Telling our story with objects

Today I decided to ask the children to think like historians. I wanted them to learn that objects can tell us a story. My end goal for the next few lessons is to guide their thinking about how objects can tell us about the past, how objects can become different pieces in a story about the past.

So I asked them to pick five objects in the classroom that told the story of us, of our class and what we do here. I was so surprised at what they came up with I just had to share it.

The first clue that something different was going to happen was when Tally asked " Can we do this metaphorically?"  As I was being open to their thoughts I replied, "sure, that sounds interesting." Now thinking purely as a historian I might not have gone there, but we are exploring and I was intrigued.

Each group quite quickly came up with five objects and were easily able to write down the reason for choosing each object. Here are their thoughts.

Mallory, Lila and Sydney

A photograph of me – representing the importance of the teacher  (nice to hear!)

Maraca – straightforward representation of music but also the deeper thought that our classroom is  festive and happy

Belt – friendship - "friends tied together" and the connections between us

Word study book – writing down ideas and continually making them better

scissors and glue – our close community, "we know how to help each other when in sticky situations.”

As interesting were the comments that followed. Arthur commented that "a musical instrument could also represent how we express ourselves."

The first group had actually started out very simply. They had picked the workbooks to literally show the work that was being done. Then the group felt like it didn't tell the whole story. "The belt started the whole symbolic vibe" said Lila "The workbooks had no emotion."

Tally and Dylan

Glue – us sticking together as a community.

Crayon – one in a million we are all very unique.

Binoculars – seeing each other as we truly are.

Sharpie – how our ideas stand – they can change things, they are permanent.

Clock – the time ticking – we are persistent – the clock never stops.

This set of items also encouraged comments. Mallory noticed the use of the glue stick as a very different symbol then their group. Dylan replied that her group's glue was like their group's belt. Sophia added onto the binoculars metaphor saying that "with binoculars you can see more than with regular eyes, you can see what people are like." Jude added "we look out for each other."

                                                                    Sam and Jude

The book “Trouble Talk” - representing both the role of guidence class and friendship

 Map – the whole world where we live, and how to navigate through life.

Ping Pong - Sam's fiction story  representing the improvements the class had made with their writing.

Investigations book – tells the story of our math program, not just naked numbers but real problem solving.

A copy of the schedule –  represents what we do each day – how we work together.

Comments included Mallory noticing that their objects were "half telling a story and half metaphorical." Dylan added that she sees the map a representation of "how far we've gone this year."

Arthur and Grace

Computer – representing choices we make about writing style, and also our best work.

Rubics Cube creativity, thought and imagination.

Book – reading, growth, knowledge and imagination.

Pencil - thought and writing.

Eraser – going over your work and thinking about it

Mallory noted that she liked how they put imagination in almost everything . "I love what you did with the eraser. If you think you don't have a good idea, you don't have to keep it. There are good ideas and bad ideas. Kind of opposite of what Dylan and Tally had." Arthur added that he felt the eraser represented that"it is okay to start over."

Stella and Sophia

Dictionary – learning new things about writing and reading, all of our knowledge.

Marker – creativity

Eraser – erase mistakes and not being afraid to start over.

Rubics cube – everyone is unique – all the different colors and the little people on it too.

Paper dolls – our community and everyone is unique

Samantha noticed the importance of being both a community and being unique and that the group had included two objects to represent that. Sophia replied that they had at first noticed the rosebud paper and chose it to represent "children blooming, learning new things."

What struck me most about this experience was that the children went immediately to the habits of mind, the dispositions and social aspects of their learning. The objects represented not subjects that they were learning but practice with life experiences. They showed that those are the things they are working on, those are the things that are important to them. It was a joy to watch them thinking in this way, and made me feel so happy about the work that we do.

When thinking like historians, we pick objects that tell us about a time in history. We draw conclusions about what we find and piece together a story. Of course, the children live their story and have applied symbolic meanings to their objects based on their own experiences. But it certainly gears them up for thinking about the significance of objects and why they might be significant in a historical study.

Patience Salgado helps us find our call

We have been working so much on different projects about stopping litter that it was time to refocus.  We have made reusable bags to lessen the use of grocery bags, started a hankie factory to lessen the use of tissues. We have laminated our anti-littering posters and placed them around campus, our "I vow to not litter" board is full of signatures. We have picked up litter on our campus and in the city, and we've started looking into launching a world wide social media campaign. Some of the children were concerned that we had too many disparate things going on. Taking their lead I felt we needed to slow down a little, figure out why we were doing all these different things and then refocus our thoughts. Anna once again to the rescue, she called in Patience Salgado to help us - Patience is known as the Kindness Girl (kindnessgirl.com). She has made a life of spreading kindness and has even undertaken a project with the local trash men that inspired our thankyou notes.

Patience told us about some of her projects, then invited the children to share theirs. So they told her about their goal of ridding the world of litter. How they had had litter pick ups not only at school but also at Abner Clay Park. How they had put up signs and invited others to share in picking up the trash. They told her about their thank you notes for the trash men and how they wanted to throw them a party. The discussion was animated as the class gleefully told her all they had done, they are so proud of their work.

The class were then invited to focus in on their work and to think of it in the categories of:

Humanity - What do we have in common? How are we in this thing together?

Advocacy - What do we want to change in the world? Who do we want to empower?

Community - School? Neighborhood? City? World?

Whais important? Simple? Accessible? Free/low cost?

Guerilla - What do we want to say?  What do we want to rise?

On large sheets of paper the children crowded around the tables eargerly  sharing  their

ideas.     "Let's stop litter together."      "Respect the trash collectors."     " A healthy planet"

"I would like to make a litter free world."

"I want to talk with the trash people and help them receive respect."

"I want people to understand people do so much for us, like the trash men."

"People need to understand the problem and what people do for them."

"I want people to think differently about litter."

They also decided that their project needed to be public, involve the community and be BIG!

Breaking down their project into these categories really helped the class focus in on their project. To remind them of the main ideas of their work, and their intentions. Also Patience was so intrigued by their work, and so on board with what they were trying to accomplish, that the children really did feel that they were indeed making a difference with what they were doing.  She noticed that they were "trying to change the world's attitude towards litter, and educating each other.....knowing what the problem is and how it affects us."

They then had to be sure of their Call. What is a call? Patience explained to them that it is something they need to do, something they have a passion for and only works if they believe in it.

At the end of a wonderfully rich discussion Patience asked us to keep checking in with her. She told the class "I am so grateful for you and am proud that you are in our city."

So all geared up we headed back to think about our call- what did we really want to accomplish? Do all these different things we are doing match with our goal?

Working closely with Anna we relooked at our original question for our project.

"How can we make Richmond a better place for children?" Then brainstormed on how to match it with what we were doing.

So we picked out the important words and reordered them on paper.   

We now have our call.

"We want to make Richmond a clean happy place by picking up litter, and we think that making it fun is important to add to the happiness and brightness. If everyone picks up litter we can leave positive messages and create a positive idea of Richmond." 

I think that is pretty attainable!

 "This project was made possible by an award from Partners in the Arts."