Build Weeks at Long-View are a chance to expand our academic studies or try out new skills; they typically focus on one, rich challenge, involve experts from the larger community, and call for higher levels of reasoning and discourse. Our first Build Week of the year just concluded and was again a huge success! Ultimately, the children followed in the path of countries around the world by writing a constitution, and they did much of their research utilizing a cool platform called Constitute Project, which offers a way to read and compare all the world’s currently in-force constitutions.
Build Week 20 positioned our whole community in a deep simulation immersed in the society of a utopian island called Jadelkembaca, also known as the Isle of Jade. A history of the island and a review of the map of the island launched us into our first day, as well as each child being assigned a character with a complex identity and allegiance to a particular “sector” on the island and geographical location.
Soon a series of conflicts complexified the situation—the teachers read aloud a series of twelve conflicts, which sparked discussions and ultimately produced chaos. Conflict situations related to regulation of commerce, to acquisition of land, to public vs private resources and more. It became crystal clear, as Maddie said, that we needed a “stable government” and laws to live in peace and rectify today’s (as well as future) conflicts.
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