When I was a kid....

When I was a kid, a 6^th grade report or project involved the following:

• Choosing a topic—usually a static item like a country (Ecuador), issue (Abortion), thing (cell) or an event (moon landing).
• Researching—going to the small elementary library and looking up information in the encyclopedia.
• Writing—hand writing the information on neat lined paper along with traced or hand drawn maps, diagrams. If the teacher was quite good, they made sure you didn’t copy information and properly cited things in a bibliography.
• Presentation—hand drawing a nice title page with some sort of free handed graphic.

Neil's 6th grade class is continuing a huge project called exhibition. Here's how it works ( without getting into Education speak). In addition to all of the above elements, students engage in reflective journaling (both weekly and daily), field work (interviews and surveys), presentations (movies and powerpoints), and action (they actually try to help people struggling in the issue they are studying). It's quite amazing to see. In fact, what I have been struggling to succinctly state was summed up well by our head of school in his weekly thoughts to staff:

"It was a delight to spend some time chatting with Grade 6 students during their Exhibition last
week. Two things were impressive for me. Firstly, the knowledge that these young
people were sharing was “internalized” – they knew what they were talking about.
Secondly, many of them were doing something with their knowledge in relation to
injustice or bad practices. They were involved with plans and activities that
will cause positive change. I learned a lot, particularly about the incredibly
wide ranging effects of polluted water. These young people had a positive and
significant influence on me."

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Neil shows 1st graders his Power Point (below as well)