8th grade just completed their reading of the classic coming of age novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton this week. Many of you may remember crying over Johnny and growing up with Ponyboy around this same age. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, the long and short of it is two boys losing their innocence to systemic violence that goes too far, only for them to fight for their childhood anyways. The book (and film) are littered with a kind of tug-o-war between childhood and adult imagery – the same kid who has left school for a full time job to support his brothers loves having chocolate cake as a meal. These juxtapositions are poignant reminders of the child that lives within even the most hardened or “experienced” kids. Johnny’s final reminder to Ponyboy is the iconic line based on a Robert Frost poem – “Stay gold, Ponyboy.” Johnny challenges Frost’s poetic thesis that all youthful things fade away and “nothing gold can stay.” Johnny implies that one can hold tight, even fight to stay golden, innocent, and young.
I’d say the Cooper School soundly agrees with Johnny. We love the tension that exists between expecting higher and higher levels of skill from our students while also knowing there is so much childhood to hold tight to. Our talent show was such a great example of that this week – what could be a festival of nerves and judgement was pure play, celebration, and fun. Our kids are gold to their core, and we will continue to honor and preserve that gold as long as we can. To the adults reading this, I believe we’ve all got a lot of gold left in us, and if you’ve any trouble finding that, just try looking to your very own middle schooler.
-MK
ELA- This week, 6th grade writers revised, edited, and typed their final personal stories. Authors get to enjoy publishing and sharing their work with peers. We also tested our grammar skills on Thursday 10/9, so be sure to ask for those final grades.
Next week, 6th graders will begin their next novel study of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead as they survey social issues, timelines, and symbolism throughout the story. They will also begin another vocabulary study with a test planned for 10/23.
Science- This week in science 6th graders explored thermal energy transfer through radiation, conduction, and convection. Students used online simulation to see how particles moved during the different types of thermal energy transfer then related that to how energy moves through the atmosphere. Students also began testing different insulation materials in preparation for their engineering design challenge that we will take on next week – insulating a model house.
Social Studies- Sixth grade has begun our unit on ancient Egypt. This week was for an introduction to this age of humanity and what made them different from Mesopotamia. Next week we will begin our next project as a class on the gods of ancient Egypt. This is a small group project, allowing students to research and learn about this polytheistic religion. This is one of my favorite projects in which they recreate life size posters of these gods!
Math- This week in math, sixth graders began wrapping up this unit. They were assessed on their ability to translate ratios to unit rates, then translate to other necessary values. They were also assessed on their ability to use percentages in terms of “_____% of _____ is _____”, but also “______ is _____% of what?” We derived equations such as “is/of=%/100” to aid us in this exploration!
Next week, we have a short week, so we’ll spend a bit of time refamiliarizing ourselves with fractions and how they work and what they mean before we dive deeper into unit 3 – which expands on our knowledge of fractions and decimals and solidifies their mastery. Unit 4 introduces equations and expressions, where they’ll need to apply fraction and decimal operations – so it’s important that we work to master that now! They’ll also take their ERB milestone on Friday!
