By Jonaszen Yao
Country Name: Dragon Island
Chief Export: Water from the Fountain of Youth
Ideals: Safety and Security for All
Occasionally, students in the Starfish Extended Day program came to homework hour without homework to do. While we could give them a random selection of worksheets to complete, our City Year team at the Mattahunt Elementary School seized every moment as a learning opportunity. In order to live up to these ambitions, we set up a long-term project combining history, civic learning and writing skills. Our students did not do busywork—they became leaders of nations.
Beginning with a Declaration of Independence from a fictional empire, they formed new countries. Our students worked hard making maps, flags and constitutions for their fictional countries. In doing so, they took the first steps of forming a national identity for their new lands and learned about the organization of governments. They have also built national ideals in the laws they established: “X-Canada” outlawed fighting in its Constitution and “Gravity Falls” made it a national right to live in a large house. When you witness fifth-graders debating each other on whether representative democracy, absolutism or constitutional monarchy is the best way to rule, you know that learning is happening.
Constitution Excerpt: “The people have a right to be respected.”
Country Name: Gravity Falls
Thanks to the lessons of Mattahunt Bucks as a school-wide currency, the students were familiar with the basic needs of a successful economy. With this knowledge, they chose certain goods from their countries to export so that their governments may maintain themselves. Those goods came in the shape of resources as simple as gold to the wondrous waters of the Fountain of Youth.
What they do with the revenue afterwards is also quite fascinating. We have seen an even split between those who spend their entire nation’s treasury on a defense budget and those that spend it on social welfare. In truth, they would all love to spend it on both, but we enforce the idea that they do not have unlimited funds.
Perhaps it was the joy of building upon what they have already created, but when our students came to Starfish without homework, they did not ask for free time. Instead they ask about the next step in the project. After all, the project was an ongoing one, including assignments to establish their founding stories and foreign policies toward neighboring countries. Beside moving forward, some students even rethought their governments, which have led to mini-lessons about elections, and, in some cases, revolution.
About the author:
Jonaszen Yao was a 2012-2013 corps member serving at the Mattahunt Elementary School in Mattapan.
