Listen to the Wind

We discussed those things that make a school a school.  Normally, we think of a lot of the physical things that we use - boards, pencils, books, desks, the building itself.

We contrasted the supplies available here vs. the supplies available in a small village called Korphe, Pakistan.  This village is the setting for the nonfiction book, Listen to the Wind.  Here, the students in this small village had to write their lessons with sticks into the dust.  High in the windy mountains, this posed some rather obvious challenges - challenges that our class experienced first hand.  After reading, I took the class outside to sit in the dust of the baseball diamond.  They brought their pencils (sticks) and wrote a portion of their writing response in the dust:

• Write about what the problem was in the story and how it was solved.  Then write about how you/ we can help others. 
• After they wrote for a while, students had a clear idea for why the title of the book is “Listen to the Wind.” 

It was a little comically sad to see how the wind blew away most things they were writing.  It was good to let them live in the frustration that Korphe students daily experienced.  I could have written a book called Listen to My Students Complain about the Wind.... :)

The dust writing experience underlined the same need sensed by an American climber, Greg Mortenson.  When climbing K-2, one of the world's largest mountains, he fell and was nursed back to health by the kind residents of this mountain refuge.  Mortenson returned to build a much needed school.

The book afforded many valuable conversation topics, among them:

•  How helping someone else is not normally one sided.  Help received is normally returned.  We talked about how we could invest ourselves in the cyclical world of giving and receiving help in the classroom and the larger world around us.
• We also talked about Greg Mortenson's statement that building schools is the best way to fight terrorism.  "Purging ignorance" is the best way to create peace. 
• This led to a valuable discussion about the ways schooling helps to broaden our worldview and how we Americans need to broaden our worldview when it comes to some of our stereotypes about those originating from areas where our government has stationed troops.  The vast majority of people desperately want peace.  We cannot stereotype or fear others simply because they are different.  For us, too, education, "purging ignorance" is the best way to create peace.  
• To accomplish this, students used their M.I.L. time to read about the history of Pakistan, the cultural influences, and the schools.

Promoting Peace One School at a Time | Video - ABC News

                           

http://www.penniesforpeace.org/for-kids/feature-village/
http://www.penniesforpeace.org/for-kids/feature-school/
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943639,00.html