This week we had two things on the front of everyone’s minds: health and our upcoming NYC trip, which is now officially less than a week away! Students also participated in their Candor Health programs this week, including a great in-school visit so students could have the opportunity to have discussions about their health with real-world experts on the subject. In this age of misinformation and disinformation it is more important than ever for students to have the opportunity to learn from trusted and qualified experts in areas like healthy relationships and sexuality, as well as the dangers of various substances that could enter into their lives and have a huge negative effect if they hadn’t had been educated in how dangerous they can be.

Monday we started off the week by having the students begin to complete some of the preliminary work they would need for their in-person portion of their health class. As well as getting a chance to get a head start on some of the online portion of their Candor Health program. 7th Grade students did a module titled “Teen Sexual Health 1” and 8th Grade students completed “teen sexual Health 2”. These courses outline and review various biological and psychological components of sexual and reproductive health, including what you would probably expect such as anatomy, biological processes, and fetal development. But also included details on topics such as healthy relationships, peer pressure, and signs of abuse. After taking some time to make progress for health class, we also resumed “The Sandlot” from Friday, as due to some technical issues the class was not able to finish the film on Friday for our teacher appreciation week celebration.

Tuesday we continued to prepare for our in-person Health Education, with students taking some time in class to complete their preliminary activities and some of the class modules for two other health classes: Decisions and Vaping. In these two classes as one would expect, the students learn about the decision making process, peer pressure, bad influences and which decisions are the right decisions to make, in addition to challenging the kids to think about how they can reframe their mindset in the moment to help them make the best decisions they can. Tuesday we also finally got the time to do our Socratic seminar final discussion for our Night novel study! It was a really great conversation, and I’m proud that the students took the chance to take the lead in the discussion, while I played more of a moderator role rather than an active participant role. We had so many amazing questions asked about the book, and really enlightening conversations in response to those questions, that showcased a very developed level of understanding of the novel and the key concepts that the novel explores, as well as the events, and characters and their connection to our Holocaust unit as a whole. It was a great and proud moment for me as their teacher for the seminar to be our summative discussion of the unit, and I think it served as a tremendous example of how far we have come over the past months of the school year, as this discussion was so much more in-depth and advanced than the one we had for our WWI unit!

Wednesday the representatives from Candor Health came to our school and students completed their 2 in-person classes for health: Teen Sexual Health, and Vaping. During these classes students got a chance to learn firsthand from experts, and also got a chance to engage in conversations about these topics that they maybe don’t get to talk about all that often outside of class. Our guest instructors did a tremendous job of keeping everything comfortable and respectful, and the kids got to learn some great scientifically proven and fact based information about the best methods for practicing safe sex, engaging in safe and healthy relationships, avoiding peer pressure and vaping, and who they can talk to or get help from if they find themselves needing it within the next few years.

Thursday we took a break from Health to do a bit more NYC history. Students completed a mini-project in which they were paired up, and were allowed to choose a NYC Landmark to do some research on and to present to their peers. These landmarks included the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Washington Square among others. After they did their research, students created a brief slides presentation to discuss and highlight the history of their chosen landmarks, the purpose it serves, the reason it is significant, and who some of the significant figures surrounding their landmarks were like architects and people responsible for funding or construction. Once they finished all of this, they were tasked with presenting their presentations to their classmates who filled out a note sheet with designated areas for facts and information about each landmark. We didn’t get time to finish all of these presentations on Thursday, so they will have to resume next week to help us get even more excited for our trip!

Friday our future graduates took some time to work with Ms. Maria on perfecting their graduation photo slideshows, and their graduation speeches. The students had a full day dedicated to organizing and uploading their photos, and thinking of some ideas of how they would like to emphasize the importance of their graduation quotes, as well as thinking back to some fond memories at Plato Academy and all of the things they learned in the classroom. While the 8th graders prepped for graduation, the 7th graders completed their online classes for Health, and got a head start on some test corrections for their recent Night and Holocaust final unit test.

I would like to start out this week’s blog by thanking everyone for their contributions to teacher appreciation week this past week! We had so many amazing gifts and perks, and I’ll definitely need to get some extra steps in over the next few weeks to make up for having so much amazing food 🙂 Our administration and our parents here at Plato are second to none, and they certainly proved that this week, as I am feeling so very appreciated, so thank you again so much to all of my parents and anyone else who helped make this such a special teacher appreciation week!

Monday students took a field trip to Pickwick theater in Park Ridge to attend a viewing of the film ‘Kapodistrias’ – a biopic about the first governor of Greece, Ioannes Kapodistrias who was an instrumental governing figure and statesmen who served as a foundational architect of the modern Greek state. It was a great chance for students to explore the history of such a monumental figure, and to break up some of the monotony of the school year by taking a fun trip to the movies!

Tuesday we resumed our exploration of the Holocaust by getting back into our walking debate discussion about the aftermath of the Holocaust. Meanwhile our 7th graders began their STS testing for the year, which would include testing sessions on both Tuesday and Wednesday. As we continued our walking debate, we explored ideas like ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ as it pertains to massive international tragedies like the holocaust, as we attempted to deal with the question “is it even possible to get justice for crimes so severe?”. There were so many amazing responses, and I’m very proud of my students for being able to have a mature and informed debate over such an important topic! Tuesday we also had a brief meeting to discuss plans for the upcoming NYC trip. As the date of departure approaches, we are fleshing out our itinerary more and more, packing in as much as we can to make this trip as special and memorable as possible!

Wednesday and Thursday students prepared for and participated in one of my favorite lessons that we have done so far this year: the Nuremberg mock trial. First we had further discussions and took notes on the significance of the Nuremberg trials, the actual process of liberating the victims and slowly emptying out the concentration camps, and the various questions and their proposed answers that arose during the wake of the discovery of the horrors of the Holocaust. Then students participated in some content readings related to the Nuremberg trials, and specifically the trials of Julius Streicher, who was the Nazi we put on “trial” as a class. Upon being informed on the international legal process, and the various crimes committed by Nazis throughout WWII and the Holocaust, I then assigned various roles to the students, including judges, the prosecution, the defense, a court clerk, a Jury, and the defendant. Students got to see a small bit of how international courts worked, and got to see a direct example of both the Nazi defense arguments, and why those arguments in no way justified their actions leading to unanimous convictions of Nazi criminals after the holocaust. I found this activity to be one of the most engaging and enlightening of the year, and made sure to give students plenty of time to both prepare and participate as I feel strongly that they were gaining a lot both in terms of skills and content but as well as perspective, which can be difficult to attain since we are so far removed historically from the Holocaust, and also since it is such an unimaginable event that it can be difficult for students to get that perspective. After we concluded we had a fantastic class discussion about the mock trial and the history surrounding it, as well as the implications of the Nuremberg trials and the fact that Nazis would be hunted and convicted over the course of the next 70 years across the globe, with some Nazi convictions coming as late as 2024! Wednesday we also paid a visit to Ms. Beth’s class to check out some of their awesome presentations about our national parks. They did some absolutely incredible work, and as usual I’m so proud of my kids for being so supportive of their fellow Plato students as well as great role models by listening respectfully and making great positive supportive comments to encourage the younger students.

Friday students took their final test for the class novel ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel as well as the Holocaust unit as a whole. In this multiple choice test students got a bit of a taste of what they can expect from High School Social Studies tests as I used the same design philosophy and approach as I would have for 9th graders. The test included both content from the novel as well as the surrounding Holocaust unit, including historical events, vocabulary and terminology, as well as literary content and ideas. After this test, we took a bit of a break from the Holocaust to practice our songs for our upcoming spring show! Then in the afternoon while Mr. Joe was away for the teacher appreciation week painting party, students got to relax and have some fun viewing the film ‘The Sandlot’ to end their week.

Next week we will wrap up the Holocaust unit for good by having our Socratic seminar for the novel ‘Night’, before jumping into some NYC history and continuing to prepare for the spring show and graduation. Until then I hope everyone has a great mothers day weekend!

Happy May to all of my readers! Time truly flies, as it’s so hard to believe we’re already in our last month of the school year, and many of my students last month at Plato Academy ever! The weather is getting better and better, and we are inching closer to many of our end of the year festivities such as our trip to New York, field day, and the Spring Show!

Monday we started off the week by finishing up what we started off on Friday. The class viewed the second half of the film ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’, and we had a class seminar discussion on both the literary elements of the film, as well as how the film reflected our understanding of the Holocaust so far. We had a great discussion, and it was exciting to see students make connections between the material they learned from our Holocaust study and their class novels, and the film. This film is unique because it is both a Holocaust story and a coming of age story, and students got a chance to see the horrors of the Holocaust from a different perspective, and see how a loss of innocence occurred for the main character, which in turn represented a loss of innocence for all the German people of the time, many who were completely ignorant to the atrocities going on in their own country, and then the struggle of being faced with those realities after finding out. Monday we also took some time to further develop some of the expository “how-to” papers for when Ms. Debbie had her final class session on Wednesday, so that we could be ready to revise and eventually publish the stories in a class book!

Tuesday morning we continued to work on drafting for the expository paper, as the students drafted I went around the room and did some brief conferencing with each of them to ensure that their topics was something they felt strongly about helping future students improve with, and that they were utilizing the same ideas in both their theses and their body paragraphs. It has been great to see how much growth my students have undergone in just the second semester, as the writing process for these papers has been so much more expeditious than the law day papers due to their deeper understanding of the writing process and how the 5 paragraph format works. Tuesday afternoon we had three of the lawyers from the HBAI were generous enough to come by in person to announce the winners of the law day writing contest, and to engage with a fantastic Q&A session with the students! It was a great opportunity for students to get a chance to learn about different types of law practices, and how different kinds of lawyers can have very different kinds of careers. Students also got a chance to hear about some of the hot-button constitutional issues we have discussed in class from the legal professionals who specialize in the constitution. Finally the lawyers announced our winners, and I’d like to shout out our winner for the 8th grade contest: Soti Stojan! Congratulations Soti! your hard work and dedication to the project paid off very well! But he’s not the only student of mine who should be proud; like the lawyers themselves said it was an incredible close competition, and all of the students should be very proud of the work they accomplished over such a long term project.

Wednesday we had a shortened day for early dismissal, but we still got plenty done by finishing up rough drafts for the expository paper, and taking an opportunity to practice some grammar by looking at the most commonly misused words and participating in a practice activity using the educational app Quill to get some practice experience in! The words we focused on in particular were those with a variety of different spellings, that have been misused with greater and greater frequency thanks to social media and our ever growing reliance on technologies like auto-correct. These include were vs. we’re, their, there and they’re; to vs. too among many other commonly misused spellings! It was a good chance to get in some practice, and I had some fun conversations with some students about their reliance on corrective spelling technology, and the state of spelling and grammar as it is used on social media and the internet. Hopefully my students will be able to rise above this epidemic of misspellings and technological reliance to be able to improve their understanding of grammar and the English language.

Thursday Ms. Debbie came in for the final writer’s workshop of the school year! She helped students to revise for their expository papers, and then we took the chance for each student to create a cover art for their contributions before we published the class book to offer for the next group of Plato Middle School students. The main order of the day was peer review, which will continue to be an essential part of the long term writing process as the students progress to high school. Being able to look at their peer’s papers also gave students the chance to reflect on their own work, and as always with any type of advisory process, the students needed to make sure they were picking the right advice to follow, and maybe filtering out some of the less helpful suggestions that might have compromised their original vision, as it is often important to think about where feedback is coming from, and whether it should be followed 100% or not. I would like to extend a very special thank you to Ms. Debbie for all of her help this semester, she was absolutely instrumental in our completion of the Law Day contest, in addition to many other amazing writing pieces, and has helped to do so much for our students to grow their writing skills in such a dramatic way in such a short period of time, thank you Debbie for everything you do!

Friday we started off the day by (finally) presenting their final projects for their novel studies. This activity was greatly delayed as we were originally going to try to present with Ms. Mary’s class in attendance, but after a couple of weeks of trying and failing to find a mutually beneficial time to present, we had to unfortunately cancel that aspect of the presentation projects. Students did a fantastic job of summarizing their novels and identifying the important plot elements, the characters with their roles and character arcs, pointing out the literary devices present throughout the book and their significance, as well as being able to identify passages that highlight the tone and theme of their class novels. After we took this time to present, we started the penultimate Holocaust topic we’re exploring for the Holocaust unit: rescuers of the Holocaust. Students looked at primary and secondary sources about and related to 3 different heroes who saved the lives of Jewish people under Nazi occupation: William Thalhimer, Varian Fry, and Chiune Sugihara. After they read, took notes and answered questions about the sources and their subjects, students grouped together to fill out a 3 way venn diagram of similarities and differences between the 3 rescuers, and we had a class discussion to explore the same similarities and differences as well as the various risks and heroism displayed by these rescuers. Lastly we moved on to the final subtopic of the Holocaust unit: the aftermath. The first activity related to the aftermath of the Holocaust is a survey students took regarding their opinions on various forms of “justice” related to the Holocaust, which we are also turning into a walking debate. The activity has only just begun and will resume next week, but we’ve already had some amazing discussion and debate on the topic!

Next week we will finish our exploration of the Holocaust and our new class novel night, as well as taking a look at some greek culture by going to see the film ‘Kapodistrias’. I look forward to wrapping things up and talking with students about overall lessons and new perspectives we can take on humanity in the wake of the Holocaust, and how we can make sure “never again” holds true. Until then I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!