While school will be closed with no classes on Tuesday, November 3rd, the school will host optional political discussion sessions, led by teachers and students alike. Upper school club leaders have volunteered to run informational sessions on topics ranging from key Congressional races to voting rights for people with felony convictions to voter suppression, important political photographs, bystander intervention for microaggressions, animal rights issues, a leader’s responsibility for modeling appropriate behavior during a crisis, immigration, the implications of the 2020 election for the LGBT community, candidates’ opinions on foreign policy, the negative effects of social media, historic protests like the Chicago 7, the history of women’s suffrage, affordable housing, the Electoral College, climate change and the climate crisis, protest music throughout history, protests in professional sports, and bias in political reporting. The various workshops were organized by the community council with help from advisor Ms. Raskin!
For Friday, students are invited to dress up in Halloween costumes and snap a photo in their advisory. The pictures will be shared with Ms. Bradley. Students have chosen various costumes from sports heroes to rainbow colors, mythological and historical fictions to celebrate the holiday together on Zoom.
Thursday and Friday this week students watched The Hound of the Baskervilles in Eighth grade English. The classic Sherlock Holmes mystery ends the mystery unit off by showcasing all the elements: disguises, clues, a victim, a red herring, aliases, and a dastardly criminal. The movie, set in 1889 is based on the book of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle. Students in the grade read two different mystery stories, including The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, a mystery story that tells the story of Sherlock Holmes through the eyes of his fictional sister Enola. The story involves a cryptic message embroidered into a crinoline in Morse Code by Florence Nightingale to tell a British lord about the failures of the Crimean War.
During Wednesday’s Middle School Assembly, students and teachers celebrated each other’s achievements and discussed the themes of Citizenship. Speakers included civics teacher Mr. Staten and middle school dean Mr. Edmunson and seventh grader Zuri Shepherd and eighth grader Lydia Park among others. The event was organized by middle school directors Mr. Kelly and Ms. Bradley to celebrate all hard work students and teachers accomplished in quarter one, but also to reflect on the idea of citizenship, community, and service to one another. People considered the Latin roots of the word citizenship, its historical context, and the importance today in being part of a community and voting. Students awarded teachers with merits for their hard work including fifth grade math teacher Ms. Figueroa, sixth grade math teacher Ms. Moore, and eighth grade math teacher Ms. Kolb. Teachers also honored students for their service to the community, either through clubs, groupwork, kindness to peers, and positive attitudes in class. Merit winners for the month included fifth graders Chase Warren, Addison Little, sixth graders Zaida Slakey and Zoe Wood, seventh graders Victoria Guevara and J.D. Miller, and eighth graders Lydia Park and Micaiah Jegede. Fifth grader Noelle Hoerrner and sixth grader Sadie Wortman were honored by their friends who nominated them for merits due to their citizenship.
Ms. Dobler’s Middle School STEM Club tested the boats they had created out of various recycled materials on Wednesday. Club members used bottles, paper, cardboard, metal, plastic, glass, and other recyclable materials checking to see if it could float while bearing the weight of one pound. Students were excited to determine that the boats held much more than one pound and were still afloat!
