Blasting off to the moon! Space Lab is back for a second year of science and discovery here at TCS, and this time the theme is the Earth’s moon. This 10-week unit will meet every Thursday will be led by Elaine Lewis, a former NASA-Goddard educator. Ms. Elaine is returning for her second year as a TCS seminar teacher. This semester’s seminar is only for Juniors and Seniors, although we hope to arrange another unit in the spring for all students.
Kicking off the moon unit is the critically acclaimed movie First Man. The movie chronicles NASA’s early attempts to send men to the moon, culminating in the historic Apollo 11 flight. While showing the movie, periodically Ms. Elaine will pause to teach the students extra information and discuss. This section of the unit will last around 3-4 weeks. Thank you Ms. Elaine for returning for another semester!
The students took a first-hand look at the building blocks of life in today’s CSI lab for the Sophomore Intro Biology class. CSI, also known as the Community School Initiative, is a project led by Johns Hopkins University student volunteers courtesy of the JHU Center for Social Concern. The Intro Biology class has been learning about DNA, the material inside of our cells that determine how our body looks and functions. In this lab, CSI led the students in extracting DNA from strawberries and bananas, a surprisingly simple procedure. Using dish detergent to break up the fruits’ cell walls, they did an extraction with isopropyl alcohol. This allowed them to visualize the DNA.
Ms. Rebecca said, “laboratory scientists do experiments like this every day (although usually with animal cells instead of fruit). Once they isolate the DNA, they can sequence it to study differences in the DNA of different people.” Studying differences in DNA allows scientists to find the changes in DNA that lead to diseases, and ways to fight these diseases. This was CSI’s first lab of the year with the Intro Biology students, and we look forward to more as the year goes on.
Imani Yasin has made a career of working with students in a mentoring capacity. She first became acquainted with TCS when she was working with the mentoring program Sisters Circle as their High School Programs Coordinator. Imani has been a sponsor for students in the school for 2 years now and her niece also attended TCS.
This spring Imani was awarded as a “Woman to Watch” by the Baltimore Philomathians. Imani is also a local hip hop artist when she isn’t doing amazing work with youth. Imani has led a Conversation With at TCS before, focusing on her music and career. Today, she came back to share her experience traveling in South Africa and Mozambique over the summer.
Ronan observes two rings that Imani bought at a market in South Africa.
In early summer, Imani co-lead a study abroad program for high school students through the group called The Experiment in International Living. The program aims to teach the students about leadership, human rights, peace, and politics. They embed themselves in the local communities, learn about the culture and unlearn stereotypes.
Because the majority of the program was in various South African cities, a major learning experience for Imani and the students focused on the history of Apartheid. Unlike American segregation which split people by white and not-white, South African Apartheid split people into multiple categories based on the lightness and darkness of their skin.
Imani shows a video of a market in Mozambique.
As a part of the program, Imani got to experience a diverse range of ways of life throughout South Africa. They stayed in busy cities, and with families in a rural village. She says that she really admired the pace of life in the village. “We don’t really get the opportunity to sit and observe because we live in a culture that’s so focused on the future,” she said. Her takeaways from the trip were the importance of community, gratitude, humility, history, and simplicity.
The students were all attentive and appreciative of this informative and relaxed conversation Thank you for coming and sharing your experience, Imani!
To start P.E. class today the students met with Ms. Liz Dover, Head of School at the GreenMount School. Ms. Liz told the students about the history of the GreenMount School. In the early 1990s, six parents weren’t happy with the public school system and applied to start a charter school. Back then, there were no charter schools yet in Baltimore and the parent group was denied by the city. The parents started the GreenMount School as a one-room, church basement nonprofit. It has grown over the years to include grades K-8 and hosts 100 students. Much like how our own sponsors volunteer to help TCS run, GreenMount is a “parent cooperative”. Each GreenMount parent agrees to contribute 40 hours a year to the school’s operations.
Ms. Liz also shared a little about herself. She used to be a science teacher, and she particularly loves earth science. She wasn’t sure about being an administrator at first, because she loves the interaction with students that comes with being a teacher. However, she felt the call to grow and take on new roles. Being an administrator in a small school helps, because she still gets to interact with all of the students. Ms. Liz says she knows all of her students names, and their families.
GreenMount loves to give back to the community, and has been working with TCS for several years. In an extension of this partnership, Ms. Liz invited the TCS students to apply to work at the school’s after school program. At the end of the discussion, Salma presented Ms. Liz with a card signed by the students, thanking her and the GreenMount community for the use of the gym and Mr. Eduardo’s P.E. instruction. Ms. Liz said that she looks forward to getting to know the TCS students better. She shared that she lives in Hampden, and “if you see me around in the neighborhood, please feel free to stop and say hi. I love being a part of the community”. Thank you Ms. Liz for talking with our students and for continuing to be a good friend of The Community School!
All of our voices matter – this is the takeaway that author Hena Khan emphasized in today’s Conversation With. Hena is an author of children/young adult books. While she has written books on a variety of topics for publishers, her personal works tend to focus on Muslim kids in America, with themes of finding who you are, family relationships, and friends. The students have been reading Hena’s book Amina’s Voice, a novel about a Muslim girl in middle school grappling with fitting in and her changing relationship with her best friend.
When Hena was a kid, she read many books from her local library in Rockville, MD. However, she was never able to see herself in the books she read; none of the characters were like her. A child of two Pakistani immigrants, Hena would write a family newspaper she called the Khanicles. Looking back as an adult, she noticed her newspaper never touched on the parts of her family that reflected her family’s culture. When Hena had a son, she wanted him to grow up with what she didn’t have – books that represent people like him. Hena said, “When people are ignorant about things, they can be easily mislead with misinformation… I believe in the power of stories to show that people aren’t that different”.
As always, the TCS students asked some probing, insightful questions. Many students thanked her for writing the book, because they wouldn’t normally be exposed to this kind of narrative. They also discussed the publishing process, what it’s like financially to be a professional author, and the experience of having your story edited by others. Hena expressed that when she was young, she thought that writing was easy for people who are good at it. She used to be sensitive to the feedback she received from teachers. Now, she welcomes criticism. “I want people to make my work stronger,” she said.
The conversation wrapped up with the students reading excerpts from their own creative writing. Many students told her that while they don’t love to read, they do love to write. “I’m so inspired that so many of you said you like to write, and that you have the confidence to say that…. The world needs all of our stories,” Hena said at the end of the session. Thank you Hena Khan for showing us a narrative we don’t always hear, and for the reminder that each of us has a story that deserves to be told!
