Students in the upper and middle school meet regularly for assemblies with a specific theme. This month, the upper school assembly focused on Immigration & Citizenship. Various students and teachers discussed family experiences with immigration and thoughts about what it meant to be an American citizen. Junior Jay Antoine spoke candidly about her family’s experiences with international adoption, and seniors Louis McDonough and Brian Benitez did a joint presentation in Spanish and English called, America, I Do Not Call Your Name In Vain. Throughout the year, these assemblies serve as a chance to unite our school around shared values and foster public speaking skills and respect for peers by asking students and teachers to honor each other’s achievements.
Tenth graders visited an educational exhibit on the lives of refugees at the Washington Monument on Tuesday. The interactive, free exhibition presented by Doctors Without Borders was called “Forced From Home.” This exhibit portrays different aspects of the experience of the world’s more than 65 million refugees and internally displaced people. With an experienced aid worker as students’ guides, they walked through the various challenges faced by displaced people and learned about how Doctors Without Borders handles their basic medical needs. Tenth graders have previously studied genocide and the experiences of refugees in Europe after World War II.
Eighth graders recently started a student-run art club, which meets weekly on Mondays in room 234 at lunch. The club allows students to take their lunch period to work collaboratively in various mediums and discuss their artistic interests with peers. The club started with colored pencil sketches of cartoons that depict current political events. At Washington Latin, student-run clubs allow children a chance to share their interests, passions, and hobbies with peers during lunchtime and after school sessions, with the help and guidance of a faculty advisor. The club will publish an art magazine in the spring depicting favorite selected works from the year.
In seventh grade English class, students in Mr. Green’s class moved from various stations in the hallway to consider ethical issues around human and animal experiments. Students considered what they would do if they were involved in various science experiments or studies in the context of the short story “Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keys. In the story, the main character participates in a scientific study that increases his IQ dramatically. As students moved between the various scenarios, they decided what they would do if they were faced with each experimental situation. One hypothetical experiment included “a new technology has been created that allows people to have one painful memory erased. You have been given an opportunity to get one memory erased, and the process is free and painless. What would you do?” By examining stories in the context of moral and ethical issues, students ground their readings int he real world and also consider the impact of various technological innovations on the world.
