We heard projects, first from Kiley, on the Russian Revolution: She asked us: What would you be willing to physically revolt against? Violent or peaceful revolution ? Is violence sometimes necessary? Definition of communism. Early history of Russia before the Tsars. Russkaya Pravda. Early Russian Leaders…Ivan the Great, Catehrine the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great. Serfdom.Pre-revolution events…peasant revolts against Catherine the Great began a long-standing history of fear of peasant revolt…The Decemberist Revolt, 1825—3000 rebel soldiers marched into St. Petersburg against Czars’ troops…they wanted freedom of speech. Nicholas 1—1796-1855…Alexander II, (the liberator) ended serfdom throughout Russia. In 1829 there were 23 million serfs out of 67 million people. This way revolution would be avoided. Alexander the III. Afraid of what might happen to him, …his advisors—feared freedom of speech and press and were against Democracy…Tsar Nicholas Romanov II/ Alexandra Feordorovna…Khodynka Tragedy. Vladimir Lenin, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, the Duma, Bloody Sunday, 1905 Revolution, October Manifesto…the sailors of Kronstadt, the British Hemophilia Line, Grigori Rasputin, WW I (1914-1918), the impoverishment of Russia during the war…The February Revolution, Trotsky, the July Days, the October Revolution, the peasants throwing out Provincial Government while World War I goes on. White Army, Red Army, 1921 Famine, eye witness accounts of the murder of the Czars family, Stalin and Communist Russia… “The Twelve,” by Alexander Block..
“Remember the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not love that conquers evil, but love.” Olga Romanov.
In Claire’s Musical Revolution in the 1960’s project, we learned about the Elvis Presley, early Rock and Roll, Buddy Holly, the Beatles and the British Invasion, the key events of the 1960’s in a time line, surf music, the Dionysian vs. Humanistic impulses in the 60’s, Vietnam War in which 58,000 American soldiers dies, the Lyrics to the Beatles’ “Revolution,” Hitchcock’s film Psycho, which came out in 1960, “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley , the Liverpool Lads and the Cavern Club, Woodstock, Hippies, the SDS and the Port Huron Statement, Bob Dylan, the Kennedys, fashions, popular culture, The Archies, the Mamas and the Papas, MLK, the March on Washington, and many other items. We were also treated to a musical “coda’ of the Sixties in a sound montage made by Claire’s half sister Lily. Our questions: what made this a time of change? What was coming out of people all over the world during the early 1960’s. What force did music have to voice ideas and feelings that many people shared. The All the kids were divided up into groups: The Beatles, Stones, Crickets, Mama’s and Papas, The Velvet Underground, The Who, and each group had to make a SDS Port Huron Statement.
On Friday: we heard Su White tell about the parable of the Empty Bowl; we did an exercise to find out the economic status of the rest of the world, dividing up into the percentages of people who live on less that $785 per year (55%), those who live on $785-$9300 (30%) and those that live on more than 9300 (15 percent).
Then we had a guest, Bridget Nardiello, who did a short workshop on “what I believe.” She challenged each of us to begin thinking about our beliefs, and we began making lists. At first it was hard: Ask your self to say out loud what you believe, then multiply that by 100. Then we listened to a little boy from Texas, 6 years old, who made a list of 100 things and we heard him read 30 of them. Then we began our own lists, and soon enough the lists were growing like wild plants, everybody putting everything on and end. We will keep these lists growing the rest of the year. The beliefs will change, mutate, expand, disappear, become less true. But we want to begin to think about it. The beliefs are no more than hopes until they are said. When they are stated as beliefs, then we can begint travel toward them, or try to live them out. Then we went down stairs to make the “trees” that will hold these beliefs, a forest of trees, of birch trees leaning towards each other. On large sheets of paper, with black paint and popsicle sticks, we each made our own version of a birch forest, which we then pinned up on the all. Later we will begin adding our beliefs as leaves.
Later Bridget sent a note to the kids and asked them be thinking about how to move the beliefs from words to actions. To be thinking about how our big and small actions can make or unmake the world. Or, even, choosing not to act because the action will not add to the world, but will make it smaller. In the end, this becomes a question of: am I making the world more beautiful, or less so? Am I giving or taking? Am I protecting others or creating fear in other. When something bad comes at us from an external place, how do we field that negative force, what do we let it become in us—at our very best, godly selves we transfigure cancerous, negative, toxic forces into something that elevates us and others around us.
This lead us into the second larger discussion of the day with our third guest of the day, Coach Hugh Brown, formerly of Atlanta, GA, now director of the Synergy Football Club of Shelburne, Vt. Hugh picked up where Bridget left off: what do you believe, or, What drives you? He listened to what we had written and then had us think about how those beliefs need to come off the page. It can sound good, but the ideas have to serve, deliver, and take on dimension. What makes us work and live? What value will you stand by in the real world, on the street, face to face with others. Hugh talked about what a gentleman is, using as his source Robert E. Lee (this was not planned); about the power of transforming dreams into goals (as in turning hopes into beliefs) by writing them down; he told stories of Emmit Smith, the importance of living with passion and emotion, the power of one’s perspective, which, most often, is the one inviolate power we all possess. Drop out? Cop out? Hold out? Or all out? How do we shape and direct our lives once we know what we believe?
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