Last week’s track meets for the middle school boys and girls’ team showed fast feet and high jumps, starting the season off strong! In the girls’ meet at Holton Arms, eighth grader Zoe Edelman arrived in second place for her finish on the 1600 and 800 meter races. Seventh grader Ezinne Ukaegbu nabbed a first place finish in her heat of the 200 meter race, and narrowly finished second place finish in her 100 meter race. In the boys’ meet at the Landon School, our team came in fifth place overall. Eighth grader Miles Tiller surpassed his goal of 14 feet in the long jump by an additional five inches. Eighth grader Darren Wright also set his person record in the 100 meter dash, landing him in fifth place in the race. Eighth graders Lucien Anderson and Phil Horrigan earned third and fourth place, respectively, in the 800 meter race. Anderson also took fifth place in the 400 meter race. Seventh grader Jonah Spiva finished 4th overall in the 1600 meter race, and seventh grader Brice Parrot took ninth. In the 4X400 relay race eighth graders Phil Horrigan, China Ukaegbu, Evan Prince, and Samir Bhojwani finished in third place and Anderson, Spiva, and eighth graders Griffin Smith and Ranvir Malik came in fourth place. The teams are coached by Ms. McDaniel, Mr. O’Brien, Mr. Torrence, and Mr. Green.
Fifth and sixth graders will have their semiannual Dinner and a Movie night on Friday. The event, which is organized by the Parent Association, features a themed setting, complete with table clothes and flowers to set the mood. Students will meet and eat in the MPR and will watch the movies “Hidden Figures,” at 5:40, “Sing” starting at 6:00pm and “Moana,” starting at 6:10. The event will end at 8:00 pm. This year the event will have several smaller theaters playing a variety of movies and pizza and various food concession stands. Meanwhile, parents can come to Mix & Mingle with other parents while the students watch the movie. In the middle school, students in the lower grades participate in semiannual dinner and movie nights, while students in seventh and eighth grade have semiannual dance nights, taking time to celebrate together and enjoy dressing up outside of class. These events are made possible by the hard work and support of parent and teacher volunteers who donate their food and time, planning, organizing, and chaperoning these events.
Students in 8th grade history worked with K’Nex last week to learn about interchangeable parts, Samuel Slater, and industrial espionage. Slater was an early industrialist known as the “Father of the American Industrial Revolution” and the “Father of the American Factory System.” Students created imaginary textile machines that their classmates tried to steal tomorrow by rebuilding them from memory in a given amount of time. The students will also be working on an assembly line to create paper shirtwaists. These classroom simulations allow eighth graders to get a better understanding of the impact of industrialization on American lifestyles and work productivity during the turn of the 20th Century.
On Friday, students in the GSA club took part in the annual Day of Silence. The event is based on a tradition started 20 years ago, by students at University of Virginia who organized a day in which they remained silent to show support for those who identified as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender. Since then, each year, on a day in mid-April, students continue the tradition. The club, which focuses on gender and sexual identity, equity and justice for all members of our community, will participate in this day. This month the Parents’ Association held a meeting focused on issues for LGBTQ students, with a presentation that focused on raising awareness about school policies and laws and how families can support all students at Washington Latin.
Seventh graders learned the answer to the Langston Hughes poem’s rhetorical question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” when they traveled to Arena Stage this week to see Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun performed. Seventh graders read the play earlier in the year in English class with Mr. Green and Ms. Peale. The story deals with the varied dreams of an African American family in Chicago who each seek to pursue a greater degree of freedom through home ownership, business ownership, or travel and academics. Seventh graders also had the chance to see historical fiction drama “Watch on the Rhine” at Arena Stage earlier this year, which dealt with the anti-Fascist resistance during World War II.
