It all began with Marcus. After spending a year examining game design, and in anticipation of a journey to Spain with a group of peers, he elected to study multiculturalism as his topic. He declared a plan to examine Japan, Germany, Italy, Brazil, India, and China. He chose Japan as his first area of focus, and very quickly he learned that he could direct all of his attention towards that one country. Namely, he wished to learn why anime stems from the country. He also desired to research Japan's role during World War I and World War II as well as the ideology guiding an emperor's perceived immortality (
"Mandate of Heaven"). Feeling motiviated to answer these questions, he was off.
Enter Tim. He began the year interested in artificial intelligence (A.I.) and quantum computing. After studying
graphene as a sophomore and drones as a junior, he devised a dual topic that could help him answer questions that he has been considering for the past two years:
- What is the difference between a human and a machine?
- How do "smart" machines (drones, A.I.) think and learn relative to humans?
- If machines can streamline work and production, can they also manipulate physical reality at the atomic level?
In order to pursue these inquiries, Tim began watching various science fiction movies such as
Ex Machina and
Transcendence. He explored those films as springboards into more complex theories such as machine learning. Noting that Japan played a role within the world of each movie, intrigued by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Moto's
"uncanny valley" theory, and inspired by
Haruki Murakami (
@harukimurakami_)'s
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, Tim came to focus his attention on Japan. The answers to his questions must lie with that country, he postulated, so he set off to learn the Japanese language.
Then came Winston. Winston began the year by committing himself to the psychology of horror. Fascinated by the mechanics of the genre, he labored to differentiate the terms "horror" and "terror." After listening to 911 calls on YouTube and looking into the synopses of movies such as
Tale of Two Sisters, however, Winston came to a realization: he had progressed down a rabbit hole that no longer accorded to his interests. A longtime fan and amateur critic of manga, he chose instead to devote himself to anime and Japanese culture.
He did not take long to recognize that Tim and Marcus were pursuing a similar interest. And so the partnership was born.
 |
A screenshot of a Japanese lesson for English speakers via duolingo. Image
taken from www.japantimes.co.jp. |
Tim and Marcus started to spend significant portions of their time together. The former created flashcards of Japanese characters and their English
definitions, and the latter listened to Japanese language CDs. They shared their resources so that both could study the language through
multiple modalities. Over time, Tim began to research language acquisition programs such as
duolingo as well as tutors that could benefit all three students. He continued to create flashcards, but his administrative role left Marcus to find a new partner in Winston. Marcus soon abandoned his CD in order to probe Winston's vast knowledge of Japanese honorifics. Indeed, having acquired a substantial vocabulary through his reading, Winston frequently tutored Marcus in proper addresses. In turn, because Marcus often disagreed with Winston's translations, the two conducted spirited debates in which they argued the meaning of certain words. They then researched one another's arguments, hoping to catch one another in the act of a misinterpretation.
The three boys also conducted (and gradually pooled their resources from) independent explorations. Marcus, for instance, shared preliminary insights gleaned from painting a flag bearing
"The Rising Sun." He also skimmed the surface of various cultural
"artifacts," honing his attention toward
The Rape of Nanking and the 100,000
trees planted at the
Meiji Shrine. Winston, on the other hand, felt fascinated by the Japanese practice of
adult adoptions. During a particular morning with the Edge faculty, he spent close to an hour situating the disgrace experienced by biological sons relative to the cultural phenomenon of
hikikomori (young Japanese men who spend months to years in social isolation within their bedrooms). Marcus then turned his attention to
Japanese pop music, thereby inspiring Winston to explore game shows and commercials that he in turn shared with Tim during a raucous few afternoons.
Truth be told, this partnership will not last forever. Two of the students are already considering switching their topics away from Japan, so the three spend less and less time together these days. However, partnerships ebb and flow within the world beyond high school. By coming together briefly for a time, Marcus, Tim, and Winston experienced the joy, the stagnation, and the bittersweet loss that comes from collaborating successfully. Indeed, partnerships need not last in order to prove meaningful. By building a stockpile of resources all their own, the three students developed inquiries par excellence. They generated understandings of Japanese culture that proved - and continue to prove - far more comprehensive than those that they could have created were they working alone.
- & -
As we wrote within our
"Our New Name" post
(June 1, 2015), we chose to abandon the name "Independent Project" in
favor of Edge for a number of reasons. One of our more significant
motives concerned the nature of "independence" within the program:
As one student pointed
out, the IPians do not work "independently." Yes, they launch
individual pursuits that take them in directions that are, in a sense,
theirs and theirs alone. That said, this student went on, the IPians
are always collaborating with one another, always learning from and
supporting each other as they move forward. In this way, the community
members are very much "dependent."
We in the program could not in
good faith maintain our previous name because it would preserve a false
philosophy. It would send a message to those students involved that they must erect silos to keep themselves "independent." Therefore, we switched names.
Perhaps responding to our decision, Marcus, Tim, and Winston students spent the beginning of this year methodically demolishing their silos.
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