Get your stencil on!

MPX10 students are hard at work preparing for the upcoming exhibition "Civil War Silhouettes." They started with research of an invention during the civil war with their partner and wrote an argumentative paper about how this invention affected the war and continued to affect the world today. 

Next, after the field trip to the art museum, they created drafts of how they could express their thesis  through art. Then they teamed up with a visit from the advanced drawing class to get feedback on their drafts and refined them.

Once their design was approved it was time to start going big with their silhouettes in the style of Kara Walker, a modern artist we studied. 

Communication through art

This week in MPX10 our class visited the Spalding House museum on Tantalus mountain to see their exhibit "HI Society" in which local artists express the different elements (financial, cultural, spiritual) of living in the islands. Students received personalized tourists from docents in which they peppered the docents with questions and then did a hands-onart activity. The knowledge gleaned from this field trip will help inform their artistic decisions on their Civil War art project.

Teaming up with advanced acting class

Mpx10 students have completed their scripts on plays about the American revolution. Today, Mr. Wat's advanced acting class met with us in the green room under Bakken for rehearsal.

 In small groups, advanced acting class students provided audience feedback on how to improve the plays and performances. 

Transportation in flight

This week, as part of MPX10s year-long focus on sustainable transportation, Ms. Davis' and Mr. Hines' combined humanities and physics class ventured to the airport to learn about Hawaiian Airline's efforts to decrease fuel costs.

After the field trip, sophomore Mahina reflected:

"One of the great things about MPX is how you can dive deeper into a subject allowing you to understand the connection between different facts and subjects. For example, when you think about the topic “how do people move around the world?” you would mainly think social or economic, but MPX shows you how much more it is. It’s science, math, and even global issues. The world isn’t made in different categories and boxes, the world is messy and mixes together; you can’t fully understand a subject until you recognize how it branches out into new concepts."  

Students learned about the aerodynamics of flight, the forces on a plane, and did hands on activities to learn about Bernoulli's principle. Check Senior Director of performance Engineering demonstrating a plane in flight without excessive wheel drag:

Students then toured the mechanics hanger, speaking to mechanical engineers in small groups about their professions and considerations when building planes that won’t break or crack.

The physics concepts covered on the field trip will be reviewed and implemented in our year long bike project. A huge shout out to Scott--parent of Jordan ('17) for making this field trip possible.

Transportation Infographics

Before heading to the bike shop this week we started with the history of transportation. Students generated a list of different kinds of transportation, choose a partner, and did some research on their chosen form of transport.

Check out the amazing infographics they made in just 2 class periods!

MPX 10 Free Choice Reading

Welcome to all the new MPX10students! We have been off to a great start with a visit to the library and an introduction to free choice reading. This year, in place of assigned books, students will be responsible for reading 30 books of their own choosing. 

MPX is about empowering students to be leaders of their own learning and book selection is one of those choices. It is my hope that after learning their reading likes and dislikes through the year, when they are no longer my students they will still continue to be life long readers. All topical reading will be covered with in class handouts and short stories.

The assignment includes some criteria by genre which the librarian and I came up with together:

10 free choice

5 Historical fiction (at least 3 based around United State’s history)

3 Biography/autobiography

5 General fiction

4 Science-fiction/fantasy

3 Non-fiction

Here is the full assignment sheet

We start every class with reading time and when students finish a task early they are rewarded with more free reading time. 

One student told me she read 5 books last weekend! And I only read 3. We are already creating an awesome reading culture so if you see one of my students please ask them what they are reading!

Economic Hardship

It has been an interesting two weeks exploring the essential question: What can economic hardship of the past teach us about how to respond to it in the present?  With this unit I am striving to push students to use their understanding of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to better understand how our society is addressing the current issue of homelessness and poverty on Oahu today.

Last week we started off with a visit to the Next Step Shelter in Kaka'ako. 

Photo of where a family of four sleeps, courtesy of Reyn Chagami

"I was surprised on the amount of space they were given. It wasn't to big of a space as you can see from the picture. They have to fit multiple people in that space to which would be really hard."
 --Blaine Tonaki

This week MPX10 students rolled up their sleeves for service learning at the men and women's shelters at the Institute for Human Services.

We were not allowed to take photos during meal serving, but afterwards we went upstairs to see the rooftop aquaponics system IHS has installed. This photo shows MPX students checking out a bin where 50lbs of tilapia was recently harvested and served at IHS!

"When we first walked in and saw all the different types of people I was blown away. Seeing the faces was super intense. At first I felt very awkward because here we were as private school kids coming into feed the homeless. However, this feeling didn't last long because as soon as we started serving food and I could see the expressions on their faces I felt great. I thought it was super important for us to do this field trip because it made us interact with the homeless. " 
--Isaiah Browning

After break, students will continue their research on the great depression and fundraisers for Next Step shelter in preparation for a short film festival at the end of April. One group is planning a homeless simulation on campus as part of their fundraiser, details TBA. 

Over break, the only homework is to finish the books they selected on the topic of homelessness and catch up on sleep!

Feedback from architects

Last week the MPX10 class walked over to the University of Hawaii School of Architecture. Students have been working on a design project since last semester, trying to create a display space that will allow students to share their work more easily on campus. The meeting with the architects allowed students to both practice their presentations and get feedback on their designs.

Several students decided to rebuild their models after meeting with the professional architects because they got such great ideas on how to improve their work!

“One piece of advice they gave us is to make a person that is to scale to our model of the display space. They said that would help because it will show how big the model is and it will help the judges understand our model more. Another advice they gave us, is that we should put turf-like material under our model and label by numbers the different sides of the model and explain the gazebo by the numbers.” Blaine Tonaki

“I think it was a really good idea that we went over to UH to talk to architects and people who are working in that [the design] field. It was really useful and it helped me to get ready for the real thing coming up. Some of the positive things I took away from this time was that they told us to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! If you practice a lot it will make a big impact on your presentation.” Malia Strohlin

The final pitch of their designs is this Wednesday morning. Please wish your son or daughter good luck as they will be presenting to Dr. Turnbull, Mr. Cordova, Mr. McManus, Dr. Russell, Mr. Watson, and two local architects.  The winning design will be integrated into the school's master plan!

Mock Trial of Huckleberry Finn

Is that a real judge? No, that is Trevor Blake and Aly Soares serving as the judge and clerk of our mock trial! It was Parents vs. Mark Twain and the Board of Education, debating the question: is the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn promoting racism? If so, should it be taught in American public schools?

Students preparing for the trial with Judge Pacarro and guest attorneys

 As a teacher, it is difficult to convince students to read books from different time periods, especially ones written in dialects of the American south in the mid 1880s. However, MPX10 students had a real reason to read: they would be serving as a lawyer, judge, witness, or jury member in our mock trial. The UH Richardson School of Law was kind enough to lend us their practice courtroom for our trial, and we were honored to have Judge Paccaro, Attorney Hochman, and Ms. Soares in the audience!

Huck, Jim, and the Dr. 

Mark Twain on the stand

The plan, as devised by the clerk

A focused jury takes notes!

Pap on the stand

After the trial, Judge Paccaro and Mr. Hochman were able to give the students direct feedback about their roles in the trial.  They commented on procedural elements that could be improved--like the attorneys speaking to one another directly across the table--as well as strong lines of questioning by the prosecution in particular.

Feedback from Mr. Hochman and Judge Pacarro

In the end, the jury unanimously found Mark Twain not guilty of promoting racism, which is consistent with an astute reading of the novel.  However, from an educational standpoint, the verdict was irrelevant to me.  When I saw the attorneys on both teams combing through the novel looking for opportunities to verbally goad their opponents, or calling "objection your honor--where is that stated in the book?" I could tell students were ingraining in themselves the importance of using in-text citations, a concept I have struggled to get through in a traditional classroom.

The whole crew

In his iconic youtube talk Sir Ken Robinson challenges teachers to create schools that don't kill creativity. For 3 hours today while students were engaged and listening to one another, practicing public speaking, staying in character, and responding to text-focused questions on the fly, I felt confident MPX10s had avoided that pitfall of education.

MPX10 Art Walk in History

"My art piece represents how the country was built upon the constant communication between its inhabitants" writes Ethan Jung. This sentence started his artist's statement accompanying the art piece depicting the role of information technology in the United States. MPX10 students presented their work to more than one hundred visitors in the Weinberg Seminar room on Tuesday night.

Please click here to see a photo gallery. 

Students chose their research topics after a survey of US history, 1492 to the present. Topics covered a large range of their interests from Native Americans, agriculture, and disease, to ships, homosexuals, and African Americans. After conducting college-level research and presenting their findings to one another, students studied art techniques of contemporary artists including Kara Walker and Robert Raushenberg. Finally, they built a piece of art that demonstrated their findings on their research.

"This drawing is of a court room. There are two men that are whispering to each other about the woman. This is how sexism works these days not up front but in whispers," wrote Bradley Sakaguchi about his art piece explaining the history of women in the U.S. "In the future I hope that we will look at each other not as males or females, but as humans. We should be treated as equals."

Upcoming event!

Inviting all parents, students, and community partners to attend our culminating event of the unit!

Please join us!

Working as researchers

A big shout out to all the parents who came out to support MPX students during their PIP presentations at the end of last semester.  It was a huge success--Thank you! If you didn't make it, you will have another chance at the end of this semester.

To catch up to the present, it has been a busy first two weeks of second semester! Students have been working on the U.S. history research project (aka "timeline project") based around the topic of their choice.

Students meeting with guest speaker, Nanette Napoleon

I wanted students to get feedback on their presentation drafts from a full time historian so we invited Nanette Napoelon, civil war historian to class to give them pointers.

Criteria students co-created for presentations

Students can start to build an inner understanding of what "quality" or "excellence" look like when they help to define it, so MPX 10s co-created criteria which they thought defined an excellent presentation for this particular timeline assignment.

Students presenting their criteria to the class

More in-class presentations on criteria

Bryson presenting on the history of espionage in the U.S.

Finally, students presented their information to their classmates. Presentations will continue in the week to come in preparation for the night when students will share their work with the larger community during "Art Walk through History."  The event is from 4:30-5:30, Tuesday, January 28th in the Weinberg seminar room. Mark you calendars!