Poetry Out Loud and 2nd Semester Pep Talk

posted Jan 13, 2017, 1:15 PM by Scott Frizzell [ updated Mar 3, 2017, 12:05 PM ]

After a very short opening week courtesy of a restful snow day, we're now fully underway in second semester. This week, middle school had a "pep talk" about the work ahead. We talked about fresh starts, and how 2nd semester is the start of something new. It can be a refreshing reboot academically, socially, or spiritually. We set a middle school goal for the semester to work on empathy, feeling the emotions of others. We all go through challenging periods, but if we are more empathetic towards each other, we can all work towards support and healing rather than antagonism. Look for your student to hear more about practicing empathy throughout the semester, and we hope you will partner with us in this endeavor.

On Friday, middle school joined the upper school in watching the upper school's Poetry Out Loud finals. It's an exciting national competition that focussing on memorizing and performing poems. Our students did some practice by memorizing poems in their middle school English classes, but they won't be old enough to compete until 9th grade. Instead, they got to watch ten exceptionally talented students perform some beautiful poems. We hope this will encourage and inspire our students in to Poetry Out Loud when they are upper school students.

Finally, we will be out of school on Monday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We hope all families have a restful weekend, and maybe find time to visit the excellent National Civil Rights Museum or watch some documentaries about the civil rights movement.