forward to seeing their parents. We'll update you if our status changes.
Meeting with St. Stephen's School
BC 8th graders had the opportunity to meet 4th and 5th graders from St. Stephen's School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, serving the Arapahoe and Shoshane communities in St. Stephen's, Wyoming. Interestingly, the meeting of these disparate schools can be traced to Istanbul, Turkey, where Ms. O'Brien and Mr. Agnor traveled with Dara Weller, a lead educator of St. Stephen's, on a Middle East Outreach trip in 2012.
In anticipation of our meeting, each school made short documentary films, which introduced the students and environs of our respective communities. Yesterday, students played football and elimination on the field and made forts on the hillside together. Later, students signed each other's t'shirts in the dining hall. Our students were challenged to keep up with these energetic and excited youngsters!
Delayed in Denver - 45minutes
As of now the United/Denver group is delayed 45 minutes. We'll update the blog if the flight is delayed any later. Otherwise check the blog for arrival at LGA.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Walking With Bison
Spend time with kids from the city in big sky country and you learn interesting things.
Ten eighth graders from the town of Brooklyn now had the unlikely team name of Bison. But walking with Bison teaches you to see things through their eyes.
It took us half an hour to go a quarter of a mile. The discussion over which animal might have made a particular print in the mud on the trail required consultation with trail guides which Elena read aloud. Various hypotheses were floated, attacked, dissected. Measurements in centimeters were discussed. Elk? Bison? Bear? An animal slipping as it attempted to gallop accounting for a longer than normal print? Definitive answers were few but this cabal of amateur scientists were more than ready for endless debate.
Trail climbing here is harder than it seems. The air is thin. Legs don't work the way they do in the flatlands of New York City. Ears pop as you gain altitude and push well beyond the 6000 foot mark. We could look out at the Teton mountain range in full regalia this afternoon, clouds snagged on the granite teeth of the peaks.
We gathered at the summit of the trail and listened to a reading of Dr. Seuss's fable, "The Lorax", about a world whose nature is at risk.
Afterwards, I asked the 8th graders, what is the one thing you would want people back in Brooklyn to know about what you have seen and now know yourselves?
Celia: "I learned about the landscape and how every action by each person affects it."
Alex: "You have to think before you say and do anything."
Allegra: "We don't have unlimited chances to fix the environment."
Taylor: "We have to correct our bad habits. Little things matter in what we choose to do."
Elena: "Think about the small things you do. Even throwing away your unfinished dinner has an impact."
Akwasi: "You need all the things that are around you in order to survive. You have to think about how what you do affects all of those things."
Kian: "Be aware of long term effects."
I gave considerable thought to these and many other comments that our students made. I realized suddenly that the massive, unyielding nobility of these ranges is deceptive. The way we live is not sustainable and this younger generation seems to really see, without despair or flinching, that choices are available and possible.
Reading the daily paper out here has not been possible for five days so I have been reading the daily front pages of the natural world. The news is simple: laws of nature are immutable but we are slow to learn what they mean. We have difficulty respecting them.
So these young scientists, philosophers, humanists are silly, giddy, chatty; also, profound, hopeful and wise. But they love what they have seen. They said explicitly that they have had a special chance to come to Wyoming and they will try to take their lessons home to their friends and families.
And then on the last stretch of trail, Allegra said how important this trip had been in the wake of yesterday's news to bring everyone together as people.
"Sometimes we have disagreed in my grade," she said, "over silly things. People hadn't spoken to each other because they didn't know each other. But everyone reached out to everyone else yesterday and that was a really good, important thing."
There is nothing more to add. The boys are downstairs playing "Magic-The Gathering", an infernally complicated fantasy game. The girls are upstairs in their lodge, presumably talking. Everyone's suitcase is packed. And tomorrow, in the eminent convenience of time's particular logic, waits for us. That is a good and hopeful thing.
Ten eighth graders from the town of Brooklyn now had the unlikely team name of Bison. But walking with Bison teaches you to see things through their eyes.
It took us half an hour to go a quarter of a mile. The discussion over which animal might have made a particular print in the mud on the trail required consultation with trail guides which Elena read aloud. Various hypotheses were floated, attacked, dissected. Measurements in centimeters were discussed. Elk? Bison? Bear? An animal slipping as it attempted to gallop accounting for a longer than normal print? Definitive answers were few but this cabal of amateur scientists were more than ready for endless debate.
Trail climbing here is harder than it seems. The air is thin. Legs don't work the way they do in the flatlands of New York City. Ears pop as you gain altitude and push well beyond the 6000 foot mark. We could look out at the Teton mountain range in full regalia this afternoon, clouds snagged on the granite teeth of the peaks.
We gathered at the summit of the trail and listened to a reading of Dr. Seuss's fable, "The Lorax", about a world whose nature is at risk.
Afterwards, I asked the 8th graders, what is the one thing you would want people back in Brooklyn to know about what you have seen and now know yourselves?
Celia: "I learned about the landscape and how every action by each person affects it."
Alex: "You have to think before you say and do anything."
Allegra: "We don't have unlimited chances to fix the environment."
Taylor: "We have to correct our bad habits. Little things matter in what we choose to do."
Elena: "Think about the small things you do. Even throwing away your unfinished dinner has an impact."
Akwasi: "You need all the things that are around you in order to survive. You have to think about how what you do affects all of those things."
Kian: "Be aware of long term effects."
I gave considerable thought to these and many other comments that our students made. I realized suddenly that the massive, unyielding nobility of these ranges is deceptive. The way we live is not sustainable and this younger generation seems to really see, without despair or flinching, that choices are available and possible.
Reading the daily paper out here has not been possible for five days so I have been reading the daily front pages of the natural world. The news is simple: laws of nature are immutable but we are slow to learn what they mean. We have difficulty respecting them.
So these young scientists, philosophers, humanists are silly, giddy, chatty; also, profound, hopeful and wise. But they love what they have seen. They said explicitly that they have had a special chance to come to Wyoming and they will try to take their lessons home to their friends and families.
And then on the last stretch of trail, Allegra said how important this trip had been in the wake of yesterday's news to bring everyone together as people.
"Sometimes we have disagreed in my grade," she said, "over silly things. People hadn't spoken to each other because they didn't know each other. But everyone reached out to everyone else yesterday and that was a really good, important thing."
There is nothing more to add. The boys are downstairs playing "Magic-The Gathering", an infernally complicated fantasy game. The girls are upstairs in their lodge, presumably talking. Everyone's suitcase is packed. And tomorrow, in the eminent convenience of time's particular logic, waits for us. That is a good and hopeful thing.
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