Richard J. Bailey sixth grade students recently took a special field trip that didn’t require travel by bus or even leaving the building. They stepped into the RJB auditorium and entered a time machine, making stops in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
To deliver a hands-on learning experience related to this month’s IB Unit of ‘Inquiry,’ sixth-grade teachers Mr. Thorpe and Ms. Williams created a unique experience, Where We Are in Place and Time. The educators transformed the RJB auditorium into a carefully curated museum reflecting the evolution of everyday items used in modern-day society. Taking turns, each sixth-grade class approached the auditorium stage to examine the relics, which included a late 1700s bed warming pan, phonograph, tape recorder, rotary phone, flip phones, 35MM film manual cameras, and original Atari and Nintendo gaming consoles. Perhaps the most entertaining for the sixth graders was a boom box, which Mr. Thorpe put on his shoulder to demonstrate how it was used as a portable music device, which the students found to be both baffling and hilarious due to the fact they have only known a single device - a smartphone - that takes the place of most of the items placed atop the stage.
Similarly, Ms. Williams showed them how to use a rotary phone. As she put the handset to her ear with one hand, stretching the long curling cord, Ms. Williams used her other hand to dial by inserting her finger into the designated numbered holes, turning them clockwise. Mr Thorpe gives the students a play-by-play as she does this. “Imagine if you had to call the main office,” he said. “How many numbers would you have to dial? Yes, 11 numbers. That means that if you got any of the numbers wrong, you would have to start from the beginning again.”
The blast to the past was more than just humorous retellings, it was a way to share how the artifacts were sometimes a source of connection. Referring to the combo record player and radio on the stage, Mr. Thorpe shared a personal story with the students. “My mother was born in 1929 and my father in 1922. When they were children, for major entertainment after finishing chores, they would sit around the radio together and simply listen. That was their family night,” he said. “This unit’s theme is an inquiry into the orientation of place and time. This includes personal journeys, relationships, and the interconnectedness between global and local civilizations.”
Bringing the room back into the present, the discussion shifted to the concept of place and Mr. Thorpe engaged the students in a question-and-answer game:
“What planet are we on?”
“Which continent?”
“What state?”
“What county?”
“What town?”
“What street?
Like an echo, the sixth graders called out the answers after each question:
“Earth”
“America”
“New York”
“Westchester”
“Greenburgh”
“Hillside Avenue”
In keeping with the concept of time-shifting, Mr. Thorpe takes the students once again from the present into the past, with a look towards the future. “This month, we will be talking about our journeys, ancestries, and families,” he said. “Because to truly understand where we are in time and place, we need to know our own unique and rich histories.”