Students Owning Their Education

Let's get this out of the way at the beginning.  Yes, it is true.  A student brought me a bottle of bacon soda today.  Yes, that is exactly what you think it is.  It is carbonated soda pop flavored to taste like bacon.  The tast was only slightly better than the smell, and the smell was...well, never mind.

I love it when students have fun and enjoy school.  Yet as enjoyable as all the bacon-soda-silliness was, nothing could have thrilled me more than the discussion I had with our Latin V students today.  Our school is large enough to offer seven languages (Latin, Hebrew, German, Japanese, Chinese, French, and Spanish), and in most we offer five years of study, since many students begin their language study as eighth graders who come to our school during the first two periods of the day.

This year we have a significant number of Latin V students preparing for the I.B. (International Baccalaureate) diploma, and they meet during the same period as our Latin IV students who are preparing for the A.P. (Advanced Placement) exam.  Today I spent a bit of time with the Latin V students, prepared to discuss ways of approaching the material, since I will not be able to work with them directly every day.  To my pleasant surprise, one of the students had come in with notes she had made, a brainstorm list of ideas on how to engage the material.  Her ideas, expanded in collaboration with her peers, were excellent, and we are going to follow what they have designed.  These are intelligent, creative young people who clearly have taken ownership of their education.  I could not be more proud.