Welcome to my Blog 2019

Walk a Mile in My Shoes (by Andi)

Today we were lucky enough to take part in a project that was part of the Empathy Museum - designed to help people think about what it's like to literally walk in someone else's shoes.

A Mile in My Shoes project looks like a big shoe-box.

Inside the shoebox the lovely volunteer helped the boys choose shoes.

Finn was given these shoes that belonged to a Native American teenager

Patch was given these red shoes that belonged to an 11 year old girl.

Isaac got these bright yellow crocs belonging to a 11 year old boy.

Then each of the boys got given headphones and an audio player.  Each audio player had a life-story being told by the previous owner of the shoes. 

Then the boys got to walk around Downtown Denver listening to the stories, while literally wearing that person's shoes.

The boys then all listened to a second story - one of which was the inspiring story of a triathlete who wore this leg (and these shoes).

At the end the boys all got to write about their experience on a note card...

...and stick it on this wall where all the other participants reflections on the experience were also posted.  

 This was an amazing experience and instigated lots of great discussions.  How are our lives different/the same as these people?  If the person whose story you had listened to was a classmate, how could you try and help them? If we could give President Trump 1 pair of shoes to walk in whose shoes would they be?  A refugee father?  A victim of gun violence or their family members?  A child being held in an immigration centre?

We also loved these quotes that lined the shoebox walls.

If you'd like to find out more about this project you can follow this link: http://www.empathymuseum.com/

Finn's Fun Fast Facts #3

I went to the Museum of London and learnt about Gladiators

Dulce et Decorum est

While we were in York I went to the WWI exhibition at the York Castle Museum. This was particularly interesting for me. This is because for the school poetry competition I chose the poem Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen who is a famous war poet. This poem is about a man dying in a gas attack. It was also really interesting because I got to see what it would have been like for the soldiers at the time. There was a real World War 1 gas mask on display as well as a model of the trenches that you could go inside.  All of the captions on the pictures below are lines from Wilfred Owen Poems.

     

"Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time....
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, I saw him drowning."

Gas was first used as a weapon by the Allies in 1914. The first use of a poisonous gas was by Germany during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. This is a British PH gas-mask that was used during WWI. It was coated in a phenate-hexamine solution. It was the only thing that protected soldiers during chlorine gas attacks. This helmet would have been used in 1915 and over 14 million of these were produced during the war.

Having seen the helmet I can now imagine how difficult it must have been to try and fit such a bulky, heavy helmet under time pressure.  I can also picture more clearly now the meaning and imagine the horror of watching someone die from the chlorine gas in front of you knowing you were safe.  I now better understand the meaning behind Owen's line "Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning."  The air would have been thick with the greeny-yellow chlorine gas.  From the picture you can see that the eye-holes were covered with dirty, cloudy lenses.  Plus the soldier's breathing would have made them misty too. Therefore the lenses are the 'misty panes'.

"Cramped in funnelled hole, they watched the dawn"

These are pictures from inside and outside the replica of the trenches. It would have been really cold and full of mud back then. Even sitting in there for the short amount of time that I did I found it extremely cramped. I can't even begin to imagine living in there, and it was clean! Trenches during World War 1 were typically 50 to 250 yards apart but the shortest recorded distance between British and German trenches was only  7 meters (23 feet). Shockingly the average life expectancy in the trenches was only 6 weeks! 

"If lucky we slept under a sheet of corrugated metal
with a rat warming the back of the neck"
James C. Tait, 10th East Yorks. Pals Battalion.

In the trenches there were lots of rats which carried disease. This was a problem because one third of the people who died during WWI died of disease. The rats would also steal food from the soldiers. Sometimes they even bit the soldiers!

"Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,"

Here you can see the wall of the trenches. It was built with sandbags and topped with barbed wire.      In this picture you can also see a machine gun mounted on top. There were 25,000 miles of 

    zigzagging trenches along the western front alone. It must have been really scary in the trenches. 

    There were 80,000 recorded cases of shellshock but probably thousands more weren't recorded.          

The allies would make paper mache heads on poles and have them sticking out of the trenches to trick the Germans. They would also sometimes just prop helmets on the poles. This also worked because there was so much smoke in the air from the guns and explosives that were being used. During the war at least 6,000 men died a day and 9 million died in total in the fighting, so I can understand why they didn't want to go sticking their real heads out of the trenches.

At the end we got to write a message on the blackboard

It was good to have this experience because it helped me understand how awful life was for the soldiers who fought in this war and any other war and I thank them for their sacrifice. It also makes me grateful that we live in a time of relative peace. It helped to give me a deeper understanding of the poem I performed for the school competition. I also think there is still a lot we can learn from our past that can help us maintain a peaceful future so that no one else has to go through the same horror as these soldiers. 

Lest We Forget

Here is the poem Dulce et Decorum est:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Finn's Fun Fast Facts #2

We went to the London wetland centre and learnt all about the wildlife that lives there.

London Landmarks

As we were traveling around London we got to see many of its famous landmarks.

London Landmarks

There are many amazing places you can visit in the city of London. From beautiful palaces to creepy dungeons, here are a few of our favorite London Landmarks.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace Is home to the one and only Queen Elizabeth II. It also has 78 bathrooms!(Who the hang needs 78 places to release their bodily fluids?! I'm serious!) The palace is 316 years old and the first monarch to live in it was Queen Victoria.

The London Eye

The London Eye is the largest ferris wheel in the world. It is currently sponsored by Coca-Cola brand. The London Eye is one of the most famous landmarks in all of London City although it is only 21 years old.

 

Big Ben

Big Ben is another extremely famous landmark. In fact, it is probably the most famous clock in the entire world! Big Ben is not actually the clock though. Big Ben is the name if the bell inside the clock tower. Big Ben is 160 years old and the tower is 96 metres tall.

The Shard

The Shard is the tallest building in london. It is 309.6 metres all and it has a whopping 95 stories! It is only 10 years old but it is home to 36 companies. It is estimated that the cost of building The Shard was 435,000,000 Pounds or 811,185,825.00 NZ Dollars. 

Tower Bridge 

Tower Bridge was officially opened over 120 years ago by the Prince Of Wales. The bridge is 244 meters in length and 65 meters high. The bridge usually opens one or two times, a day but if you need to pass through it you have to book in advance.

The Gherkin 

The Gherkin is probably the most instantly recognisable landmark in London. Construction started in 2001 and the Gherkin was finished in 2003. It has 41 stories and it is 180 meters tall. At its largest point the circumference of the Gherkin is only 2 meters smaller than the height of the building!

St Paul's Cathedral 

St Paul's Cathedral is London's most iconic cathedral. Its dome is the largest in the world. It is 344 years although it had to be reconstructed after the great fire of London when it burned down. St Paul's Cathedral is 111 years old.

Tower Of London

The Tower Of London is 900 years old making it the oldest landmark on this list. The Tower Of London is famous for being a prison but over the years it has also been called home by many monarchs. Only a few people have escaped the tower but one man named William Earl of Nithsdale escaped disguised as a woman! The Tower Of London is also where the crown jewels are kept. 

Finn's Fun Fast Facts #1

What Do Archaeologists Most Like To Find?