So You Think You Can Lead?

Joining Forum or having a role in leadership can help you throughout your educational career and even afterwards. There are multiple leadership roles such as Class President and Vice President, Honor Board, President and Vice President of the Middle School, Forum Reps, Light/Dark Spirit or Cheerleaders and Communications Director. Depending on what grade you are in determines what leadership roles you can hold.

In 6^th grade you can run for everything listed except for President or Vice President of the Middle School and Communications Director of the Middle School. Similar to 6^th grade, in 7^th grade you can run for all of the roles except for President or Vice President of the Middle School again but this year Communications Director of the Middle School is open to only 7^th graders. In 8^th grade you can run for anything except for Communications Director of the Middle School but don’t worry! There are Communications Directors for the individual grades also. There are many roles to run for depending on how you want to lead your class or the Middle School.

This year the current Middle School President, Vice President, Honor Board Rep, and Communications Director are (in that order) Isabelle T., Allie D. , Kiki D. and Brooke F. I currently hold the Vice President of the 7^th grade class with the 7^th grade class President, Julianna M. When you are in Forum a basic routine is going to Forum once every two weeks for a brief meeting on new ideas and ways to improve our school. The weeks we don’t have Forum, we have class meetings to explain to the class about what is happening that week. It is similar to Morning Meeting, but the class is asked questions and sometimes we vote on how we should do certain things. One of the most favorable things about being in a leadership role is that you have a bigger say in what happens in the Middle School. 

Depending on what role you want to pursue, you can help the middle change in so many ways! You can help the environment, animals, shelters, and even the Middle School itself! I hope you are inspired to fill a leadership role next year. It is always a new and fun experience!

 -- Text and Photos by Sarah R. (Class of 2016)

Becoming Leaders -- The Middle Grades Diversity Conference in D.C.

The opening of the 2011 MGP Diversity Conference.

At 7:00 AM on March 1^st Ayanna D., Jessie B., Victoria B., Amina N., Brooke F., Miana M., Allie D., Virgina L., and Julianna M. left the Garrison Forest School campus and traveled to the Middle Grades Partnership Diversity Conference held at the All Souls Church in DC. We were chaperoned by Mrs. Rao, Mrs. Chavez and Mrs. Cowling. We arrived and began mingling with over 400 other middle schoolers from Baltimore, DC, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and even North Carolina.

Improv!

 We were split into small groups and listened and talked about what it means to be inclusive and exclusive and why people are included and excluded. Some reasons that people are included could be their age, gender, race or ethnicity, and many more. The same applies to being excluded. Next, we went into another room and saw a play of improvisation based on stories from people in the crowd. Basically someone told their story and then it would be represented through improvisation.

Meeting new friends!

We went on to different locations such as the library and the cafeteria to talk with groups of boys and girls of different schools. We talked about what diversity really means. Inclusion and exclusion, problems and solutions are school has with diversity and more.  Lunch was after that and then we met back with everyone from your school and GFS talked about the “ins and outs” at Garrison. What is “popular” and “unpopular”? We ended with an open mic session during which kids talked about some of the most important topics that came up through the day. Someone at the open mic said “Being excluded is being included”,  meaning that when you or your group is excluding someone else, you might feel more included into the group because you are agreeing with everyone.

What has the Garrison Forest Diversity Leaders Team take back to school? We now know how to interrupt when we see exclusion. Exclusion means the excluding of one, or a group of people from friendship or just being friendly. In the conference we learned there are many differences and similarities in everyone’s perspective. We talked about money, gender, age, sports, clothing, physical aspects, language, and extracurricular activities. Being leaders at Garrison Forest School we want to break the ice; breaking the tension between fellow peers and faculty. Stereotyping others is what hurts the most in today’s society. This means that even before you greet one another, you look at their appearance and think that’s all you need to decipher a code when there really is no code to decipher in the first place. The code of what that person wears and even the language they speak. The Garrison Forest Team wants to bring back all of the knowledge we have learned at the conference. Being a leader isn’t about bossing everyone around, but it’s about thinking ahead, showing your school that you want school life to be fun yet a learning experience.   

Being at the conference has shown our team that we all believe in equality and inclusion. Everyone has either been included and has excluded others at some time in their life, but that has to change.  It must change for the better, not for the worse.  Life with be a lot easier without exclusion because when there is less exclusion and more inclusion, friendships can and will be made. All of the barriers will be destroyed and everyone can be proud of how they look, laugh, and even the clothes they wear because it won’t make a difference!  The Garrison Forest Team will make Garrison Forest School more open to diversity with help of our fellow students and teachers.

“We're all the same color......just different shades." -Miana M. (8th Grade)

"Today I learned that even though we have I diversity group that doesn't mean that everyone knows what that means and I will try to make a difference." -Virginia L. (7th Grade)

 -- Text by Virgina L. and Julianna M. / Photos by Julianna M. and Brooke F. (Class of 2016)

Holocaust Survivor Shares Her Story with Us

Holocaust survivor Rachel Bodner speaking to the Seventh Grade.

We have been reading The Diary of Anne Frank in English, so our teacher Ms. Kinnear arranged to have a Holocaust survivor come to speak to us. Our Holocaust speaker's name was Rachel Bodner. She grew up in Belgium. She went in hiding in a nunnery, where the nuns kept care of her, knowing that she was Jewish. She was in a train going to Paris to see her family, when the train was bombed. For a few days after that her and her sisters were separated from her mother. A few days after that, a notice in the mail told her that her sister was supposed to go to a transit camp, but they tricked her family, and took her straight to Auschwitz, where she was killed.  Ms. Bodner was scared for her life, living in the ghetto.  

While speaking to us, she didn’t mention life in the ghetto, or much about what her life was like in the Holocaust, because she didn’t like the flashbacks. Ms. Bodner talked more about life morals, such as treating everyone with respect, understanding, and accepting all religions. She also advised us not to be lazy and to pick up after ourselves!  

We thought our visitor yesterday was a great speaker.  We personally thought it would be very frightening to have been in a ghetto like our visitor.  We think we would probably go crazy always having to be quiet and not be able to have my parents with me.  We are so sorry that any human being would have to go through that.  The time period that the Holocaust was in was a very crazy, scary time.  The lessons that the visitor was telling us were very beneficial and we will try our best to live that way.  The part about understanding and respecting all religions is the major part that stuck with us.  We think respecting all religions is a good thing because if you do respect all religions, then you can meet new people and explore the world.  We like the part when she said that having manners is beneficial and your moms will be proud of you.  We think she was a very good person to come in and talk to the class. 

We have much respect for Ms. Bodner, knowing what she has gone through and how she is still leading a normal life.  We hope she can come back to Garrison and speak to other grades, and maybe come talk to us again, because she was an amazing speaker.  

-- Text and Photos by Jessie B. and Sarah S. (Class of 2016) 

JEL Championships

On Sunday February 27th, 2011 our school held the Junior Equestrian League (JEL) Finale.  All of the teams from the league competed, including Full Moon Farm, Hunting Ground Farm, Talbot Run, Camp Olympia, and Reddemeade. There was a lot of tough competition. At a usual JEL show, you would be assigned a horse that you might not have ridden before, but at this show you were allowed to pick your "mount" because it was the finale. We all woke up early and made sure everything was ready for the show to start. The horses were schooled and cleaned. Schooled means they are ridden to warm them up and make sure they are sound. Everything was set up and ready to go!

The show started at 9:30 a.m. with Division 5 up first. Since there were so many teams competing, the divisions were split up into group A and group B. There was typically one other person from your team and around five to eight riders. After Division 5 was finished, Div. 4, then Div. 3, then Div 2, then finally Div 1 followed. The show took most of the day ending around 4:45p.m. Everyone rode great and we are all eager to find out who will receive first place for Class Wins, Overall Point Winner, and Team Winner. In the Class Wins, the rider with the most points in the Division will be champion and the rider with the second most points will be reserved champion. It is the same idea with the Overall Point Winner, but it is out of all of the Divisions. The Team Winners are the teams who won the most meet/shows in the season. The ribbons will be given out at the banquet on Saturday March 5th. It was a great season and everyone did a fantastic job!

-- Text and photos by Sadie G.

Murder in Manor House!

  Last Friday, we had our yearly Mystery Night!  Mystery Night is a night when the whole grade joins together to have the night of their lives. The activities are kept a secret until the special day. It is planned by the hard working class parents and teachers.

After eagerly waiting for the day to end, we were finally told what we were going to do for the night. This year, we solved a tricky murder mystery at Manor House. Each of us had to dress up as the character that was assigned to us, such as Betty Jean Honeysuckle, Fannie Flamingo, or Claire Voyant. We had each been given personal information about our character and had to incorporate it into our costume.

After getting to know each others characters, we gathered around and Mrs. Wendy (the head of the night) began talking to us about what else was going to happen that night. Then, all of a sudden “Joseph Boddy” came out into the crowd and slowly died. Mrs. Wendy asked some girls to trace his outline. We all then went to dinner of sandwiches and salads and looked over our character information. After dinner, we asked one another questions such as “Do you have a gun?” or “Did you know Joseph Boddy?”

Near the end of the night, we had dessert and Mrs. Wendy gave out awards such as “Best Actor” and “Best Costume”. Some of the winners were:

Sophie P. --  “Best Costume” for the costume design of her character Ms. Awesomeness, a super hero.

Mina N. -- “Best Actor” for her role as Lulu D’loca, an escaped mental patient.

Finally, after dinner and the awards, the murderer was announced. We all waited impatiently as Mrs. Wendy told us that Sadie G. and Jackie M. were the murderers!! Wow! What a night!

-- Text and Photos by Ayanna D. and Brianna T.

The Twisted Twizzlers Go to the State Championships!

We, The GFS Twisted Twizzlers Robotics Team, had the amazing experience of going to the State Championship on Saturday, February 26, 2011. On Saturday, we proved our hard work to many people at the UMBC campus. As you may have read in our previous post, our team won the Robot Design award at the FLL Qualifier, and were able to move on to the State Championships.  

Every year, the challenges and themes are different. Last year was called Smart Move, which was based on transportation. Body Forward, the theme this year, focused on medicine and biomedical engineering. 

To read about the 2011 Body Forward Challenge, click here: First Lego League

We arrived at the UMBC Retriever Athletic Center at 9:00 a.m. and prepared for our morning presentations. At 10:00 a.m., we went into a classroom and in front of five judges, we gave a research presentation. Our presentation was on the sense of pressure in a prosthetic hand. We created an innovative solution for prosthetics to feel pressure, and created a wooden model hand with a variable resistor. The judges loved our idea and asked us many questions about our idea.

After the presentation, we moved on to the Technical Judging. This was where we explained our robot design and our programming. After showing some key attachments on our robot, we were able to show some of our programs to the judges. It was really nerve wracking because the programs usually are not consistent, and when we showed the judges some of the runs, the robot did not function properly. Luckily, we looked at these mistakes as a way to learn and fix our programs for next time.

In the afternoon, we did the challenges. All of the challenges are on a board, and we program the robot to accomplish certain tasks. The programming is what takes up most of our club time on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  For programming, we use the Lego NXT Software, which can be as easy as going forward or as hard as converting letters to numbers. We scored a total of 425 points in the three rounds combined, but we only got the highest score, which was 175. After the rounds were over, they took the top four teams into a sudden death round. We weren’t part of this round, but we enjoyed watching the strategies used by others!

After a long day of competition, the awards ceremony started.  There were many awards given to many teams who showed outstanding effort.  Sadly, we didn’t come home with a trophy, but we did leave with high hopes for next year!  Congratulations to the teams who participated in First Lego League, and good luck to those who are going to the World Festival!

-- Text and photos by Alex T. (GFS Twisted Twizzlers Team Member)

Spring is Coming!

Snow melting, birds chirping, sun shining can only mean one thing: Spring is Here! 

7th Graders enjoying lunch on the Dining Hall porch.

At Garrison Forest School spring weather means putting away GFS sweatpants, sitting outside during lunch, and spring sports. Although we will miss wearing boots to school, and having snowball fights outside, spring is the season we all look forward to. I asked several 7^th graders what they look forward to about spring.

“The thing I love about spring is when I ride outside at the barn.”-Kara F.

 “I like how the campus is so beautiful and really shows what GFS is all about.” –Ayanna D.

“Lax season!”-Cammie G. 

 As you can see, spring is awaited by everyone  for all these different reasons! 

-- text and photos by Hallie A. (Special thanks to Ayanna, Cammie, and Kara)  

Binding Books and Singing Solfeges!

A few weeks ago, we started a new semester in the Middle School! Students who had dance and drama the first semester have music and art now, and vice-versa!  

In art class we are currently working on a book making project. Students put together folios which consisted of five sheets of paper folded in half.  We then sewed the first to the second and so on until all five were together, and we had created a book block. It was a hard process but after a few slight mishaps everyone’s books were sewn together.

The next step towards making our book was gluing the spine together. We spread Glue over the whole spine and pressed down. We had to very careful not to get glue on any other part of our book. After that we left our books to dry and started to work on the covers for our books. We took three pieces of cardboard and three pieces of pretty fabric. We got two chose between a few differently pattern Sheets of paper with flowers and leaves on them. We then began to paste the fabric to the pieces of cardboard. So far that is how much we have done on our books!  We all can hardly wait to see how these amazing books will turn out and begin using them.  

In Music class we have been reviewing things we learned last year. We reviewed the solfege scale and hand signals (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) by singing the notes and repeating the hand signals our teacher showed us. In the end, our teacher surprised us by letting us know that we had just sung a song using solfege! We also reviewed lessons about rhythm and note reading. We went over how many beats each different type of note had. We also had a lot of fun singing and playing the drums to a Finnish folk song!  I can’t wait to see what the rest of this exciting semester in music has to offer.

-- Text and Photos by Emma B.

Last Sunday's Equestrian Show

This past Sunday Garrison hosted an Interscholastic Equestrian Association show.  Many of the students from Garrison who are on the IEA Team rode in this show. Everyone had a great show.  The GFS Middle School team ended up coming in 1^st place overall.  The GFS Upper School team came in 3^rd  place overall.  This horse show was our last one before Regionals.  Many of the students on the GFS Team have qualified for Regional’s which will also be held at GFS. Come support our team!

Sunday wasn’t only a long day of hard work, but it was a sad day for all the riders and coaches too. One of the schools brought their horse named Willie.  In the middle of the show there is something called schooling which is when you show all the other teams your horses, and get them warmed up before they show. During schooling while Willie was jumping he had a seizure. The seizure caused him to trip over the jump and crash into the dirt.  Willie ended up snapping his neck.  Sadly no one could save him.  Not only were the Madeira girls devastated, but every other barn was too.  Willie and the Madeira girls will remain in everyone’s thoughts.  

When I walked into the ring for my jumping class, I was a little nervous because I was riding a horse that I had never ridden before.  I walked into the ring wondering how my horse was going to behave. After my two warm up jumps, I felt a little more confident.  My coach gave me a little advice and we went over my course one last time.  During my course I was so scared that I was going to forget my course.  But about half way through my course I felt comfortable and wanted to win my class.  Since I went 2^nd I had to watch all the other riders and compare them to me.  I ended up getting second in my division; I was very happy, and proud of myself.   

-- Writing and Photos by Jackie W. and Gabi S.

MINIMESTER - The Best Part of JANUARY!!!

Every year at Garrison Forest we have a week called Minimester. During Minimester we choose two non-academic classes from a catalog. Some of the choices we have are Paws and Claws, Collections and Collectors, Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self, So You Think You Can Dance: Click HERE for more information about the courses offered. Normally, we have Minimester in January after our first semester. Minimester gives us a chance to learn new and exciting things that we wouldn’t learn during the regular academic school day. 

Collections and Collectors

 The classes I chose to take during Minimester were Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self with Mrs. Rao and Mrs. Chrobocinski and Collections and Collectors with Mr. Beretta. Both of the classes I took were very fun. Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self was very relaxing. We learned relaxtion techniques and we also learned a lot of other cool things such what your dreams mean. We also watched movies and made pictures frames using images and words from magazines that described us. 

Collections and Collectors was about people who have there own art collections. It was also a lot about art. Everyday we took a field trip to people's houses that had their very own collection. The things that they collected were very cool. My favorite trip that we took was to a lady’s house who had a daughter that went to Garrison. She collected famous artwork and the artwork was amazing. I learned about  a lot of artists while taking that course. 

If I had to choose my favorite class that I took during minimester I couldn’t because they were both very fun!

-- text by Ashlei C.