Well - they made it to country #2 - Nicaragua - yesterday and enjoyed a historical tour of Managua with some modern pieces thrown in. Today they are visiting one of the five organizations their hostel with which is involved. They continue to jump right into their surroundings and learn about the area.
Here is the schedule for today... pretty packed... but as one alumna, who visited the office today commented, "seems pretty typical...(smiles)... do you think Algebra 2 and TJ really happened on time?" And the only real answer, "You know the TTS way and why we make schedules on a white board."
GEOMETRY
As students prepare for midterms, we have been
focusing on polygons and circles. Leila
and Izzy are completing an independent study on polygons, their diagonals,
angles and sides. Together, we are looking at the relationship between circle arcs, tangents, secants, and chords,
while learning theorems about inscribed angles and corresponding circumference
measures. The gardens of Don David
overlooking Lake Peten, the lodge at Finca Tatin deep in the Guatemalan jungle,
and the sunny docks of Rio Dulce have made for some of the most stunning
Geometry class settings for which one could ask!
Precalculus
Chapter six is finished! It was complex to say the
least. Although each section was, at first glance, unrelated to the last, all
the sections were essential to one another and we continue to build on those
concepts. We have covered vectors, polar coordinates, demoivre's theorem, law
of sines and cosines. McKinley and Bella are great at solving vector, force,
and work problems. Ash and Sharleen worked hard to master the multiple
different graphing systems of the chapter. As we move onward to chapter 7, the
students are looking forward to the familiar x and y systems.
Algebra
Our exploration of polynomials comes to an end as we
finish chapter six and are in the midst of math midterms. We had many
polynomial dance parties, which are a bit like mathematical Simon says: Annie
calls out a polynomial to the group and then Katy, Maddy, and Sarah Jane
represent the end behavior in dance moves. We polynomial-danced across the lawn
on the edge of Lake Peten in El Remate. We also had the chance to learn about
the Mayan numerical system while in the Mayan ruins in Tikal. Up ahead we have
the exciting world of logarithms and exponents!
Science
Our TTS classroom these past few weeks has
ranged from the rich deciduous rainforest in Tikal to the shores of Rio Dulce
outside of Livingston. Boat rides along
the Rio Dulce are a wonderous experience for us to see wildlife and
complete field journals. Kaitlyn examined one of the hundreds of crabs around
Finca Tatin. Hannah completed a field journal on a beautiful toucan she saw on
top of Templo Four in Tikal while watching the sunrise. The students also
presented their Unit 1 projects. Madeline rapped about the stars while Maddy
and Hannah performed skits on the history of the constellations and their names.
McKinley, Sarah Jane, Ash, and Sharleen took TTS on a bird safari. Kaityln,
Sarah M, Annie, and Sadie presented interpretative cloud dance moves and
finished with a competitive game of jeopardy. Midterms are next week and as a collaborative project, students will teach a one hour class on the world food crisis.
Intermediate Spanish
Throughout this semester, students have seized opportunities to interact with kids. Whether through organized school visits, at
their homestays, or elsewhere, these interactions often yield lots of laughs,
and the students talk about them as highlights.
Currently, each Intermediate Spanish student is engrossed in writing and
illustrating their own children's book.
Not only will we be sharing these books with young people we meet in
Nicaragua, but many Guatemalans are getting involved in the process as the
students seek assistance editing and bouncing off ideas. Inspired by our visit to Camino Seguro, Sadie
is writing from the perspective of a tree growing at the edge of a garbage dump.
Ash drew inspiration from the wildlife that we encountered in Tikal to
put a unique spin on the classic story if Romeo and Juliet. And Sarah Jane's story comments on land
distribution in Guatemala through the metaphor of sharing toys among "big
kids" and "little kids."
In writing their stories, each student has challenged herself to convey
a broader cultural theme in a creative way, synthesizing many of the
experiences we've had in Guatemala.
Beginning Spanish
Students showed how much their
language skills have grown as they conversed with high schoolers at the
Instituto Ak' Tinamit, a private school that offers scholarships to students
from all over Guatemala who come to live and study here in the jungle. Maddy was thrilled that the srudents she met
invited her to make tortillas, and Hannah commented on how many of the people
we met were from regions of Guatemala that we've been to previously, especially
El Petén. Izzy has been using her
spanish skills to learn more about topics from History and Global Studies. Yesterday, she drew a cartoon based on a
conversation she had with someone in Livingston about the Guatemalan Civil War.
As midterms approach, we have been focusing on reviewing and putting into
practice all that we have learned this semester. We have explored the many
jungle paths and outbuildings here at Finca Tatin, describing our surroundings,
practicing when to use the verbs "ser" and "estar," as well
as direct vs. indirect objects. We were
surprised by how many crabs we saw - Madeline exclaimed, "hay cangrejos
por todos lados!"
ADVANCED SPANISH
¡Saludos
desde Rio Dulce! At Finca Tatin,
Advanced Spanish’s lugar favorito for
classes has been a dock floating on one of Rio Dulce’s tributaries. It’s a fantastic spot for delving into
discussion on Un Dia en La Vida and
the protagonist, Lupe’s, life in the 1980’s Chalatenango, El Salvador. The book is a challenge, brimming with
Guatemalan and Salvadoran dialects, but the class continuously rises to the
challenge. Bella has proven a stellar
reader, McKinley the emerging vocab guru, and Sarah M. is our class
philosopher, posing thoughtful and provoking questions about the book’s myriad
of themes. We’ve also welcomed Sharleen
to the class, and her contributions to our discussions have helped further
everyone’s understanding of the text.
Finca Tatin has proven a fantastic setting for aprendiendo mas español as students meet
a wider variety of tourists and workers from Latin America. Gaby, from Nicaragua, has introduced the
students to “vos,” a verb conjugation dating from 16th century
Spaniard Spanish, used instead of “tu” throughout Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
Honduras. Carlos, from Argentina, has
shared with the students a more Spain-sounding accent, and Javi, from Colombia,
brings a musical Spanish accent. The mix
of vernaculars has provided the ideal foray into our upcoming map project on los dichos populares of each region of
Central America. As we make our way to
Nicaragua, students are focused on comparing and contrasting the linguistic
idiosyncrasies of each region we visit. Pronto,
les contamos de Nica. . .
TRAVEL JOURNALISM
Leila, Sharleen, and Hannah have been working on interview questions
and skills over the past few weeks.
We have conducted interviews among our group, interviewing fellow TTS
students on their lives. In Peten, for
International Women’s Day, Laurel graciously taught a class on women as
journalists, and we then conducted interviews on the role of women in US and
Guatemalan society. Recently, in
Livingston, students had a chance to interview artisans and street vendors
about life on Guatemalan’s Caribbean coast.
Soon, Travel Journalism students will be conducting interviews to
uncover a series of mysterious events and then writing a feature article as
part of their upcoming midterm.
In the photography realm, students have taken turns studying
and practicing techniques used by National
Geographic photojournalists. As we
work towards building our portfolios for the semester, recent submissions have
been shots experimenting with black and white, macro, animal, color, pattern,
and texture techniques. Additionally,
students have collected panoramic shots, experimented with aperture and
exposure numbers, and tried a variety of flash settings.
Travel Journalism students hope you enjoyed their recent
(and upcoming!) blogs on just a few of the many intriguing places we have visited
thus far.
History
The
unit on the civil war ended in students interpreting data from pie charts and
graphs on the atrocities into poems:
Graph
Izzy, California, Sophomore
Look
Look
how the lines are crossed
Look
how the government swam in grey
But
can only be found in the black and white of a graph
'62
through '93
It
was one right violated
Then
two
Then
over ten thousand
And
who knows what else rose with the
Lines
of this graph
What
impalpable hatred, what unjustifiable tears
Who
knows what stories are engrained
In
each pixel
Who
knows what colors in the drainage of this graph?
Untitled
Sarah, North Carolina, Junior
"It's
the guerrillas" they told us.
"They're
the ones killing you"
But
they showed up with shiny rifles
That
looked all too new.
They
told us they were protectors
Trained
to rescue and serve.
But
their boots were dirty-
The
American soil struck a nerve.
They
fed us their lies
Until
their pantries were beat.
But
we clung to our food-
"We
only trust people who eat what we eat".
Then
they would kill,
And
torture and burn.
But
we couldn't retaliate,
Or
they would return.
They
blamed the guerrillas
For
all of the violence.
But
we knew better than to believe it,
And
we responded with silence.
Last
week we dove into articles on ancient Mayan civilizations in preparation for
visiting Tikal. Students immersed in our hostel's collection of National
Geographic magazines and library books to uncover the hieroglyphs and cosmology
of the people who inhabited the place 1500 years ago. They debated popular
theories of collapse, and hauntingly related the Mayan situation of drought,
war, climate change, unsustainable agriculture and population growth to the
current state of the U.S.
For
their final week in Guatemala, students completed a culminating exam on
the novel Bridge of Courage. Their responses must include a mixture of
political cartoons and short paragraphs to illustrate the themes present in the
book.
Literature
Students are hard at work writing, rewriting, editing, and peer-editing their testimonies, one of the major writing assignments of the semester. Students
chose to write a collection of personal memories, or tell the story of another,
as demonstrated in the novels Tree Girl and I, Rigoberta Menchu.
Last
week the class sat on a steep grassy hillside for a sunset class period. The
content-Story Hill-identifying the elements necessary for a week-rounded
testimony/memoir/story. This week, in addition to putting the final touches on
their papers, students are reading place-based short stories.
Soon
we will head to Nicaragua, reading Salman Rushdie's obscure piece titled,
Jaguar Smile. A challenging read for those unfamiliar with the history and
politics of the region, students will learn quickly!
GLOBAL STUDIES
While in Peten, students met with Francisco Cano, the lead
delegate for INGUAT, Guatemala’s tourism department. During a Q&A session, Mr. Cano and the
students discussed tourism’s effects, immigration, and cultural similarities
and differences among Guatemala’s 23 indigenous groups.
Now in Livingston, we have begun a unit
on trade. After a mock market scenario
in which students bartered for goods (Guatemala snacks and candy) using money
(in the form of black beans), students worked on defining everyday terms from
an economist’s perspective: cost, utility, value, worth, and price. Our discussion continued with a look at terms
key to a discussion on trade, and we explored themes such as equity v.
equality, growth v. development, scarcity v. distribution, and rights v.
responsibility. As we make our way
towards Nicaragua, we’ll be examining the pros and cons of coffee, debating
protectionism v. free v. fair trade, interviewing locals to better understand
minimum v. living wages, and heading to the local markets to construct our own canastas basicas or market baskets.
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