Fall 2011 Project Week in Full Swing
Putney students do long term projects at the end of the fall and spring trimesters instead of final exams. Project-based learning is a pillar of progressive education. It makes more sense to us as educators to ask students to do something with their knowledge beyond reciting it back to us at the end of the term. At the beginning of the process they write project proposals and work with their sponsors to create goals and schedules for what they want to accomplish. We see the project proposals as being rather like grant proposals, and think it’s good practice for the students to have to make a persuasive argument for being given this time to work. Each student must do at least one project with a connection to one of their academic classes. The second project may be academic or connected with some non-academic activity.
In addition to the individual projects, there are also group projects offered by some of the faculty. A few examples of the group projects offered this fall will give you a sense of the range of topics:
 |
• Exploring the Intersection of Math and Music: a laboratory style investigation into how the mathematics of sinusoidal functions is used to visualize musical concepts. • Authentic Cooking with Local Hispanic Immigrants: learning cooking (in Spanish), from Mexican, Honduran and Guatemalan women who have recently immigrated to Vermont. • The Court of Louis XIV: a study of the architecture of Versailles, and its social, artistic and cultural life. In English and French.
|
| • Occupy Wall Street: A study of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including a visit to Occupy Boston to conduct interviews. |
 |
 |
• Taxidermy and Zoology: Putney has accumulated a frozen collection of birds and small mammals that have been killed on windows, by cars, or by other mishaps. Students will learn to prepare study skins and skeletons for use by artists and biologists. • Making a difference: The Governance of Small Towns and other Polities: A study of how small places govern themselves, looking at Putney, Dummerston and Brattleboro, as well as Marlboro College and The Putney School. Interviews with local elected officials and volunteers as well as readings from De Tocqueville and others. |
