Bull Explores IP through Film

Enthralled by the process of learning, Bull eventually distilled his thoughts into a central question:  "What is IP?" True to character, he found this inquiry too delicious to resist.  To begin to answer it, he met with the IP faculty and discussed a video that we had watched together at the beginning of the year.  Launched by the pioneers of the Independent Project, or the students at Monument Mountain High School in Great Barrington, MA, this film began to define the program according its original imagining.  Bull had expressed interest in creating a video response earlier in the year, so we revisited the issue with him now.  Might he still be interested in such an endeavor? Might such a film answer his own question?

His answer was a resounding "yes."  Since our meeting, Bull has used a GoPro (@GoPro) camera to create a draft of his own film.  Wishing to preserve the element of surprise, he has kept the work from the eyes of the IP faculty.  He has shown no one in the program, not even a fellow student, the full piece.

On May 8th, however, Bull graced the team with a brief preview of his work.  Speaking toward the product, he remarked that he was striving for something akin to "realism."  He wished to keep the film unpolished and natural so as to capture the informal feeling of the program.  True to his intent, the scenes in his video flitted between light joviality and quiet moments of revelation.  More profound still, Bull admitted that he is perceiving an answer at long last.  After designing an octopus that continues to sprawl into infinity, he stressed that he is forming a sort of endpoint in the film, in the program, or in the cycle of the two. (As a side note, this circle conjures Vladimir Nabokov's short story "The Circle."  Bull found Nabokov's work a primary influence on his own writing earlier this year).

Ultimately, after a lengthy discussion and critique with the IP team, Bull continues production on his film.  What will it look like once he has finished it?

Description of image:  A student using a GoPro camera.  Photo located at thelantern.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the picture above.

"Octolaunch," by Sandy Charlap

"Octopus's Garden," by Matthew Philipose

"A Retrospective," by Matthew Philipose

Early birds get the worms….

The loons were not the only ones making preparations for the winter. The IP (independent project) room was buzzing with preparations of a different sort.   Perhaps it was my ignorance that prompted me to assume that everything would go awry. There was a sense of the gravitas, of taking on too much to chew at once. However, none of my anxieties came true. ‘IPians’ were on the ball from the get go. In an event such as the IP program first steps are the most arduous. Finding that topic becomes an obsession, and only an obsession would suffice. A conglomeration of ‘out of the box’ thinkers collected in one place. Young minds assuming such a responsibility from the very beginning, bent double, stumbling along the path to success in an Independent Project. So there they were, all engaged, in that first firm step.

By the first two weeks an amalgamation of sorts had taken place. Nearly all of the students had discovered their project title and proceeded to open the Pandora’s Box of their commitment.  Even the student that arrived three weeks late to school had apparently reached a subject for study. This was of immense relief and interest to me, as it showed what positive processes were in play at the very onset.  There is nothing like that success to keep us teachers going.

I imagined the topic for IP to be the head of octopus with its tentacles reaching out towards the history, science, math and literature of it. The chosen subjects for study varied as much as the students themselves.  Amongst them were titles such as Drones, physical fitness, Fantasy, illusions, Dyslexia, Automobiles and combustion engines, Real Estate, Charter Boat Fishing along the eastern seaboard for Tuna and Striped Bass, Music/​Sound engineering, Photojournalism, Generation and music, and (God help us) the abyss of knowledge!

Located amongst this buzz of activity, were my first days at the school this year.  As in any school, it was fraught with confusion, anticipation, excitement, trepidation, exhilaration, and many other emotions all mixed up in a quagmire of unreality merging into reality. Almost like the prayer in the Upanishads that goes like this: From the unreal lead me to the real, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality…..and so on.

I was overcome with pride when I knew that the students in IP - despite their own confusion - had amalgamated their opening gambits in fine time. I felt like I needed to step up to the plate myself and handle the confusion with Confucius like equanimity.  My motto for those first few weeks was and still is: ‘go with the flow.'  My inspiration was the students in IP class.

Bull: Growth of the Octopus

At the beginning of the school year, one of the IP faculty, Matthew Philipose, brilliantly conceptualized any single project within IP as an octopus.  He emphasized that each student needs to look at her larger topic as the "head" and follow her research along individual "tentacles":  metaphors pointing toward the Literature, Science, and History components as well as other areas of interest.  

The octopus has since become an important guiding concept for this year's program.

Though the faculty have been designing octopuses to track each student's work, one pupil - Bull - has decided to create his own in order to reflect upon his project.  Below are the ongoing results of his work; this post will be regularly updated to reflect Bull's latest contributions.

Update # 2:  A close-up of Bull's work (10/​7/​14).

Update # 2:  A close-up of Bull's work (10/​7/​14).

 

Update # 3:  Bull's work, later in the day (10/​7/​14).

Update # 4:  Bull's expanding octopus (10/​20/​14).