Ethnic Conflicts
9th grade ended the year discussing ethnic conflicts of the 20th century. Students made a current events journal to become aware of what is happening in the world today. We also discussed the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iranian Revolution, and how third-world countries try to grow and develop. With a foundation in why different groups clash, students are able to analyze the current conflicts with an understanding eye.
Miss Schutz
Diversity
One of the most fun (and challenging) parts of teaching is the interaction with so many different personalities every day. What I noticed at the end of my journey with the tenth graders this year was the clear collective homeroom personalities that arose. It was cool to see groups of students go from kind of knowing each other at the beginning of the year, to being a unit at the end. One student said she was happy that her friends were in different homerooms because it gave her a chance to connect with new friends. Why is this important for English class? Because of the diversity of opinion, background, and interest, I noticed a wonderful variety between the classroom discussions of the same novels and newspaper articles. 10R usually bent towards political discussion; 10W would often become a spiritual discussion; and 10S focused more on personal experience in relation to the novel. As the year progressed, students took more initiative in the group conversations. I had one student who would come in with a current event in mind, eager to talk about it and hear other students’ opinions. It was neat to help the students find what they are interested in and help them express their thoughts, in verbal and written words, with more clarity and confidence. As their teacher I am excited to see the tenth grade move up in the high school ranks, and will be interested to hear about their growth next year–in new groups, with new novels, building upon their hard work from this year.
Miss Miller
Learning from the past
Many people wonder about the importance of reading. Some may ask, why should I read books by dead guys who lived over a hundred years ago? They can’t possibly know anything about my situation. The question can be met with the Biblical truth: there is nothing new under the sun. This is one of the most important lessons ninth grade students learned in English class this year. Good and evil existed thousands of years ago just as it does today. So did love, joy, peace, war, loyalty, etc.–the human experience didn’t start when this generation was born. One novel that the students read was Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. Students had to respond to the following quote, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless. They were challenged to see the influence of important novels, like A Christmas Carol, or Romeo and Juliet, and see how these novels were meant to entertain and engage; change laws and change hearts. It was exciting to watch the light bulbs flick on during class discussion as the students made connections between the different novels and stories we read during the year. Students will move on to tenth grade with a broader appreciation of literature, and hopefully a new perspective on the ability for people today to learn from the past.
Miss Miller
3D shapes!
This month we built building and used dimensions to calculate area, volume and surface area of common solids. Beginning with cubes and pyramids we started laying a foundation for cylinders, cones, spheres and more. Learning by discovery helped us to simplify long equations and many formulas became similar ones.
Miss Stahler
Circles
Continuing our theme of circles, the students found patterns in secants, chords and tangents which prove true no matter the length! Our peg boards and rubber bands helped add excitement and discovery to formula riddled chapter.
Miss Stahler
π day!!!
Or approximately 3.14159… We couldn’t wait for March 14th or 3/14 to get here! The class played discovery games with cylinders and circles. We practiced area and circumference to find patterns. They even learned a song that sings the first 200 places of pi!
Miss Stahler
Geometry
Pythagorean’s theorem to the rescue! Studying trigonometry and right triangles can be very abstract. In order to make it more hands-on & relevant we calculated heights in our school’s gym and (outside) our school building’s height. We crafted sextants, with straws, protractors and string, to find the angle of elevation!
Miss Stahler
Geometry
We finished learning our facts about triangles and learned some of the secrets to indirect measurement. The students practiced proving their case based on given facts and theorems learned. Each proof was almost like defending a client in a court case.
Miss Stahler
Advanced Algebra
Probability is always a fun topic. My class used playing cards, spinners, marbles, colored chips, dice, other students, etc. to come up with and solve probability equations. Unearthing Patterns that would lead to solving problems without hands-on equipment.
Miss Stahler
Math in real life
We learned polynomials & quadratics this month. Using algebra tiles and our graphing calculators we began discovering patterns that lead to simplifying complex equations. We also discovered real-life uses for these math topics.
Miss Stahler