CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING

From our LEARNING GOALS
Our ASFG community strives to be...
Critical and Creative Thinkers
Inquisitive, open-minded, and flexible
Adept at applying learning to new situations in appropriate ways
Creative problem solvers and responsible risk-takers
Critical researchers
La comunidad del ASFG se esfuerza por formar...
Pensadores críticos y creativos
Inquisitivos, abiertos y reflexivos
Capaces de aplicar sus conocimientos a nuevas situaciones
Creativos al solucionar problemas y responsables al tomar riesgos
Investigadores críticos
T H E A M E R I C A N S C H O O L F O U N D A T I O N O F G U A D A L A J A R A , A . C .
CREATIVE
AND
CRITICAL
THINKING
Painting a Picture of
Our Creative School
Challenge Week
From Ordinary to
Extraordinary
Gone Fishing
MARCH 2013
T H E A M E R I C A N S C H O O L F O U N D A T I O N O F G U A D A L A J A R A , A . C .

Elementary
36
Creatively
Exploring Biomes
and Ecosystems
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by 4-28, 4-29, and Ms. Jessie Johnson
We have been studying and researching biomes and ecosystems along with the
plants and animals that inhabit them. Our unit of study incorporated many types of
learning: reading analysis and discussion, technology, online simulations, research,
and art.
First, we learned what a biome is. Then we learned about biotic (living) and abiotic
(non-living) factors in ecosystems, and how they interact. We used our science
textbook and watched the Planet Earth videos in order to increase our knowledge of
the subject. We had numerous class discussions about the topic. The films were
super; exciting and interesting! While watching, we felt as if we were actually in a
variety of ecosystems – like the jungle! We were in awe when we saw the footage of
the Amazon River, the grasslands of Kenya, and the coastal ecosystems of South
Africa.
We then used our Netbooks to further explore ecosystems and food chains with a
computer simulation program called Gizmos. We saw how an ecosystem can evolve
over the years. The things we learned amazed us.
Then we researched ecosystems from our Folklorama countries. For example,we
learned about the colorful fynbos of South Africa, the wild Kenyan savannah, the lush
Amazon rainforest of Brazil, and the extraordinary cloud forest of Costa Rica.
Our research helped us create dioramas that represented our learning for this unit.
We gathered materials and began constructing our dioramas. It was exciting! We
highlighted animal and plant populations interacting within their food chains. We
had lots of fun and enjoyed being innovative.
Our next step is to write a five-paragraph research essay about the ecosystem we
studied, focusing on a specific animal from that environment. Our unit on biomes and
ecosystems was really fun, and we were able to be both creative and critical. We LOVE
Science!
CONTENTS Editor’s
note
Director’s note
Painting a Picture of Our Creative School
Learn Neuroscience - or Gardening!
Challenge Week
ASOMEX ASFG Guadalajara y ASOMEX Puebla
Assesing Oral Proficiency in Foreign Languages
Ciclo de Conferencias: Migración e Indígenas
From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Taking Time to Read
Gone Fishing, A Language Learning Tale
La clase de SSL: Aprendizaje creativo
Drawing to Learn!
9th Grade Honors Geometry Students Secure 3D Printer Donation for ASFG
An Afternoon with Noam Chomsky
Creative Message in Our Project
El pensamiento crítico y creativo a través de la creación de historias en grupo en Preescolar
History Through the Lens of the Imagination
The Enhancement of Critical and Creative Thinking Skills
Through Internships and Job Shadowing Opportunities at ASFG
Mr. Nacho Makes Science Come Alive
Una respuesta creativa para la implementación de la RIEB
La música y la creatividad en preescolar
Proyectos en beneficio de los futuros Ex Alumnos
Adapted Insect Designs
Critical And Creative Thinkers
The Fish Pharaoh: A 6th grade Cross-Curricular Experience
Un pequeño gran proyecto
Creatively Exploring Biomes and Ecosystems
The Scientific Method: A natural phenomenon in Early Childhood
2
3
4
6
8
10
11
12
13
14
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
24
26
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
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Editor’s note
Joaquin, 5 th grade: ”Creativity is the thing in your mind that makes you
do imaginative things.”
Welcome to our Creative and Critical Thinking edition
Since I sent out my call-for-writers email, I have been grappling with
these questions – what is the creative and critical process, and what
does it look like on our campus? I have learned that being creative is
systematized and intentional. It is not a random scribble on a page –
but having written this, I have to say that a scribble does have the
potential to be the beginning of something wonderfully creative.
The creative and critical process will only thrive in a school where
people talk about creativity openly. It will only thrive if teachers are
trusted to carry on, invent, recreate, learn, study, and experiment. It
definitely thrives in a school where 6th grade students mummify fish
and design their sarcophagus during an interdisciplinary unit on Egypt.
Paulina, 5th grade: “Creativity is having fresh and vivid ideas.”
We do things differently at our school. We look at problems and issues
from a number of angles and create solutions by systematically
critically thinking about things. We debate, Skype, research, and discuss
issues. This happens all over the school!
Creativity takes work, time, energy, and focus. Reflection is also a
crucial part of the process. It takes more than just someone like me
saying, please write about your creative project. It requires you to
dissect the method, have time to ponder it, and then express it.
Creativity is part of our quest for beauty and goodness, whether that is
beauty in a science experiment, an art project, or in realizing the
interconnectedness of life.
Fermin (5 th grade): “Creativity is when someone lets their mind flow and
think of things nobody else has thought before and put it on a
piece of work.”
Juan Diego in P1-6: “I love the desert for the sicri (secrets) in the cavs
(caves).” “I like the yellow-orange ski (sky) at sonset (sunset).”
In this issue we will visit an ES class which is taking on big issues with
its teacher, Ms. O’Connor. We will see how Dr. Hogan is asking his world
history students to imagine historical life, and not merely memorize the
events. John McKinley (MS) challenges us to decide to learn something
brand new. EC shows us the creative process of art, science, music, and
reading! In ES art class, students take everyday objects and turn them
into works of art with phenomenal results. Fifth grade art students
redesign insects to cope with environmental changes, and the new
bugs are stunning. We will read from Claudia Padilla (11 th grade) about
the creative process of interviewing Noam Chomsky over Skype for a
science project. Norma Guinto, from the Mexican Program, reflects on
the creative and critical way our teachers are taking on the Reforma.
Enjoy the journey around the school as we examine what it is to be a
creative and critical thinker.
Thank you to all teachers, students, and administrators who have
edited, written, drawn, dissected, and created for this edition. A special
thanks goes to Ms. Janet for her trust in the creative and critical process
over the years at ASFG. Thank you.
Kristen Fry
editor
Kristen Fry
art director
María José González
copy editors
Karen Corona, Norma Guinto & Julie
Villand
creative contributors
Amy Bokser, Caleb Cook, Diego
Soberanes, Alejandra Rodriguez,
Tina Carstensen, David Markman,
David Mc Grath, Nathanael Parson,
Karen Mercer, Julie Villand, John
McKinley, Ms. Jessie Johnson, the
Language Institute Team, Cassandra
Torres, Jodi Peterson, Juliet Evans,
Virginia Morgan, Karen Corona,
Bárbara Reyes, Karla Rosas, Renata
Rodríguez, Claudia Padilla, Joana de
Freitas, Miki Kuribayashi, Patty
Gutiérrez, Michael Hogan, Leonardo
José Díaz, Dawn Lussier, Norma
Guinto, Cristina González Ladrón de
Guevara, Mónica Caballero, Chris
Peterson, Mary Anne O’Connor, Sam
Morrison, Chris Swiggum, Alicia
Aizuri Minakata Viramontes,
Alejandro Garza, Brian Zink, Claudia
Padilla, Abby Thompson, Rhett
Butler, Michael Balog.
director general
Janet Heinze
The American School
Foundation of Guadalajara, A.C.
Colomos 2100
Colonia Italia Providencia
Guadalajara, Jalisco
C.P. 44630
México
t. 3648-0299
www.asfg.mx
“The organizations of
the future will
increasingly depend
on the creativity of
their members to
survive. Great Groups
offer a new model in
which the leader is an
equal among Titans. In
a truly creative
collaboration, work is
pleasure, and the only
rules and procedures
are those that advance
the common cause.”
- Warren Bennis
(Warren Gamaliel Bennis, born
March 8, 1925, is an American
scholar, organizational
consultant and author, widely
regarded as a pioneer of the
contemporary field of
Leadership studies.)
E
Director´s Note
arly on I realized that the majority of our students, faculty, staff, parents, and board
members were skilled critical and creative thinkers and as such brought a wealth of
knowledge, a willingness to listen, and great research skills to the collaborative table.
Discussing an issue at any level was thought of as a serious undertaking. Over the years
we have honed our creative interaction skills even more by practicing, often on a daily
basis, the art of being inquisitive, open minded, and flexible. We often ask ourselves,
“What if?” It is imperative that mature and vibrant schools, such as ASFG, create and
foster programs and attitudes that constantly improve student learning, school climate,
and community interaction. The process and practice of working together to create and
achieve our goals has included great successes as well as more than a few failed
attempts. However, never to be discouraged, we take a deep breath and begin again as
we have experienced that there is nothing more satisfying than participating in a
collaborative group where new ideas, thoughts, knowledge, or past experiences are
combined to create a new way of moving forward. There is a wonderful sense of
satisfaction and solidarity when the sum is more than the parts! Creative and
collaborative group discussions and decisions allow us to experiment with new activities
and attitudes. The fear of failure is greatly reduced.
Every Thursday afternoon the section principals, the director of the Mexican program, the
director of instruction and I meet to discuss school issues, policies, and procedures. We
share a small lunch and begin our work. At times the agenda is short, other times very
long, but what amazes me is no matter what the length of the agenda, the conversations
always extend beyond what is planned. Some might judge that we are wasting time or
that we are off task, but usually what takes place is that we are enjoying the intellectual
sparing and brainstorming sessions that lead us to very creative solutions to our issues.
Yes, it takes us longer to reach consensus but we have learned to enjoy and nurture the
journey as well as the end result. Our work and collaboration have become quite
pleasurable and you could even say playful at times. A person with a developed sense of
humor is a joy to work with and now the latest research confirms the fact that play
fosters creativity which results in innovative solutions and better decisions for all
stakeholders. So, if you are planning or attending a meeting, plan to have some fun!

High School
Painting a Picture of
Our Creative David Mc Grath, HS Principal Schoolby
In his popular TedTalk soon to top 15 million views, Sir Ken
Robinson shares the endearing anecdote of a little girl in a
classroom drawing a picture of God. The teacher leans in to
break the news gently, “Honey, no one knows what God
looks like.” The child replies with unscathed focus on her
drawing, “Don’t worry. They will in a minute.”
Such confidence and poise. So much to gain and so little to
lose... she has not yet learned inhibition and taking chances
is second nature to this five year old.
The call for 21 st century schools to highly value and
effectively teach creativity is loud and clear. We know the
world is changing at a mindboggling rate. We know
industrial economies are giving way to service economies.
And we know that most jobs our children will occupy don’t
even exist today.
With instant communication and collaboration through
video conferencing, social media and collaborative 2.0
spaces, we know our global interconnectedness is greater
than ever and infinitely more complex. Last month we
were at a hiring fair in San Francisco, Skyping with a
candidate in Missoula who later that evening conferenced
with our next high school principal and his family in Mexico
City. Before the end of the fair, we had met candidates in
person from all over the US and Skyped with teachers in
the Philippines, Mexico and China.
The very nature of knowledge is changing too. Like the
radio and printing press before it, the Internet brings the
next seismic shift of information away from the privileged
and educated few towards the knowledge-hungry masses.
With a few clicks of a mouse, people all over the world are
enrolling in university classes through free online providers
linked with top universities. Currently at ASFG, we have a
growing number of teachers enrolled in free college
courses through a web-based system called Coursera.
However, with access to information expanding, the
challenge becomes less how to acquire knowledge but
rather what to do with it. The convenience of knowing stuff
dissipates as the power of imagining stuff grows. IBM’s
2010 global CEO study, Capitalizing on Complexity, found
that in our increasingly complex and interconnected world,
“creativity trumps all other leadership characteristics.”
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The degree to which we are highly creative determines
more than ever our success or failure. In the tech industry
alone examples are everywhere. Google conducts 5 billion
searches a day while AltaVista is unknown to this
generation of digital natives. Facebook soars and MySpace
is a distant memory. We browse through Chrome and
Firefox and have long forgotten our Netscape bookmark.
Live Profile is prolific and most teens have never heard of
ICQ. Innovators know that what works today not only may
not work, but will not work tomorrow.
Is this a new idea that imagination, ingenuity and creativity
are essential skills of our modern era? Certainly not. To
quote the over-quoted Albert Einstein, “The true sign of
intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Almost 50
years ago Ted Kennedy eulogized his fallen brother Robert,
“some men see things as they are and ask why, my brother
imagined things that never were and asked why not.”
If we really want our students to “get ahead” in their own
projected professional and personal paths towards success,
they have to be able to imagine, create and innovate. To
land that ideal job, or better said, to create that ideal job,
our students need to be highly creative.
But more important than preparing them for their own
individual career and life paths, we teach creativity so that
our students will be (cliché alert) global citizens and
leaders of tomorrow. Can we invent our way out of the
many self-created and self-perpetuated problems such as
global warming, poverty and human aggression? I am
optimistic, but without creative people, the answer is a
resounding no. I believe our fourth ASFG learning goal,
community contributor, more than individual pursuits is at
the heart of our efforts to teach creativity.
So if the call for creativity is loud and clear, how are we
doing in education? Are we ahead, with or behind the
curve? I’ll let the educational pundits argue on the
theoretical stage. For us here in schools working with
students, teachers and parents every day, our beliefs,
decisions and strategies matter. Where should we focus our
efforts?
Let’s start by debunking some myths about creativity itself.
What our learning community believes about creativity is as
important as our determined strategies to teach it.
Myth 1. Creativity is born and lives most vibrantly in the arts.
I disagree. It is within the arts where creativity is most
appreciated and recognized as an essential component to
the learning outcomes. However, creativity needs to be
highly appreciated and taught in the sciences and
mathematics. A beautiful poem which envelopes us in the
human spirit undoubtedly requires creativity. But so does a
new scientific model or an unconventional strategy to solve
a math problem. The quantitative reasoning developed in
the sciences goes hand in hand with creativity.
Myth 2. Creativity happens spontaneously often without out
much practice or background knowledge. I disagree. I believe
in “learning the basics” for true innovation seldom stems
from a peripheral or shallow understanding of the
conceptual building blocks within a particular subject.
Myth 3. Creativity is an inborn trait and is largely unlearned.
I disagree. Under the right conditions, with the right
community values and with deliberate teaching and
assessing, creativity can certainly be learned.
Myth 4. Creativity is by nature immeasurable in any reliable
way. I disagree... wholeheartedly. Assessment of creativity,
while elusive, is an extremely important part of providing
an education that promotes and specifically teaches it.
On the last point, I, the enthusiastic quantitative thinker,
Mr. McMeasurment, believe the most important next-step
is to imagine and build agreement around, not only the
conditions that will promote creativity but also the
observable product of creativity. And I finally arrive at my
thesis statement.
For whatever endeavor we purport to be “effective” or
“helpful” on our never-ending but infinitely rewarding
journey to teach and learn creativity, we must first agree
upon and then describe what a highly creative person does.
Our efforts to teach creativity will only be a means to the
end of being creative. As faithful backwards-designers, we
must first imagine what would be the observable outcome
of a highly effective program of creativity and then use
those outcomes to determine if our strategies are working
or not.
To focus only on the conditions that allow for students to
be creative and ignoring the assessment of creativity itself,
is like building a beautiful playground but then never
observing the students playing on it.
Perhaps the easiest method of measuring our students’
creativity is applying a test like the Torrence Test of
Creativity which measures five mental characteristics:
fluency, elaboration, originality, resistance to premature
closure and abstractness.
A typical item on such test might ask students to come up
with as many uses for a brick as they can. Or, students are
asked to draw a picture incorporating a given figure such as
the one below. Such measures are appealing because they
provide norm-referenced scores of creativity that allow us
to step back and see beyond our local
school context.
But the short-comings of such a
standardized approach are widespread.
Our efforts to assess the teaching and
learning of creativity must be more robust and more
centered in authentic projects. In-house examples at ASFG
such as our emergent curriculum in early childhood,
Invention Convention in elementary, Project 20/20 in
middle school and our senior projects in high school result
in demonstrations of creativity that might not reliably show
up on a standardized test.
Our daunting task to robustly assess creativity endures but
so does our resolve. We continue on this journey of
imagination...
So let’s together paint a picture of a creative school. Or,
write a poem or a play. Storyboard a short film, AutoCad a
blueprint, and for those mathamagicians out there, create
and test a formula that predicts the interplay of essential
variables of a creative school. Whatever our creative lens,
let’s picture it….
What do we see? What color are the walls and where do
they stand? How is the furniture arranged and in what
unique architectural spaces?
What do we hear? What sounds emanate from the
classrooms, halls and playgrounds? Hammers pounding,
drills boring, keyboards clicking? Who is speaking, who is
listening and who is the audience?
What do we smell? The musty scent of crisp pages in a
classic novel? The distinctive air around a freshly printed
3D model? The richness of tilled earth from our school
garden?
What do we feel? The human touch, the sorrow of a
theatrical tragedy, the exhilaration of improv, the calming
reassurance of a scientific experiment well-designed and
evidence well-collected and interpreted?
And, most importantly, at the end of the day, after we
establish the conditions in our school that encourage
creativity and continue to explicitly teach it, how do we
know if our students are successful in learning to be
creative? What observable outcomes, projects, products
and performances will provide the evidence that our
students are ready to participate in our ever
changing, increasingly complex and
interconnected world?
High School
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ASFG´s Instructional Programs
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Learn
Neuroscience
– or Gardening!
by Julie Villand, Instructional Programs Director
We all search for lifelong learning opportunities – ways
to grow personally and professionally. In the past,
returning to university implied a career change, a
lifestyle change, and a financial burden. But these days,
the technologically equipped and connected home
means a major shift in opportunities to continue
learning. With the Internet, the only hurdle that prevents
most of us from taking courses in computer
programming, human physiology, songwriting, or
business strategy is the struggle to choose from so many
interesting fields of study and the juggle of time
management.
Massive collections of online material such as iTunesU,
TedTalks, Khan Academy, and YouTube supply today’s
learners not only with entertainment, but rich sources of
knowledge. These websites give us insight into an
increasingly dynamic world where knowledge was
previously limited to the information attainable in our
geographic area. At times, browsing the Internet can be
a let-down because the quantity of superficial and weak
information sources exceeds the reliable information.
We combat this frustration by attempting to follow only
trustworthy sources. Universities and world-renown
professors qualify in most situations. Elite universities
that offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a
new source of quality information that allow learners to
experience a university course from wherever they are.
MOOCs are free, non-credit, online university courses.
Not all educational experiences are created equally, and
neither are MOOCs. MOOCs can be a collection of raw
video, high quality indexed video, document collections,
quizzes, chats, and collaborative networks. Although
limited, MOOCs allow for some interaction among
professors and students. Some MOOCs even make use
of learning platforms that adapt to the information you
have mastered and allow students to move forward at
different paces. Some traditional reward systems still
exist within MOOCs, such as point systems and final
certificates of completion.
Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest or the
most intelligent who will survive, but those who can
best manage change.” MOOCs bring a whole new
opportunity for those who have inquisitive minds and
enjoy new learning situations. MOOCs allow us to learn
collaboratively with others around the world. It is a fact
that collaboration is an important trend today. It allows
us to investigate the world from a variety of perspectives.
Can our education be of quality if we ignore the global
collaboration possible today? Can we grow
professionally and personally without participating in
experiences that expose us to these opportunities? By
answering these questions, MOOC experiments have
proven to be the ones to follow.
Elite universities are giving us the opportunity to
experiment with learning in a collaborative setting. Free
education from these major organizations is appreciated,
but is this just pure philanthropy? Will there be a future
return on the investment for these organizations?
Universities can extend their reputation internationally
through branding, and successful professors can gain a
global following previously only accomplished through
writing books. In addition to these self-fulfilling reasons,
universities can receive massive amounts of data on
learner behavior. But more importantly, universities
understand that they cannot isolate themselves from the
global collaboration trend; MOOCs are allowing them to
be leaders in this movement.
The choice to study Introduction to Music Production at
Berklee College of Music (www.coursera.org), The
Ancient Greek Hero at Harvard (www.edx.org), or
Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics at Yale
(oyc.yale.edu) is now possible with a web search among
the top MOOCs. Our new personal challenges are to
self-organize, choose, plan, allocate time, and complete a
course.
Regardless of your chosen or current career, the desire to
keep studying is a reality for many. A MOOC is an
experiment that we all should test. Doctors can learn
how to program, computer scientists can learn to
appreciate Roman architecture, artists can learn English
composition, and teachers can learn neuroscience.
Learning within a global community provides the
opportunity to participate in the critical and creative
thinking that will help us discover new connections,
parallels, problems, and sustainable solutions that are so
necessary in all of our lives. Enroll in a course today – try
browsing www.coursera.org or www.edx.org
to get started.
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Middle School
Challenge Week by John McKinley, 8th grade Social Studies Teacher
Stop trying to please us. You will not be
graded on your ability to tell us what we
already know. Don’t ask if this is good
enough. What does that mean anyway?
Better than the minimum? Good enough
for whom? Don’t ask us what you should
do. That’s what you’ll be telling us soon
enough.
You spent 7.5 hours at school yesterday.
What did you learn? And even more
important, why did you learn it?
Today is the day you take those 7.5 hours
back. For the equivalent of one measly
school day, you’re going to decide what
matters. You’re going to put the self back
in self-direction; the purpose back in
purposeful learning. And you’re going to
be creative. You’re going to decide what
to learn. You’re going to decide how to
learn it. And you’re going to decide when
you’ve learned enough. All we ask is a
glimpse behind the curtain - show us how
you did it.
For five days, 8th grade students were
given free reign to explore their bliss for
two class periods per day.
This is Challenge Week.
Time to waste: the roots of
Challenge Week
Giving a student a full school day to use
as he or she pleases might seem like a
recipe for wasting time, but what would
you do if you were given time away from
your typical routine? What if you were
encouraged to surrender to something
that had you intellectually preoccupied –
and then encouraged to commit to fully
exploring it?
Atlassian, a software development firm in
Australia, takes 24 hours, four times a
year, to stop doing what it does best.
During what they call FedEx Day (“for
when it absolutely, positively has to be
there overnight”), employees stop their
normal routine to re-ignite their creative
passions by doing something that is
intentionally not what they do every day.
The idea is to allow employees to explore
their interests and passions, to focus on
problems that have nagged them, and to
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basically satisfy intellectual cravings. The
day is focused on Atlassian’s widely varied
products, but the experience allows
creativity a space to exist.
At the end of 24 hours employees have
three minutes to amaze their co-workers
with the tasks they’ve chosen to tackle.
Sometimes their work is wildly successful,
and sometimes it isn’t. Regardless, the
process remains an engine for generating
creativity.
Atlassian isn’t alone in encouraging this
“off task” behavior. At Google, it’s called
“20-Percent Time” (one day every week)
and is attributed with creating half of
Google’s products, while 3M’s version is
“15% Culture.” These three companies are
among a growing cadre recognizing that
free time leads to creativity, and creativity
leads to innovation.
Is it any surprise that innovation thrives
outside of a traditionally structured
environment? Titans of innovative
industries have repeatedly found their
niche while being focused outside the
status quo. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and
Mark Zuckerberg never managed to earn
university degrees, but all had driving
intellectual passions, and developed
expertise doing what wasn’t on the
official agenda.
When the student is ready,
the teacher will appear
According to Benjamin Goering, a
software engineer at the startup, Livefyre,
“Education isn’t a four-year program, it’s a
mind-set.” Goering put on hold his pursuit
of a computer science degree from the
University of Kansas because he felt it
wasn’t quite getting him where he
wanted to be - making Web experiences
for others.
The point isn’t that seeking a degree isn’t
a worthy endeavor, rather it’s that
becoming educated needn’t necessarily
be confined to a traditional classroom or
institution. And if education can take
place outside of these confines, what
should schools be doing to remain
relevant and necessary?
According to Seth Godin, new media
ideas-man and author of the manifesto,
“Stop Stealing Dreams (what is school
for?),” if you were in school yesterday, you
likely spent much of it being prepared for
a 19 th century economy in order to meet
the needs of the industrial age.
Obedience, standardization, and learning
things that can be explicitly tested have
become hallmarks of the educational
structure. What we need to be doing
instead, he argues, is creating adaptive
and intellectually passionate kids who are
intrigued by the challenge of solving
interesting problems. Godin writes, “Here’s
the question every parent and taxpayer
needs to wrestle with: Are we going to
applaud, push, or even permit our schools
(including most of the private ones) to
continue the safe but ultimately doomed
strategy of churning out predictable,
testable, and mediocre factory workers?”
We still have traditional physical centers
of learning in place, but our libraries and
our schools are no longer isolated hubs of
knowledge. When the Internet flung
open the doors to knowledge, we began
seeing a constant barrage of people so
excited by their knowledge that they’re
giving it away by the millions on YouTube,
blogs, and any number of other new
iterations of the web. Ubiquitous access to
these resources is making our classroom
walls ever more porous as teachers and
students savvily use technology to bring
new information from the outside world
into the classroom in the quest to make
learning relevant.
An entrepreneurial shift in education is
already well underway, and it’s moving
away from the fringes of the educational
establishment, as opportunities for
learning become less exclusive. CS 221,
the Stanford University course on artificial
Intelligence, became one of the first
official MOOCs (massive open online
courses) when it offered the entire course,
for free, via the Internet. 160,000 users
registered for the course. 20,000
completed it. Student enrollment at
Stanford is 15,870. The desire to spread
knowledge is making gains against the
desire to merely possess it. Excuses of
lacking access and lacking experience
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.” - Confucius
have evaporated. The only thing
effectively standing in anyone’s way is a
lack of will.
No one can force you to learn
anything
When people talk about the value of
lifelong learning, they’re often talking
about valuing knowledge for its own sake,
continuously craving knowledge and
discovery, and somehow developing the
mindset that becoming educated is an
opportunity and not a burden. Challenge
Week is where the rubber meets the road.
It’s a student’s chance to demonstrate that
he or she values the opportunity to learn.
If this value isn’t present it serves as a
chance to develop it.
Challenge I: Learn whatever you
want
An inconceivable amount of information
is now literally seconds away. It’s no
longer enough to simply absorb the
content you’re presented –
decision-making about what to know is
itself a part of the learning process.
Somehow, this part of the process was the
most difficult for students. When you’re
so used to being instructed, having to
decide for yourself what you want to
know is fraught with complication.
Suddenly they weren’t so sure what
interested them. When it hit them that
the time they were wasting really was
their own time to learn, students became
more selective in how they spent their
time. They began seeking value in lieu of
entertainment. Some discovered that
they really were just wasting time, and set
out to actually find something worth
learning.
It was a paradigm shift. Again and again
students would ask if a topic was a good
one to study. They were really asking for
us to tell them what to know. They were
like salesmen who wouldn’t take no for
an answer, rephrasing the question in
order to gain anything other than, “Is it
something you’re interested in?” and “Will
it challenge you to learn it?” They were
forced to answer the question for
themselves: What do I want to know?
Doing that is the real key to becoming a
lifelong learner.
Most kids are taken to school where they
perform for a teacher while being told
they should value learning for its own
sake. They’re required to value what we’re
telling them rather than develop their
own sense of autonomy in deciding for
themselves.
I won’t claim that the week produced a
sea of students focused on learning in a
way I’d never seen before; but it was
different and good. For one thing,
students were engaged. Most started
class without being told and many stayed
after class to finish what they were doing,
scarcely noticing the bell they normally so
eagerly await. Students began to rely on
teachers for clarity, not instruction. Many
used YouTube tutorials (found in baffling
abundance and specificity) while others
found experts in their families or
community.
They recognized connections between
their individual challenges to create
communities of interest, collaborating
with each other and demonstrating their
progress. They monitored their progress
knowing they would need to show
classmates what they had done. Most
implausibly of all, some even gave
themselves homework – because doing
what interests you doesn’t really seem
like work at all, and you can’t always do it
in a day.
As educators we are always trying to
make connections between the real world
and our content. But when we stripped
away the content requirements, there
was only the real world left – that, and
Edgar studying science, math, and
English – while developing visual/spatial
awareness – as he investigated
something he’s always wondered about:
the internal combustion engine. In the
past this has often been a vocational
subject, but for Edgar, might it be the first
step towards mechanical engineering?
We saw Anna, Mariana and Joaquin
learning sign language, at first
independently, until they realized how
much more efficient group work could
make it. Are they fluent? Of course not.
But the seed of curiosity has been sown.
Andrea and Paola spent hours at home
identifying the underlying structure of
dress patterns, consulting experts in the
field and practicing rudimentary sewing
techniques.
Kids were learning second, third, and
Middle School
fourth languages – not because their
families had moved or enrolled them in
an institute, but because for seven and a
half hours they could choose to do so.
Kids sought clarifying materials and used
critical thinking skills. Who knew solving
a Rubik’s cube was a simple matter of
knowing and then applying a few
algorithms?
One of the most frustrating questions a
teacher hears is, “Why are we doing this?”
For one week we were able to respond:
You’re doing it because you want to learn
it.
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9

PE & Sports
10
ASOMEX ASFG
Guadalajara 2013
por Alejandro Garza, Director Deportivo del ASFG
En la última reunión de Directores Atléticos ASOMEX se
optó por un sistema de convivencias masivas con
competencias deportivas en una misma sede, con el fin de
garantizar a nuestros alumnos e invitados un evento con las
medidas necesarias de seguridad y optimizar el uso de las
instalaciones deportivas de cada institución anfitriona.
Es por ello que del 25 al 30 de enero fuimos anfitriones de
la convivencia deportiva ASOMEX en donde por primera vez
se llevó a cabo la organización de dos eventos deportivos
de manera simultánea: futbol en la categoría juvenil “A” en
ambas ramas y voleibol en la rama femenil en todas sus
categorías.
Los resultados obtenidos por nuestros equipos fueron los
siguientes:
Deporte Equipo Lugar
Voleibol Infantil Primer Lugar
Voleibol Juvenil “A” Primer Lugar
Voleibol Juvenil “B” Primer Lugar
Voleibol Juvenil “C” Primer Lugar
Futbol Juvenil “A” varonil Sexto Lugar
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ASOMEX Puebla
En la ciudad de Puebla, del 7 al 12 de febrero nuestro
equipo de futbol Juvenil “C” y los representativos de
basquetbol de las categorías Juvenil “A” e Infantil
participaron en el ASOMEX organizado por The American
School Foundation of Puebla. Cabe resaltar que los tres
equipos obtuvieron en su competencia el trofeo
Sportmanship, el cual se otorga a los equipos con mejor
comportamiento tanto dentro como fuera de la cancha.
Los resultados obtenidos por nuestros equipos fueron los
siguientes:
Deporte Equipo Lugar
Basquetbol Infantil Primer Lugar
Basquetbol Infantil SPORTSMANSHIP
Basquetbol Juvenil “A” SPORTSMANSHIP
Basquetbol Juvenil “A” Sexto Lugar
Futbol Juvenil “C” SPORTSMANSHIP
Futbol Juvenil “C” Sexto Lugar
Enhorabuena a todos nuestros estudiantes deportistas que
representaron a nuestro colegio en estos dos magnos
eventos, nos sentimos orgullosos de su esfuerzo y
dedicación.
¡MUCHAS FELICIDADES!
Assessing
Oral
Proficiency
in Foreign
Languages
by the Language Institute Team
The assessment of oral skills in a foreign language has
always been a brain-teaser for foreign language educators
around the world. Whereas most research on assessment
agrees that listening, reading, and writing skills are
assessed effectively to some extent through standardized
tests such as the TOEFL iBT or IELTS, these tests have not
proven to be valid or reliable regarding oral language. Two
years ago, Michael Dunand of the American School
Language Institute conducted an extensive literature
review entitled “ESL/ EFL instructor´s classroom assessment
practices and the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching
of Foreign Languages) Oral Proficiency Interview: a
pragmatic approach.”
The research concluded that The ACTFL Oral Proficiency
Interview (OPI) was a superior assessment tool, stating, “It
seems widely accepted that the OPI is substantially reliable,
with inter-rater reliability ranging from .94 to .99.” The
institute decided to apply for a full membership at ACTFL
as well as promoting the OPI tester certification among its
staff; first in English and French, and after two years in
other less-taught languages. Furthermore, as a language
institute, we were very interested in being able to assess
our students/teachers proficiency across all languages in a
standardized fashion.
The OPI is a valid and reliable standardized procedure for
the global assessment of functional speaking ability. It is a
20-30 minute face-to-face or telephonic interview between
a certified ACTFL tester and an examinee. It determines
how well a person speaks a language by comparing his or
her performance of specific communication tasks with the
criteria for each of ten proficiency levels described in the
ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012 – Speaking. The ten
proficiency levels are: Superior, Advanced, Intermediate, and
Language Institute
Novice; Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice being divided
into High, Medium and Low sublevels. The interview is
interactive and adapts to the speaking abilities of the
individual being tested. The topics that are discussed
during the interview are based on the interests and
experiences of the test candidate. Through a series of
personalized questions, the interviewer elicits examples of
the candidate’s ability to handle the communication tasks
specified for each level of proficiency in order to establish a
clear 'floor' and 'ceiling' of consistent functional ability.
Often candidates are asked to take part in a role-play. This
task provides the opportunity for linguistic functions not
easily elicited through the conversational format. The
interview is double rated, and an Official ACTFL Oral
Proficiency Certificate stating the candidate’s proficiency
level is issued to the candidate.
The ACTFL OPI is currently used worldwide by academic
institutions, government agencies, and private corporations
for purposes such as academic placement, student
assessment, program evaluation, professional certification,
hiring, and promotional qualification. The ACTFL OPI is
recognized by the American Council on Education (ACE) for
the awarding of college credit. More than 10,000 OPIs in 37
different languages are conducted through the ACTFL
Testing Program every year. We are thrilled to be working
on this very important project which we believe will help
the institute in reaching excellency in our language
programs.
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Mexican Program
12
Ciclo de conferencias:
Migración e indígenas
por Cassandra Torres, alumna de noveno grado
Los días 5 y 6 de febrero se llevó a cabo el II Ciclo de
conferencias Migración e indígenas 2013. En estos días la
escuela recibió a grandes invitados como: Berónica Palacios,
Ana Paula Uruñuela, Sabrina y Scott Brennan, Eugenia
Vignon Castrejón y el fotógrafo José Hernández-Claire. Ellos
informaron a los estudiantes y maestros del ASFG sobre la
migración. Muchos se podrán preguntar ¿qué es la
migración? Y la respuesta es: cuando un grupo social, sea
humano o animal, realiza un traslado de su lugar de origen,
a otro donde considere que mejorará su calidad de vida.
La Lic. Eugenia Vignon Castrejón, del Programa Paisano,
habló sobre el tema de riesgos y peligros del migrante.
Durante su presentación, la Lic. Eugenia nos relató historias
de las cuales ella había sido parte en Programa Paisano. No
solo nos dio una idea acerca de su profesión sino que
también nos comentó, a fondo, sobre la migración. Se puede
decir que la gente emigra en busca de mejores
oportunidades de vida, en busca de trabajo, a causa de
desastres naturales, la violencia, la globalización, la
unificación familiar, por persecución o por aventura. La
migración se desglosa en cuatro tipos; interna, estacional,
externa y la repatriación. Se considera migración interna
cuando se migra dentro del país o de estados, estacional
cuando es solo por un periodo de tiempo determinado,
externa cuando es fuera del país, y repatriación cuando el
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migrante es deportado por un país, o este decide regresar a
lugar de origen.
Durante su viaje el migrante se enfrenta con grandes
dificultades y desafíos. Unos son víctimas del tráfico ilícito
de personas. Otros son discriminados, defraudados, o
pierden sus papeles. Ellos tienen derecho a la vida, a la
libertad y seguridad, a la salud, a la justicia, a la libertad de
religión, a trabajar, a una unidad familiar y por supuesto, al
libre tránsito. Y, sin embargo, sus derechos frecuentemente
no son respetados. Organizaciones como Programa Paisano,
OPIS y Grupos Beta se encarga de ayudar al migrante en
cualquier desafío y peligro que este se encuentre.
Es importante estar informado acerca de este tema ya que
nos afecta como mexicanos. Si las personas se encuentran
informadas se puede ayudar y prevenir varios de los
peligros que un migrante puede enfrentar. Como parte de la
comunidad del American School nosotros debemos de
ponernos en acción y buscar formas para ayudar. Esto solo
se puede lograr si estamos informados. Por esta razón me
gustaría agradecer a todas aquellas personas que
estuvieron con nosotros los días 5 y 6 de febrero
platicándonos sobre migración e indígenas. Los invito a
todos a ponernos en acción para darles a algunos una
mejor oportunidad de vida.
From Ordinary
to Extraordinary
Image above:
Cristobal Martinez 4-31
Images on the left from top to bottom:
Ana Karina Carrillo 4-28, Emma Arnold
4-31, Hiraku Oda 4-32, Luca Boschetti
4-33, Isabella Roulbet 4-31, Diego
Salcedo 4-31, Diego Padilla 4-32.
by Jodi Peterson,
Elementary Art
Elementary
ASFG’s fourth grade
artists have been
flexing their
creative muscles
this month. Their
challenge: to
transform an
ordinary object into
an extraordinary
work of art.
First, students
honed their
observational
drawing skills.
Paying close
attention to details
and proportions,
they rendered an
object as
realistically as they
could. Their choices
were a bottle, a
hole-punch, or a
pair of scissors.
Then students put
their imaginations
to work
brainstorming all
the ways they could
transform their
object. Finally, with
the goal of
surprising the
viewer and making
them look twice,
students focused in
on their most
unique idea. The
results are fun, silly
and unexpected.
We hope you enjoy!
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Library
14
Taking Time
to Read
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by Juliet Evans
and Virginia Morgan
The ASFG Upper Library has been working with the high
school English department to update reading practices
among the students. The goal is to direct students back to
reading traditional literature. Traditional literature in this
article refers to reading that prompts thought and
reflection, and goes beyond the classics. Traditional
literature includes modern writers, but in general excludes
“genre fiction,” a category found on the Amazon book
webpage and often features authors such as John Grisham
and Danielle Steel.
Recent studies have shown that the Internet has changed
reading practices in the past two decades. In the 2007
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) study titled To Read
or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence, it was
reported that literary reading is declining among all
education levels and all age levels, but particularly among
teens and young adults. For the NEA, this “decline in literary
reading foreshadows an erosion in cultural and civic
participation.” *Did you know that literary readers are more
than twice as likely as non-readers to volunteer or do
charity work? One of ASFG’s learning goals is to educate
students to be community contributors. We need to create
literary readers in order to meet this goal.
The change in reading practices also impacts ASFG’s
learning goal to educate students to be critical and creative
thinkers. Superficial reading (like scanning) has increased,
and most reading requires less concentration. Reading
online lacks depth. (Although it is too early for studies to
identify exactly what is going on in the brain while Internet
surfing versus reading a novel, it is known that the two
processes are very differently neurologically.) Educators
worry that students are not reading deeply and are not
taking time to develop understanding.
Virginia Morgan, ASFG Upper School librarian, believes that
time is the biggest concern here: “Students need time to
digest what they are reading, to read between the lines, and
to reflect on the ideas they have read. When a student reads
deeply, he or she is able to reflect and respond
independently- and this helps create a critical and creative
thinker. I think students are reading widely - on the Internet
- but they are not reading well.” The end goal, therefore, is
to direct students to literature that promotes deep reading.
This fall, an electronic resource list was created for high
school English students. It is a recommended reading list
compiled from several others, including a College Board list
of recommendations for students preparing for the Advance
Placement exam in English Literature and English
Language, as well as a famous “Great Books” list. The list
cross-references all those books available in the library, in
both print and electronic form. The books that were missing
from the list are being purchased. Newer editions have also
been ordered to replace the shabbier ones. The library is
also building up resources for access to digital editions. The
English department, in turn, has been using the
recommended list with its students.
How to Encourage Reading with Young Children
The foundation of becoming a lifelong reader starts at
home. Parents have a critical role to play in the
development of reading habits of their child. The example
we set at home is highly influential in shaping the extent to
which our children value reading and develop the reading
skills to become critical and creative thinkers.
There are many things you can do to encourage your child
to grow as a reader:
• Lead by example: make sure your child sees you reading
at home regularly.
• Create a quiet, cozy place at home that allows a child to
focus completely on his/her book without distractions or
interruptions.
• Read a bedtime story to your preschooler every night &
ask questions about the story.
• Once your child starts to read by him/herself, be a good
listener and ask questions to check for understanding.
• If your child is struggling to read a book, take turns
reading pages. This way you can explain new words and
discuss what’s happening.
• Provide a wide variety of reading materials at home.
• Look for books to match your child’s passions - sports,
movies, animals, heroes, monsters, etc.
• Be aware of what your older children are reading - have
conversations about the theme and how it relates to real
life, or discuss the characters and the choices they make.
By setting the example of being a reader and showing
interest in what our child is reading, we model that we
value reading and the benefits it brings – such as training
the mind to comprehend, analyze, criticize, and eventually
synthesize information and ideas: in short, to be critical and
creative thinkers.
* National Endowment for the Arts, USA (2007).
To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence.
Retrieved February 17, 2013 from
http://www.nea.gov/research/toread.pdf
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ASAP Program
16
Gone Fishing
a language learning tale
by Karen Corona, Academic Support Director
Seven boys
Three languages
English learners
Gone fishing
You never know what the outcome will be.
The teacher’s goal for the activity was to review vocabulary and practice
categorizing nouns. The boys’ plan was to have fun going fishing in the
classroom. And all were successful. Just how could this be?
In order to help students review key vocabulary, Tabetha Valencia, teacher in the ASAP
classroom, planned an activity in which they would individually brainstorm, listing all the
nouns they could think of. The next step was to categorize them as people, places,
animals and things. And then to keep the interest of this multi-aged and multi-lingual
group of boys, she had them write the groups of nouns on small cards which she
casually mentioned was fishing for nouns.
Before you knew what was happening the boys were turning their
vocabulary cards into “fish” which were ready for the fish pond. And
instead of displaying the cards on the bulletin board, one of them
thought of hanging the “fish.” What would they hang from? Why
fishing poles of course! And what to make the fishing poles
from in the classroom? The boys experimented with various
materials until they discovered one that worked. They
tightly rolled a piece of paper lengthwise, then threaded
string through it tying it to one end of the “fishing pole”
while the other end hung to “catch” the word-card “fish.”
And then someone suggested that once they caught the
fish, they should barbecue and eat them. This entailed
creating a paper fire, utensils and plates. All the while the
brainstorming, sharing of materials, evaluating options,
problem-solving, and negotiating about what to do next HAD
to go on in ENGLISH – their shared language.
While the boys’ conversations revolved around the fishing activity,
their teacher’s interventions focused on tying this vocabulary review to
their prior knowledge from varying semantic settings such as the classroom,
their homes and families, the environment and animal habitats they’d been
studying together. Much of her instruction, while clearly guided by her thorough
planning, allows for an element of creativity and this was no exception. Students
have access to a wide range of learning materials including books, technology,
paper, scissors, markers, glue – you name it and you’ll find it in the ASAP classroom.
This facilitates the spontaneity and creativity exemplified by these boys as they
reviewed and applied their English language skills while “going fishing” together.
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1
2
La clase de SSL:
Aprendizaje creativo
por Bárbara Reyes, Maestra de SSL - Elementary School
Hace 2 años me ofrecieron nuevamente la posición de
maestra de primaria del grupo de español como segunda
lengua. En ese momento me quedé paralizada. Pensamientos,
sensaciones y emociones llegaron a mí como en torrente. Me
hice una pregunta sin respuesta ¿Por qué a mí? Pude percibir
como un escalofrío recorría mi cuerpo a mil revoluciones por
minuto y entonces sentí miedo. Mientras trataba de aquietar
mi mente, respirar profundo para tener todo bajo control, las
palabras se agolpaban en mi boca como queriendo salir y
entonces solamente pude decir una… SI!!
En SSL no hemos encontrado un programa de lengua
extranjera que se adapte al 100% al tipo de grupo como los
que tenemos en el colegio. Es por eso que cuando se tiene
un grupo tan variado como el de español como segunda
lengua, donde hay una confluencia de nacionalidades,
edades, creencias, costumbres y diferentes niveles
académicos no hay otra manera de salir adelante que
echando mano de la creatividad, que yo en forma personal
defino como: esa comezón que te hace moverte en una
dirección y te invita a buscar algo para aplacarla, “algo” que
finalmente te produce una sensación de placer.
Lo primero que yo hago como maestra de este grupo, es no
tomarme tan en serio. Con ellos soy una más, aprendiendo a
convivir con niños de diferentes culturas. Otra más,
aprendiendo un idioma, su idioma. Claro que sigo siendo la
líder, la responsable pero compartiendo esa parte infantil
que nos permite reírnos cuando las cosas no salen como
queremos y sorprendernos cuando los resultados rebasan las
expectativas. Comparto con ustedes algunos puntos que
tomo en cuenta para que en la clase de SSL se lleve a cabo
el aprendizaje creativo:
Pensemos en la siguiente metáfora. Si tuviéramos que
preparar nuestro pastel favorito ¿utilizaríamos ingredientes
de baja calidad o los mejores que podamos conseguir? Yo
creo que todos contestarán que los mejores. Ese es uno de
los puntos más importantes, lo que metamos en el horno es
lo que obtendremos. Por eso lo primero que hago cuando
estoy planeando, es buscar lo mejor que pueda darle a mis
alumnos, desde libros, materiales, acomodo del salón,
experiencias, etc., para que ellos cuenten con una materia
prima de excelente calidad que les asegure poder obtener “el
mejor pastel que puedan hornear”
La segunda cosa que hago para que en mi clase sea creativa
es: tener la oreja como radar para escuchar lo que los
alumnos dicen, comentan, platican. Escuchar sus
comentarios ha permitido que la mayoría de los proyectos
hayan salido directamente de sus inquietudes. La creatividad
proviene de escuchar atentamente más que de imaginar
cosas.
3
4
5
6
Elementary
Transformar algo en otra cosa es lo que hacemos en la clase
de SSL y es algo que la hace muy especial. Esto es, la mayoría
del material que empleamos es elaborado por los alumnos,
combinamos mi necesidad de enseñarles algo con sus ganas
de hacer. Es trabajo de equipo, expongo la idea de lo que
necesitamos, les explicó para que lo utilizaremos y entonces
me dicen: “mira Ms. Bárbara hay que hacerlo así” ponen
manos a la obra y aprenden mientras hacen.
La riqueza de culturas es el siguiente factor que permite que
veamos las cosas de una forma poco habitual. El intercambio
de roles por ejemplo, es algo que hacemos con regularidad. A
veces jugamos a que ellos son los maestros y deben
enseñarle a sus compañeros algo en lo que son expertos, o
simplemente aparentamos que ya son expertos en algo
aunque sea un concepto que recién conocen. La diferencia no
se nota, pues el ir más allá de sus propias limitaciones les
permite encontrar recursos para terminar dominando el
tema.
El quinto punto que tiene que ver con creatividad es la
inteligencia personal de cada uno. Veámoslo desde otra
perspectiva. Imaginemos que cada uno de nosotros es un
cochecito que debe circular por la carretera del programa
académico. Los instrumentos con que viene equipado cada
modelo y marca de cochecito para empezar ya son diferentes
y dependerá de las habilidades del conductor para hacer que
el auto llegue a la meta, de la mejor manera posible. Aquí el
alumno echa mano de sus recursos para resolver las
situaciones que se le presentan de la mejor manera posible.
El último y no menos importante es la motivación. Ese
elemento que combinado con los hábitos permite que el
alumno sea más o menos creativo. Los alumnos asisten con
gusto a la clase porque saben que aprenden de una manera
“diferente” y no es precisamente porque se la pasen haciendo
trabajos que implican menos reto, no. Sino que son
considerados sus talentos naturales para enriquecer la clase
y al no forzar menos el carrito en el que les tocó vivir la clase
se vuelve más placentera.
En conclusión, ¿qué es lo que hace que una clase sea
creativa y otra no? “La combinación innovadora de
elementos existentes”(1)
(1) Arau, C. (2008) Ontocreatividad. Guadalajara, México:
Quanta Editores, S.A. de C.V.
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Early Childhood
18
Drawing to Learn!
by Karla Rosas, K9 Teacher
Two years ago early childhood invited Sylvia Chard, a founder
of The Project Approach, to come to Guadalajara and talk to
us about the importance of drawing with our students. Sylvia
believes that if children from a very young age learn how to
draw something they will better understand their immediate
environment. She views drawing as a form of communication
that allows the child to study his or her surroundings and
how things are made or how they work.
In Kinder 9, students have used drawing and sketching to
study our environment. We studied the life cycle of plants
and the parts of a plant. Students observed potted plants,
pineapple, corn, carrots, and the growth of lima bean seeds
over several weeks and then were asked to produce the
details they found in their drawings. They noticed the
patterns and shapes found in these fruits and vegetables.
While doing this, the children began to make detailed
observations of what they saw. Josh said, “Look the corn must
have over 100 seeds on it.” and Maria pointed out that the
pattern in the pineapple is “diamond-shaped.”
We also used the observational drawing technique to study
Betta fish. The children observed two types of Siamese
fighting fish. We looked at the two fish and the children
began to notice the shape of the fins were different. Andrés
stated, “The big fish has fins that are oval and the little fish
has pointy fins.” We then sketched both fish and focused on
these details that were observed by Andrés. The children
learned that by closely observing fish fins you can define
what type of fish it might be.
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Observational drawing has become a regular activity in our
classroom. It challenges the children to produce detailed and
quality drawings that allow them to reflect on what they are
observing, but also on their drawing capabilities. As a group
we have discussed drawing and how it helps us learn. Iñigo
said, “Writing is drawing letters, but drawing lets you draw
anything you want!” Camila stated, “When you draw
something you learn about it.” Valeria said, “You can draw
what you see or what is in your head.” This statement from
Valeria led us to the topic of using drawing as tool for
different learning styles. The children understand how this
form of communication helps them learn, but to further
investigate drawing, we did an experiment in the classroom.
Kinder students are encouraged to learn many words for
each letter of the alphabet. We introduce and expose them to
vocabulary using different techniques and strategies such as
reading books, creating lists, playing games and drawing
pictures. To help the children understand the benefits of
drawing we did an activity in the classroom. We first used a
standardized worksheet that required the children to look at
a group of pictures and color the ones that started with the
letter H or cross out the ones that did not.
The children worked for approximately twenty minutes on
the activity. The next day when I asked the students during
circle time to please help me name vocabulary starting with
the letter H, the only word they could think of was “house,”
which is found on the alphabet strip. I reminded the children
of the activity we had done the day before and asked them
again why they could not remember any of the pictures from
the worksheet. They themselves were surprised they were
not able to come up with more vocabulary.
I proposed that instead of using a worksheet to learn the
vocabulary we try a different activity. This time we tried it
with the letter C. I asked the children, “What do you think
would happen if you drew pictures of things that started with
the letter C?” Alex answered, “We will remember them
because we drew them.” So we tried it. First, I asked the
children to look around the classroom and name things that
started with the letter C. The students listed items like cat,
cookie, cake, Camila, car, etc. Then we gave them a piece of
paper and they drew three things starting with that letter.
The next day the children were able to remember several
vocabulary words to represent the letter C. They were
amazed and proud of themselves!
Through drawing the children have discovered they can
learn about their environment, or express their ideas.
Drawing is not just an art form, but a way to communicate
what the child sees and the thought process of learning. Or
as Iñigo said, “So we can have fun learning!”
High School
9 TH GRADE HONORS GEOMETRY STUDENTS SECURE
3D PRINTER DONATION FOR ASFG by Renata Rodríguez, HS Student
When our Honors Geometry teacher, Rhett Butler, talked to my class
about 3D printing, I had never heard of it before. In fact, except for a
couple of my classmates, no one had heard about it. So Rhett gave us a
brief overview, basically getting across the fact that 3D printing is a
developing technology that gives designers the ability to turn a virtual
digital 3D model (e.g. SketchUp or AutoCad) into a solid, physical 3D
model. Our homework for the evening was to learn more about the
technology as it would be the topic of our quarter project.
We learned that 3D printing is based on the concept of additive
manufacturing (AM) where the digital model is interpreted as a series of
cross-sections by the printing software. The printer takes the software’s
instructions and constructs the physical model layer-by-layer. Though
several techniques can be utilized, one popular 3D printer design
employs a nozzle similar to an ink-jet printer. The major difference is
that this nozzle contains a heating element to melt a plastic filament
that is fed to the printer from a coil. The nozzle is under precise
numerical control and lays down successive layers of beads of the
plastic, which quickly solidify after being extruded from the nozzle.
Though 3D printing has been around since the mid-1990s, it hasn’t
been until the last couple of years that it has reached the do-it-yourself
hobbyist level with relatively inexpensive, desktop-sized machines. Nike
uses 3D printers to create multi-colored prototypes of shoes. The
automotive and aviation industries use 3D printers to make parts.
Physicians are using it to make prosthetics, hearing aids, artificial teeth,
and bone grafts, as well as replicate models of organs, tumors, and other
anatomical structures. The technology has even made it into pop
culture when Britney Spears featured 3D printers in her music video of
Scream and Shout. Many manufacturing experts believe that we are in
the midst of an industrial revolution and it won’t be long before
consumers are downloading plans for printing 3D products in their own
homes. Manufacturers will produce products on-demand rather than in
large runs, improving inventory management and reducing warehouse
space. People in remote locations (e.g. on the moon) could fabricate
objects that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. Lastly, 3D printing
can save money and material over subtractive manufacturing
techniques in which expensive material (e.g. titanium) is cut, drilled, or
milled, as very little raw material is wasted.
We assumed our project would be a “research paper”, but then Dr. Butler
asked us: “When was the last time you gave a high-stakes presentation
aimed at persuading a stranger to your way of thinking?” A few of us
mentioned our Model United Nations (MUN) experience, but our
teacher was unimpressed and reminded us that during an MUN
simulation we were not “really” a group of delegates representing
different nations; we were only pretending to be. He promised that this
project would be authentic and that ASFG students’ access to a 3D
printer depended on us. A meeting would be arranged with a local
entrepreneur interested in supporting the acquisition of a 3D printer
and the strength of our presentation would determine whether or not
he would grant the request or not. The pressure was on.
The essential questions to be answered in our presentation were:
• What is 3D printing and why is it something that ASFG 9 th grade
Mr. Timothy Willing
and students
Photo: Juan Alarcon
students should learn?
• How difficult is it to learn the software and hardware basics of 3D
printing? Are ASFG 9th grade students up to the task?
• What make and model 3D printer do we want and why?
Deep down we had doubts that our teacher would find a suitable patron
for the project, but unbeknownst to us, Dr. Butler had already made
contact with Mr. Timothy Willing, an ASFG parent and General Director
& President, Miller Packaging, and an expert in plastics. It turned out
that Mr. Willing is enthusiastic about 3D printing and is highly
interested in seeing our student community have access to the
technology. All we had to do was convince him that we were
adequately prepared to make use of the gift and the printer would be
ours.
We started off the presentation process by breaking up into groups of
three or four students and presenting in class. Ms. Jennie Kies, ASFG
Middle School Technology teacher, had experience with 3D printing at
her previous school in Iowa and attended the sessions to give us
valuable feedback. As if planned beforehand, each group seemed to
focus on a different aspect of 3D printing and broadened our fund of
knowledge. While one group became adept in the details of the
printing process, another group downloaded proprietary software and
began experimenting with virtual models and “preparing” them for
printing. Numerous connections were made to ASFG’s Learning Goals
and each group made a strong case for the feasibility of a 3D printer at
our school. After each group had presented, we voted to select a seven
student all-star team who would make the decisive presentation to Mr.
Willing in the Board Room. The students chosen to deliver this
presentation were: Paloma Calderon, Sabrina Cuevas, Rodrigo Díaz,
Francis McCann, Luciana Méndez, Daniel Soberanes, and me, Renata
Rodríguez.
The presentation took place on Wednesday, November 7, 2012 in the
Pink Palace. Mr. McGrath, Deputy Director General, presided. The whole
meeting was nerve-racking, but our presentations went smoothly and
honestly seemed to impress Mr. Willing. A rather lengthy
question-and-answer session followed the formal presentation where
numerous and detailed specifications of the various 3D printer models
were discussed. At the end of the evening, Mr. Willing was gracious
enough to agree to support the acquisition of ASFG’s first 3D printer and
thanked us for our enthusiasm and preparation. Significantly, through
his donation and our hard work, ASFG will be the first high school in
Guadalajara to own this technology.
Presently, Mr. Willing and ASFG faculty and administrators are
evaluating the current 3D printer options to select the best printer for
our school. Thank you Mr. Willing!
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High School
Noam Chomsky An Afternoon with by Claudia Padilla, HS Student
20
When Mr. Balog, my 10 th grade
biology teacher, asked my group
(Francisco García-Bedoy,
Constanza Aceves, Pamela
Quirarte, and myself) to choose
which unanswered question in
science we wanted to learn
about, we decided on: What is
the biological basis of language
and universal grammar?
I didn’t know anything about the
subject, but I was eager to learn
about it. When I began to
research language and grammar,
I found out that there are many
theories regarding language
acquisition which go beyond
just Spanish or English. After I
looked at several Web pages and
articles, I realized that there was
one name that I saw over and
over. This name was Noam
Chomsky.
I had no idea who he was or
what he had done. The only
thing I knew was that he was a
famous linguist and that he had
several theories of language
acquisition. For this project, we
needed to interview scientists
that are important in the field. I
found out that Noam Chomsky is
a professor at MIT, and I emailed
him. I was very happy because
we needed to send as many
emails as possible to scientists
in order to get a response by the
end of the week. I told Mr. Balog
that I had just sent an email to a
guy named Noam Chomsky, and
that from my research I knew
that he was well known in
linguistics. Mr. Balog told me
that it would be amazing just to
get a response from him.
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Two days later, I got a response saying, “Interested to learn of your plans and concerns. But I
am utterly deluged with interview requests, and it’s a physical impossibility to keep up. The
most I can say is that I’ll try, but can’t promise.” When I saw this email, the first thing I did
was grab my Webster’s World Dictionary and Thesaurus to understand all the words he was
using. Then, after several more emails to him and his secretary, I scheduled a phone
interview for January 25 th , 2013. At that time, it was only the end of November, but I had an
interview with Noam Chomsky! I knew I could wait.
During Christmas break, I went to Barnes & Noble and asked if they had anything written by
Noam Chomsky. The employee thought I was majoring in linguistics. When I told him that I
was only a 10 th grader who happened to be lucky enough to have an interview with Noam
Chomsky, he couldn’t believe me. He sat down with me for about an hour and explained
everything I needed to know about Chomsky’s books. I ended up buying four books. One of
the books was Linguistics for Dummies, because before this assignment, I barely knew what
that subject was. I also got a comic book explaining Chomsky’s work, and two books written
by him: Language and Thought and Language and the Problems of Knowledge.
I had to look up most of the things in the books on the Internet, as well as several words in
the dictionary. In the three weeks left before the interview I became an “expert” in Noam
Chomsky’s work regarding linguistics. With the help of Mr. Balog, I came up with several
questions to ask him in the interview. I researched his theories, languages that have been
lost over time, isolated children, and even bonobos (great apes studied by some linguists).
After creating a set of questions, I sorted them out from most important to least important.
I thought I was set for the interview.
It was Friday, January 25 th , and I was very nervous. I had his phone number, and I would call
him when the time came. I called him right on time, but after a while his secretary answered
and told me to call back in 15 minutes. Again, he is Noam Chomsky, so I could wait as long
as he wanted. I called back about 20 minutes later and he answered.
I wasn’t quite sure what to call him – Professor? Doctor? Noam? Mr.? I just went with my
instinct. I began to introduce my group and my class, but he cut me off and told me to start
asking the questions. I first asked him what he thought about the bonobos and the
research that scientists had done regarding them being able to speak. He told me that was
a stupid question, and I just wanted to die. But he gave us a very interesting answer to why
he thought the research done on bonobos had nothing to do with linguistics, and told us
that it was the same as studying bees’ communication and comparing it with humans.
After talking to him for a while, he realized that I was well-prepared and that my questions
were very well-researched. That gave me a lot of confidence to continue with the
interview. I think the best feeling was half-way through the interview when I began to
hear him lighten up and laugh a bit.
After the interview my group and I had to make a podcast explaining the biological basis
of language and grammar. This project made me realize that the American School gives
us the tools to be greater and to achieve success, but we need to do it ourselves. We have
to trust ourselves to be able to grow and improve and to step out of our comfort zones
every once in a while. We can’t give up the first time we don’t succeed at something; if we
really want something we have to fight for it. I learned that the more you read about a
topic and the more you research it, the more you will know – and the more confident you
will feel about what you know.
CreativeMessageinOurProject
by Joana de Freitas and Miki Kuribayashi, HS Students
In our video production class,
we were assigned to make a
stop motion video. In a
stop-motion video, many
pictures are put together and
fast-forwarded to create a video, kind of like a flip-book.
When we discussed our project, we came up with two
ideas; a video about a potato, or a video using paper. Our
first idea was to create a story based on the life of a
potato, from the supermarket to our dining table, but then
we came up with a better idea. We did not want our
project to be something ordinary; we wanted it to be
something special, something that had a meaning. Our
idea was to use our project to deliver a message. We
changed our main focus to paper recycling. We thought
that if our idea included an eco-friendly theme, it would
be a positive message, and the video would apply to
everyone.
Our video starts with a crumpled paper, thrown away by
children because he was ripped. No one wanted to draw
High School
on him. He starts crying because he wants someone to
draw on him. Then a pencil asks him the reason for his
tears. After hearing from the paper, the pencil has the
great idea of drawing on the paper to make him happy.
The paper, first crumpled, morphs into a paper without any
wrinkles. This shows the paper’s joy at the words from the
pencil.
After the pencil finishes his drawing, markers appear to
add color. At the end of the video, the drawing gets hung
because it is beautiful, even if the paper is ripped. This
idea shows, like the Ugly Duckling, how something with
humble beginnings can turn out to be something of
beauty.
In making this video, we wanted to be creative in our
delivery of the message to our audience. We decided the
video should be simple, but valuable as a tool of societal
change. The film’s simplicity makes it understandable to
all ages and hopefully elicits sympathy. We tried to make
the video with few words and simple movement of
characters. The sense of wonder that a child has when
creating a drawing is a universal theme to which anyone
in our audience can relate. We hope that our message
inspires not only a more eco-friendly audience, but a more
creative one.
You can watch our video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4JI9811jDI
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Early Childhood
22
El pensamiento crítico y creativo a través de la
creación de historias en grupo en Preescolar
por Patty Gutiérrez, maestra de K6
“Una vez estaba un niño jugando futbol en el patio de
atrás de su casa, aventó la pelota y cayó en una casa.
Se escuchó un rugido muy fuerte y venía de la casa.
Era un monstruo que empezó a perseguir al niño, pero
corría tan rápido que se tropezó. Cuando se paró,
estaba muy enojado y lo empezó a perseguir otra vez.
Entonces, el niño se despertó y se dió cuenta que
había sido una pesadilla. "
La creación de historias promueve la creatividad, la
confianza y el desarrollo del lenguaje oral y escrito. Uno de
los retos al trabajar en la creación de historias con niños de
preescolar, es introducir la estructura de una historia sin
inhibir la imaginación. Cuestionando a los niños de K6
acerca de lo que se necesita para crear una historia, éstas
fueron algunas de sus respuestas:
"Un final feliz"
"Decir lo que pasó, lo dices con la mente y luego lo dices"
"Un personaje principal"
"O un animal"
"Un lugar para que ahí sea el cuento"
"Y un principio para que después sea un final"
Una vez enlistados los elementos que los niños
consideraban importantes, comenzamos a practicar el
desarrollo de cada uno de los siguientes:
1) Las personas o animales que estuvieran en la historia
(Personajes)
2) El lugar, o lugares en los que se llevaría a cabo la historia
(Escenario)
3) Lo que pasaría en la historia (Historia o problema)
4) Un final (Conclusión o solución del problema)
1) Personajes
Para el desarrollo de los personajes, hablamos de
personajes reales e irreales. Los niños crearon personajes
con distintas técnicas:
"Packy es como un marciano pero
se convierte en muñeco de nieve
para robar comida. Le encanta
jugar con sus amigos y es un buen
amigo. Ve personas muertas, niños
de 7 años. Le gustan las
cosas que brillan."
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"Es un humano-serpiente con orejas de conejo. Vive en el agua
pero puede brincar y salir, come pescado, no le gustan las
verduras y se sabe defender de sus enemigos, brincando y
haciendo olas."
2) Escenario
Con distintos tipos de música de fondo, pedimos a los niños
que cerraran sus ojos e imaginaran el lugar ideal para su
historia. Después les pedimos que dibujaran y pintaran su
escenario.
3) Historia o problema
Los niños tuvieron la oportunidad de expresar sus ideas y
soluciones a diversos planteamientos como:
¿Qué pasaría si algún día
llegaras al colegio y éste fuera un
bosque?
"Haría un carrito con hojas, una
casita de palitos y
haría una computadora con
hojas y madera"
"Lo pintaría como escuela"
"Correría y escalaría árboles. Aprendería cosas de
las ardillas y escavaría."
"Esquivaría a los osos y nadaría para llegar a mi salón"
"Buscaría a mis amigos, si hay algún animal peligroso, me
cambiaría de salón"
"Avisaría a los constructores para que hicieran otra escuela y
me iría a esperar a mi casa"
¿Qué harías si tu maestra fuera un perro?
"Hacerle caso para que no me muerda"
"Le hablaría en idioma perro"
"Acariciarla y llevarla a pasear"
"Le enseñaría las letras"
"No entendería lo que
dice y tendría que
aprender a hablar de perro"
"Le pediría a la otra miss que
me dijera que dice la miss,
y tendríamos una mascota-miss"
"Haría una poción para que otra vez fuera teacher"
"Le daría croquetas y me iría a otra escuela a aprender"
¿Y si te creciera pan en lugar de
pelo?
"Me lo cortaría y me lo comería,
así todos los días"
"Lo cortaría y lo vendería con
mantequilla"
"Dejaría que lo mordieran, si
estaba rico"
"Lo cortaría, le pondría queso y me
lo comería, después me dejaría el
pan largo"
"Arrancármelo y bañarme"
En otro ejercicio, contamos a los niños una historia conocida
para ellos y les pedimos jugar a cambiar alguno de los
elementos principales de la misma, ya fueran los personajes,
el escenario o el final de la historia.
"Un día estaba gorilita roja y le llevaba pastelitos a su
abuelita, cuando llegó, vio que un lobo se comió a su
abuelita, entonces lo levantó, lo sacudió así, así y luego
se salió la abuelita. Después, él se comió al lobo y le
dijo ándele."
Otras prácticas pueden ser, el pedirle a cada niño que dibuje
un personaje y juntarlos para crear una historia en grupos
pequeños; mostrar un cuento sin texto y pedir a los niños
que imaginen a través de las imágenes de lo que trata la
historia; mostrar una imagen y un personaje y en pares,
invitar a la creación de una mini historia; utilizar el iPad o la
computadora para crear y narrar una historia, o crear un
libro con fotos pensadas y tomadas por los niños.
El permitir a los niños sentirse cómodos con los cambios y
las ambigüedades, estimula habilidades de pensamiento
complejo y les permite tener flexibilidad de pensamiento,
así como facilidad para acoplarse a los cambios.
Desarrollando el pensamiento crítico y creativo, se generan
nuevas ideas y permite crear nuevas relaciones entre las
cosas.
Early Childhood
4) Conclusión o solución del problema
Para practicar este elemento de la historia, pedimos a
algunos niños que hicieran un dibujo de alguna situación
problemática y a otros niños, nos hicieran propuestas para
resolverlos.
Es una casa y hay fuego.
¿Cómo ayudarías al gatito?
"Me treparía a un banquito hasta lo de arriba de la puerta,
de ahí me brincaría a la primera línea pero con un pie sin
pisar el fuego, estiraría los brazos, le diría, gatito, gatito, no
tengas miedo y lo agarraría y me bajaría hasta abajo de la
puerta con él abrazado y ya llegamos, fácil."
Las juntas de salón son otra herramienta para ayudar a los
niños a encontrar soluciones a sus problemas, así como los
de sus compañeros o maestros.
Al invitar a los niños a compartir ideas creativas para la
solución de problemas, más allá de encontrar alternativas
para resolverlos, los invitamos a ser analíticos, reflexivos, a
razonar y proponer.
Al escuchar a los niños y demostrar un genuino interés por
sus propuestas, creamos niños más seguros e
independientes.
Al invitarlos a desarrollar el pensamiento crítico y creativo,
los ayudamos a procesar información, les permitimos
aprender, comprender, practicar y aplicar. Tratamos de
promover que nuestros niños sean críticos, autónomos,
pensantes y productivos. Una de las maneras para lograrlo,
es generar en ellos la alegría y motivación por aprender y la
necesidad y pasión por proponer.
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High School
24
HISTORY
THROUGH THE
LENS OF THE
IMAGINATION
by Michael Hogan, HS teacher
What must it have felt like to be branded with a burning
cattle iron on the cheek? I asked myself this question
while I was writing the book The Irish Soldiers of Mexico, a
history of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. This
was exactly what happened to John Riley, the leader of
the San Patricio Battalion, when captured by the
Americans. I could not answer the question of what Riley
was feeling from a formal history text, of course, because
it was about pain and humiliation; about emotions. The
answer depended on using my imagination to empathize
with another human being, whereas what is required
from a historian is cold objective analysis. But I could
answer it in a novel which I later went on to write called
Molly Malone and the San Patricios. Producers of the movie
One Man’s Hero, based on my book, took it one step further
and dramatized this terrible event on the screen.
In our Honors World History class this year I have asked
the students to read at least one work of historical fiction
as well as the Advanced Placement textbook. In the pages
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of The Clan of the Cave Bear, or Augustus, or The Fall of Troy,
I hoped they would be able to see the characters of
history become real in a vivid fashion -- to imagine
themselves living at such a time. While the time of the
Roman emperors was very different from the 21 st century,
the people who lived in those years had the same desires
for comfort, for love, for accomplishment that the people
of today have. Students in this class, through visualization
and use of the imagination, become a part of history, and
history becomes a part of who they are. It is a unique
experience. It is also one they can share with their fellow
students around the world through reviews of the books
they read which we then publish on Amazon.
We often hear it said that “those who do not understand
history are doomed to repeat it.” But how many people
really understand history? Here at the American School
we do much more than simply show the students the
lives of great leaders, the perennial wars, the dates of the
rise and fall of empires, and the evolution of man. We also
try to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the events
that have occurred over time, and how, even though
things change, there are certain underlying currents that
remain the same. But is that enough?
I sometimes hear discussions among educators about
teaching for the 21 st century. As if that is something
different from quality teaching at any time or any place.
One of my great friends on campus, Leo Diaz, once said in
annoyance, “Well, as for me, I am a 6th century teacher!”
Leo, like Aristotle, like Marcus Aurelius, is interested in
helping his students discover the interconnectedness of
things, of making the students aware that technology
existed long before the Internet. The quality of teaching
which made Alexander the Great, Einstein, Madame Curie,
Gandhi, and Octavo Paz such wonderful contributors to
society, was not "21 st Century Thinking;" some narrow,
isolated-from-history method only thirteen years in
existence. It was something bigger than that. It was
critical and creative thinking, and that has been what
good teachers have been doing for many centuries.
Another of the projects my students are working on this
year on is choosing a tool or technology that existed in
prehistoric times and following that tool/technology
through the Roman Empire, the Golden Age of Greece, the
Persian epoch, the Byzantine Empire, the Middle Ages.
The students are required to show how the tool or
technology not only evolved and was changed, but how it
in turn changed the world around it.
Thus each student is able to discover that a variety of
tools and technologies existed before mankind even had
the word “technology” in its vocabulary. Before, in fact,
man developed a language. The students learn through
their own research that men and women were applying
the principles of physics and chemistry and mathematics
long before these subjects existed formally. There were
aqueducts in Rome before Newton “discovered” the Law
of Gravity; the Persians used complex compounds for
makeup and the Chinese for gunpowder centuries before
there were any books on chemistry. The Egyptians built
pyramids ages before Euclid wrote his text on geometry.
The world has always been an interesting and dynamic
place, filled with technologies new and old. And one
technology doesn’t necessarily replace another. The
wheel exists today right alongside the computer. The
screw exists inside the most complex machine. People
read real books and magazines as well as Kindles and
iPads. The old is simultaneous with the new.
The history of the world (unlike what CNN and most
politicians tell us) has not been a steady progression
toward some wonderful future of the evolution of man. It
has been filled with up-cycles and down-cycles. There
have been times of great accomplishment and peace: the
Golden Age of Greece, the great advances of the Persians
– followed by the Dark Ages and the Hundred Years War.
There have been great innovations in technologies and
civilization, of art and music, followed by invading armies
who destroyed much of what was built up and
generations who wallowed in ignorance. There have been
days of peace and security followed by days of terrible
wars and murders of children. And the murders of
children occurred not just in China during some
long-forgotten incident in the 5 th century but in 21 st
century Connecticut as well.
What we learn from the past, or don’t learn, tends to
come about as a result of active minds being challenged
(and challenging themselves) to see the world from
different perspectives. Not merely the perspective of a
single influential country with formal programs of
education that are often dominated by the textbook
publishing business and testing companies, following the
imperatives of corporate culture and the need for a
gullible consumer and obedient citizenry. But also the
view of the outsiders, the view of other cultures who
measure success in other ways, who measure progress
other than by perennial consumption of the resources of
the planet. This is part of why we study WORLD history,
not merely United States History or Mexican history. We
hope our students will become good citizens, yes, but not
High School
nationalistic automatons, singing anthems and reciting
pledges while the world around them is destroyed. We
hope they will be citizens of the world: young men and
women who will have respect for all the creatures on the
planet, for all cultures, and will honor the lives of those
around them. That is not possible unless they are able to
imagine who those people are and why those cultures are
the way they are.
It is also fun to do these things. It is enjoyable to step
out of one’s narrow vision of the world and see it from
another perspective. It is why I became a writer and why I
became a historian. Why I am I also a teacher? Well, I just
had so much fun doing these things that I felt it would be
selfish not to share them with others.
Dr. Michael Hogan is a writer
and historian and the author
of twenty books, including
The Irish Soldiers of Mexico,
an Amazon best-seller about
the Mexican War which
formed the basis to an MGM
movie and two award
winning documentaries. He
currently teaches Honors
World History at ASFG.
25
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High School
26
THE
ENHANCEMENT
OF CRITICAL
AND CREATIVE
THINKING
SKILLS
THROUGH
INTERNSHIPS
AND JOB
SHADOWING
OPPORTUNITIES
AT ASFG
by Leonardo José Díaz, High School Counselor
CAREER COUNSELING AT ASFG
ASFG recognizes that each student possesses unique
interests, abilities and goals that will lead to many
future educational and career opportunities.
Collaborating with students, families, educational staff
and the community, ASFG works to ensure all students
develop an academic and career plan reflecting these
characteristics and including rigorous, relevant
coursework and experiences appropriate for the
student.
As a leading educational institution ASFG seeks to
provide all students the opportunity to:
• Make course selections that allow students the
opportunity to choose from a wide range of
post-secondary options.
• Explore the connection between coursework and life
experiences.
• Explore interests and abilities in relation to
knowledge of self and the world of work.
• Experiment the world of work through internships
and job shadowing opportunities in the community.
• Develop a career and college admissions portfolio to
highlight strengths and interests.
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Academic and college/career planning at ASFG
provides all students with the opportunity to identify
strengths, areas in need of improvement and areas of
interest early on so students and their families can set
post-secondary goals and make informed choices to
support students in reaching the desired outcome.
The focus of individual academic and career planning
is thus threefold: a) to help students acquire the skills
to achieve academic success; b) to make connections
between school and life experiences and c) to acquire
knowledge and skills to be college and career ready
upon high school graduation.
Being a college preparatory school, ASFG places a lot
of emphasis on career and college admissions
guidance both as part of the high school mentoring
program and as a key function of the high school
counselor.
Career guidance can be broadly defined as a spectrum
of activities and programs designed to help young
people learn about careers, plan, choose, and succeed
in their chosen careers. Thus, ASFG implements a
comprehensive school counseling program that
includes educational and career planning activities for
all students designed to assist them in reaching
academic, career and personal/social goals. These
career guidance programs and experiences effectively
prepare for college and career readiness.
One example of these programs and activities is
ASFG´s annual Career Fair for high school students to
explore a wide variety of career fields. A keynote
speaker kicks off the event plus numerous presenters
from all types of professions offer sessions so that
students can choose fields that are interesting to
them. Students are encouraged to ask questions
regarding their personal interests and preparation for
that field. ASFG relies every year upon the generosity
of our parents, graduates and community members to
present their professions during these sessions.
THE CAREER GUIDANCE ENHANCEMENT PROJECT
Recognizing the importance of developing models of
career education and guidance that involve not just
the school but also the wider community, the Parents
Association is leading an exciting new project where
ASFG parents will provide our high school students
the opportunity to join them at work either through
internship opportunities like the Wonderful World of
Work offered every year during Week Without Walls
and through job shadowing opportunities.
This initiative, led by Mrs. Laura Guerra de Escobedo,
Parents Association President, Mrs. Marina Furia, PA
Liaison for the Career Guidance Enhancement Project
and several amazing and committed mothers from all
the school divisions (early childhood, elementary,
middle school and high school) has three projects. :
Wonderful World of Work during Week Without Walls -
March 2013
During the entire week, students participating in the
Wonderful World of Work will work with a professional,
a business or organization where they can explore and
experience a particular career. Some examples:
working in an industrial engineering plant, with a
doctor, a restaurateur or as a teacher assistant in
kindergarten. The goal is to experience a career in the
real world. The range of careers can be very broad.
Fifteen students signed up to work for a full week with
law firms, industries, businesses, a consulate, a school
and a hospital. We are very grateful to those parents
who have given these 15 warriors the chance to fully
immerse in the wonderful world of work under their
guidance and mentoring.
Job Shadow - April and May 2013
The program "Job Shadow" enables our students from
10th, 11th and 12th grades (ages 16 and up) to
experience a specific profession for a full workday
being the "shadow" of a professional who will become
the student’s mentor in the career of their choice for
the day.
Career Fair - October 2013
Every year during October, high school organizes a
career fair in which students have the opportunity to
High School
spend time with professionals in fields they are
interested in. All students attend three different career
presentations of their choice. We offer approximately
30-35 career options.
AN OPEN INVITATION TO JOIN US
The Parents Association has invited the ASFG
professional community to join us in one, two or all
three projects and we have had a great response so
far. If you are interested in participating in one or all
more of these projects, we invite you to send an email
to career.orientation@asfg.edu.mx expressing your
interest and/or availability. We will give you more
information and request additional information
depending on the project or projects you want to
participate in.
The critical foundations for lifelong career
development are being laid out at ASFG in partnership
with the school community and we hope that as a
community we can activate and utilize all resources
that can help our young people to learn how to
explore, learn about and choose their careers making
informed decisions through opportunities that allow
them to test their “vocational hypothesis” in live work
settings with mentors from our community. These
experiential learning opportunities enhance critical
and creative thinking skills by allowing students to
question their assumptions about the careers they are
interested in, ask clarifying questions about the key
features of a given career or profession and assess
their experience with adult mentors in a system that
provides clarification and feedback on the chosen
careers of interest.
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Elementary
28
Mr. Nacho
Makes
Science
Come Alive
by Dawn Lussier, Elementary Principal
ASFG is not the only place that has
benefitted from Nacho Salazar’s
passion for science. It has taken him
to faraway states where he has had
the opportunity to inspire hundreds
of teachers, in different parts of
Mexico, through workshops with
hands-on activities. The following
comments were made by teachers
who attended Mr. Nacho’s one day
workshop in the state of Oaxaca. “I
never thought science could be
taught this way.” “I never thought
science could be so much fun.” “I
can’t wait to share these
experiments with my students.”
Over the past few years, Mr. Nacho
has given a number of hands-on
science workshops to teachers from
many schools here in Guadalajara as
well as to educators from other
cities and towns in Mexico; his goal
being to transmit his passion by
making science come alive so that it
motivates teachers who are then
able to get their students excited
about science.
Many of the teachers that Mr. Nacho
has worked with admitted that it
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was really hard to spark a student’s
interest in science when the majority
of their science lessons simply
involved the teacher reading and
lecturing from a science textbook.
The process of metamorphosis,
however colorful it might be on a
textbook page, just somehow did not
come alive and make the children
want to learn about the life cycle of
a butterfly. A teacher, from the
southeast sierra of Nayarit, said that
she often skipped teaching science;
she preferred to leave the textbook
reading for homework. But, after
attending Mr. Nacho’s workshop, her
view of science completely changed.
She realized that her school sits in
the middle of a forest that provides
a wealth of learning opportunities.
So, she took her students on a nature
walk to observe butterflies, insects,
and the backside of leaves to look
for pupas. What an amazing
learning experience it was for her
students and suddenly they became
very interested in the process of
metamorphosis.
Nacho Salazar spent three days at
the University of Chapingo, in the
state of Mexico, modeling hands-on
science to 28 preschool and
elementary teachers. When Mr.
Nacho discovered that the majority
of the participants did not know how
to turn lessons about animals into
something that involved the
children, he chose to share a fun
lesson on birds. In the lesson, when
teachers squirted drops of water
down real feathers they were able to
observe how water simply rolls off
the feathers of the birds. The
teachers were given materials such
as clothes pins, tweezers, and
spatulas and were instructed to
create imitation bird beaks. They
were then asked to use their bird
beaks to try and pick up seeds; he
wanted them to see how difficult or
easy it might be for a bird to actually
collect his food.
He actively involved them in a
number of hands-on activities that
helped them learn more about such
groups as insects, reptiles, and
amphibians. And, by the end of the
three day workshop, teachers at
Chapingo were excited about
getting back to their schools and
trying out their new found skills
with their students. They were sold
on the idea of teaching with
hands-on science activities and
convinced that their students would
be excited and motivated about
learning science.
Good work, Nacho.
Una respuesta
creativa para la
implementación
de la RIEB
por Norma Guinto, Directora del Programa Mexicano
El sistema educativo mexicano está
transitando por una Reforma Integral de la
Educación Básica (RIEB) desde el año 2004.
Esta reforma ha traído consigo no solo
cambios en los planes y programas de
estudio, sino innovaciones en las estrategias
de enseñanza, la evaluación y el rol del
maestro, del alumno y de los padres de
familia con el objetivo de elevar la calidad de
la educación que reciben nuestros niños y
jóvenes.
Para los maestros, llevar a la práctica los
aspectos sustantivos de esta reforma –
articulación entre los diferentes niveles
educativos, énfasis en temas relevantes para
la sociedad actual y en la formación para la
vida - , ha sido un arduo camino que han
recorrido con entusiasmo. Nuestros maestros
han estado en capacitación continua desde
que inició la implementación de la RIEB, con
el objetivo de contar con las herramientas
que les permitan innovar en su práctica
educativa para que sus alumnos alcancen los
aprendizajes esperados para cada grado
escolar.
Pero, ¿cómo responder a una reforma de esta
magnitud? ¿cómo prepararse para integrar
los principios pedagógicos, las competencias
para la vida, las competencias docentes, los
estándares curriculares, el enfoque formativo
de la evaluación, temas de relevancia social?
Conociendo los talentos de cada uno de
nuestros maestros del Programa Mexicano,
decidimos unir esfuerzos y enfrentamos este
reto trabajando colaborativamente
despertando nuestra creatividad.
Además de acudir a los talleres de
capacitación ofrecidos por la SEP, creamos un
plan de capacitación interna para
asegurarnos de que todos nuestros maestros
Programa Mexicano
reciban la formación profesional que
necesitan según el grado y la materia que
imparten. Una de las iniciativas que más han
enriquecido nuestra práctica educativa fue la
creación de un club de lectura que lleva por
nombre Te platico un libro. Para ello,
adquirimos una colección de libros con temas
como: uso de la tecnología en las prácticas
docentes, trabajo en equipo, hábitos de los
docentes eficaces, evaluación auténtica del
aprendizaje, nuevas alternativas de aprender
y enseñar, desarrollo de competencias
lectoras, entre otros. Cada uno de los
maestros eligió el libro que leería para
posteriormente compartirlo con sus colegas.
En el caso de las maestras de Primaria, las
reuniones son una vez al mes y en cada una
de esas reuniones, una maestra platica a sus
compañeras el libro que leyó. Al final de cada
sesión se abre un espacio para dialogar, de
esta manera las maestras relacionan el
contenido del libro con lo que sucede en el
día a día en los salones de clase. A través de
este diálogo, las maestras comparten
experiencias que les ayudan a mejorar su
práctica docente y desarrollan relaciones que
les permiten colaborar con sus colegas en la
realización de proyectos interdisciplinarios
que tienen un impacto positivo en el
aprendizaje de sus alumnos.
En las secciones de Secundaria y Bachillerato,
la reunión se realiza de manera virtual ya que
la multiplicidad de horarios hacía imposible
contar con un tiempo dentro del horario
escolar donde todos los maestros
coincidieran. Actualmente, los maestros han
seleccionado el libro que van a compartir y
aprovechando las herramientas tecnológicas
con las que contamos en el colegio, en el mes
de marzo comenzarán a usar Google Groups
para dialogar sobre el libro que eligieron.
Con la convicción de que el trabajo
colaborativo rinde grandes resultados, los
maestros del Programa Mexicano se han
propuesto contribuir con sus habilidades
individuales para que aprendiendo los unos
de los otros logren aprendizajes significativos
que se reflejen en el éxito de cada uno de sus
alumnos.
29
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2013
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Early Childhood
30
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La música
y la
creatividad
en
preescolar
por Cristina González Ladrón
de Guevara - Miss Gigi
“Con ésta canción
puedo hacer títeres
para jugar.”
Johnnie Ting
La educación musical tiene un gran impacto en el desarrollo de capacidades
intelectuales, auditivas, sensoriales, motrices y del habla. La música es una
herramienta para el aprendizaje que además de ser divertida, desarrolla
habilidades tanto motrices como sensoriales. Para los alumnos de preescolar, la
aventura musical comienza al momento de entrar a nuestro salón, ya que
tienen que pasar por el “túnel musical,” que fue diseñado por dibujos que ellos
mismos hicieron de notas, instrumentos y frases musicales.
Para iniciar nuestra clase, cantamos una canción para saludarnos e indicar que
estamos en clase de música y al terminarla todos saben que es momento de
bailar. Existen canciones que nos ayudan a aprender las partes del cuerpo al
mismo tiempo que utilizamos la memoria y la coordinación. Otra canción que
sin duda es de las favoritas de los niños, nos lleva a bailar como chango,
elefante y tigre. Recuerdo la primer clase con los alumnos de maternal, cuando
todo era nuevo para ellos y algunos incluso estaban asustados y llorando. Uno
de los pequeños no dejaba de llorar, hasta que comenzó la canción “Do The
Monkey” con la cual comenzó a bailar como changuito, a hacer la trompa del
elefante y a asustarnos a todos como un tigre. Toda la clase estuvo feliz,
bailando y cantando. Se le olvidó que quería volver a casa hasta que la clase
terminó y comenzó a llorar de nuevo. Ése fue para mí un gran ejemplo de lo
poderosa que puede ser la música para nuestras emociones y para romper toda
barrera y miedo.
Es increíble ver como la música ayuda a los niños a despertar diferentes
emociones y ayuda también a desinhibirse al momento de que todos estamos
bailando sin importar quién nos vea. La canción “The Bear Hunt” habla de ir en
busca de un oso y todo lo que tenemos que atravesar para llegar hasta la cueva.
Los alumnos pueden ir imaginando el subir un puente,
trepar un árbol, remar un bote hasta encontrarnos con
el oso. Al llegar a la cueva es curioso como cada uno
demuestra su personalidad al reaccionar de diferente
manera al “salir corriendo de la cueva”. Hay quienes
deciden luchar con el oso para salvar a sus compañeros,
o quienes abrazan a sus amigos para protegerse del oso
y quienes de inmediato corren para salir de ahí.
Al momento de cantar utilizamos canciones que
ayudan a los niños a descubrir diferentes sonidos que
se pueden realizar con la voz. Trato de seleccionar
canciones con pocas palabras para que sean fáciles de
memorizar, pero que podamos jugar con ellas. “Boom
Chicka Boom” es una canción en donde los niños van cambiando su voz y van
desde cantar como bebé, vaquero o perro, como si estuvieran debajo del agua,
como sonido de motocicleta o ratón y trato de terminar con voz de susurro para
poder tener un ambiente relajado y la atención de todos. Las canciones cuentan
historias y permiten que cada quien las interprete y se las imagine de distinta
manera.
La música estimula la creatividad, la psicomotricidad, coordinacion, el lenguaje
y ayuda a que los pequeños puedan expresar sus emociones, de una manera
divertida. Es una manera para que los amigos y familiares, independientemente
de su edad sean juguetones, divertidos y puedan convivir fácilmente. La música
crea un ambiente rico que fomenta la autoestima y promueve el desarrollo
social, emocional e intelectual. Me gustaría invitarlos a que incorporen música
en su rutina diaria y vean el lenguaje tan poderoso que puede llegar a ser.
Proyectos en beneficio
de los futuros Ex Alumnos
por Mónica Caballero, miembro de la Asociación de Ex Alumnos
A lo largo de los años, el ASFG se ha distinguido por
desarrollar en los alumnos el pensamiento crítico y la
creatividad.
Una vez que salimos del colegio, los ex alumnos
comprobamos lo valioso de estas habilidades las cuales
se convierten en herramientas útiles para la vida.
Por ejemplo, al ingresar a la universidad un ex alumno
del ASFG experimenta confianza en su desempeño, la
cual proviene de su capacidad de estudiar, discernir y
elegir adecuadamente.
Más tarde, en la vida profesional, o en los años de
formación de una familia, el pensamiento crítico y la
creatividad son compañeros ideales para la toma de
decisiones y la creación de soluciones “out of the box”
indispensables en estos importantes años de la vida.
En la Asociación de Ex Alumnos del ASFG hemos
decidido apoyar actividades que el colegio ofrece para
detonar estas habilidades en sus alumnos.
Ejemplo de ello ha sido apoyar la iniciativa de otorgar
laptops Mac para los alumnos de 7º grado. Es un hecho
que esta herramienta tecnológica refuerza el desarrollo
de habilidades que brindan a los alumnos ventajas
competitivas decisivas.
Asimismo, a partir del año pasado la Asociación de Ex
Alumnos decidió ampliar sus patrocinios a otros
proyectos que como el anterior, contribuyan en forma
directa al desarrollo de la creatividad y el pensamiento
crítico. Es el caso de los apoyos que se han brindado a
alumnos que participan en diversos concursos
nacionales de ciencias como la Expo Ciencia. El año
Alumni Association
pasado patrocinamos dos de estos proyectos. En el
primero se destinaron recursos de la Asociación al pago
de las inscripciones de la Expo Ciencia en Puebla, donde
nuestros alumnos ganaron un primer y un tercer lugar
nacional, y la posibilidad de representar a nuestra
escuela en los Veranos de Ciencias en Rusia.
En el segundo proyecto, apoyamos de forma parcial el
hospedaje en Brasil de nuestros ahora ex alumnos Juan
Carlos Sanabria y Santiago Peña quienes presentaron un
proyecto de ciencia en Mostratec, Novo Hamburgo, Brasil.
Los miembros de la Asociación de Ex Alumnos llevamos
a cabo actividades de procuración de fondos tales como
la venta de agua y refrescos en los eventos sociales y
deportivos que se realizan a lo largo del año en la
escuela. Pero, la fuente primordial de ingresos a la
Asociación son los donativos que de manera libre y
generosa realizan los padres de familia durante las
re-inscripciones.
A nombre de los miembros que constituimos la
Asociación de Ex alumnos deseamos expresar nuestro
más sincero agradecimiento a todos los padres de
familia que con sus aportaciones contribuyen al
fortalecimiento de nuestra Asociación y con ello nos
permiten seguir apoyando proyectos creativos en
beneficio de los futuros ex alumnos del ASFG.
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Middle School
32
adapted insect designs
by Chris Peterson, MS Art Teacher
Imagine that you are a cockroach. Or maybe you would prefer to think of yourself as a
beautiful butterfly. Either way, your species is in trouble. Environmental changes have
brought a flurry of super storms that are wreaking havoc on your way of life. Luckily, insects
are highly adaptable creatures. Your little cockroach body starts to sprout fins that allow
you to maneuver easily through flooded areas. Suction cups emerge from the ends of your
legs to help you stay put in strong winds. Your exoskeleton doubles in thickness and
develops diamond-like strength to protect you from falling objects.
Fifth graders have been considering scenarios just like
the one above as they creatively problem-solve for their
latest art assignment. The creative challenge is to draw
an insect and then invent adaptations that reflect a
drastic change to that insect’s environment. Students
utilize their knowledge of adaptations from science class
to imagine how their insect would change when
confronted with environmental disruptions such as rising
sea levels, super storms, or faster prey. This is art class, so
the more creative, unexpected, or strange the adaptions
are, the better! A praying mantis with freeze-rays that can
turn rising waters to ice? Sure! A jet-propelled
grasshopper that can out-hop its prey? Why not?
Sounds like fun, right? But arriving at ideas that are
unexpected can be harder than you think. Creativity is
not an entirely concrete idea, yet we seem to agree that
it is a positive and very desirable skill in the 21 st century.
A survey of fifth grade students revealed the following
ideas about what is at the heart of creativity: Paulina
stated, “Creativity is having fresh and vivid ideas.” Joaquin
believed, “Creativity is the thing in your mind that makes
you do imaginative things. If you didn’t have creativity,
you would be the most boring man on earth.” Fermin
thought, “Creativity is when someone lets their mind
flow and think of things nobody else has thought before
and put it on a piece of work.” We combined our
thoughts on what creativity was, and agreed that it had
to do with using your imagination to think of novel ideas.
To generate ideas for our adapted insect designs, we
began by brainstorming. We went over three basic, but
essential, ground rules for generating ideas: 1. Don’t
judge your ideas; all ideas count. 2. Think of many ideas
– strive for unusual or even strange ideas. 3. Build on
your ideas – if one idea sparks another, write it down.
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The goal was set high. Think of twenty-five ideas for
adaptations. The ideas began to flow. It was a struggle
for some, while others fluently produced more than the
goal, and most were in the middle of the two extremes.
It was important to maintain a quick pace using a timer,
and to frequently remind students that quantity, novelty,
and building on ideas was very important.
Fifteen minutes later, it was time to converge and select
the ideas that would be drawn for the final insect design.
Ideas that were unusual, original and plausible to draw
were chosen. There were many unexpected and fun
insect adaptations: solar reflectors, floral subterfuge,
color and form changing wings, acid spraying cannons,
hypnotizing antennae, teleportation and super-vision
capable of seeing predators light-years away. At this
point, the students were excited and ready to draw from
their imagination. Here we discovered yet another
significant creative problem to solve: How does one
draw light-year super-vision, or the ability to teleport?
Just go for it! Guess, even! Another vital aspect of
creativity is the willingness to experiment with a wide
variety of ideas, take some risks and jump in headfirst.
Making changes, corrections, or modifications along the
way will eventually lead one to a resolution of the
creative problem.
The process of creating the adapted insect artwork and
the final product itself share equal importance.
Generating unexpected ideas, then critically selecting
them, takes persistence, practice, and repetition. Putting
those ideas into action and transforming a beautiful and
delicate monarch into a mind controlling, solar-powered
predator requires flexible, imaginative, and creative
thinking. Encouraging these qualities in art, science, and
beyond will develop a young mind that can embrace and
adapt to our quickly evolving 21 st century environment.
Critical And Creative Thinkers
by Mary Anne O'Connor, Elementary Support Services Coordinator
It generally takes a great deal of effort and practice to develop into a fluent
reader and writer. If, in the learning of these skills, we do not then use them
in a critical and creative way to better our society and world, I wonder what
purpose they really serve. The time and work it takes for our brains to master
these literacy skills warrants that we put it to good use by honing in on
developing those traits within us that make us artists, innovators, social
advocates, and world citizens who value beauty, and who have an ability to
critique and act to improve on what we see around us.
Noticing beauty is, for me, one of the early steps in creative development. A
person first notices beauty and then with a deepening appreciation of it, will
often be inspired to create, and thus influence, others. In addition, the ability
to critique and act for justice are necessary skills for our world. The sense of
indignation inspired by injustice or a lack of harmony fuels the development
of critical thought. This critiquing of perceived unfairness hopefully leads to
taking action to right wrongs, a very important responsibility for ourselves as
citizens.
Please read on to hear from the mouths of our own developing critical and
creative thinkers. They have some random but beautiful thoughts, which
hold the seeds for profound reflection as to the true meaning of being
human.
Juan Diego in P1-6 says: “I love the desert for the sicri (secrets) in the cavs
(caves).” “I like the yellow-orange ski (sky) at sonset (sunset).”
Sayuri in 1-12 says: “It is beautiful when me and my cousins play hide and seek
in the dark and scare each other in a funny way.” Also, she shares, “It was
beautiful when a frog jumped on my arm and then on my head. It wanted to be
my friend.”
Patricio, also in 1-12, says: “The most beautiful sound for me is the ten songs my
Mom wrote for me.” And again, Patricio explains, “I love to hear the sounds of
the birds and the animals.”
Jose Pablo, from 1-12, says: “We saw a dead bird on the ground and we buried
it.” He then remembered, “When my own bird died, I cried.”
Daniel, in 1-12, says: “I stand up for the animals. I tell people don’t hurt the
animals; they didn’t do anything to you.”
The ability to read and write can be most deeply moving when the words are
grounded in the experiences of beauty around us and inspired by a desire for
justice in our world. Let’s keep our hearts and minds alert to the beauty that
surrounds us. From this perspective, let us be moved to make the world more
just and even more beautiful, as the children above have shown us it can be.
Let us in turn profit from any opportunity to encourage this type of reflection
in our students.
Elementary
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Middle School
34
The Fish Pharaoh: A 6 th grade
Cross-Curricular Experience
by Sam Morrison and Chris Swiggum, MS teachers
Too often in our schools, subjects are divided into containers:
language arts only happens in this room, history only happens
in that room, and art is only an activity one day a week. Schools
can be a place where subjects are rigidly categorized and
segregated, but this need not be the case. With careful
planning, teachers can enrich students’ experiences by
breaking down the divisions between the classrooms. The big
skills of thinking creatively and critically happen across subject
lines, and so it makes sense that projects and assignments do
as well.
For the second year in a row, we (Mr. Morrison and Mr.
Swiggum) have collaborated on a three-month long project
that combines science, history, art, and literacy. The Fish
Pharaoh Project gets students thinking critically while working
collaboratively towards a long term goal. The students must
dissect and mummify a fish in a way that mirrors the process
that was used in ancient Egypt.
The first step starts in science class. In sixth grade science,
students spend four weeks learning about the human body and
how cells, tissues, and organs work together to give life to the
human machine. One of the best ways to learn about what is
inside something is to see, touch, and smell what is inside. For
the dissection, we use a species of fish local to the Mexican
coast, the Liseta Mullet (Mugil setosus) or ‘Lisa’ fish.
Students began by making a T-cut along the belly of the fish
and just behind the gills. As the medical scissors cut through
the rigid scales, a blackish liquid seeped over students’ hands
and into the dissection trays. Student pairs collaborated and
communicated on who would fill what role in this process. The
next step was to move the intestine to reveal the organs
behind. Trimethylamine and dimethylamine (the chemicals
responsible for the distinct ‘fishy’ smell) began to permeate
around the lab.
Behind the intestine, students identified the stomach, liver,
swim bladder, and the acorn-shaped heart. In order to prepare
the young fish pharaoh for his/her passage into the afterlife, it
is necessary to remove these organs (except the heart which
was left in by the Ancient Egyptians). Students had to figure
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out the best way to carefully remove the organs while leaving
the arteries and veins connected to the heart.
Ancient Egyptians used a long iron hook to extract the brain
through the royal’s nose. Fish nostrils are not connected to the
respiratory system, so it is necessary to remove the eyeballs and
fleshy gills to access the brain. One student stabilized the fish
while another used tweezers to extract the eyeballs and gill
tissue. Groups could now get to the relatively small brain near
the back of the pharaoh’s skull.
With the brain removed and heart attached, the fish was ready
to be cleaned and salted. The ancient Egyptians relied on
natron, a mineral salt found in dried lake beds. We used sodium
chloride (normal table salt) to fill the clean fish bodies, and
then buried them in the salt to await the wrapping process.
After the dissection, the body is stored in salt in order to dry
and preserve the body. This process takes eight to ten weeks.
In the meantime, students work on building a sarcophagus
(coffin-like structure) for the fish pharaoh. Students have
specific details that they must add in order to make the
sarcophagi similar to those of Ancient Egypt. Every
sarcophagus needs to have a colorful representation of the
fish’s body, a door (for the soul to leave), and an eye (so the
pharaoh can “see” out). This process allows students to be
creative and apply what they have learned about ancient Egypt.
Once the fish bodies are dry, they are wrapped. Students first
lightly oil the bodies, then wrap the body in gauze. A type of
glue (similar to the resin that was used in ancient Egypt) is
used to hold the gauze. Each body is then placed in an
individual sarcophagus.
Late in the school year, the students excavate the mummified
fish. This is their opportunity to see if the process worked. To
remove the bodies from the wrapping is a painstaking and
deliberate process. Students work carefully with one another
in order to get their fish out intact.
The fish pharaoh project has proven to be a popular project in
the sixth grade. Students must apply what they learned via
lecture and books to dissection, sarcophagi building, body
wrapping, and eventual excavation. Effective communication
throughout the process is required because so much of it is
done in collaboration with other students. Students leave sixth
grade with an enduring understanding of the dissection and
mummification processes of ancient Egypt.
Un pequeño gran proyecto
por Alicia Aizuri Minakata Viramontes, maestra de Middle School
Un sábado de octubre, escuchaba en la radio un programa en el que solicitaban alimentos
no perecederos para los niños de las comunidades wixárika (huicholes), quienes viven en
Nayarit y al norte de Jalisco; a cambio ofrecían ir a las instituciones educativas a presentar
una función de títeres para difundir algunas de las leyendas que forman parte de la
cultura de nuestras comunidades indígenas, que muchas veces desconocemos.
Entonces, pensé que sería un pequeño-gran proyecto (así lo bautizó Miss Fry) de servicio
a la comunidad, que cumplía con tres elementos clave:
• Estaba relacionado con el currículum de español de quinto grado, pues en ese bimestre
estábamos estudiando sobre las fábulas y leyendas.
• Existía una necesidad real por parte de la comunidad, pues cada año en los meses de
frío y sequía, es sabido que los alimentos escasean y que la más afectada es la niñez.
• Podríamos reflexionar sobre la enseñanza que las leyendas y los testimonios del líder
del grupo de la Cucaracha nos compartiría, acerca de las acciones que ha venido haciendo
durante tantos años, solidarizándose con nuestros hermanos huicholes.
Después de llamar al número de teléfono que escuché, quedamos de acuerdo en la fecha;
propuse la actividad al equipo de quinto; llenamos lo formatos correspondientes y
empezamos la campaña de recolección.
Los alumnos hicieron carteles para pedir la cooperación de otros grados y, de esta manera,
hicimos que se escuchara esta necesidad en la comunidad del colegio; decoraron varias
cajas para ir almacenando la comida que íbamos trayendo y, mientras tanto, estudiábamos
las características de las leyendas y las fábulas. ¡Ah! y claro, vivimos el significado de LA
SOLIDARIDAD, que al principio era una palabra impronunciable porque era muy difícil,
pero ahora la reconocemos y la relacionamos con una experiencia de aprendizaje.
Y como “no hay fecha que no se llegue, ni plazo que no se cumpla” se llegó el día esperado.
Llegamos al auditorio del ASFG y ya nos estaban esperando los títeres y el grupo, nos
acomodamos y nos preparamos para aprender y disfrutar de la función. Vimos varias
escenas en las que se buscaba que tomáramos conciencia de las necesidades que hay en
México; nos contaron una leyenda sobre una tortuga que explicaba las creencias del
pueblo wixárika sobre el efecto del hombre en la naturaleza. Finalmente, se invitó a la
audiencia para que participara en el escenario; nos dieron las 2:30 y queríamos seguir con
la función, pero ni modo era hora de terminar.
Ese mismo día, nos pusimos de acuerdo para entregar lo que se había recolectado, pero
era más de lo que se esperaba, así que no se lo pudieron llevar en ese momento; tuvieron
que volver sin títeres para que cupiera en su camioneta.
Como parte de la sensibilización de este proyecto, veremos en febrero una película que
produjo Barbara Sack, cineasta austriaca que busca apoyar a los grupos vulnerables en la
sociedad mexicana, dando a conocer sus culturas a través del arte que ella produce. Muy
amablemente aceptó venir a compartir con quinto año sus conocimientos y experiencias
como parte del tema de la diversidad cultural en la materia de geografía.
En hora buena a todas las personas que luchan por preservar y difundir las tradiciones de
los pueblos de México. Yo, lo que busco es fortalecer la identidad de los estudiantes, pues
la mayoría son mexicanos y de que sepan más de esta cultura porque creo que no se
puede aceptar, o al menos tolerar, lo que no se conoce; entonces ¿Cómo les pedimos que
acepten la diversidad?
Middle School
“Ser humano es
no poder
entenderse a
uno mismo si
te desentiendes
del resto de tus
semejantes.”
(Savater, Fernando. Ética para
Amador. Editorial Ariel. España 2005
3ra. Edición. Pág. 184)
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The Scientific Method: A natural phenomenon in Early Childhood
by Karen Mercer, K11 Teacher
The scientific method has been
simplified in a way that certainly rings
true of the basic nature of the young
child. Simply put the scientific method
is: Look around, ask questions, get an
idea, try it out, think again and then
make sense of it all. Visit one of our
student-centered kindergartens and
watch for only a few moments and
most of this process is visible.
While observing my students in the
block area it is obvious that they have
already “looked around” and chosen
the blocks. They begin to build a tall
structure, the idea begins to formulate
and suddenly the block structure
tumbles loudly to the floor. They
build an almost identical structure and
tumble it again and again. Many
teachers at this point might stop this
activity after all it is annoyingly loud
and at first may just seem destructive.
On continued observation and
annotated notes, one realizes that the
“think again” takes root and the
structure evolves. One of the zoo
animals is placed atop and more
ground work is done to reinforce the
tower. Once adjustments are made to
the plans, the experiment persists. I
watched a group of four create and
topple sixteen towers in about fifteen
minutes.
To some this may seem to be only play
but the four students in the block area
were engaged in the hands-on
exploration of the natural phenomena
of gravity and physics. The teacher’s
role then is to give voice to the
questions and help “make sense of it
all”. The simple question of why often
creates a whole new picture for the
adult observer. When asked, “Why do
you keep knocking over the towers
that you build?” One student
responded, “To see how far it goes.”
“What do you mean?” “To see if it can
get to the edge of the carpet. I keep
pushing harder but it would not go, so
we added more blocks and it finally
did, see it is under the writing table
now.” The student, age 5, had
formulated an unspoken question
something like “I wonder how hard I
have to push this tower to make it go
off the carpet?” Then the student, with
the cooperation of a peer group,
constructed a tower, tested the
hypothesis, re-thought and
reconstructed the experiment with
additions, tested again and succeeded
in the goal. Then, to pose the question,
“What did you learn?” “Hmmm,” says
the one girl in the group, “we really did
not need to push it that hard; all we
had to do was make it taller.” The
others chimed in their approval for her
answer and then one added, “I guess it
just went down faster and harder the
taller it got.” That is a pretty good
conclusion to make and we use the
word conclusion when talking about it
with five year olds. We also use the
word hypothesis when we make
guesses about what is going to
happen. Although, I do not believe it is
the vocabulary or formality that is the
great benefit to young children, it is
the opportunity for experimentation.
Activity provides a context and
purpose for dialogue and it is the
dialogue around the manipulation of
materials that supports meaning
making. At the end of the day I ask the
small group to come up and explain
what they did and what they learned
from it. I always begin those
discussions with “What question did
you answer?” We keep a list of
questions that children ask in our
room. Those conversations can almost
guarantee a repeat performance by
another group of experimenters the
following day. The talk is productive
and fosters an interest in science and
experimentation, creating a climate of
risk taking and a scientific approach to
other aspects of our classroom.
Children’s natural curiosity with the
world around them and the questions
they ask are often related to science
concepts.
In Early Childhood our business is
providing the environment and the
climate which allows for interaction
with intelligent materials and spaces
that cry out for scientific inquiry. In our
room this year, we set out to provide
as much opportunity as possible. I
rearranged my room to create a dark
room underneath a loft. Miss Cristi and
I hung a black curtain across the base
of the loft. In this space, students
could investigate photonics, the study
of light. We placed an overhead
projector, flash lights and mirrors in
the space as well as a basket with
assorted materials that included
opaque, transparent and translucent
shapes. We also included overhead
transparencies and markers. We
allowed a lot of time for exploration
and we listened. Time and time again
we watched the scientific process take
shape. When the materials we
provided were not enough, they
“looked around” for other options that
included leaves and flower petals.
They were disappointed to find that
those beautiful colors were not
transferred on the walls like the
transparent objects. One student said,
“Oh! They are just like these shapes (as
he put an opaque triangle on the
overhead next to the leaf); the light
just can’t get through!” Another
student said, like it was the most
obvious thing in the world, “No light,
no color.” Photonics according to
kindergarteners without any direct
instruction from the teacher. I wanted
them to come to this conclusion, I
could have told them explicitly that
indeed color does depend on light but
that sophisticated reasoning came
from the opportunity to interact, look
around, develop questions, get ideas,
try them out, think again and make
sense of it all. All I had to do was keep
asking questions and provide the time.
Experimentation in the classroom can
be loud and messy and often looks
unstructured to parents and
administrators. It does not look like
“curriculum” and so it is often
questioned. Providing opportunity
serves to prepare learners to be
scientists, technological experts,
engineers, and mathematicians. It
prepares a workforce for jobs and
problems of the 21st century. The
scientific method is a natural
phenomenon of the young child
interacting with his or her world. It is
the responsibility of the adults in that
world to enrich the environment, seek
the content knowledge, and ask the
questions that steer children to
content and connection through the
messy, loud, often annoying process of
inquiry.
The formulation
of a problem is
often more
essential than its
solution, which
may be merely a
matter of
mathematical or
experimental skill.
To raise new
questions, new
possibilities, to
regard old
problems from a
new angle,
requires creative
imagination and
marks real
advances in
science.
~ Albert Einstein