I realized recently that I haven't posted any sort of explanation of flex committee on my blog. Actually, the true flex committee hasn't done much this summer (we've only had one meeting). But I'm also part of the interdisciplinary subcommittee and we've met a handful of times this summer. Two other kids, Mr. Grunden, Ms. Huddleston, Ms. Chalifoux, Dr. Marschall, Dr. Brown, Ms. Warren and I make up this subcommittee.
We are creating a new flex day that will start in the 2006-2007 school year and run as long as there is still available time and interest in its continuation. It is designed so that, while it is a "themed flex day," it is also unique to each grade level, so freshmen entering RCHS in the fall of 2006 will experience four different activities (one each year) that are all linked.
Each grade level's activities are based on the idea of "paradigm shifts" through history and in our personal growth and development. A paradigm shift is defined as "a significant change from one fundamental view to another, usually including a discontinuity of the original fundamental view or practice." Each grade level focuses both on one moment in history and on one major "milestone" in personal development. We have identified four major steps for change: pressure, resistance, change, relfection.
Freshman year: Freshman year, students will be focusing on 500 B.C., which was a major time in the development of communication and also religion. Written language developed, as did the belief in an unseen higher power, which was a switch from the common practice of worshiping statues and other tangible items. For personal development, students will focus on how their lives changed (their social patterns, their view of the world, their confidence level, and their ideas and beliefs about community/family/groups) when they started kindergarden.
Sophomore year: Sophomore year, students will focus on the Enlightment as a major change in the way people viewed authority, community, religion and science. They will explore the roles of the social classes and how change is brought about. For personal experiences, students will examine how their lives, views, ideas, morals, likes/dislikes, social patterns, and attitudes toward authority changed when they started middle school.
Junior year: Junior year, students will focus on the ways in which society underwent a change in the beginning of the 20th century (give or take a few decades). Many areas of life were changed during this time: music (rise of atonalists), art (decline of the impressionists), dance (rise of modern dance, fall of classical ballet), politics (with the influence of people like Marx), philosophy (Kant vs. existentialism, Nietzche), science (Darwin and evolution), psychology (Freud), etc etc etc. Students will also look at how their perspectives, social patterns, lifestyles, and attitudes toward authority changed when they entered (and continued through) high school.
Senior year: Senior year, students will focus on the future, and discuss/debate questions like: are we in the middle of a paradigm shift right now? If so, what is it? If not, when do you perceive the next one to be coming? Why? How do we or how will we know when we are? What will it look like? Will there be resistance to a shift in thought or way of life? Do we prepare ourselves for a shift? How? Why? In 100 years, what shift will they say was taking place right now? Students will also examine their own lives. Who do they want to become? How can they make that happen? Why do they want to become that person? Who are they afraid of becoming?

On these flex days, students will not simply sit around and be asked these questions. The questions and ideas posed will be intertwined with an engaging activity in which the students examine the paradigm shifts in a new way, and really think them through. I'll blog about the actual activities later.

If students (or adults I suppose) read this, I'd love to hear comments. The adults on the committee really want us three students to get a feel for whether or not students would like this kind of thing, so please leave your feedback (good and bad) by clicking on "comments." Thanks.