My Martian Math class finished today. Students brought their parents or guardians by the computer lab in the Education Technology Center, for the open house in the afternoon. They showed off some of the computer projects they'd been working on, using Python + VPython.
This was a part of the Saturday Academy summer camp at Reed College. Glenn Stockton was also a teacher. Our theme was time, as in "time travel" and my class represented "the future", though what that means was open to interpretation (by design). I'll be posting more about this class and the philosophy behind it in other posts.
The evening was Portland's annual commemoration of our planet's first and only nuclear war to date. Polo was our emcee again tonight, on a lovely summer's day. He was sensitive to the presence of multiple generations, saying kind and inspiring things about young people, and respectful things about old people, many of whom have worked assiduously to rid the world of nuclear weapons (even as others have worked hard to develop and deploy them).
This was the theme of the evening: the heart felt desire of people around the world to end the nuclear threat, and the price already being paid for having developed these weapons in the first place. One keynote speaker spoke of Hanford as the biggest eco-catastrophe in our hemisphere, with the glassification plant alone taking over 20 years to construct. Another spoke of SGI's longstanding compassion for those suffering from nuclear madness, a brand of fiendishness. SGI used to be known as NSA Buddhism and has joined the campaign to rid the world of these underworld devices.
The event was rounded out with a hip hop performance. This same Zulu Nation group had joined visiting Friends at the meetinghouse last Friday according to Eddy Crouch, who sat next to me for part of this event (she's our new Clerk of Oversight, protege of Annis Bleeke).
I got to talk with Marco (formerly with AFSC) and Mike D. as well. And Crystal came by, talking about Portland Free School, just like old times.
