We created a scenario for this Action Project:

Three cooking magazines partnered to create an ecumenic cupcake contest: they are calling for proposals for any of the 3 cupcake challenges below:

1. a vegan cupcake
2. a sugarless cupcake
3. a passover cupcake

Each student is challenged to choose one of the 3 scenarios and substitute at least 1 ingredient from a traditional cupcake recipe, creating absolute deliciousness. The magazines will only consider proposals that include: a complete recipe, conversions of amounts into a single volume unit, a complete lab report of the experiment and a photo or video of the final cupcake.

Please find below a video that the 3 magazines shared to inspire all participants. Let the best cupcake win!

Video Credits: Carte Noire Recette filmée #2 Cupcakes from ))) datafone on Vimeo.

Click below to open the storyboards & watch the skits created & performed by GCE Chicago students.

Purpose

[Open StoryBoard]

Autonomy

[Open StoryBoard]

Accountability

[Open StoryBoard]

Gratitude

[Open StoryBoard]

Special thanks to Mark Piebenga for guiding us in the process of creating the comic skits!

Here is a mandala of all mandalas.  
Please click on the image below to open an interactive Mandala map
(you will be able to click on the Mandalas to expand them).

During the event (& after) please reflect on this question:

– How has Nikki Giovanni changed my life, even if I didn’t know about it?

Please post your reflection today, as a comment to this blog.
As a guideline, consider writing at least on paragraph, with 4 to 7 sentences
– but, if you feel inspired, please write more, adding any verses/poems you would like.

In the Spirit of Martin, by Nikki Giovanni

This is a sacred poem…blood has been shed to consecrate it…
wash your hands…remove your shoes…bow your head
…I…I…I Have a Dream

That was a magical time…Hi Ho Silver Away…
Oh Cisco/Oh Pancho…Here I Come To Save The Day…
I want the World to see what they did to my boy…
No No No I’m not going to move…If we are Wrong…
then the Constitution of the United States is Wrong
…Montgomery…Birmingham…Selma…Four little Girls…
Constant Threats…Constant Harassment…Constant Fear…
SCLC…Ralph and Martin…Father Knows Best…
Leave It To Beaver…ED SULLIVAN…How Long…Not Long

But what…Mr. Thoreau said to Mr. Emerson…are you doing out?

This is a Letter from Birmingham City Jail…
This is a eulogy for Albany…This is a water hose for Anniston…
This is a Thank You to Diane Nash…
This is a flag for James Farmer…
This is a HowCanIMakeItWithoutYou to Ella Baker…
This is for the red clay of Georgia that yielded black men of courage…
black men of vision…black men of hope…
bent over cotton…or sweet potatoes…or pool tables and
baseball diamonds…playing for a chance to live free and
breathe easy and have enough money to take care of
the folks they love…This is Why We Can’t Wait

That swirling Mississippi wind…the Alabama pine…
that Tennessee dust defiling the clothes the women washed…
thosehotwinds…the lemonade couldn’t cool…
that let the women know…we too must overcome…
this is for Fannie Lou Hamer…Jo Ann Robinson…
Septima Clark…Daisy Bates…All the women who said
Baby Baby Baby I know you didn’t mean to lose your job…
I know you didn’t mean to hit me…
I know the Lord is going to make a way…
I know I’m Leaning On The Everlasting Arms

How much pressure…does the Earth exert on carbon…
to make a diamond…How long does the soil push against the flesh…
molding… molding…molding the moan that becomes a cry that
bursts forth crystalline…unbreakable…priceless…incomparable Martin…
I Made My Vow To The Lord That I Never Would Turn Back…
How much pressure do the sins of the world press
against the heart of a man who becomes the voice of his people…
He should have had a tattoo, you know…Freedom Now…
or something like that…should have braided his hair…
carried his pool cue in a mahogany case…
wafted that wonderful laugh over a plate of skillet fried chicken…
drop biscuits…dandelion greens on the side

This is a sacred poem…open your arms…turn your palms up…
feel the Spirit of Greatness…and be redeemed

Please click on the GCE School of Athens image below to access the portal
– and then click on the images of GCE students to watch their Apology Speeches.

Here are 2 sets of pictures from today:

1. The patterns & systems of the mold-making world.

2. The individuals & their connections to these systems.

If you could mold anything, what would it be?

GCE English/History Sophomore course for the winter will dare you to read the classics,
classics that have been challenged, censored, banned and even burned!

We dare you to watch the Forbidden Books trailer below
and face the reading list featuring some of the books
we will investigate as from January 2011.

DARE YOU Reading List

• PLATO. (399 BC) The Apology of Socrates.
• The Bible. (2th century BC to 1st century CE) King James version.
• MUHAMMAD (610-632) Quran.
• MARX, Karl. (1848) The Communist Manifesto.
• BRADBURY, Ray. (1953) Fahrenheit 451.
• PULLMAN, Philip. (1995) The Golden Compass.
• ALEXIE, Sherman. (2007) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Which of those books is the most dangerous one?
To whom? Where? Why?
Forbidden Books: an investigation of classics that challenge “monocultures of the mind”.

Let’s practice it:
find your element in one of the four images below,
(each one synthesizing a natural element)
and CAPTURE IT in your words…

Imagine that the painting would be lost in 10min
and all that would remain would be your poetic description.

PAINT, POET, PAINT!

EARTH

~ Vincent van Gogh (1889) The Mulberry Tree

WATER

~ Toulouse Lautrec (1901) Admiral Viaud

FIRE

~ Claude Monet (1901) House of the Parliament – Sun

AIR

~ Salvador Dalí (1937) Sleep

I won’t tell you which is which;
I won’t play them in any specific order;
and please don’t go to youtube looking for a right answer.

Just LISTEN to the four songs to FIND YOUR ELEMENT and answer:

— Which song below is your favorite and why?

Please write 4 to 7 sentences, posting your answer as a comment to this post.

Clip #1

Clip #2

Clip #3

Clip #4

NOTE: The Clip #4 is longer than the others: please listen to at least 5min of it.

Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, passed away yesterday, but what did not pass away were the 40 million trees in Africa rooted on her inspiration.

Since I first opened her Unbowed Autobiography, I wanted to meet Dr. Wangari. Unbelievably, somehow she “met” me first, on one of the happiest humblings of my life. This is the brief story of the humbling…

Some friends and I cofounded 123s (One to Trees), a nonprofit to fund grants to teachers with ecological education projects. Peris Siamanta, a Kenyan friend, applied and got a grant for the Club123s, a Science & Health program in Kimana, Kenya; in the meantime, I was moving to Brattleboro, Vermont, where my wife enrolled at SIT, a grad school program to which Wangari served as honorary board member. Maybe we would finally meet Wangari in VT…

We never did. But, teacher Peris emailed us from Kenya, saying she got a letter from an organization wanting to plant 500 trees in partnership with her Club123s project. We asked Peris “which organization was that”, so we could thank them properly. She said, why, the Green Belt Movement… the nonprofit founded by Wangari.

That’s how, spiritually, I got to plant 500 trees with Wangari — and I shall be forever humbled by this.

Tutaonana baadaye, Mama.

Uprooted Sonnet for Wangari

You knew that trees were made of women.
You knew that Kenya was made of trees
bound to be replanted, your literal feet a walking
unbowed baobab.


You (noble) gave birth (& right livelihood)
to a belt — not a slum wall not chastity
mutilation belt — a green roaring belt you were
the award — not Maasai not Kikuyu –


the Black award of all blood
of the burned tree that chokes
Tumechoka, Mama.


You knew that
men — and warriors –
are made of women.