Thanksgiving thoughts

We are thankful for . . .

Friends and family - Rebekah
Tuesday and Thursday classes.
the library computers - Eli R
Jack Prohaska!
the metal shop
getting to work and play at Kino
Sometimes a Great Notion [they just finished reading and discussing this book in Chris' literature class]
jokes and friends
Outside - Diego
a sanctuary, a friendship, a home - Rio
a moderately stimulating environment
all the great classes that Kino gives me the choice of picking.
the cubbies Chris made - Matthew
Outside - Zach
my cats and dogs and Children's Memorial Park
my teachers and friends
here at Kino School
AJ's chai - Klair
being able to draw in the art center - Alex V.
for Ann volunteering her time to Kino
friends and food and stuff - Austin
happiness
Lots o' books! I am thankful for the school library -- Tyler
Trees - they give us air to breathe and paper - Ash
for playground monitors
cat, niece, family, computer, other stuff
the school
friends
Augustus the pigeon -- Alex P.
for 'Gustus coming and I can feed him - Luka

[There's a back story here. Augustus is a pigeon who used to live down in the chicken coop at Animal Center, but Libby rescued him and he now hangs out around the primary playground. While he isn't confined, he is so tame that kids can feed him from their hands. Last week, there was first one Cooper's hawk and then a pair who were hunting in the desert behind the school. Gus was nowhere to be found on Friday, and Libby didn't see him when she came up to school over the weekend. But there he was on Monday, safe and sound!]

I am most thankful for friends, for the food I get, for my family, and for the cool school I go to.
For the teachers who help you and tell you where to go when you're hurt - Ash
For my mom -- LindsayFor my friends -- Phoebe
I am thankful for the world.

Thinking about KK's

We had a school wide meeting on Friday to talk about whether we should change our KK tradition.

We've been doing KKs -- Kris Kringles, or Secret Santas -- the same for as long as anyone can remember, which means we've been doing it this way at least 25 years. Within each homeroom, each student secretly draws the name of one other student. For the whole last week before winter vacation, five days, you bring a present a day for your KK.* The first 4 presents are supposed to be small, about a dollar, and the Friday present is a little larger. Some people don't stick to the dollar limit and some do, so it teaches people to be gracious recipients as well as thoughtful givers**.

This year someone suggested that we might think about doing KKs differently. Instead of spending money on presents for each other, we could use it to help people who are more in need. For example, at Casa Maria (the soup kitchen where we help) there isn't nearly enough food these days; people are being sent away hungry.

Everyone was at the meeting, which was held in Chris's home room area. Individual home rooms had already been discussing the question, so people came with a lot of good ideas and opinions.

For starters, students spoke about the purpose and the value of the KK tradition. As Jordan said (she wasn't there, but she told me on Thursday), "It isn't about receiving. It's about giving." Students who have been at Kino for years say it does make homerooms closer and does make you think about, and be more fond of, someone you may not have thought about before.

But in addition, it seemed that everyone at the meeting wanted to help people who are going without this year. Mary Jane pointed out that the money we spend adds up: even if we stuck to the dollar limit, that's about $320 just for the first four days.

Pretty early on we all agreed that we wanted to do something different this year, either in addition to our regular KK tradition or as a modification of it.

There were a lot of great suggestions. Eli suggested that everyone give only handmade presents for the first four days. ("Who wouldn't love a pet rock?" he asked.) Chelsea suggested we could give presents that would be passed along as presents, in the spirit of giving a mitzvah. Others suggested that each homeroom could pick a charity or recipient for the first four days of giving and then give a KK to a homeroom member for the fifth day, or that the school as a whole could pick four charities for the first four days. People suggested many ways we could raise money before KK week.

After almost an hour of discussion, it was close to the end of the day and we needed to get to afternoon home room for at least a few minutes. Mary Jane said that it sounded like there was a consensus that we keep at least the last day before winter break for KK presents and a homeroom party, but that we were far from reaching an agreement about what else to do. She suggested that each home room could discuss this further, and that maybe each home room could come up with something different.

That sounded good to everyone.



* the terminology is odd because "KK" winds up referring either to the person giving the present or the person receiving it; you have to figure it out from context.

** Remember the year Felice decided her homeroom members need gracious recipient practice? She brought bags filled with miscellaneous trash and they practiced opening the bags, looking delighted, and saying thank you. It really helped!

Kino Hosts Extraterrestrials

Through a temporal anomaly, the Starship Enterprise mysteriously appeared in the Blue Room sometime before Halloween. On Halloween itself, limited numbers of students and teachers were able to actually enter the main bridge and observe the crew in action.
As it happened, the anomaly coincided with a confrontation with the Q'luthmuth Empire, which did not end well for them. The incident was reported on the front cover of the Arizona Daily Star.

Actually, the whole production was the creation of Thomas McNiece, who designed the replica to scale and built it at home, so it could be assembled in relative secrecy in the week before Halloween. (Thank you Lisa for giving up your room for that week!)
Thomas also made a videotape of everything the crew was to see on the ship's main viewer. He used model spaceships, and computer graphics, and friends for the cast, including Kino alumns Thomas O'Dell, Andrew Davies, and Nick Thorpe.
On Halloween, audiences had the experience of being on the main bridge themselves, in the midst of an unfolding drama involving the live action crew and the action on the ship's main viewer.
The Star photographer was so intrigued by the whole thing that he stayed at Kino for about three hours the day before Halloween, photographing Thomas and his friends as they set up and rehearsed. Then on Halloween, after the article had been printed, he came by just to see the complete performance.
Though the construction was too big to keep up past Halloween, Thomas is now working on editing a movie version of their performance and is thinking about constructing a small scale model.

Halloween

Halloween was the usual big deal this year. The tradition is that teachers say we'll have a party in the afternoon and then there's a student meeting where it's voted to have a party all day (leaving an hour for clean up at the end). People go all out with their costumes and every homeroom does something special -- makes a haunted house, does fortune telling, brings in a karaoke machine -- there's something new every year.

Anna's Adventures in Egypt

Anna spent last week at the International Symposium of Tilapia Aquaculture in Cairo, Egypt. The conference brought together people involved with tilapia culture from all over the world in the hopes of developing a cheaper, more plentiful source of protein.
Anna presented her master's project: Na+K+ ATPASE Changes in Larval Tilapia Reared in Fresh Water and Sea Water. The mystery is why tilapia grow better and faster in salt water when they are naturally freshwater fish.
The conference kept Anna busy but she found time to visit museums, see the pyramids at Giza, and ride a camel while she was there. (That's her in front.)

We are the stewards of Children's Memorial Park

Kino has signed on with Tucson Clean and Beautiful to be responsible for Children's Memorial Park. Located right along the Rillito River, southwest of the Oracle and River Road intersection, this is a special little park with a playground, picnic area, sports fields and memorial plaza.
As the park's stewards, we are responsible for visiting it at least a couple times a month, cleaning up any trash, and reporting any damage to the equipment there.
Because the park is so close to Kino, it is a perfect destination for homeroom parties, picnics, or field trips specifically for community service. Kino families may also enjoy visiting the park on weekends.
A representative from Tucson Clean and Beautiful met with Anna, Jennifer, and Heather and explained our responsibilities. For every visit, there's a work sheet to fill out. Then we compile a monthly summary to send in.
If we are good for three months, then there will be a ceremony officially installing us as the park's stewards and we'll get a plaque at the park.

New Trolls from the Rainbow Shop

For years, visiting the Living Rainbow store has been an important part of Kino field trips to Mount Lemmon. Recently Libby and Eli visited the nice folks there while collecting troll house materials. Debbie Fagan remembered Libby and gave her a fantastic gift for Kino -- two big, kid-sized trolls. The trolls, Walter and Wheeze (he's kinda allergic to the tree moss), are fitting right in in the primary center and everyone loves them! This morning everyone worked on writing thank you letters to Debbie. Thank you!


(Walter and Wheeze are the two fuzzy fellows in the middle.)

Rio and the Quaking River Band in Arizona Blues Showdown

Rio and the Quaking River Band, which includes Lisa Otey, Chris, and others, will be competing in the Arizona Blues Showdown in Phoenix next weekend. They'll be performing a 20 minute set at 2:00 at the Rhythm Room on September 28. Ten other bands will be competing that day.
If they are among the finalists, they will perform again on October 5, and then the winning band gets to go to Memphis for the national competition. Lisa says she's gotten to go a couple of times and it's really fun.
The Rhythm Room is at 1019 E. Indian School Road and admission is around $7.

The As Yet Unnamed Sustainability Project

Four Kino students–Erik, Ethan, Klair, and Tyler – have launched a year-long challenge to themselves: to see if they can grow and produce their own food.
They all got interested in the challenge last year, when Neill Prohaska was teaching Environmental Science. Neill is now going to U of A, working towards masters degrees in both journalism and Latin American studies, but he is still supervising the project.
The four began working on their gardens before school ended last spring. Over the summer, they came up to Kino early in the morning before it got hot (like 5 am) to keep working on them. Limited to food crops that do well in the Tucson climate, they are growing beans, corn, peppers and squash, as well as the more exotic sorghum, amaranth, and panic grass. They are relying as much as possible on rain water from the water harvesting tanks that Harrison built for his senior project last year.
Since their garden is not yet ready for harvest, for the time being they are eating locally produced foods. Neill has a supply of dry corn from his garden; they are making it into hominy. They have teppary beans from Native Seed/ Search, eggs from Hickman’s Ranch, and peppers and okra that they bought at a farmer’s market.
“We started on the first day of school,” said Tyler and Klair. “Erik and Ethan started on the second day.”
”What have they been eating? “Not much,” says Tyler.
They are taking vitamin pills and supplements just to make sure. They’ve also given themselves some major wiggle room: anything that can fit through a straw.
“Ethan called me this weekend and complained that his friends were eating sloppy joes. I was going to joke that he could put some in a blender and drink it, but then I realized that he probably would,” said Neill.
Harley, Emmi and Lela’s father, is providing some loaner hens for eggs as well as givint them some baby chicks. The tilapia tanks, which Ethan is working on, will also be a regular source of protein.
Once they are producing more food, Neill says, they will take another look at the straw exception.
Klair says, “I been feeling more energy since we started. I think it’s the Jamba Juice.”

What? Are there lockers at Kino ?!!

If you are an old Kino student, this is probably the most shocking change since we gradually transitioned from sitting on cubes to sitting in chairs. For years, a perennial issue at school meetings has been "Why can't we have lockers that lock instead of open cubbies?"
Well, they aren't really lockers. They're cubbies with doors and they don't lock. This means we can continue to say, "This is a community and in a community we need to be able to trust each other."
Plus they are beautiful. Master carpenter Chris Schulz built them for us over the summer. They have adjustable shelves and are sized to fit today's big backpacks as well as the regular clutter, so the whole school looks cleaner. They will continue to look beautiful for years!

Wet Hike

Johnny and a group of students took the first Night Hike of the year last week -- a sunset hike and swim at Sabino Canyon.

Help Support Kino with Good Search / Good Store

Anna has found probably the easiest, most painless way you can help raise extra money for Kino – using GoodSearch for your internet searches and passing through the GoodShop webpage on your way to buying something on the internet you were going to buy anyway.
GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-powered search engine. You get the same search results as you do
with Yahoo. GoodSearch.com donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to
the non-profit that you designate.
Similarly, hundreds of on-line stores have agreed to donate a percentage of your purchase to your designated non-profit if you get to their store through GoodShop. These include Amazon, Travelocity, Circuit City, Target, Newegg, Drugstore,com, Macy’s – in fact, there are so many of the most popular on-line stores, it is worth checking before you make any on-line purchase.
They send a check once a year based on the number of sales and searches by September 30. So just for fun, let’s kick off this fundraiser with a bang. (No searchbots please; we’d be totally disqualified from participating.)
There’s a link to both at KinoSchool.org in case you can’t remember their names.
Where they ask, “Who do you GoodSearch for?” write “Kino School.”

Science!

What in the world is Heather doing? Why, she is breaking down sugar with sulfuric acid, turning it into pure carbon and water (with the release of a lot of energy).

The new school year starts

During the high school orientation this morning, students were challenged to drop an egg (well bundled) from the loft without breaking it. The results were thought provoking. One team blatantly cheated--they lowered their egg with a string until it was a couple of feet from the floor-- but you could hear the egg crack when it landed. Team 5 forcefully hurled its egg - and it was one of the two eggs that survived.

Rio, Chris and Lisa at Javalina's Coffee & Friends

Rio Finnegan, Chris Schulz and Lisa Otey will be performing at Javalina's, a coffee house on the southeast side of Tucson, on Saturday, August 23, from 7:30 to 9:30. Jabra Robles, Andy Ryan, and Diane Van Deurzen will be performing along with them.

The Javalina's website says: Fourteen year old bluesman,Rio Finnegan, a student of Lisa Otey's will perform with his Quaking River Band at Javalina's from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Rio received a standing ovation from hundreds of people at this year's Tucson Folk Festival and recently performed with Grams & Krieger, Bryan Dean, and Ralph Gilmore during our tribute to Danny Rhodes, The Quaking River Band consists of Lisa Otey, Diane Van Deurzen, Chris Shultz, and Jabra Robles. This young man sure has a knack for finding great musicians to back him up. To see his memorable performance at the folk festival, visit Rio Finnegan on YouTube. If weather permits, this show will be out on our patio, so bring your lawn chairs for another fun evening of music under the stars. Minimum suggested donation $5.

Javalina's is at 9136 E Valencia, om Valencia near Nexus.

Sofia at the School of American Ballet

Samuel might have bumped into Sofia Robbins this summer. Sofia, who is still a junior high student at Kino, has also studying at the School of American Ballet, attending its summer session for students from around the country.

Alumni News: Samuel Greenberg

Samuel Greenberg was one of the handful of students at the School of American Ballet who has been offered an apprenticeship with the New York City Ballet this year! As an apprentice, Samuel will be dancing with the ballet at Lincoln Center in New York and is one step closer to being invited to be a permanent member.

He was also a 2008 recipient of the prestigious Mae L Wien Award, awarded to students at the School of American Ballet who showed outstanding promise.

The New York City Ballet is one of the best ballet companies in the world, so you just can't get more big time than this. Congratulations Samuel!

Mary Jane in Mothering Magazine

Kino received national attention a couple of years ago when Alfie Kahn included a description of Kino in his book The Homework Myth. So when she was researching an article about homework for Mothering Magazine, Wendy Ponte called and talked to Mary Jane.

Wendy's article, "No More Homework," examines and refutes the common justifications for the increasing amounts of homework assigned to ever younger children, and describes the damage that can result from an over emphasis on homework.

Mary Jane is quoted, "We give the students ample time to do their work during the school day. . . Oftentimes children, especially the high schoolers, prefer to socialize during that time and bring work home instead." Allowing students more control over how they choose to spend their day and how to manage their time is an essential part of respecting them.

"No More Homework" is in the July-August, 2008 issue of Mothering.

Summer Spiffing: The Bathrooms Project

Last spring Martha Martin got the whole school involved in creating a beautiful mosaic for the girls' bathroom. Each flower and butterfly is unique; Martha made sure everyone painted at least one.

This summer she's getting a head start on the boys' bathroom, which will be decorated with a desert scene. She's been getting help in glazing the hundreds of shapes from Mia, Emmi, and Lela.

Students' 1999 predictions, some more prescient than others

Janet (see my previous post) was in the 1998 - 1999 Comparative Governments class where we studied, among other things, the events then unfolding in Kosovo. In May, students wrote their predictions for the following year:

1. NATO will have withdrawn from Kosovo and things will calm down, with the Serbs in charge.
2. Milosovic is still alive and in power, but has become lactose intolerant.
3. US continues to ask China to do something about Tibet.
4. Saudi Arabia, California, and Iraq will be at war.
5. Nothing will have happened to anyone's computers because of Y2K.
6. Nigeria will no longer be a democracy.
7. The British royal family will spontaneously combust.

Alumna News from Serbia

This summer Janet Rabin, a former Kino student, is a Peace Fellow with the Advocacy Project. She is in Serbia working with Women in Black, an international organization that advocates peace and justice through nonviolence.

Janet is writing a weekly blog about her experiences which you can read here.

Janet was a Kino student for many years; she graduated in 2000. It's fun to reread the article that the Daily Star wrote about her back then and see that she already had a strong interest in international aid.

Kino students' art is being exhibited at Tohono Chul Gallery

There is a beautiful display of our students' artwork at Tohono Chul Gallery through July 8. The exhibit, which will continue through the summer with works by students from other schools, is called That's Artrageous!

The exhibit displays a great array of media and represents students of all ages. Included in the show are: woodworking by Ben Gardner, including the go board and bowls he made for his senior project; pottery and photography by Asha; watercolors by Mia; pottery by Sofia Robbins; a painting by Julianna; miniature clay figures by Eli; two large paintings by Chelsea; two of Elizabeth's 3-D installations; a welding sculpture by Aidan; and photographs by Aneesa.


Tohono Chul Park is near Oracle and Ina, at 7366 N. Paseo del Norte.

You can read an article about this in The Explorer here.

KIno welcomes Anna Kosztowny

Anna's going to be teaching high school math and sciences this year! From her impressive resume, it sounds like she is going to fit right in at Kino and add a lot to our community.

She just got her masters degree (M.S.) in Animal Sciences from the University of Hawaii where she studied tilapia development and growth.

Anna received her B.S. in biology from Sonoma State University in California in 2006. For her college senior project, she got to work with baby elephant seals, specifically, studying their metabolism. While she was in college, she went on lots of biology field trips.

As a graduate student, she taught the introductory animal sciences discussion course. She has also taught a pre-calculus workshop and tutored students in biology, chemistry, and math.

Anna says she is excited to be joining the Kino community and hopes to share her enthusiasm with the students. In her free time, she enjoys camping, hiking, swimming, and dancing as well as visiting with her family in Southern California.

Summer Gardening

Ethan, Erik, Klair, and Tyler have an ambitious plan for next year that requires a lot of preparatory work this summer: they're going to see if they can feed themselves. That is, once the school year starts, they are going to try eating only food that they've grown, raised, or scavenged.







This summer, they are at school early in the morning about three times a week working on getting a head start. They've already planted several kinds of beans (black eyed peas, Colorado River beans, Bisbee beans, teppary, and pinto beans), along with some amaranth, teff, corn and sorghum, using compost they started a long time ago. They're also busy preparing more gardens and helping with the greenhouse construction. Once the school year starts, they hope that the tilapia in the the fish tanks will be significantly bigger, and they will each have a chicken to provide eggs.

"Scavenging" doesn't mean they'll be looking for uneaten lunchables in the lunchtime garbage ( I asked). It means they'll be on the lookout for all kinds of harvesting opportunities -- from mesquite beans this summer to unwanted citrus next winter.


Producing the food is really only the beginning. They know they're going to have to learn how to prepare it, and learn enough about nutrition to keep their diet balanced. They've given themselves some wiggle room -- they don't have to produce beverages or spices, and they'll supplement their diets if they find they're missing an important nutrient.

Erik and Tyler were taking a break, scarfing down bagels and cream cheese, when I talked to them this morning. "It's a lot of work, but we're getting excited about it," Tyler said. "If we're miserable, we'll all be miserable together," Erik added.