Teachers will be offering new and exciting electives for the spring semester in the upper school. Offerings include Studio Art, Government, Financial Literacy, Introduction to World Literacy, Creative Writing, Community Art, Mindfulness and Meditation, Spanish for Heritage Speakers, Economics and Performance Studies for Theater. One brand new course is the co-taught interdisciplinary class Trials of Odysseus and Invisible Man, which looks at the works of Ralph Ellison and Homer to understand the classic concept of the literal and metaphorical journeys involved in an Odyssey. While many of these electives fulfill requirements, others are offered for further academic adventure, investigation, and creativity.
Several weeks ago, an all-female STEM team consisting of sophomores Adelaide Pfeuffer, Genet Tewalt, Elizabeth Campbell and Katherine Reyes-Hernandez competed against teams from all around the US by presenting to Audi executives. The challenge was to improve the car buying process for women and their strategy was the creation of a Women’s History Month event in March where women would lead all components of the experience from car sales and virtual vehicle tours to women showing women how to change a tire. It earned them 2nd place prize in the Audi contest.
This year the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee will use an online testing platform. Students in the middle school can take part in next week’s bee by registering online at https://online-test.spellingbee.comby Monday the 11th. We encourage you to watch this video tutorial that will walk you through the registration process. Students must take the test next week if they want to participate in the Middle School Bee and be eligible for the cluster bee or Citywide Bee later on. The students from each grade with the highest scores will move to compete at the school level.
Students and teachers managed to be festive at the runup to the Winter Break, even at a distance. While it is so hard to have a semester at a distance, we have found many ways to connect, both onscreen and outdoors. Students took part in an online reading aloud of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol on Thursday night. On Friday middle schoolers attended a holiday assembly on the theme of love and light, and Mr. Clausen’s upper school advisory gathered together for a fireside chat in the parking lot outside Ms. Smith’s house, warmed with firepits and holiday spirit.
On Thursday and Friday, all 6th graders participated in Hour of Code during Science class with Ms. Dobler. Hour of Code is an international coding event that takes place during the month of December! Students were given some tutorial options and then got to create custom projects, including animating dance parties, building minecraft scenes, designing custom stress balls, and creating their own video games.
Middle Schoolers met in their dialogues groups with teachers and administrators and reflected on the topic of stereotyping and racial and ethnic bias. Students in grades fifth through 8th met in small groups with their teachers and did some warm-up exercises, playing Would You Rather. They reflected on the meaning of race and stereotypes, and watched a video about the stereotyping of teens. Students also evaluated how the COVID virus has affected certain groups disproportionately as a result of stereotyping.
