April 2010 On the Oregon Trail Pride and Prejudice
Athletics Winter Wrapup Toni’s Top Page Turner PreK Makes a Mosaic Annual Fund Goals Arbor Day April Calendar
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Abington Friends School
Bringing the Curriculum to Life in Middle School Message from Rich Nourie, Head of School What does it mean for a curriculum to bring ideas and experience to life for children? To engage them in rich intellectual and moral dilemmas? To stretch their thinking, refine their arguments and hone powers of persuasion? To confront moral and ethical issues with intellectual force and complex reasoning? And can this possibly happen in a 7th grade history class? It did a few days ago when I was visiting the trial of Hernán Cortés in Diana Gru’s class in the Middle School. On trial was Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who engaged and ultimately brutally ravaged the Aztec civilization in the 16th century. Prepared for weeks in advance, the day of the trial was electrifying. Cortés was being tried for embezzlement of a vast treasure of gold, manslaughter in the mob slaying of Montezuma and genocide for the widespread deaths by small pox and starvation by blockade of the city of Tenochtitlan.
ave the date
The trial was introduced as a proceeding built on principles of American jurisprudence, involving a judge (Diana), a prosecution team, a defense team and a jury of 6th graders (of whom I was the foreman). Students had been mastering the roles and
April 9 EC Art Show
April 15 Science Night
April 17 Parents as Educators
April 22-24 US Play: Pride & Prejudice
April 30 Arbor Day
May 8 Roo Fest
rules of the trial system, developing well-formulated arguments, learning the feisty give and take of objections and their grounds and developing sophisticated rebuttals of anticipated arguments from the other side. The prosecution began by carefully defining the charges of embezzlement (the abuse of trust for personal gain), manslaughter (responsibility for an unintended death by negligence) and genocide (the systematic widespread killing of a people) for the wide-eyed jury. Then began the colorful testimony presented by the prosecutors who called Cuautchmoc, the last emperor of the Mexica Aztecs and Benal Diaz del Castillo, the historical chronicler of Cortés’s travels and exploits. With artful questions, and re-formulations made to step around well-placed objections from the defense, the 7th grade prosecutors painted a clear picture of the betrayals and crimes of Cortés, who ruthlessly pursued treasure and Christian conversion at all costs. The team closely tied these multiple accounts to the technical definitions of the charges, building what seemed an insurmountable case. Until the skillful defense team cross-examined and then presented their own complex defense in the testimony Continued on next page