8th Grade

8th Grade Rocks!

~ You lead. In the dining room as Work Project crew captains, in student leadership positions, as team captains for sports—8th graders are ready to take responsibility.

~ Middle Eastern History. It’s a new class, designed for 8th grade because it’s relevant. Now.

~ Ditto for Mandarin: new, relevant, prepares you for the 21st century world.

~You write the book. And illustrate it and bind it. It’s the final project for our poetry unit.

~ Earn Upper School credit for Algebra 1 Advanced. Earn it for world language classes. Earn it because you have the skills to do the work.

~ Sugar and caffeine: how do they affect memory? How does aromatherapy affect hamsters? Do student heart rates go up before tests? Does the size of your feet affect how fast you are? What causes cotton t-shirts to shrink more: temperature or duration of drying? Independent science fair projects: you hypothesize, carry out the experiment, draw conclusions.

~ Canoeing for 3 days: Think lots of practice. Then think white water. Think about trusting your friends. Think about trusting yourself. And think fun!

~ Ask some tough questions when you study Latin America. For instance, why was the success of the Maya unlikely, and their fate both mysterious yet in many ways parallel to our own? You’ll learn that there are no easy answers.

~ Ethics. Design and carry out your own service project. Cook an entire meal for adults in the Salvation Army shelter. Play the piano for people in a nursing home. Raise money for Westtown’s sister school in Ghana. You can do it because you want to make a difference.

~ I didn’t notice the change as it was happening, but now that I look back on it, I can see it. It’s like growing. Since it happens so slowly, and you’re there every moment of it, you don’t notice it as it happens. Other people can often see it better than you. There’s a certain environment that Westtown has managed to create that isn’t quite like anywhere else. Everyone who goes to Westtown changes. This could be you, reading your final essay for 8th grade graduation. You are ready to shine.