5th Grade Utopia & Bill of Rights

Nueva Stories

Dice and Randomness

Every now and then we post interesting stories about Nueva and its alums, stories that show some essential quality of Nueva students and education. If you have one, please email it to Matt.

Prior to a freshman World Religions oral exam with twelve potential questions, the teacher informed the class that the students would only need to answer five of the twelve questions, and that he, the teacher, would select the five questions randomly on the day of the test using a pair of dice.

Most of the students, simmering in a late spring stupor, were prepared to blithely follow these instructions. But one Nueva graduate's hand popped up.

"Excuse me Mr. Brown, this method will not result in random questions. We won't need to study question 1 at all, because it will not occur in a pair of dice, and we would concentrate our studies on question 7, as its probability of occurring is the highest.

"I have a 12-sided die at home and can bring it in if that would be of help to you."

Always thinking, speaking up and engaging in class, thinking mathematically, more interested in learning than in finding the easy way, and, of course, using those SEL skills to be helpful rather than confrontational -- several of the hallmarks of Nueva students.

Nueva Stories

5th Grade Utopia & Bill of Rights

Written by Kim Saxe

Integrated Subject: Humanities

Our new 5th grade Humanities teacher, Jenna Greenfield, created an exciting way to engage students in the topic of Rights and Responsibilities this fall. Jenna had an idea. “I’m thinking we could do something around the theme of Utopias ...” That was the beginning of a project that engaged the students’ imaginations and intellects. This project had two parts.

Part I: Students had specific responsibilities within teams assigned to invent a utopia. They had already learned quite a lot about utopias with Jenna and in their reading of The Giver (Research/Deep Dive). The designers sketched a variety of ideas independently (Generating Ideas), Then teams came together to decide on the features of the team’s utopia (Making Informed Decisions and Monitoring Team Dynamics - SEL). With a variety of materials and a short timeline, the students crafted models that incorporated many inventive features.

The fifth grade teams presented their utopias on Grandparents/Special Friends’ Day. One utopia had four sections, each with a different season. Several adults commented, “Kind of like California!” Another had two levels. “We thought the top level would be a nicer place for people to live with all the trees. Below, is a level with the businesses. It has an added feature that it reduces your time and distance to get to work” (Share & Reflect).

Part 2: After lessons on how to entice someone into allowing you to interview them and techniques to use to run a fruitful interview, the students were charged with interviewing five people about the rights and responsibilities they wish they had or thought individuals should not have (Research/Deep Dive — Ask & Listen). Armed with this knowledge, the very engaged students brainstormed and hammered out their utopia’s bill of rights (Incorporating Feedback). We were very impressed with the students’ depth of thinking throughout both parts of this project.

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Nueva School is a nationally recognized independent school serving gifted students and emphasizing integrated studies, creative arts, and social-emotional learning. For more than 40 years, Nueva has remained committed to its original vision: to inspire a passion for lifelong learning, foster social and emotional acuity, and develop a child's imaginative mind. Nueva creates a dynamic educational model to enable gifted children to learn how to make choices that will benefit the world.