April 28, 2017

In this post... 

• And away we go!
• What we are learning

And away we go!

It's that time of year - time for Middle School students to travel to the far corners of the world! Well, not the farthest corners perhaps, but California, the Southwest, and Costa Rica represent a big slice of the Western Hemisphere. 

There are so many advantages that come with the Journeys program, but for us three rise to the top. First, the Journey ties the academic curriculum together in a unique and outward-thinking way. It's a privilege to travel with students and watch them apply what they've learned to the world that is not only beyond the walls of the school but beyond the distances that most students have traveled! There are explicit ties, like connecting the geological features of the Grand Canyon to earth science units or visiting the world that Steinbeck lived in while reading The Red Pony, but there are implicit and interdisciplinary connections, too - some of which we don't even anticipate until our students make the connections for us. Symbolically, too, the Journeys represent an "end" or a "summit" for our students' academic experience with a global focus. 

Second, the Journeys bring students - quite literally - outside their comfort zones. From the trip in general to particular activities throughout the itinerary, students are challenged to try new things, to engage with their peers differently, and to see themselves from new vantage points. Whether it's kayaking on Monterey Bay or ziplining through the jungle, each trip presents opportunities to try new things. 

Finally, the Journeys build community in a unique way. A children's book called The Treasure tells the story of an old man named Isaac who follows a dream to take a long journey to find a buried treasure, only to find it buried under his own stove. The concluding moral of the story is, "Sometimes one must travel far to discover what is near." Getting out of the normal boundaries of our campus and the school day, and finding themselves experiencing new things together, students have the potential to see themselves as part of a community in a new, perhaps even deeper way, and they bring that sense of community back to campus. 

For all these reasons and more, the Journeys provide an experience that is not only unforgettable but also invaluable in building a distinct program. 

What we are learning...

In Sixth Grade I&S we took the summative assessment on Rome and the students all have feedback on their essays. While for 6th grader preparing for and writing an essay can be often loathsome and feared it is always reassure for me to see how well this group does at synthesizing information and then putting it in their own words to prove what they know.  The assessment was not easy, they were asked to use previous knowledge, research organize and ultimately write a 3 paragraph in class essay, but they did well.  The grades will be given back, but more importantly is the conversation about what skills do they need to continue to develop in their writing. I was very impressed with the depth and detail they are developing. We are jumping into our next unit on Medieval Europe and the book has changed. There is a lot of excitement about the upcoming Medieval Day as well as the idea that we get to talk about knights, castles, chivalry and the Black Death. We will hit the ground running after the trips.

In 8th Grade Individuals and Societies we are in the middle of our WWI and WWII unit exploring the involvement of governments and technologies that were developed and utilized. The students just finished their technology projects with which I was thoroughly impressed with the creativity and information they provided. Their presentation skills have also improved immensely throughout the year.  Once they return from Costa Rica we will finish up the World at War unit and go into our Civil Rights unit.  They will continue with research for their Oral History Projects and I look forward to seeing the compilation of their work.

April 21, 2017

In this post... 

• Telling the Story
• Shameless Plug 
• What we are learning...
• Things To Do in our Community

Telling the Story

On Wednesday, we welcomed Henry Friedman to speak to the 7th and 8th Grades. Mr. Friedman shared a terrible story - he was born in Brody, Poland (now in Ukraine), in 1928. With the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, Friedman and his family experienced the systematic discrimination and isolation imposed with Nazi occupation, and his family went into hiding, protected by Ukrainian families, before they could be forced into the ghetto in Brody or deported. For 18 months, he lived in a crawlspace above a barn with his mother, brother, and a teacher, while his father hid in a different family's barn. He shared with our students some of the most painful moments of that period.

This week, students in 8th Grade also screened the 1956 documentary "Night and Fog," one of the earliest documentary film attempts to disseminate and interpret the Holocaust. Both of these experiences are rooted in our Individuals & Societies curriculum, part of students' inquiry into the events and impact of World War II, but they also coincide with preparations around the world for Yom Ha-Shoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, when people around the world are called not only to commemorate the lives lost in the Holocaust but also to contemplate the ways we can prevent such horrors from happening again. Of course, we know that the Holocaust was not the last genocide - the history of the 20th and now 21st centuries is scarred by genocides around the world. 

It is hard to imagine how, at 88, Mr. Friedman has the stamina to tell his story, but there is a clue in the way he framed his presentation on Wednesday - he started and concluded with an emphasis on hope. He tells his story over and over again, he shared, so that young people might - actually, he believes that they will - hear it and prevent history from repeating itself. Friedman ended his presentation with "The Paradoxical Ten Commandments," a twist on the ethical norms that are central to Jewish and Christian religious practice. These commandments urge listeners to do good, even in the face of evil, hopelessness, or apathy. A few examples: 

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. 

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. 

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Education is a fundamentally optimistic profession. People go into teaching or other roles in school life with a certain amount of hope - we believe that the work we are doing will have a positive impact on the world, or at least on one student's life. That hope is reinvigorated every day when we see students demonstrating growth and mastery but especially when we see them demonstrate kindness, love, and care, even in the face of apathy or animosity. We are so proud of our students' ability to lean into difficult territory, such as learning about the Holocaust, but, more importantly, we are grateful for the hope they continue to inspire as they commit to creating a more peaceful, inclusive, and loving world, starting with our school community. 

Shameless Plug for MS Auction Projects

Sixth Grade: Fabulous fire pit beautifully decorated with hand painted titles by members of the Class of 2023! This is a one of a kind masterpiece, and it also comes equipped with a waterproof cover, stocked with all the workings to make s'mores, and full of love from the Sixth Grade.

Seventh Grade: Seventh Graders put forward a number of auction ideas this year, and they eventually decided on custom sweatshirts. Instead of one person winning the Seventh Grade auction item, everyone can win! Just select a color for the sweatshirt, and then choose from a variety of student-designed logos and pictures. The logos and pictures, again, came about through a winnowing process where students presented their ideas.

Eighth Grade: Giant Jenga anyone? Have your own 3ft Jenga game for your backyard to entertain all your friends. With its own wheeling storage case and personalized with the Annie Wright colors and words that represent the AWS experience, how can you not jump at the chance?   

What we are learning...

Sixth graders continue to explore integers and rational numbers. This week students are focusing on performing operations with rational numbers and connecting rational numbers to integers. In the coming week, students will be introduced to their Summative Assessment, where they will be responsible for identifying, demonstrating, and writing rules for patterns in operations as well as modeling their rule.

Seventh Grade mathematicians continue to explore probability and statistics. This week’s work includes a problem of maximizing profit.  Students must analyze a data sample and then make decisions about what type of soup and bread to buy to so a soup maker can sell the most soup to the most customers and not have a lot left over at the end of the day. It requires accurate computation and analysis of the answers found to make reasonable and profitable decisions.

Eighth graders are factoring polynomials. This is one of the most difficult challenges to overcome in the first year of algebra. The numbers interact with multiplication, addition, and subtraction at the same time. There are many possibilities but only one answer. With some perseverance the trinomials do yield their secrets. What we will finally do with those answers will be the subject of our work after the Costa Rica trip.     

In the Sixth Grade Strings Class, we have finished our unit on Instrumental Technique and now will move forward with learning songs to perform for the All School Orchestra Concert on May 10 and May Day. Middle School Orchestra will do a special performance in All Schools Chapel on Monday April 24 of the very silly and scary “Rosin Eating Zombies from Outer Space”. They are also preparing for the May 10 concert and looking forward to joining forces with the Upper School Orchestra on one piece there.

To Do in our Community...

• Saturday, April 22nd is Parks Appreciation Day in Pierce County! Parks throughout the county will be hosting  volunteer work parties during the morning. There’s no need to register - just show up and be ready to help remove invasive species and clean up these wonderful spaces. For a full listing of parks participating in Parks Appreciation Day, visit Parks Appreciation Day Sites.
• Looking for ways to explore Tacoma and Seattle? Stay up to date with the events calendar on The Tacoma Weekly and Visit Seattle.

April 14, 2017

In this post... 

• MYP Visit: Being a Risk-Taker
• PHE Curriculum
• Things To Do in our Community

MYP Visit: Being a Risk-Taker

We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change.

In Chapel this month, we are exploring the Learner Profile attribute "Risk Taker," as defined by the IB (above). For the IB, it's less about escaping one's comfort zone and more about how we prepare for unknown space, untested limits, or undefined boundaries. Put another way, being a Risk-Taker is about knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. Over the last two days, we hosted three educators of very different backgrounds who serve as our MYP Verification Visiting Team. Their task: verify that we are doing what we said we were doing in our application, document that we are continuing to make progress in implementing the spirit and the structure of the MYP, and provide feedback on the things we're doing well and where we still need to work. For us as a Middle School Team, the Verification Visit has been an exercise in Risk Taking - preparing (for several years!), exploring and implementing new ideas and strategies, and facing the uncertainty that comes with welcoming educators whose fresh eyes might both celebrate and criticize our work. 

The Visiting Team met with groups of faculty, administrators, a small group of parents, and a handful of Trustees, and our students were on call to give tours, get our guests from meeting place to meeting place, and to talk about their experience. At the end of the first day, our guests (not surprisingly) were eager to comment on how impressed they were by our students. That certainly made us proud! They also acknowledged that our application, the binders and binders (and bytes and bytes) of documentation we supplied them, and the conversations they had already had with teachers demonstrated the hard work that we continued to put into this process. We won't receive any formal feedback or update on the status of our candidacy until the summer, but for now the acknowledgement of the many gifts of our students and the talent and hard work of our faculty have made it all worth the risk. 

PHE Curriculum

As part of our physical and health education program and ongoing commitment to prevention and wellness, we have invited prevention specialists from FCD Prevention Works to join our community and speak to our 8th grade students on April 17th during their PHE class.   A part of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, FCD is a non-profit organization that provides substance abuse prevention education for schools. Since 1976, they have taught over a million students of all ages. Their mission is to:

• Encourage and support the non-use of alcohol and other illegal or illicit drugs during the growing years

• Empower young people to make healthy, responsible choices regarding alcohol and other drug use 

• Teach students and adults how to recognize the early warning signs of substance abuse and to intervene appropriately

• Educate students, parents, teachers, and administrators on the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol and other drugs

• Promote awareness of drug addiction, including alcoholism, as a progressive, chronic, and often fatal disease

• Provide educational communities with the guidance and training necessary to implement comprehensive, effective approaches to substance abuse prevention

FCD prevention specialists are highly trained professionals who have achieved long-term recovery from alcohol or other drug addictions. This unique perspective enhances the credibility of their message and provides students with role models for happy, healthy, drug-free living  

The FCD prevention specialist will present a parent workshop on April 17th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. In the library to offer support and guidance in helping your children enjoy a drug-free adolescence. Some of the topics to be addressed include:

• Effective ways to communicate with your child about drugs and drug use
• Up-to-date facts about current drug use and trends
• What to say about your own experiences with alcohol and/or drug experimentation
• How to spot early warning signs of trouble and effective ways to respond.

This program presents a perfect opportunity for discussing alcohol and other drug-related issues with your children. Parental involvement is crucial to our efforts to reduce the risks teenagers face. We want our students to hear from both school and home that we are concerned about alcohol, tobacco and other drug use by adolescents, and that we are committed to keeping our children safe.

To Do in our Community...

• Looking for a family volunteer opportunity? Join “Pitch In For Parks” on Saturday, March 11, from 10:00am-12:00pm at Spanaway Park. See this flyer for more information.
• Looking for ways to explore Tacoma and Seattle? Stay up to date with the events calendar on The Tacoma Weekly and Visit Seattle.