Agora Days

The third week in February has become one of my favorite weeks of the year. You would think, living in the dreary midwest, that I would hate this time of year, but some unknown genius decided before my time that one week in the long 3rd quarter would be called Agora Days and all regular classes would be cancelled and instead teachers, students, parents, and community members would teach classes about what ever they are passionate about.

This year I worked with the always game Steve and Marten at the Soybean Press to publish a collection of student written, hand set, letter pressed poetry. It was an ambitious project for four days, and there are still a couple poems that need to be run through the press, but we had so much fun! I love that I teach students who geek out about moveable type, the history of the printing press, and dusty of technology.

I also taught a Knit Bomb class, which was an excuse to hang out in the library and knit for four days in a row. Thankfully I had a student co-teacher who is patient and likes teaching beginners to knit (something I’m terrible at). At the end of the week we had a 30 foot crazy scarf that we hung outside of the school. I love that some students knit for four days and contributed 3 feet while others contributed 3 inches, but we Frankensteined everything together and the final result is awesome.