Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Week 27, Marlborough School

March 27, 2012

Building, peep intros


We began this morning with two peep introductions.  Our helpers from Keene State introduced Carly and Jeremiah.  Jeremiah is a 45 year old, retired firefighter.  He is a sports fan, a poet, the owner of two dogs and an avid bowler.  Carly is a 15 year old ballerina, she loves music and hanging out with friends.  Both of these new peeps are homeless, Disco Dave offered accommodations for them in his storage unit.  Sarah and Erin (our Keene State helpers) asked the class if they noticed anything different about their peeps (the new peeps were left in the oven too long and have a charred appearance as a result).  Up to this point it had seemed that the kids were not fully engaged, during the introductions most of the questions were asked by Rolph.  When asked about the differences of the new peeps nearly every hand shot up.  "The new peeps are black."  Sarah and Erin then asked the kids how they thought this might effect their community (pros and cons).  "They will bring variety to Village."  "I think they survived the Great Peep Massacre (referring to their burnt appearance)."  "We won't be just a bunch of white people."  "More like a regular environment with diversity."  "We could have a civil war."  "We could have slaves."  This last one drew many a gasp from the class, it was presented as a con and I think the student realized the weight of what he said about 1 second after he said it.  "Chuck would give you free rent if you were his slaves."  It kind of seems like Chuck might be racist.

This was an interesting conversation to have in Village because the peeps as well as the homesteaders were answering the questions.  This is one of the great, and most valuable lessons in Village: your peep can make big mistakes or controversial statements and as a result the homesteader can learn from those actions based on peer reaction and not be condemned by peers for exploring a controversial thought or action in the first place.  The beauty of role play!

Many houses are really coming together, some even have carpeting now.  We tried another way of building this morning:  Instead of nailing a house together, we used wood glue with spots of hot glue as clamps.  It seems like it worked and it was a LOT easier than nailing.  We shall see next week if the wood glue created strong enough bonds to keep the walls together.

This weeks newspaper:

Last weeks newspaper:




Lumber (donated by Whitney Bros and Carlisle Wide plank flooring) waiting to be drawn on

Cardboard models

Lumber cut, some painted ready to be turned into homes for peeps!

Some houses coming together!

I think we need at least one more week inside.  The weather has turned frightfully cold again and frankly I don't want to be out in it!






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