Neanderthal Mondays Part II

On Mondays I go learn about Neanderthals at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  I get so excited when I learn something that challenges my perspective.  Before this class my assumptions about Neanderthals were largely based on the Geico Caveman. 

This evening we learned about Neanderthal genetics.  Our presenter went through the history of studies published in journals like ‘Nature’ since 1987 and the challenges to each conclusion.  Things really began to get exciting in 2006 when analysis of the Neanderthal genome began got underway.  Genetic material was found in common with modern humans.  Neanderthals had the FoxP2 gene, possibly the ‘software’ for language.  We had learned last week that they had the hardware: the hyoid bone and nerves in the mouth.  Red hair showed up with a mutation of MCR1 - although a different mutation than the one expressed as red hair in modern humans.  Finally in 2010 the fist Draft Sequence of the whole Neanderthal genome was published.  Of the genes that make us distinctly human, we share from 1 to 4 percent with Neanderthals.

But then it got even crazier.  There is evidence that 40 thousand years ago there were up to four different hominids wandering the globe at the same time: Early Modern Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans (found in Siberia) and Floresiensis (found on the island of Flores). All distinctly different from each other, but all shaping stone tools. Both Modern Humans and Neanderthals were using fire, living in organized social groups of up to 16 individuals, constructing shelters, practicing sophisticated pyro-engineering to create birch pitch tar, used to haft handles to stone points. They cared for the sick and old, buried their dead in shallow graves and covered them with flowers.

The Puzzle

After an active morning I told my youngest son that he needed to do quiet things for the afternoon.  He finished his book and was casting about for something else when a jigsaw puzzle box caught his eye.  He went downstairs to the art/project room and sorted the edge pieces out onto a tray.  After working for a while I heard my husbands voice down there discussing where a piece might go.

Dinner time came kids were at the table, but my husband? Still with the puzzle.  Bed time stories and brushing teeth.  I wander downstairs to get a glass of ice water.  The puzzle has expanded to three trays of sorted pieces that fill the kitchen table.  “Who is doing this puzzle?” I ask.  “I’m just helping him out,” he answers.  My bedtime comes, I go back down to the kitchen.  My husband almost has the edges finished. “You’re helping him out a lot.  Are you going to finish it for him?” “I’ll be right up,” he says, “I’m almost done with this bit with the letters on it.”

Snow Day in Three Acts

Snow Day in Three Acts                                              Saturday Snow

I want to paint my face like an ice dragon.                     Saturday snow

No it will get on your scarf.                                            nowhere to go

But it will come alive outside in the snow                      falls on the world

I’ll paint it when you come in                                         soft as

(from upstairs)                                                                cat’s feet

I can’t find any sweat pants!                                          (no that’s been taken)

Where’s my coat?                                                           kisses

Where’s MY coat?                                                        (could be mistaken)

Zip me up?                                                                     blankets the world in a silent shroud

I ate your coat.                                                              (oh, for crying out loud)

Oh so that’s where my boot was.                                   But this moment I have

Ow! My chin's in the zipper.                                          curled up in my chair

I’m going to throw the snow!                                        children outside

Can you throw your boot?                                            snow in the air

I need shoes.                                                                  running and falling

They’re in the bathroom.                                               sliding and calling

Mom, please tighten my boot tops.                                Shrieking with laughter

No! (like a pirate) Never!                                               how could I no?

Mom!                                                                             I suit up and go

(youngest, in the middle of chaos, spins 

around on a stool, chirping ‘no!’)

What?

Can you tighten my boot so I don’t have to take my snowpants off?

I look like a marshmallow.

Take your school backpack upstairs. please.

Mom where are my gloves?

(youngest, still spinning on the stool)

Mom why do gorillas have such big nostrils? Because they have big fingers!

Oh no! My shirt’s on backwards!

(struggles to turn turtleneck around without removing bibbed snowpants)

Mom can you tighten my shoes now? I think I may overheat.

I look like a red marshmallow!

(sister shouts to brother upstairs)

Will you go get my hat? It’s on my bed!

(smallest brother)

I see my gloves! Mom will you lift me up? They are too high.

Get the step stool.

Mom could you help me get my other glove on?

Could you zip me up?

Where’s your hat?

Upstairs in my backpack.

……….

Quiet

sound of the clothes dryer

the dishwasher cycles

snow

click of the computer keys

faint swhirr of the fan

soft flow of warm air from the vent

creak of the chair

Grandmere’s voice in my head

‘snow like feathers sign of good weather,

snow like meal snows a great deal.’

Snow skitters agains the glass

I break off an old leaf from the geranium

blooming a blood read burst against the white window

soft snap as the stem comes away, the smell of geranium

bubble of boiling water

sharp fresh smell of the tea

soft ceramic 'tunck', the lid on the tea pot

……..

Muffled sounds of glee

through the window to the back yard

louder

The door slides open

Mom come and help us! 

We can’t get the ball of snow on top!

Planning Adventure!

Today was exciting and exhausting.  The students have all chosen what they will study this spring and I am planning adventures!  There are five of us who are field trip teachers.  We divided up the students by topic. We all have our favorites, but then there are some - like the student studying chocolate - we all want to plan that field trip!  I can’t help seeing the interconnections between the topics my students have chosen.  I have to suppress the desire to take all my student on all the trips I plan so they can see how every topic intertwines with their own.  

          There are three students studying the following: Paris, French pastry and France. We will go to Les Delices de Paris, a pâtisserie, speak some french and interview a friend who lives in Paris half the year.    

I have two students who want to know about medieval times. We will go to the cathedral and then hunt for dragons in the art museum.  

I’ve always wanted to get an actor to meet us at the cathedral in costume so it can really feel like time travel.  

I have three students who want to study ancient humans and ice age animals.  The Denver paleontologists just uncovered 6000 fossils last year in the mountains.
We will go to the museum run between the legs of mammoths and mastodons. 

I will take the chemistry students and the magic students to the chemistry magic show.  But the magic students will also meet with a magician, shouldn’t my sixth grader, who is studying lying be there too?  And my two young magicians should tag along on the day we interview an expert on lying and micro-expressions. Of course they should, magic is deception. 

And shouldn’t my older student, who is exploring illusions, accompany her classmate when we talk with the physicist about gravity and time?

The Bully

I watched a disturbing video from March 3rd that was making its rounds on the internet.  Somewhere in Great Briton a group passing out leaflets against hate crimes is bullied by members of the BNP, an ultra nationalist group.  I don’t pretend to know anything about either group beyond what can be found on wikipedia, but I found the body language and word use of the bullies interesting and disturbing.

The aggressor was clearly intimidating the man with the leaflets, getting up in his face, telling him to leave.  His voice was loud and threatening.  But the words the aggressor chose were the words of a victim: 

‘No one is getting violent here are they?’ he says getting up into the leafleter’s face ‘You’re heightening the situation so you take a step back and stop threatening me!’ he steps forward again forcing the leafleter to step back. ‘No one is threatening you are they?’ he says as his comrades shout profanities over his shoulder at the leafleter, ‘You’re not welcome here.’

Eventually the leafleters return to their car and leave, coming back later to pass out their fliers.  The bully acts like a bully, moves like a bully, sounds like a bully, but uses words to paint himself a victim.

On the car ride home this afternoon I heard North Korea behaving in the same way as the BNP bully.  They swing around weapons, then declare themselves threatened when their neighbors react.

At school some of the teachers have been working through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to help students think about people's actions.  I’m trying to find where this interactions sits, if it sits there at all.  Why do we humans feel the need to frame ourselves as victims before lashing out? Why this dance and mincing of words?

Sometimes Good, Sometimes Bad

Day 7 Slice of Life

The March Slice of Life Challenge-hosted by Ruth and Stacey,

Two Writing Teachers,

Great Stuff!

Tweet at #Slice2013 

It is a day of small steps forward, 
small steps back

A day when I go from one thing to the next, sure I’m forgetting something

forward

I plan a chemistry magic show, 

bring a student to meet with a sci-fi author

back

a student frustrated with algebra

forward

two students want to study the middle ages

we will go to the cathedral and the art museum

back

a student with missing assignments who’d rather not see me

I can’t get the swordfighting instructor to call me back

math placements for next year - nothing is neat or easy

I sit to talk with a young student as she works out what it is she wants to learn next.  She knows what it is but can’t quite say it: 

‘Good and bad.’ 

‘What is good and what is bad?’ I ask.

‘Yes... No... Feeling good and feeling bad, why we do that.’

‘What happens in the brain?’ 

‘No, well, kind of.’

I watch her struggle to say the thing she cannot quite pin down. 

‘Why is it we are the way we are?’ she finally asks. ‘Why do we feel the way we feel?  Sometimes good, sometimes bad?’

I come home and my husband has shaved off his beard.  
I kiss his smooth cheek.

‘Your skin is red.’

‘It must not be used to being out in the world,’ he says

My son puts on a tape of lullabies to go to sleep.  My friend Sarah recorded the songs as a baby gift when he was born.  She left us last fall. Cancer.  Her sweet high voice floats across the hall as I write.  I write the way I feel, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Frank Armbruster

As field trip teachers we are contacting interesting and passionate people every day and asking them to give time to our students who share their passions.  So many people give so much to us that, though we try, we could never thank them enough for what they do to inspire and encourage our students.  One person in particular has given his time and his talent over and over again.  

Frank Armbruster is one of those that always say yes when we call.  He is an eccentric, enthusiastic inventor, a passionate ‘out-of-the-box’ thinker.  His infectious energy never failed to engage students who met with him, and to inspire deep and creative thinking.  He would appear at our office door with a ready smile and a twinkle in his eye.  He would excitedly tell of his latest creation and shower us with samples of his inventions.  Our office is filled with all these little bits of Frank’s bubbling, creative mind.  We hear today that he had a serious set-back to his health.  The field trip teachers spent an hour this morning making a video, showing how we use what he has given us, telling how we treasure the time he has shared with us and our students.  I am reminded again that time is a precious gift, meant to be shared.  Thank you Frank.  We all wish you the very best!