Week 34 Marlborough School

Civics


May 22, 2012

I should begin by saying that it is NOT raining!!!!  It would seem that this has been the only real obstacle since moving our program outside.  Such is not the case.  When I arrived this morning to unpack everything I noticed a major discrepancy:  All of the houses we had left in the pavilion were missing!  Obviously this would be a huge problem.  It is very late in the game to have kids start from scratch on their homes.  With a bit of investigating and chaos, it was determined that a family had a party at the pavilion over the weekend (it is owned by the town, not the school).  They moved all of the houses to a locked garage to protect them and forgot to put them back.  In the nick of time the houses we located and replaced!  Phew!!  Crisis averted!

This is the day that was designated as the cut off for the Tinytownies to get their act together and save their town from the "Great Flood".  We began with proclamations and big ideas.  The homesteaders were instructed to first fulfill the terms for their deeds, then to work on houses.  The seventh graders and a couple sixth graders agreed to various forms of responsibility and we set to work.  A large group of boys hightailed it into the woods to check on their properties.  I followed this group.  When I caught up to them Disco Dave's homesteader was distraught, something had happened to his house and his peep was missing.  Another homesteader was also distraught, his house boat had been badly damaged and he found Disco Dave in the muck near his boat.  He held Disco Dave over his head and proclaimed that if his homesteader did not come to claim Disco Dave, that he would behead Disco Dave.  And that is exactly what happened.  The two homesteaders were furious with each other.  Accusations were flying!  They did not seem interested in help... only retaliation.  With a bit of redirection the homesteaders called upon their elected officials to sort out their troubles.

This really needed structure so we turned it into a meeting.

Disco Dave, "R? is framing me for destroying his boat.  He beheaded me and destroyed the top floor of my house!"

Fred, "We need laws against vandalism and murder."  In the meantime the trading post was being robbed.  "And theft."

R?, "I beheaded Disco Dave" -said with a smile

Chuck, "We should have a law that you get put in the river for three days as punishment."

Fred, "Vandalizers should get the same destruction done back to them."

R?, "I didn't touch his house!"

Disco Dave, "R? destroyed my house, beheaded my peep, and accused me of destroying his boat!"

R?, "I have witnesses that I did not touch his house!"

Disco Dave calls  Gabe to stand ("up!")

Gabe, "Me and Dan saw R? with a metal tube destroy his own boat.  R? ripped off one end of the tube and stabbed it into his boat..."

Fred, "Fine R?"

Morton and Bob, "He's bankrupt!"

Gabe, "Can I continue?  He took the pipe and stabbed it through the top floor of Disco Dave's house and took Disco Dave.  The he saw me and Dan and ran."

R?, "I call a witness to the stand."

Chuck, "I saw those two (points to Gabe and Dan) with sticks on my land destroying the boat."

Bob, "Did the pipe have a bent end?  The pipe is mine."

Fred gives a character witness for Disco Dave..."he would never do that, I have known him since first grade..."

Jon (R?'s legal counsel), "I was told I could speak.  We plead innocent until proven guilty!"

R?, "Is that a good thing?"

Mean while, a toad is being trapped inside of an empty yogurt cup, the possibility of taping it in is being discussed.  "I'm calling PETA!  Animal cruelty!", Disco Dave.

The house, the boat, and the pipe are brought in as evidence.

Carmen, "Has anyone noticed that it has been thundering and lightening?  Maybe the bad weather was a factor in destroying the boat and the house?"

Chuck, "This (points to boat) has damage marks!  Where are the nails (points to the house)?  Where are the nails in that house?"

Disco Dave, " I used wood glue and it is water proof."

Rolph, "Are you sure?"

Fred (reads the bottle of glue), "It says water clean up, it doesn't say anything about being water proof.  The bottom of the house of secure.  We should address thieving, it is happening right in front of us right now!"

Law ideas were being thrown around to address the multitude of problems.  Nothing was decided upon.  The thief wound up giving back what he stole from the trading post.  The bell rang and it was time to run back into the school.

This was by far the BEST class we have had this year.  The kids began to acknowledge their personal investment in the community as well as their responsibility to the community.  We did not create any laws or inflict any consequences... but the group did work together to try to solve these very large problems.

When packing everything up I found the toad, and freed it!

Bob's home with fence

Pablo's home with archway

A nice fence!

Tucked into the hillside

On the bank of the river

A sturdy bridge

Week 33...?

May 15, 2012

WORK WORK WORK!


At 5 o'clock this morning I awoke to the sound of rain POURING down.  I thought, "Oh no, not again!"  Every week for the last several it has been raining for Village.  Miraculously the rain stopped at about 7:30 this morning (just as I arrived to set up for Village)!  We had a very small group today, only thirteen homesteaders. Apparently we have forever lost our newspaper editor to the town of Drama Club, like so many before him.  It is a shame and he will be missed... I guess we need to figure out a way for our community to be more attractive than theirs.  This does leave a job opening which was advertised for today.  So far I have no takers, there is much too much other work needing to be done right now.

With our nice small group we got right to work.  A number of homesteaders headed straight for the woods to place houses on land, clean up properties, take down perimeter strings, finish/fix fences, and build bridges!  The rest of the group stayed at the pavilion to make furniture and assemble houses.  One peep even got a stylish new raincoat, made from the fabulous vinyl material donated by the NHDI crowd.  As I was the only "adult" at Village today I assigned supervisory roles to two of the seventh graders who have shown good leadership qualities as well as a fair amount of kindness and respect to their fellow homesteaders.  This worked very well. It allowed me to work between the two groups and gave the homesteaders more freedom of movement.  I don't know if something like this could continue to work with our normally large group, we shall see.

I mentioned bridge building.  The universe continues to smile on Rolph's plan to flood the town.  It is nearly flooded already with out a dam being built.  Streams have turned into brooks that we can no longer jump over. We were able to rework and reconfigure two town bridges today, complete with a culvert.  This was enormously successful and we now have safe, dry access to all of the land.

Wild Wumpus, created by Disco Dave.  This wild creature will be living in the downstairs of Disco Dave's house to protect from intruders.  It is a wild thing though, I hope it is safe to live with!

Week 32

May 8, 2012

Building, furniture making, land development, placing houses on land


Once again today, it is raining!  Not quite as bad a s last week, but I must admit we got wet!  Homesteaders are properly in the routine of having Village outside, everyone wore a jacket and a few kids brought umbrellas.

We were joined by Tim Bollinger I & II, they were a great help with home construction.  We had four more houses come together today and are ready to go out onto the land next week.  Some kids are busy furnishing their homes others have taken the opportunity (while waiting for a turn with the hammer) to take down their perimeter strings and do a bit of spring cleaning on their land.

The bridge to the far side of TinyTown has seen some improvements as well.  Things are really shaping up, it will be a shame if the TinyTownies don't get their deed fulfillments done in time and Rolph still winds up taking the town.  Next week is the end of the extension.

We have no newspapers to post as the newspaper editor has stopped showing up.  Perhaps next week I'll need to refill that position.

Week 31, Marlborough School

May 1st, 2012

Building, placing houses on the land!


This was our first "normal" Village in a few weeks.  Last week was the last of our help from the Keene State students.  Owen Iselin came by this morning to lend a hand (or two or three!).  The first thing is that it is absolutely pouring outside.  The homesteaders asked if Rolph was making it rain to flood TinyTown quicker.  It certainly seems that way.

Having our class outside under the pavilion is a great motivator for the kids, they can see the end.  Several homesteaders braved the rain and placed their finished houses out on their land.  Owen led that expedition, so there is not much for me to report on except:  Homesteaders that went out with houses, came back without them; homesteaders that went out dry, came back sopping!  The rest of the group spent their 45 minutes taking turns with the hammers, working on painting houses, and making furniture.

The President declared that he should have a different title, Mayor, and should be surrounded by a city council.  The former Vice President did not object to this demotion (I'm not sure that the rest of Tinytown is aware that a change has occurred, but I did not hear any complaints).  The Mayor (who was waiting to have a turn with a hammer) spent the morning recruiting council members.

Week 30, Marlborough School

April 24, 2012

Emergency meeting!


Over last week's vacation Vera wrote a letter to the peeps of TinyTown.  It was distributed among the residents with the hope that it might help them solve their eminent domain crisis.  The letter is as follows:

To the peeps (and homesteaders) of Tinytown                                                   April 17, 2012

     I am Vera, the old lady peep who visited you last week, the day Rolph said he was taking over the town by eminent domain.  I have visited quite a few peep villages in my life and my human is on the

board of directors of The Game of Village, Inc.   I am surprised and a little worried to notice how very separate and independent the peeps are in Tinytown.  Of course self reliance is good and important. Peeps need to work hard and take care of themselves.  What worries me is that your community is suddenly in a crisis and doesn't seem ready for it.

    

     The crisis is caused by bad leadership.  You all have trusted Rolph and now he has betrayed you!  He claims the whole town and plans to sell it at a big profit to himself.   This would make all the rest of you peeps homeless and maybe be the end of Village for the year.  I saw you asking yourselves “what can we do?”, and some of you had good suggestions that Tuesday April 10.  The peeps were not in agreement however, and didn't want to or weren't able to listen to each other or decide anything.   One thing I do know is that good group decisions can only come when everybody agrees (or almost everybody).   Plus, orderly meetings and patient listening are needed to get to agreement.

     Are all of you peeps going to let one peep steal everything from you because he is in a position of political power?   Can't you all agree that peeps, like “The People” of the United States of America,

may not be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”?  How about prohibiting the taking of private property for public use without just compensation”?  Those quotes are in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Can't you work together enough to stop Rolph, perhaps by calling on a higher authority for legal support?   You can talk to your teachers, your parents, me (Vera), even your own sense of justice (group conscience), and then take action.   What can you do?   First make sure there is written law, then arrest the criminal for breaking the law.   Try his case fairly and take back what is properly yours.   A trial would be one time to practice orderliness since a disorderly trial is a mistrial.  A trial, like any group meeting, works best if it is brief and decisive (you need an impartial judge or jury).  Expressing opinions and arguing with great passion can be productive, but a courtroom can’t have peeps getting out of control.  At least in that formal setting peeps must respect each other, their laws, and the need for order.   Otherwise they can lose everything. 

     There isn't much time left in the school year, and I don't know what goals Tinytown has.    I hope there will be some public event so us older peeps and some younger ones can visit and meet you all and get entertained.   How about a peep circus or something?   Call me if you want to  @  847-3227 and leave a message with your number.  I will call you back. 

                                                           Yours truly,

                                             

                                                                             Vera

Needless to say, Rolph was very nervous about going to Village today.  Would he be arrested?  All of the homesteaders met outside under the pavilion.  An informal meeting was called to order, as there were no materials to use to continue working on houses.  It seemed the only thing left for the TinyTownies to do would be to find a solution for keeping their land.  "We should kill Rolph"  "We should send Rolph to outer space in one of those rockets"  "We should form a government and make some laws to protect us"

Fortunately for Rolph he is likable!  Many homesteaders came to his defense when it was suggested he be killed or sent to the moon.  Disco Dave got up and gave a presentation about having a president... I think.  It was hard to tell what he was ranting about as he paced back and forth through the middle of the crowd.  Whatever it was, it seemed important!  Ultimately it was established that we should elect a president to make laws to protect the town.  Six peeps stood up to meet the challenge and gave campaign speeches.  Some of the speeches were pretty clean while others slung a LOT of mud!  The vote narrowed our options to Bob and Fred.  Bob took eleven votes and was declared the winner.  Fred, with three votes was declared vice president.  Fred then did a bit of talking about making laws, but failed to make any.  Rolph tried to keep them on track by asking what their solution was and what laws actually protect them.  One peep suggested that they pass a law to protect the wildlife of TinyTown and hence cannot be flooded.  This went no where.  The steady tangent revolved around a law that would make a federal takeover illegal without the signatures of the all of the residents of the town.  This is a good law... however, as Rolph reminded them, they have not fulfilled the terms of the contract signed in September to receive the deeds for their land.   The vice president then asked for an extension of three weeks to fulfill these conditions.  Rolph asked what was in it for him?  He was then promised quite a lot of manure.  This is when Rolph stopped paying attention to anything else.  Fortunately for the residents of TinyTown, Rolph is rather simple and has a major weakness!  The new law will become legal as soon as the TinyTownies receive the deeds to their land.  

It looks like we will have class next week.  We will continue outside building houses and improving land.

Week 29, Marlborough School

Pandemonium

April 10, 2012

We were joined this morning by Michael Iselin and his peep Vera.  I was concerned after last week that these homesteaders really needed something BIG to happen to Tiny Town to bring them together and get them to actually make some decisions on their own.  I played with the idea of sending an oil pipeline through the town... but this idea was half baked and not really realistic.  After discussing the problem with others, Rolph decided to sell the town to a power company to make way for a new hydro-electric project (a dam!).  When homesteaders arrived this morning they had this on their tables:

One or two read it immediately and asked me what was going on.  Rolph answered that he had sold the town.  Many of the kids continued business as usual, so Rolph and Vera wandered around asking homesteaders if they had read the proclamation.  Some kids said they couldn't read it, it was written in a very tricky font.  Others formed small groups trying to read and understand its meaning together.  One homesteader began wandering around the room chanting about standing up against the project and coming together.  "Join PAST: peeps against seizing towns!"  Another homesteader kept yelling, "Emergency town meeting!!"  Rolph continued around asking, "Why bother to keep working on houses when there is no where to put them?" and saying, "Oh, I like that house it will be perfect for my hogs when I take your house to settle your debt with the Federal Bank."  Some homesteaders asked Rolph why he sold the town.  He let them know that he received 930meeps for it.  The homesteaders were incredulous.  "That's all you got!!"

 After a while the kids managed to get organized and held an emergency meeting regarding the proclamation and what to do about it.  The meeting was run by Hunter and moderated by Ostar.
"We should protest!"
"We should have a sit in!"
"We should build a rocket and send all of the peeps to space!"
"We should elect a president to fix this, vote for me!"
 "We should settle somewhere else."
"We should build in the trees."
"Maybe it's a code, what do all of the highlighted letters mean?"
"Everyone, bring me as many two liter bottles as you can and I will build a three or four stage rocket to send them to space!"
"But we won't be able to go with them!"
"Maybe we should get collateral loans?!"
 "Maybe we could pool our money and buy it back."

 Through the course of much speculation, some false, Rolph asked the kids if they had read the entire proclamation, specifically paragraph two.  The homesteaders read it together and realized that they have until May 1 to come up with a solution.  This helped to focus their conversation a bit, but not much.  Toward the end of our time the seventh graders began to get interested, even though they are pretty sure nothing is really going to happen.  It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with.

The newspaper published a new edition today... the newspaper editor seems sadly uninformed about what is going on in town.  Perhaps he thinks that whatever he reports will become what is really happening?

Next week we have no school and hence no Village.  The following week we are making our transition to our outdoor classroom.

Week 28, Marlborough School

April 3, 2012

Town Meeting

I can't believe we are already at week 28!  Our days are numbered and we have SO much left to do, or not.  We had town meeting today to further discuss the senator idea of government.  We began with an announcement that the meeting was for peeps, not kids... please use your peep when speaking.  Our agenda consisted of senators and businesses/jobs.  It was suggested that peeps be limited to only speaking four times during the meeting to help things run more quickly.  This was seconded (in thirded and fourthed...)  "THERE ARE NO THIRDS!" shouts the moderator.  The measure fails.  The meeting is called to order at 8:24am.  Bob comes up and presents his ideas about senators:

                   - Oligarchy:
                                     3 peeps from any grade
                                     1 peep for each grade, representing 5 peeps each
                                     1 representative from each grade

Disco Dave has an idea, " I know this may sound crazy... Make everyone a senator, then there's higher things than senators, president- senate- reps... different levels of power."

Moved to vote

More discussion:
"Each grade can talk with the whole council, then the '3' will make the final decision."  "Hey, I have an idea, we could just have three grades separate as groups to make decisions, then send a rep."

"Which one would be like the senators from Star Wars?"
"ORDER!"
"We could just have no government"  "We cannot get rid of the FED"

We vote:

1. separate grades to vote (1 rep /grade)
2. 3 total people
3. 1 peep representing five peeps
4. 1 peep from each grade
5. direct democracy
6. leveled power with a president
7. anarchy

Results:

1. 2
2. 0
3. 2
4. 2
5. 2
6. 5
7. 4

"ORDER!!"

"I move to reconsider"

"Some people voted three times"

"In history women were not allowed to vote, we could just do that"

Disco Dave gets up again to tell us more about his idea, "The President was a side track of leveled power, there would be President and then dot dot dot dot dot, and then peeps.  Leveled power is sort of like a pyramid."  He then draws a block pyramid on the board with the President at the top, followed by three senators, followed by five representatives, followed by everyone else.

"The FED would still be above the president"

"All in favor of redoing this entire vote?"  11 yays, 3 nays

Re vote results:

1. 0
2. 0
3. 2
4. 0
5. 0
6. 8
7. 6

Leveled power wins- we now have a pyramid scheme government.

"RECONSIDER!"  only 4 are for another re vote.

Disco Dave tries to present again.  Morton moves, "Cut out the representative level, we don't have enough people for that."  This passes 12 to 5.

Disco Dave, "No we aren't, this was my idea..."

"Do you have to be of a specific financial standing to run?"

"You just need enough money for a campaign- or pass out 'Vote for me' papers- because I did in fact invent this..."

This is when the bell rang.  In an exit poll, half of the kids want to continue this next week, while the other half want to get back to building.  During the meeting one peep suggested that not everyone should have to participate in the meeting.  Rolph informed them that this is why we are bothering to have this discussion: to figure out who will be making decisions for our community.  The peeps of Tiny Town do not know how lucky they are that Rolph is such a simpleton, it sure would be nice if he got it together and forced some very undesirable federal laws and taxes on this town.  Something to brainstorm for next week.