Thursday, January 13, 2011

SJCU Gets Deeper

In Social Justice Cultural Understanding class (SJCU), we just finished working on our 8th grade presentations about institutional racism. We each chose sub-topics, and then annotated articles about the past and present of our issue. We then presented to the class what we learned after reading the articles.

The sub topics were:

Different treatment of historically black colleges
Institutional racism becoming internalized
Educational achievement gap
Racist ads
Racial health disparities
School segregation
Overrepresentation of blacks in the criminal justice system
Discrimination against minority farmers
Ethnic studies ban
Back on asian violence
White caricatures of racial stereotypes
Racial profiling
Black unemployment
Black or Biracial?

Many of us felt like we benefited from the assignment. Emily Soriano, a classmate had this to say,
"Everybody came prepared and they were all really good."

"I think everyone worked really hard, and was interested in their topics," said Greta Rainbow.

What we learned about institutional racism was intense, such as nooses being hung as a death threat to racial profiling, and our knowledge will continue to grow about cultural awareness.

Picasso at the SAM... a successful field trip from the art to the museum in general

Last Wednesday, the 8th grade class took the bus to an exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum... to see Picasso! Sixteen out of the twenty-nine girls in our class had never been to the exhibition before. Imani Apostal says, "It was really fun! I really liked all of the abstract paintings."

It was really engaging: Each group was lead by a museum docent. The docent imparted a plethora of background information about Picasso's paintings. Not only did we learn about his work, but we learned about Picasso himself. Before we visited the museum, we had a few different Picasso lessons and discussions in Spanish and Art class and it was great to see what we were learning .

Everyone found one piece they really admired. Evy Larsen says, "I love the Dora Maar picture where the woman figure is green and crying. It represents violence and sadness in the war. He made that painting to get him in the mood to make the Guernica picture." Anna Konsmo says of the artwork, "They made me think of art in a new form."

Everyone had a great time at the exhibition, and hopefully we will be able to go back to the SAM again! Payton Curtis says of the experience, "It was so unique!" The experience was so spectacular, the class is optimistic that we will be able to see the Nick Cave: Center of the Earth exhibition on textiles and art in the near future.

Ask your own daughter what her favorite works of art were, and what she thought of the museum!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

From Hair and Nails, to Languages and Cities, Theme Takes On a Whole New Meaning!

This is the first week of individual theme. We're working hard to kick it off, and getting nervous. Ruby Wood, who is learning Italian for her theme, says that she is "worried about the stress level but excited to learn what I've always wanted to know." I think we're all excited to start working on our own. Last theme didn't go as smoothly as we hoped, which was probably because of working in a group so we couldn't all do what we really wanted. This theme things are looking hopeful as we begin with more experience and are driven to do something we are very passionate about.

Some of the theme ideas for this term are:
Photography
Gymnastics
Short films
Languages
Cities
Music
Nail art
Knitting
Using natural remedies on animals
Hair
Makeup
History of fashion

Talk to your daughter about what she's doing for her project over the next seven weeks!