Operation Abe: Bringing History To Life In the Classroom
Operation Abe is an excellent example of the kind of cross-collaboration between departments that truly brings learning to life for our students. SCDS fifth grade students immersed themselves in the subject matter of the Civil War this year as a part of their United States history curriculum, beginning during their outdoor education experience on Angel Island and continuing in their humanities and math classes. Engaging with the curriculum in multiple classes encourages students to deepen their learning and understanding of the material. The Operation Abe experience reinforced our guiding principles for our students as they engaged with the subject matter in different ways, used their creativity to problem-solve and overcome frustration, and built stronger relationships with each other through collaborative learning processes.
The school year for our fifth grade students began with an overnight living history trip to Angel Island where they became soldiers for twenty-four hours and served a “three-year tour of duty” defending San Francisco from Confederate attacks. This immersive trip allowed students to experience the day-to-day lives of Union soldiers in 1864. Angel Island is one of many outdoor educational programs students enjoy during their time at SCDS.
Back in the classroom, students strove to memorize Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by heart, an assignment inspired by the week fifth grade humanities teacher Ben Bacon spent with the National Endowment for the Humanities as a summer scholar at Gettysburg College learning about the Battle of Gettysburg and the importance of the Gettysburg Address. Students used a variety of different memorization techniques, including breaking down the speech line-by-line, listening to recordings of the speech, rewriting the speech using modern language to better understand its meaning, and working as a class to recite the speech one word at a time. Each student was encouraged to take their individual learning style into consideration and pick the method (or methods) that were most effective for aiding them in memorizing the speech. Mr. Bacon observed, “When students study many methods of learning, not just the way the teacher learns, as can often happen in some schools, and then begin to find the ways that they learn best, they unlock their unlimited potential and feel an incredible sense of empowerment in their learning.”
Students also studied the deeper meaning and historical significance of the Gettysburg Address to aid their memorization and make their recitations all the more powerful. “We always try to create a way for students to not just study history but to help them become part of it by understanding the human story behind historical events and make the story their own,” said Mr. Bacon. Each student successfully recited the entire Gettysburg Address in front of the class.
In order to futher integrate the study of Abraham Lincoln into the fifth grade curriculum, math teacher Christy Harper collaborated with Mr. Bacon to bring Lincoln into the math classrooom. Inspired by the larger-than-life mosaic art of artist Chuck Close, students proportionally enlarged a 6 x 8-inch portrait of Lincoln. Students split the original portrait into a grid comprised of 16 squares or “panels”, and every dimension was increased by a factor of 12 to achieve a final finished mosaic 6 x 8 feet with a total area 144 times larger than the original portrait!
Students worked in pairs to complete each panel, carefully measuring landmark features within the panel and multiplying the distances by 12 before sketching them onto the larger panel. Students found that, when multiplied by 12, measurements that were off by even a tiny fraction had a pronounced impact on the enlarged sketches. This initially led to some frustration, but the students persevered. By first using their measurements to sketch the enlargement and then using their artistic skills of observation and interpretation to fill in the details, students were able to create drawings that were both proportionally accurate and true to the original image.
While the students worked in pairs on their individual panels, they also collaborated with those drawing the neighboring panels to create smooth transitions from panel to panel. This required a great deal of communication and problem solving, and encouraged strong teamwork and a sense of camaraderie within the class as a whole.
The finished mosaics now hang in the Grand Gallery for the entire community to enjoy, and they are certainly an impressive sight to behold!
Sonoma Country Day School
We are…
The premier, fully accredited, independent TK-8 college preparatory school in Sonoma County. Located in northern Santa Rosa and proud home of The Jackson Theater, SCDS offers a challenging academic program rich in fine and performing arts, music, world languages, and social and emotional learning. For more than thirty years SCDS has been the school that brings learning to life.
