{"id":340,"date":"2009-03-15T10:37:06","date_gmt":"2009-03-15T14:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/?p=340"},"modified":"2009-03-15T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2009-03-15T14:48:10","slug":"manton-avenue-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/manton-avenue-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Manton Avenue Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"480\" height=\"295\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C-yLYz6ejqw?wmode=transparent&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;iv_load_policy=3&amp;showsearch=0&amp;rel=1&amp;theme=dark&amp;hd=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The adventure begins.\u00a0 I meet the playwright.\u00a0 She is ten.\u00a0 All bangled and swathed in pink velour- a mass of curly brown hair.\u00a0 A little nervous-a whole lot of just being 10-and just turning ten at that.<\/p>\n<p>Our theme is the 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 I remember them well.\u00a0 Our interview begins- she has to interview me in order to begin her process- so we all can begin our process.\u00a0 Confronted by a ten year old and going back, back,back to the 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 In one hour, I sat and answered all the questions\u00a0honestly ( I mean, you can&#8217;t lie to a ten year old)- I relived my 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 And I remember them well.<\/p>\n<p>We were still living in Chapel Hill in the early 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 I was a blue jean bell bottomed peace tee shirt wearing 7 year old.\u00a0 I loooved the Jackson 5, Motown- anything Motown-The Mamas and The Papas, Bobby Sherman, Love America Style and HR PufNStuf. Don&#8217;t\u00a0get me started on Jack Wild and his magic flute.\u00a0 I would have died for Jack Wild.\u00a0 I got his\u00a0latest album for my 8th birthday.\u00a0 Signed personally by Jack Wild himself;unfortunately due\u00a0to his touring schedule-Jack Wild would not be attending my party.\u00a0 At least that was what the note said.\u00a0 The note I got with the album.\u00a0 The note was from Jack&#8217;s tour manager.\u00a0 Funny how his handwriting\u00a0was almost\u00a0identical\u00a0to my\u00a0mother&#8217;s.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0My room was painted purple with a pink high shag rug.\u00a0 L-O-V-E was painted in matching pink above my headboard.\u00a0 In an arc.\u00a0 Perfectly spaced-with flowers between each letter.\u00a0 I was a hippie child.\u00a0 We all were. All of us on Overland Drive.\u00a0 Barefoot\u00a0and free.\u00a0 We all attended the same elementary school- an experimental pilot school.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Put the kids in learning pods&#8221;\u00a0-someone with forward\u00a0educational thinking said.\u00a0 &#8220;This way we can transition the learning per pod&#8221;.&#8221;\u00a0 Sectional pod learning.\u00a0So there we were, in a loft sort of learning environment-separated by pods-all borrowing the same SRA learning systems, watching the news\u00a0on TV and being randomly observed by students in the educational doctorate program at UNC.\u00a0 Oh, and, we did not have desks either. We sat at tables.\u00a0Big round tables.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Desks are too constricting&#8221;, said the same person.\u00a0 &#8220;Tables invite learning&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0 This is what happens when you grow up in a progressive\u00a0university town. Everything is up for observation.<\/p>\n<p>I loved pod learning.\u00a0 Being the social hippie bee I was- even back then- I loved that I could look around the loft and seek out my friends-and during snack we could all roam the pods.\u00a0 This was also great for seeing who was breaking bad and getting into trouble.\u00a0 Like Russell.\u00a0 I liked Russell.\u00a0 Come to think of it- he looked a little like Jack Wild-back in the\u00a0Artful Dodger\u00a0days.\u00a0 I saw &#8220;Oliver&#8221; a real lot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Russell-poor Russell-\u00a0he was always causing trouble. That Russell.\u00a0 Once, he took his pencil-just to see what would happen-and stuck into the light socket that controlled the entire light source for our pod area.\u00a0 The jolt knocked him back and knocked out all the power in the entire pod.\u00a0 Lights out.\u00a0 It was instantly quiet-when normally our pods were a buzz with activity.\u00a0 I will confess-that was a major distraction for those of us who, very barracuda like, are always drawn to the shiny,noisy side of life.\u00a0 But that said, Russell, never came back to our pod.\u00a0 His quest for learning was put to better use somewhere else.\u00a0 From that day forward, he had to ride the short bus to school.\u00a0\u00a0He was enrolled in\u00a0the&#8221;other school&#8221;.\u00a0 I was in the pod system until we made a big move to another town in North Carolina. Rumor was the pod system was not all that effective anyway and was done away with the year\u00a0after we\u00a0left.\u00a0 Foreward thinking education person thought otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Just being asked by a ten year old:\u00a0 &#8220;so, um,what was your favorite song from the 70&#8217;s?&#8221;\u00a0 is enough-but then being forced to choose?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By next week, my playwright will have her script ready and we will have our first rehearsal.\u00a0\u00a0Based on some of her questions and some of my answers- I think the show will be about a groovy hippie girl who loves cats and\u00a0somehow, throughout the day, \u00a0lost her blue jean bell bottoms while singing Muskrat Love and getting her ears pierced with Erica from down the block whose parents\u00a0were opera singers.\u00a0 Or something like that?<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t wait.<\/p>\n<p>Now to write my letter to the Town Council and push for pod learning.<\/p>\n<p>On second thought?\u00a0 Never mind.<\/p>\n<div class=\"al2fb_like_button\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n(function(d, s, id) {\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=217894238264870\";\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));\n<\/script>\n<fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/manton-avenue-project\/\" layout=\"standard\" show_faces=\"true\" share=\"false\" width=\"450\" action=\"like\" font=\"arial\" colorscheme=\"light\" ref=\"AL2FB\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"al2fb_send_button\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n(function(d, s, id) {\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=217894238264870\";\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));\n<\/script>\n<fb:send ref=\"AL2FB\" font=\"arial\" colorscheme=\"light\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/manton-avenue-project\/\"><\/fb:send><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The adventure begins.\u00a0 I meet the playwright.\u00a0 She is ten.\u00a0 All bangled and swathed in pink velour- a mass of curly brown hair.\u00a0 A little nervous-a whole lot of just being 10-and just turning ten at that. Our theme is the 70&#8217;s.\u00a0 I remember them well.\u00a0 Our interview begins- she has to interview me in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}