I’m teaching a class where the kids need to design a tattoo shop. We are going to read the illustrated man by Ray Bradbury and do some math related to art. I got thrown into it and didn’t really want to do it because I am not a tattoo guy but now I’m excited. I needed what we call a “groundbreaker” to get it going so I told the kids to design a tattoo for me and that I would pick the best one and actually get it tattooed onto my body. I told them that I wanted my sons’ names on it, in Celtic lettering and that both of my boys had an “X” in their name and that I wanted them to share the X. They couldn’t do celtic lettering. I showed them how and taught them about celtic knots. They learned how to draw both. Then we studied knot theory a bit so that they could understand that the Celts actually used “Mathematical Knots” or links of those (look it up, you won’t be disappointed). We also studied some poetry written in different Celtic languages by authors who are alive today and then translated into English and I showed them the movie, “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” and taught them a little Irish revolution history. We talked about the process of finding your own roots and I had them research a story of their own roots and to design their own tattoo. We worked on this stuff for two weeks and then went on spring break. When we come back I am going to read this amazing article with them from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/science/in-andalusia-searching-for-inherited-memories.html?emc=eta1&_r=0. I will have to really deal with the vocabulary with them because of their reading levels but we can get it done. I will have them revise their work before going on to the golden ratio and golden spiral and how it’s used in art and nature and they will have to come up with some tattoo designs based on it, then it will go on from there. In the end they will have a portfolio of their design problems with math and be able to talk about their roots and the literature they read and they will have a design of a tattoo shop. They are getting both math and English credit for this and I am getting a tattoo, too.
Write your own myth. Find out your history by the fiction that comes out of where they say you came from. Don’t look for the facts, listen to the stories and retell them with embellishments and lies. That is the only way to find out the truth of who you really are. – Guru Muru
Guru Muru 