This is a thought provoking (and entertainingly presented) critique of conventional education. If you it find it interesting, then you will probably also be interested in how we try to answer the question “What is the Kino philosophy?” and the slide show of photographs from the 2009 – 2010 school year. I plan to post the slide show from this past year soon. Look at the slide shows even if you aren’t interested in educational philosophy but like to see pictures of happy children doing interesting things.

There’s a sequence of pictures showing the whole horno project here, along with a description by Chris of how the project evolved.

We applied the final coat of mud to the horno this morning. It’ll be ready for baking bread next week!

Next Tuesday, we’ll be having a school wide meeting starting around 9 o’clock where some students can show some of the projects they’ve been working on this year. Some of these projects will have been on display at the evening Project Sharing meeting last month, but many students weren’t able to be there, plus more projects are being completed every day as we get closer to the end of the year.

Every one is welcome to come!

Can you imagine a better way to study mythology than to sit under the stars and look at the constellations,
while hearing the stories about the images they represent? How about adding a slumber
party on the basketball court?

Chris’ Mythology class had a sleepover on Thursday night to enjoy the night sky.  They watched a documentary
about the formation of the universe. After the sun went down, they looked through a Galileo telescope made by Stephanie and Heather. It provided a surprisingly detailed view of the moon. Then, using an astronomy program that showed the
night sky, they located stars and constellations.

They’ve spent the a semester reading myths from lots of different cultures, including the story of Orion and Native American stories about the stars in the Big Dipper.

Chris says he was planning to wake everyone up to see the Aquariad meteor shower, but when he got up himself there wasn’t anything visible, so the rest of the group slept through until dawn.

Eli Roepke has Kino in his blood so it’s no surprise that he has taken one of his interests and is pursuing it with a passion.  Eli has gone Kino since he was three years old. His mother went to Kino and his grandmother Libby teaches at Kino.

Eli’s passion is for music and for instruments alike. He owns and is learning to play a piano, cello, trombone, trumpet, bugle, two flutes, a hand bell, a clarinet, two ukuleles, a guitar, and a fiddle. He also has a growing collection of instruments he has made himself — including pennywhistles, ocarinas, and three turkey basters.

About those turkey basters. You know how you can change the pitch of a bottle when you blow across the top by adding more water to it?  With a turkey baster, you can vary the water level by squeezing the bulb. If you are adroit enough, you can play a set of turkey basters like a set of pan pipes.

Eli tries to incorporate his interesting music and musical instruments into his classes at Kino whenever possible. When the history class was studying the history of warfare, he learned a variety of military bugle calls, allowing the class to test the theory that more complicated maneuvers were possible once officers had a loud enough way to communicate orders. In Shakespeare class, Eli is providing background music for Daniel and AJ’s audio recording of As You Like It. And for Physics, Eli is making an electric cello, as well as a lot of pan pipes.

Eli says, modestly, that his interest in instruments began because he is hyperactive and needed something to occupy his time.  He was interested in the way instruments work and how to play them. Earlier in the year we reported that that Eli wanted to be a luthier and that is still true! (Look it up in the Kino Connection archives if you don’t remember what a luthier does.)  Eli continues to work as an apprentice with James at The Folk Shop.

Eli is also a prolific composer. He uses composition software to compose in a wide variety of styles  for imaginative combinations of instruments. He will be sharing some of his compositions at Project Sharing Night next month.

Eli has been playing the piano for the longest time, five years. He has been playing the cello for about eight months. When I asked Eli which instrument he would choose to play if he could only play one, he answered cello. But he would prefer to continue to play as many instruments as possible.

In this blog and in the Kino Connections we tend to talk more about the unconventional, imaginative, and adventurous things our students are doing.  But students also put in plenty of table time (not “desk time” because we don’t have desks).  Students learn from both kinds of activities, but the former are more photogenic and fun to read about.

The fact that Angelina Lucento, who graduated from Kino 10 years ago, is spending the year in Moscow on a Fulbright scholarship, researching early Soviet art, is pretty interesting in itself.  (She’s been working on her doctorate in Art History at Northwestern University.) This year, she’s been posting photographs on Facebook of the food choice in her dorm’s cafeteria and posting messages in Cyrillic almost as often as in English.

She recently wrote about her visit to Perm, a city in the Urals, almost on the edge of Siberia.  She went there in mid-winter to give a lecture to art students (and was interviewed for Perm tv!).  Getting there involved a nearly 24-hour trip on the Trans-Siberian railroad. While she was there she visited Perm-36, a Stalin-era forced labor camp — the only gulag camp open to the public as a museum.

Angelina writes:

I almost backed out.

The camp is in the middle of nowhere. Not too surprising. You take a bus to an empty crossroads. You request that the driver let you out. You walk 4 km. The road is empty. Nothing but silence. Snow. And rolling hills. It is 21 km to the next town.

I was nervous about doing this own my own. In the middle of nowhere in the Urals. On foot. In -33 C temperatures. It was absolutely irrational, if not stupid.

But.

This morning the sky was a sapphire blue. And buying a ticket to the “Kluchino junction” was so easy and quick. I boarded a bus.

We drove through stunning Ural scenery. Hills. Inclines. Pristine snow. Ice fisherman. Children on cross country skis.

All along the route people asked the driver to stop and let them out at this crossroads or that crossroads. Sometimes a small collection of wooden houses with smoke puffing from their chimneys could be seen in the distance. Sometimes not.

Some passengers were met by relatives on snowmobiles. Some seemed content to walk to the villages in the distance. If they could do it, I could too.

I asked the driver to let me off at Kluchino junction. I asked him to point the way to Perm-36. “Straight down that road,” he said. “In Kluchino.”

He pulled away and I was alone. No other buses. No other cars. Just an abandoned gas station. And some decaying wooden houses. And a winding road. Open snowscape. Fir trees. White birch. Absolute silence. And a sign that said “Kluchino, 2.5 km.”

I walked. And walked. There were fresh human footprints in the snow. I found this reassuring. I walked some more.

I crossed a bridge over a frozen stream, and realized that the snowscape on my left was really a large frozen river bed.

I walked. Past three or four wooden houses with elaborate eave carvings.  This was the village of Kluchino.

I saw a babushka. The oldest I’ve ever seen. And tiny. Smaller than me. Even in her thick felt boots.

I asked her how to get to Perm-36. She didn’t understand. So I asked her how to get to the Gulag.  She said, “Straight ahead. Right over there.” Then she asked me for a 1,000 rubles.

I saw a smokestack. A watchtower. And old cement and glass building. And a forbidding green gate.

The babushka didn’t lie. The sign next to the gate said “Memorial Museum Perm-36. Gulag.” I tried to open the gate. It was locked. I rang the bell. A security guard emerged from the main building and glared at me. Said nothing, and then went back inside. I followed him. I wasn’t sure if I should. But I did. He didn’t protest.

There was a ticket “kassa.” A blond woman in a grey shawl appeared out of nowhere. “Yes?” she said.

“Is this the museum of the Gulag Perm-36?”

“Yes.”

“Oh thank goodness. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find it.”

“You know the entrance fee is 50 rubles, right?” I could tell she didn’t trust me.

“Yes. And I’d like a guided tour.”

“Well that will cost 550 rubles total.” She still seemed unsure that I was serious. I don’t think they see many lone female tourists, who appear to blow in out of nowhere. Most foreigners arrive in expensive taxis from Perm. Or on excursion buses. Most Russians come in organized groups, usually with schoolchildren.

I told her I wanted the tour and the entry ticket.

Then Galina appeared. She spoke English first. Then French. I asked if I could have the tour in Russian. She smiled very warmly. And the blond woman retreated respectfully. Clearly Galina was the boss.

I have had many guided tours in Russia. But Galina was the warmest tour guide I’ve ever met. And she let me ask questions along the way. And she knew the answers. She told me she studied the history of the camp in the archives. In Chusovoi (the next real town, 21 km away). And in Perm.  She told me that when she was a girl, and first heard there was a “camp” near her town, she tried asking about it. No one could tell her much. They said it was a camp for the worst, most dangerous “enemies of the country.” She was still curious. She would find out more.

I should say right now that Perm-36 had three historical stages:

From 1946-1953 it was a mixed camp for common criminals and political prisoners.

From 1953-1972 it was a camp for “elite” political prisoners. Those who had worked closely with Beria and such.

From 1972-1987 it was a maximum security prison for political prisoners only. Enemies of the people and the Soviet state.

This is what life was like in Per

The average prisoner:

Was brought to Perm-36 in a sealed cattle wagon on a train, and then blindly transferred to a truck bed, which was also sealed. Prisoners were not allowed to view the surrounding scenery. So they wouldn’t know exactly where in the Soviet Union they were. Some times the truck drivers drove around and around and around to add to the effect of disorientation.

(But one prisoner from Estonia was a biologist. And bird expert. He listened to the bird song outside his cell in solitary confinement. He determined he was in the central Urals.)

When the prisoners arrived their civilian clothes were taken away and stored, just like in prisons in the US. They were given prison stripes. Women were subjected to a body cavity search.

Inside. They lived in a group barracks. About twenty people to one room. Bunks were hard wooden benches. The “elite” prisoners were issued mattresses. No linens of any kind.

Eight hours a day, every day, except for Soviet holidays (7 November (Day of the October Revolution) and 1 May (International Labor Day)) in the camp sawmill.  They were paid a salary. Most of which they used to pay for their rations. With what was left they could buy cigarettes and writing paper. They could write two letters home a month. There was no limit on the number of letters they could receive.  They bathed once a week, in the community banya. Here they also washed their prison clothes.  All toilets were outside, in the cold. The elite had toilets in their barracks. As well as basins for shoe cleaning and hand washing. These were covered with concrete in 1972.  Cold outdoor toilets only after that.

There was a library. You could read all of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. A movie theatre. A red corner. And a reading table (think Rodchenko, workers’ club: seriously. I was surprised too.) And Pravda. And Isvestia. And such. Listening to the political news was a mandatory part of the work day. And took place right after roll call.

Things were different in the zone of the camp that is cordoned off by combination of fence, barbed wire, German shepards, and guards with guns. This zone was for enemies of the people and traitors to the Motherland.  Solitary confinement: No daylight. 45 minutes of exercise/day. From 8 until 8.45 pm. That is, under the cover of darkness.

Some “solitary” cells housed four inmates. Hard wooden bunks. One hole for the toilet. A washbasin with water in the morning and again in the evening.

Sometimes prisoners in these area were released from solitary for work. They made internal electronic switches for Soviet irons.  If you own a Soviet iron, as Galina said she does, its innards were probably produced at Perm-36, in a work room right next to the solitary cells.

Eight hours a day. On your feet. Twisting tiny pieces of wire. In an unheated room. With a concrete floor. Day after day after day after day.  No natural light. No fresh air. Just cold and repetition.

Female prisoners usually tried to get pregnant if they could. Two months before the birth and two months after they didn’t have to work. The babies were kept not with them, but near them on the camp territory. They were allowed breaks to breastfeed. But after the babies grew too big for breastmilk, they weren’t allowed to stay in the camp. They were either sent to relatives. Or sent to an orphanage.

If a prisoner died, a telegram was sent to his or her family. It said simply, “XX died.” Bodies were removed and buried in a nearby village, about 3 km away. Recently, families have returned to try to reclaim and rebury some remains. This is a difficult task.

I asked Galina what the villagers knew about the camp. She said next to nothing. They were told what she was told. It was a camp for dangerous enemies. They were not allowed to go near it. The guards, professional Soviet infantrymen and officers, lived on the camp complex and received significant financial compensation for this burden. The only outside workers were the women who cooked the rations. And they were sworn to secrecy and silence.

This museum is exceptionally well done. I recommend it. I’d like to see more institutions like it. Not just in Russia. But in America. And in the places we’ve tried to occupy. We talk about transparency. We claim we value it.  We should live it.

You can find our booth near the northwest corner of Cherry and westbound University (3rd Street), just west of Flandreau Planetarium.

On Saturday, at 10 am Jennifer and Alex are teaching how to make a duct tape bookmark; David is inviting children to collaborate on a comic book at 12:30; and at 3:00 Vanessa is making haiku books. Then on Sunday,  Judy will be teaching how to make flips books at 10; Heather is making pop-ups at 12:30 and Marielena is making paper flowers at 3.

In addition, we will be handing out information about Kino and progressive education.  Come join us!

Cheyenne, who is taking a cake decorating class, put her artistry to work to make this beautiful cake! She surprised teachers with it this morning. It was every bit as delicious as it looks (chocolate, with a lemony icing). Thank you Cheyenne!