This is the week that was...

There's so much going on in 8th grade on a daily, if not hourly basis that it's laborious to even reflect on it! As you all know, we enjoyed a rich and interesting day at Galvin Flight Center on Boeing Field last Friday (9/19)...in fact, we did everything BUT fly, as Mother Nature was less than cooperative. In the carefully orchestrated day on the ground we cycled through a series of "Ground School" activities: visited a Lear jet, tried our hands in the sophisticated flight simulator, and toured the Boeing Field communications tower. We filled any down time with a viewing of the historically accurate film The Tuskegee Airmen, starring Laurence Fishburne, among others. Our 8th graders were impressively patient and then understanding when it turned out that they wouldn't get to fly that day. Flash forward seven days and our girls took to the skies in droves...or at least in eight single-engine planes! While the conditions weren't as perfect as we would have hoped, we did manage to get all but two of our students aloft. They reported exciting mid-air adventures and were thrilled with the experience. A HUGE THANK YOU to our "Aviation Godfather" - board member Peter Morton and his crew of pilot friends who make this stellar experience happen for SGS' 8th grade year after year. In addition, we're very grateful to all the parent volunteers who supported this effort. (Thank you notes should have reached you by now...via your 8th grader. If you haven't seen them, ASK!)

When we weren't engrossed with all things aeronautical, we continued our work in the realm of Curiosità – reflecting in our journals, compiling and then submitting our “ten burning questions” which will coalesce into an all-class list of questions which we'll consider as we work towards deciding our Term 1 Theme, and delving into aspects of self-awareness as well as peer-perception. We accomplished this last feat by responding to Dr. Martin Seligman’s (of Positive Psychology fame) Signature Strengths Questionnaire. (See http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu if you’re curious…or better yet, ask your 8th grader!) After we’d obtained our own signature strengths results, students then sat down with a peer and each girl rated the other according to her perceptions. In this manner we were able to begin answering one of the questions that appeared repeatedly among our burning questions: How do my peers perceive me? We will continue this work next week as we prepare for our Warm Beach Retreat.

On Thursday and then again on Friday morning before our delightful Art Walk (stay tuned for a report from Trina on that!) we sat in a circle as an “all group” and delved into issues - both past and present - that have impacted how we relate to one another both as a class and as groups within that class. Our goal in 8th grade will be to build a team of thirty-nine girls who relate to one another in respectful, yet REAL ways.