Spencer Ress, GBP Student
As one of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston has many neighborhoods rooted in rich history. Each of its neighborhoods have possessed unique and distinctive characteristics, as people from all over the world have came to Boston to foster and cherish their respective cultures in it. Through this great history, Boston has sustained its vibrant neighborhoods, which is evidenced in the highly-diverse and energetic populations that make up each part of Boston. With all this in mind, it is no surprise that GBP has asked us to look more into these neighborhoods with our latest major assignment - the Neighborhood Project. In pairs and trios, we’ve been assigned the task of creating an infographic that depicts information about the history and development from the 1950s to today of a certain neighborhood in Boston. A list of neighborhoods in Boston was presented to each group to pick from and observe. My group happens to be a trio, including fellow classmates, Michael Dateo and Vinny Troung, and we ended up choosing Beacon Hill to investigate. A couple days into the project, we have commenced preliminary research on our neighborhood, having already found many basic current statistics. Many of these happen to be demographic statistics, which relate to race, gender, income, housing, etc. Michael and Vinny have also found some statistics, but I have mostly been responsible for this part of the assignment. For this reason, Michael and Vinny have mostly conducted research to find stories/developments related to Beacon Hill in contemporary news as well as past news. I will also look to find more demographic statistics from the past. As far as the infographic, I have started the formulation of one in the program, known as Piktochart. A small amount of progress has been achieved so far, as the overall theme and fonts have been chosen for the infographic and some basic information has been put in. As seen in this project as well as many others we have done this year, is the unique opportunity to practice skills that will be needed for college and the application of the real working world. As three of many great skills we learn in GBP, this project allows us to practice visual communication, collaboration, and MSA skills. In regards to visual communication, this skill will be vital for things most likely such as presentations in college and business meetings beyond that. It is very important that pieces of visual communication such as power points, should be enticing and compelling to drive your main points you wish to convey in your dialogue. Along with visual communication, collaboration will also be important obviously. I would say this is the central and most important goal in GBP, as it will be a core practice in anything we do beyond high school. Whether in small or big groups, it will be critical to have the ability of communicating individual roles, decision making, feedback, evaluation of group progress or quality of product, and dynamics. If all of this can be achieved, only then will it be possible to successfully complete a variety of task in any subject. Lastly, this project will benefit our ability to model and do analysis of statistics in the future. As a core element in mathematics, perhaps any future job or internship I take on, may require me to break down statistical data to obtain key information and insight. Chloe Kennedy, GBP Student
Oral communication is an important part of Greater Boston Project and an important part of life after GBP. We were able to practice this skill by arguing for ideas such as the right to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act or trying to convince the government that they should standardize the rail size. Oral communication is important to succeed in informing and persuading people. With oral communication it is necessary to maintain a clear voice, good eye contact, and appropriate body posture. From CED’s to the more formal CAP, our oral communication is constantly being tested and strengthened. Throughout the year GBP has focused on improving our oral communication to, in the end, help us after high school. Recently, our skills were tested with the Shaping the Era presentations. Before the presentations began we were broken up into small groups. In these groups we conducted in-depth research on one major issue of contention in Greater Boston from the antebellum era. With this issue we created a written proposal, explaining a solution to the problem. The proposal also outlined the issues that existed, the causes of the issues, possible solutions, and effects of the solutions. To be able to write this proposal, extensive research was necessary. We needed to be able to support our possible solutions with evidence. Writing a formal proposal was a very rewarding and interesting process and our group learned a lot. After the proposal was written, we then created an eight to ten minute presentation. In this presentation we highlighted the main aspects of the proposal: the issue, possible solutions, a proposed solutions, and the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed solution. The formal presentation was where oral communication came into play. This learning goal was different in this project in that we were aiming to persuade, not just present. We were trying to convince the government during the antebellum time period to put our proposal into action. This meant that we had to give strong evidence and an even stronger argument to succeed. Following the presentation there was a five minute question and answer period. This was another place where our oral communication skills were tested. It was necessary to field and answer the questions correctly, respectfully, and intelligently. After all questions were answered, each group presented what ended up actually occurring with their issue; the real, final solution. Additionally, when not presenting, every audience member was expected to develop questions to debate and improve the plans and solutions. Oral communication also applied to those asking the questions. I liked this project because doing group presentations and proposing ideas with a question and answer period was fun and different from what we have done in class before. I also thought it was a great educational project because we learned how to research and find data to back our argument and to practice those important oral communication skills. (Source: Shaping the Era Project Document) GBP students and teachers help out at the Greater Boston Food Bank. (Photos by Ms. Tincher) Michaella Callahan, GBP Student
A huge aspect of GBP is learning ways to help make the community better. Last week our class took a field trip to the Greater Boston Food Bank. It was a great experience to be able to see what goes on behind the scenes at the food bank and assist in the process of it. Prior to the trip, we did an in class preparation activity looking at statistics of people affected by hunger in Massachusetts. In this activity we found that last year the Food Bank collected enough food to feed approximately 54,000 people. They are able to make that possible with the help of over 25,000 volunteers. The company is working to increase the distribution of food in order to provide at least one meal a day for everyone in need in the eastern Massachusetts area. When we arrived to the food bank we walked through a huge room with food stacked to the ceiling. It was surprising how much food this company is able to collect for people in need. After a brief introduction to the GBFB, the workers took us into the room where the food is organized and assigned us different roles. The different roles were re-stocking boxes, unloading the food onto the conveyor belt, separating the food into categories, weighing the boxes, and loading the filled boxes onto a forklift. It was really hectic organizing the food because it was consistently passing by on the conveyor belt and we had to be able to separate it into the correct categories. We also had to be sure there were no opened packages and no expired food. However the hard work was worth it because of the reward of helping others. Afterwards we had a quick debrief and learned that we had packaged about 8,000 pounds of food (which, we found out, was more than the students in the Period 5&6 class!). Competition aside, it was shocking to learn that we packed that much food in a short amount of time, and goes to show how much can be accomplished when you have a group working cohesively to solve a problem. This field trip allowed us as GBP students to immerse ourselves in a situation similar to the CAP that we will be completing over the course of the next few months. The lesson of this field trip relating to our CAP is that one person can make a huge difference. The Greater Boston Food Bank started with one person handing out food from the back of their truck and expanded into a huge company with the help of donations, drives, and financial contributions. The hopes of our CAP project is that we can start something that others will be able to expand upon in the future in order to help the community. It was a rewarding feeling to be able to help those in need and knowing that we were making a change. Mackenzie Breen, GBP Student We’ve all learned about the “separate but equal” concept the Jim Crow Laws support, but where did the term “Jim Crow” come from and how is it still relevant today? Thomas Dartmouth Rice portrayed Jim Crow an exaggerated stereotypical black character. In Blackface Minstrel shows Rice danced around with his face painted black singing the words:
Of course these laws were extremely prominent in the Southern States; however, it cannot be denied that Massachusetts took part in the Jim Crow laws. Until as late as 1843, Massachusetts blacks were prohibited from marrying whites, sitting in the same pew at church and up until 1850 could not attend the same schools as white children. One area of segregation that used the tactic peaceful disobedience of the law was transportation. Numerous blacks tried to challenge the Jim Crow laws by sitting in the car or seat of their choosing. Many times this turned out badly causing the blacks to be beaten or kicked off the train. In 1843 it was the Governor with the help of public opinion that ended segregation on trains in Massachusetts. While the Jim Crow Laws are no longer enacted, I still see the original idea of blackface in the media. Often times people plead that they did not know what blackface was or that it is even offensive. Ignorance should no longer be plausible reason for why people are wearing blackface. It is important to talk about this dark part of American history in order to educate people about this past
The Needham Historical Society, including the old schoolhouse in red on the left. (Photo from the North American Reciprocal Museum Society) Sam Cruickshank, GBP Student
On a frigid morning in January, the GBP class headed over to the Needham Historical Society. Located directly next to the Newman Elementary School on Central Ave., the Needham Historical Society is often overlooked or mistaken for a regular house. Founded in 1915, the information that the society has in the form of many historical maps and documents is immense for such a small venue and non-profit organization. On this specific visit, our second one this year, our class focused on several documents and maps from the Antebellum Period, which is the period in U.S. history that goes from the early 1800s all the way up until the Civil War. As we entered the Historical Society, half of our forty four student class crammed into the old one room schoolhouse that the Historical Society uses as an educational space for students, shedding jackets and coats as soon as we felt the warmth. Right away, we started looking at documents, which were set up into various stations around the room. I found two of the stations’ documents particularly interesting on this visit. The first was a selection of four maps of the town of Needham. These maps were from the years 1771, 1836, 1856, and 1854. I paid special attention to the maps from 1836 and 1856, because there were two interesting changes between those maps. The first was that the town of Wellesley, which borders Needham, was a part of the map in 1836, but not in 1856. My group joked about this, referencing the recent Thanksgiving Day Football Game played at Fenway Park, noting how we “didn’t want them anyway” and that “they were better off as West Needham in the first place.” All jokes aside, this was a major development in the suburbs of Boston, as it allowed for two different communities to develop, and eased the space clenches on a growing population. Additionally, the addition of a railroad to the town of Needham was very significant on the map from 1856. My group noticed that there were many streets and roads located around the railroad stops, and it was clear that the railroad led to population growth in Needham. The railroad and the train is still an integral part of the town of Needham today, as many people (including the Greater Boston Project classes, on occasion) take the MBTA Commuter Rail into Boston every day to get to work. The second document that piqued my interest was a document that talked about an anti-slavery meeting that was held in the Unitarian Meeting House in Needham. We recently finished reading the book Ten Hills Farm by C.S. Manegold, which talks about how slavery existed in the North, basically to the same degree that it existed in the South. I found the book somewhat disturbing, and I was confused as to why I had not learned this history before. I found the document from the Unitarian Meeting House reassuring. It showed me that the community of Needham did realize the injustices of slavery,and they were going to try and do something about it. Although we mainly focus on the history of the city of Boston, it was nice to slow things down and take a look at our local history right here in Needham. We took the time to look at and analyze specific documents, a hallmark of the GBP experience.
Brainstorming about all these tragedies got me thinking about how many tragedies could be happening all over the world that no one knows about or pays attention to. There is now so much more news coverage on media that we have more exposure to news stories, but we don’t always pay attention because it might not be concerning to us. All of these news stories could even be considered desensitizing to us because there is always something drastic on the news, it just depends what we pay attention to, or care to watch or read. It made me realize that we also can’t always trust what we read. Some textbooks may have mentioned some events as minor details, but that doesn't mean that all the facts were present or that there isn’t a whole other side to the story. Many textbooks seem to brush off real events like they were nothing, just a couple million people dead or a few thousand went missing, like the Armenian Genocide or the Haitian Revolution. While we were finishing up the activity, Mr. Brooke brought up a good point about what we think will be forgotten years from now. With all the technology present today it is difficult to have anything go unnoticed. But, as I explained, news can be desensitizing because every extreme that has happened is reported out. Throughout the journey of reading Ten Hills Farm, we are forced to question whether or not we really see every event in history for what it is. This lesson helped us think about how that happens now with our own media. A modern day photo from Ten Hills Farm in Medford, MA. (Photo from the Tufts University Magazine.)
Illustration of the Boston Tea Party (History.com) & A modern view of the Boston Harbor (The Pioneer Institute) Trevor Ress, GBP Student
A common question in American history is, what essentially started the Revolutionary war? A question like this is what the Greater Boston Project loves to answer, especially through a cultural perspective. Recently, I demonstrated my ability of understanding cultural change by analyzing how economic factors affected the rising tensions of the American Revolution with some of my classmates. To begin this process, we were divided into small groups to read and examine an excerpt called, People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Basically, Zinn argues that the main source of anti-British sentiment occurred because there was, “the mobilization of lower-class energy by upper-class politicians, for their own purposes”. In other words, Zinn was claiming that higher class citizens of the colonies were utilizing their politics to keep a wealth barrier between them and the lower class citizens through taxes and such. After reviewing the first article, we were then asked to view two other excerpts from Colonial Economy and A Short History of American Capitalism by Alice Hanson Jones and Meyer Weinberg. Both articles had conflicting views on whether the lower class citizens needed more compensation or not. After evaluation of the three articles, all groups came together for a class discussion, either supporting or disproving the claims made by Howard Zinn on the rise of the American Revolution. Each group made their statement based off evidence they found in the other two articles given. The purpose of this activity is to practice a content-based skill of how and why change occurs throughout history. While in our Pre-Revolution unit, we examine causes of change, how change occurred, effects of change, and trends and patterns that led up to the Revolutionary war. This learning goal of cultural change is always expressed in the Greater Boston Project’s topics: Population, Government, Economy, Education, and Arts and Leisure. In this case, this activity consisted of Economy and Government. Personally, sometimes I find this learning goal hard to grasp, but when understood in a situation it is really cool to see the roots of how an entire society changed. Putting myself in a colonist’s shoes, I can imagine my indignation for being unnecessarily taxed and ultimately wanting to rebel against my mother country even though it may be absurd. Whether I continue to grow up in the Greater Boston area or not, somewhere, I might unconsciously be apart of a cultural change for better or worse. If I lived in Boston when I’m older, I could just fall into the flow of a new paradigm shift like more environment oriented housing or the rise in technology efficiency. I will just be a small piece of the gradual process in these paradigm shifts so to me it will seem as if the norm has not changed. Bony Ganugapanta, GBP Student Last block GBP at the end of the day can be either a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes there is lots of work to be done at the end of the day and people are so tired, they’re already zoned out. Other times, an activity is posted on Google Classroom, people are excited, and everything is fun. On a lazy Thursday afternoon a few weeks ago, as I walked into GBP, I wondered whether GBP that day would be a good thing or bad thing. I didn’t have to think long about the bad because standing alone in the middle of the room, was the celebrity himself: Mr. Starr! Three teachers for 44 kids works pretty well most of the time. Two teachers? Maybe with a little luck. One teacher? Hmm... But this wasn’t just any teacher. This was Mr. Starr, the legend himself. He always something or the other up his sleeve and on that day, it was two documents about Pope’s day. Now some of you may be thinking, “Huh? Pope’s day?? Must be some sort of special day to celebrate the pope…?” Wrong. Those two documents shed some light on one fateful day over the span of two years. The first document (both taken out of a newspaper and accounted for by a man named Rev. James Freedman) focused on the civil war between the colonists while the second focused on a origins of a revolution between the colonists and England. On November 5, 1764, fires blazed across the town of Boston in the wake of yet another burning of a scarecrow looking like the pope of England. People were not happy with the way things were going in England. The requirement of payment in Boston to consent for the Seven Years War was not taken well by the citizens. The Colonists absolutely despised England, and the Pope being the figurehead, was burned in the streets of Boston, to encase their hatred toward the King. An excerpt from the poem shows the strength of the hatred: A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope, A penn'orth of cheese to choke him, A pint of beer to wash it down, And a jolly good fire to burn him. Oh yeah, these people were real friendly. After the two sides were done burning the pope, they came upon agreement to fight each other, splitting themselves up as the North End and the South End. The reason for this brutality? The intense sectionalism present between the North End and South End of Boston. Both sides were very vehement toward each other on the topic of sports, business, fashion, etc. In those fights, many people were bruised, and accumulated broken hands, legs, and heads. These people just came out in the evening and… fought. Weird? Yeah. But it's alright, because that's about as weird as it gets.
The two groups don't fight each other long. By November 5, 1765, the two groups became allies as they turned to a common enemy: England. England had recently passed the Stamp Act in further compensation for the cost of Seven Years War. Their “mother country” had taken away their freedoms and abused them, and the colonists were not going to stand for that. Even now, in the modern day, people in England will come out and burn the scarecrow of the pope, proclaiming the well known phrase around the year of 1765, "Remember, remember the fifth of November!" Katy Larkin, GBP Student
In the Greater Boston Project we explore Boston through many different activities with a heavy focus on group work. Everyday we work on class activities in groups which helps us learn how to work together to create the best final product. We have learned how to give constructive criticism and the importance of contributing all we can for our group. We then use these collaboration skills we have learned to work on long term projects with a group. This has many similar elements to our in-class group work, but it also has added complications. For example, on long term assignments people must take the initiative to complete their work in a timely manner to give their group time to give feedback. We just finished working on a project about propaganda during the time of heightened unrest between Great Britain and the Massachusetts colony. Groups are focusing on the controversial acts passed by Great Britain and the outcomes of these legislations. This project is different from other projects we have done because we are given much more creative license on a large scale. While we have done creative work before, like in the in-class activity on “Puritan at Play” which had to do with arts and leisure in the Puritan times where we made videos in which we wrote our own script. However, for this propaganda project our skits were much longer and more in depth in regard to historical information, as well as performed in front of the entire class. Every group presented their skit to teach our peers about the event or legislation we researched. To assist us in our skit-making, the teachers even created their own skit with the same guidelines that we were given, focusing instead on a modern-day issue: the relocation of the Hillside school in Needham. Their skit was engaging and informative, showing us what we should all strive to create. In addition to our own pre-revolutionary skits, we created two pieces of propaganda to incorporate in our skits. One of the pieces had to be from the viewpoint of Great Britain or those whom supported the “mother country” and the other was created from the viewpoint of the colonial settlers who were against the legislation. The purpose of this was to help us show and understand both sides of the story in the events leading up to the American Revolution. We were able to get ideas for our propaganda when we went into Boston a few weeks ago, as other blog posts have discussed. At the Massachusetts Historical Society we looked at authentic propaganda from the time period we are researching. These propaganda artifacts were really helpful in showing us the language and persuasion tactics used during this time. From songs to drawings, this trip to the Massachusetts Historical Society sparked many great ideas for propaganda in our class. I liked this project because creating our own skits and propaganda was fun and different from other projects we’ve done. I also thought it was great for educational purposes because in order to create these things we really had to understand our topic. Peter Hood, GBP Student As soon as I walked into room 728 on the 21st of October, I knew it was going to be a monumental day in my high school career. I finally got to combine my two loves for math and the Earth into one class activity. In preparation for this once in a lifetime activity, I went right home from school the night before and studied up on the whole operation behind Solarize Needham on solarizeneedham.org. I also dug through my AP Statistics notebook in order to be absolutely prepared to conquer any given math thrown my way by the math legend himself: Mr. O. The main idea behind the big push for Solarize Needham is, “In addition to significantly saving money on your utility bill you will be helping your community’s local economy, promoting the use of sustainable energy and helping the planet reduce it’s overall carbon footprint!” (solarizeneedham.org). Our main goal in class was to explore the cultural change and subsequent paradigm shift that has influenced the Solarize Needham initiative. After we were fatefully directed into our working teams based on the shapes on our grouping cards, all of us students were immediately engaged in the classwork, starting to converse about the perks of “Solarizing Needham.” Our conversations started to lead to overall ideas about cultural change regarding going solar. It seems that the big push for going solar is happening with everyone trying to “save the planet” and “be green;” it’s kind of become a sin nowadays to not be environmentally friendly. I think Needham, in particular, wants other towns around us to see that we are taking the effort to saving a lot of energy. Being energy proficient has started to become a fashionable thing, and Needham is no exception! Once we finished discussing our initial ideas in class, I finally had the opportunity to put my math skills to the test. Comparing percentages of single family homes who solarized and average family incomes for all of the towns, we were able to compare data and analyze data (two of my favorite things). We ended up finding things like the z-score (observation-mean/standard deviation), and regression of the different towns that are trying to solarize. We had to find these factors in order to analyze and interpret the data correctly. We chose to examine the percentage of single family homes with solar power with average family income because we expected that the higher the average income of families, the higher percentage of single family homes with solar power would be likely. After calculations, we concluded that there was no correlation between income and percentage of single family homes with solar power. This was surprising to me: if people had the money to pay for solar power, why were they participating just as much as families with a lower income? I think Solarize Needham is a great way of saving energy and money, benefiting our community here as a whole. It really pains me to see a lack of people participating in it. Families with a higher income see solar power as a necessary process to take on if they could just pay their regular electrical bills with no problem. On the other hand, families with lower income aren’t able to pay for this adaption to society. This interesting day in GBP really strengthened my belief in going solar overall. I believe that saving energy and money would be two things I would take pride in once I become a homeowner myself. In about ten years you will find me lounging on the balcony of my mansion, overlooking my gorgeous solar panels lighting up my roof.
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