Category: Uncategorized

  • Editing

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    It’s like I’m a self-directed learner or something. Some of my ALF friends write amazingly, and I really wanted to be like “Hey, just write and get all that fascinating, useful, beautiful storytelling out of your head and onto this page so I can read it. Then let me fix the punctuation and grammar so other…

  • ALF Summer 2015: Week 1

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      I started this week super excited to be in Charlotte, North Carolina to meet new ALFs! I right away got a couple pieces of bad news about some friends, and I was worried about being able to hold a group’s energy while working through my sadness. But both because the group this year was…

  • Penultimate week of 2015

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    TheWeekTheWeekTheWeekTheWeek I spent a lot of time outside this week. On Tuesday, I went to Central Park with @douglasawesome and @failspy to play improv games all morning. On Wednesday, I gave @lillaw and @failspy a map of Red Hook and told them I’d meet them at Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies. They met @agilealfie and…

  • Kid Imagines the Final Battle Between Horace and Seth

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    Doing homework for my comic hero MOOC (Last week @douglasawesome!), I started researching Egyptian deities. I was talking with @thewitchqueen908 @shadowjack and @jacobcb about Isis, Orisis, Seth, and Horace, and @thewitchqueen908 asked whether Horace kills Seth. The internet (and Jack) wasn’t sure…apparently there are lots of different accounts of how the final battle between Horace…

  • Next year list from office conversation RIGHT NOW

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    Movies to Watch: Monster House (Javair) Coraline (Ash) Triplets of Belleville (Douglas) Corpse Bride (Douglas) Pan’s Labyrinth (Jacob)   Books to Read: Don Quixote (Abby)  

  • Graduation Process Proposal

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    Back at the last assembly meeting, I committed to hold a series of discussions with kids–and open to parents–to elucidate a graduation process. The goal was to have a proposal ready for the the next assembly meeting (tomorrow), where it could be amended and [hopefully] approved so it can be presented officially in September. The…

  • The Beginning of the End (of the Year)

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    We’ve hit that point…Our guests have left. Plans for big field trips start with “Next year we should…” Change Up conversations and Spawn Point reorganizations focus on laying plans for next year more than implementing major changes for the next two weeks. Kids are starting to talk about who’s coming back or not. Ryan and…

  • End of May

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    I have to admit, I wasn’t excited for another visiting week. Initially I was stoked, because there had been plans for @theanchor to bring two QIVC teens I like to the city, along with @themadhatter, to join Bear and the ALC-NYC crew (including @Tomis!!!) for the week. But then the teens bailed. Before the week…

  • The Week That Went To Saturday

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    It’s 11 pm Saturday, and I’m finally settling down to write my blog post for the week. It’ll probably sit in my draft pile overnight so I can polish it in the morning as a more alert being, but I want to get everything down before I forget. Sunday night, I found out that my…

  • Brooklyn Museum Trip!

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    Last weekend, I had a very art-and-music-filled Saturday. The Whitney was throwing a block party for the grand opening of their new building in the Meatpacking district and it was the first Saturday of the month, which means free admission and lots of music/lectures/workshops at the Brooklyn Museum through the evening. I had a blast at…

  • Suggested adventures for while school’s closed this week!

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    Check out the NYCxDESIGN festival (*cough* @shadowjack *cough*)! Dig through this hard-to-read website to find cool events for Bronx Week! We saw Basquiat’s work last week and talked about his friendship with Andy Warhol. Now you can go see Warhol’s work at MoMA… …or Frida Kahlo’s work at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden! Another Botanical Garden…

  • Weird Week…

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    There are two kids in the school right now, and that’s been a normal thing this week. It’s not a bad thing; I LOVE that so many of our kids went to D.C. to visit nasa or went upstate or are running around the city with siblings or are leaving early for classes and activities.…

  • Conflict Resolution

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    When I was in school, “conflict resolution” took the form of teacher-shuts-it-down-with-threats/punishments to keep class time lesson-focused. As I studied progressive and alternative forms of education, I came across many approaches to dealing with conflicts between students. There were “J.C.s” (Judicial Committees) comprised of students, essentially local courts. There were teacher trainings on using non-violent…

  • 4 days of…

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    It’s spring! Every morning on my way to school, I walk through (or bus around, if the weather is bad) the North end of Central Park. I’ve been waiting soooo patiently for the flowers and leaves and ducks and turtles to return, and this week they’re finally all back! @ryanshollenberger spent the week in Puerto…

  • Philosophy of Dictators[hip]: Napoleon

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    @douglasawesome requested before spring break that we begin a weekly exploration of Dictatorship, picking different dictators each week to learn about and discuss. He asked to start with Napoleon Bonaparte…specifically with a certain Pinky and the Brain episode. We started watching the episode, in which Brain is mistaken for the emperor. We learned a few…

  • Wings of Life

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    Yesterday was a grey and rainy day in the city, and the slurch was strong at ALC-NYC. We were super sleepy. So I asked what documentary I should screen in the afternoon for us to lazily watch, and @thewitchqueen908 emphatically insisted on Wings of Life. I later found out that he was suggesting it for me…

  • End of March and Beginning of Spring

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    This week, Will visited! He, @douglasawesome, Geva, and somewhat @ryanshollenberger took over the Makerspace to make an arcade-style cabinet for Galactic Nemesis (the game they designed and built last year). There was paint and sawdust and gas masks and silly pictures…They didn’t quite finish, but they’re very close! The project dislocated the Minecraft+RedCrucible crew to…

  • In which she has a weird[er so than usual] week and re-learns things she forgot

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    This morning, there was a full solar eclipse and a super moon. Over other continents. I have astronomical envy…especially since we’re getting snow here in NYC, on this first day of spring. I’ve been trying to keep my personal life energies and ALC life energies separate this week more so than usual, and I felt…

  • From the mouths of Agile Learners: Graduation ideas

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    Out of curiosity, I went around and asked all our students “What would/should a graduation process for ALC look like?” Here are the answers I got: There should be a test to see how long you can play Minecraft. There should be a test to see if you can survive after drinking a 5-hour energy…

  • Answer to “Are your facilitators ever students?” OR What Hamlet has to do with ALC

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    Monday feels like a really long time ago. We had visitors from ALC Mosaic (who decided to come to school even though they were on spring break), a visiting week student, Tomis 🙂 , and some parents, so things were extra busy. Like four-field-trip-week busy. Which is how I prefer things, but cramming alll that…