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Monday, June 18, 2012

Private parts. « Fred Klonsky

Private parts. « Fred Klonsky:


Private parts.

The kerfluffle in the Michigan legislature over a female legislator using the word, “vagina” in a speech defending abortion rights has led to the sudden upsurge in interest over that particular body part.
Or, maybe I’m just underestimating existing interest.
I used to do a yearly activity with first graders involving the drawing of shadows. You might be surprised about the complexity of the concept of shadows for a six-year old.
What part of your body is the shadow attached to? Relative to the sun, which direction does the shadow fall? What color is a shadow?
To explore these questions we would go outside on a sunny day and with chalk in hand the students would pair up and trace each other’s shadows.
Inevitably, a student would come up to me and report that somebody had drawn a penis on a bunch of the