Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish all of our Edge Makers, their families, the Kildonan community, and our PLN / readers a Happy Thanksgiving.  We are thankful for YOU!

~ The Edge Team

Picture located at sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com.

Jacob: Our New Edge Maker

Jacob begins work on his longhouse with the assistance of a fellow Edge Maker. 
Picture taken by the Edge faculty.

Midway into October, I (Jonathan Bisson) was running dorm supervision at Kildonan.  I was helping students settle down after sports, holding conversations on classes, and otherwise keeping the peace.  While taking one of my rounds, I happened to run into Jacob.  After niceties, he explained that he had sought me out to discuss the possibility of his joining Edge at the beginning of the second quarter.  He wished to reassure me that he found his classes engaging and challenging, but he went on to stress that he had devised a definitive plan for an individualized course of study.  He did not wish to wait to pursue it.  Impressed by Jacob's self-advocacy, I recommended that he contact the entire Edge Team in order to continue the conversation.  I then moved on my way, already planning the discussion I would have with my fellow advisors.

Jacob beat me to it, however.  Again demonstrating impressive self-resolve, he arrived in the Edge Team's office the very next day ready to speak with us.  During our conversation, he unveiled the focus of his potential Edge work:  outdoor adventure and Nature.  He announced that he wished to study individuals who live/journey in the woods, stressing that he could compare Henry David Thoreau (of Walden) and Bill Bryson (of A Walk in the Woods) to Chris McCandless (á la Into the Wild).  Feeling great excitement as a community, the Edge Team and Jacob concluded the meeting with the understanding that the latter would contact Dr. Taft (our Academic Dean) in order to initiate the change.  Jacob left with the approval of the team, but I could not help but feel a little anxious as to whether he would proceed through all of the appropriate steps before the end of the quarter.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded.  When I paused to check in with Jacob thereafter, he shared tidbits of highlights from his ongoing conversations with Dr. Taft.  Not too long afterward, she and Jacob contacted the Edge Team and requested a meeting to discuss his membership.  With his tutor present, we decided upon two classes that he could drop, rearranged his tutoring block, and spoke at length about Jacob's fascination with Nature relative to survivalism and his pending ascension to Eagle Scout.  Jacob also assured us that his parents approved of his involvement, and various communications later revealed that the family was indeed on-board.  Seeing no obstacles in our way, we adjourned the meeting.  We moved out of the first quarter, welcoming Jacob to our community two and a half weeks ago.

A still from Yves Simoneau's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007).  Gall
(Eric Schweig), Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg), and One Bull as Nathan
Chasing Horse (Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse) pictured above.  Photo
from Annabel Reyes/HBO, taken from www.tvguide.com.

In retrospect, I marvel at the introductory week Jacob designed for himself! Largely shunning feelings of shyness and uncertainty, he hit the ground running on his first day by announcing that he would investigate Native Americans.  More specifically, he explained, he would create a timeline of various indigenous people's interactions with European settlers.  Immediately grasping the collaborative nature of the program, he worked with the Edge faculty to investigate the documentary The Canary Effect.  Feeling shocked by the nature of the policies that the U.S. government has handed down to indigenous peoples, he spurred himself to further develop his understanding using the film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007).  By mid-week, he stressed that he was evaluating the relationship between Native Americans and Christopher Columbus.  He also commenced an investigation into the early climate of the Americas so that he might better understand the workings of local Native American and European communities.  He has not stopped there, either.  He concluded his week by creating a longhouse in the hope that he would better understand the dwellings of Native American tribes living in the Northeastern regions of the soon-to-be country.  He also created a log in which he compared Native Americans to Medieval Europe in their approaches to natural resources and expansion.

Jacob's cross-cultural study.  Photo taken by the Edge faculty.

Ultimately, Jacob has embraced the program wholeheartedly.  He has designed a number of interesting pursuits for himself, and he has evinced no fear or hesitation in developing these.  No less importantly, he has conducted himself professionally during every step of the process that has led him to the present.  He demonstrated personal resolve by initiating the conversation concerning his membership, and he acted professionally by promptly initiating and maintaining regular communication with the Edge Team and Dr. Taft.  We at Edge are excited to have you as an Edge Maker, Jacob, and we look forward to seeing you flourish in the future!

Have a thought on Jacob's journey? A resource for his investigation? Please post in the comments below!

Marcus, Tim, Winston: Collaborating on Japan

A map of Japan, pictured above.  Image taken from
 topics-on-japan.blogspot.com.

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.

A dramatization of a hikikomori.  Image taken from www.dailymail.co.uk.

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.