 The fourth grade teacher had been on jury duty the day before. |
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 She took the time to explain the difference between trial juries and grand juries.
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 She resisted, however, the many tempting tangents that the students' questions suggested, including the death penalty, voir dire, and the question of whether pets can be trusted with secrets.
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Across the school, three eighth graders were organizing their closing argument for next week's mock trial.
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 This team was made up of three veterans of Gordon's stage, who would be rehearsing later that day for this year's theater double feature.
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Threads like these run throughout the school.
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Seventh and eighth graders showed their sculpture skills making clay bowls in the style of ancient Cypriots.
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 Kindergarteners showed their sculpture skills making picture frames for their family. |
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They were demonstrating what they can do with an autumn palette...
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 ...just as, across the school, fourth grade showed what they could do with an autumn palette.
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 This week, the Preschoolers drew circles and squares.
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 It was Tuesday, a math focus day every week in Preschool. |
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 The teacher was checking in on these basics before combining geometry and arithmetic.
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 The Preschool's recent three-week-long class pet discussion had been a math extravaganza, requiring quite a bit of sorting, tallying and comparing. |
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 The process of selecting a pet had required critical thinking, research skills and group decisionmaking skills as well. |
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 Deciding on their leopard gecko's name, however, had been a straight-up vote: Chocolate Leopard Frosting, or "Chocolate Frosting" for short. |
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 Fourth grade was talking about inches and feet, an investigation that will grow into elaborate estimations and an introduction to the physics of baseball. |
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 This week, it was a review of fractions, measurement and duodecimal counting. |
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 One brainstorming session touched on the arbitrary nature of measurement systems. |
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 Whose foot was the original foot? And who decided that? |
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 The teacher deferred to one student as a recorder and another as a caller.
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 That freed the teacher up to nudge the conversation into provocative directions. |
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 The rhythm was different when the seventh grade math class went over their answers to the algebra homework.
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 Some students raised their hands, but it was force of habit; the teacher was calling on them at random, hands or no hands.
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 When a student was caught by surprise and took a second too long to answer, the teacher moved on to someone else.
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 He had their complete attention very quickly.
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 Indicating one graph, he pushed: "I know you know what type of graph this is. Come on, we've covered this."
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 He was looking for a specific word, but they weren't giving it to him.
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 When he gave up the word, "parabola," there were howls of outrage.
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 They all insisted that he had never taught them that word.
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 He held his ground, cutting off the debate with a fair but authoritative observation: |
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 Just because I'm outnumbered doesn't mean I'm wrong.
But the question is moot, because now you can never, ever say that you don't know what a parabolic curve is.
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