Middle School EEE is Turning a New Page

In the year of 2018-2019, middle school was presented with two new big, life-altering projects. First, the Integrated Unit where all the subjects are linked within a common topic and conformed into a prestation per semester. Secondly, and occupying far more of their time, is a project they themselves have chosen to dedicate time to learn and explore.

Exploration, Enrichment, and Enhancement gives each student one class period to do whatever they want to try, and quite a lot of interesting things have been done over the span of a quarter, a semester, or even an entire year. The type of categories, designed by students’ personal choices after much consideration, includes a wide span: coding, DIY, filming, writing, painting/artwork, dancing, learning and performing instruments… and, as of last year, cooking and baking. And at the resolution of all their work, families and teachers gather at the EEE Expo to admire the progress students have made and what their finished projects look like.

Last year, under the guidance of Mr. Patrick Carrol and the middle school team leads, Ms. Ashley Hayes, Mr. Patrick Doverspike, and Mr. Timothy Cushing, EEE was branched into separate classes where everyone shared a common topic with an experienced teacher at hand. Currently, the overseeing role has been transferred over to Mrs. Bethany Bates, and students get to spend time with their advisory—which is one-half of a homeroom designated with a respective advisor—by working on their EEE projects with one another. Furthermore, the Expo, and a new period to start another project (or carry on their original one), was once scheduled at each turn of a quarter, but now the switch has been moved to the halfway point between semesters.

“We want our students to go deeper with their projects, and reach out into the greater community for experts. Like, if a student was doing videomaking, they could find someone who has a channel on social media or posts videos and ask them for help. We want them to use all the connections we can have here,” Senior Director of Middle School Ms. Bates explained.

An EEE project that takes on a broad span is Arianna Steinau (8B)’s website. After doing research on clothing brands and how they burn the clothes that are not sold, she’s contacting the companies now to resell their clothes on her website.

A new extension of the seventh grade hallway is now mapped with important goals for our whole school. Photo courtesy of Sophia Shan (9B).

This extended period has also challenged the teachers to think about creating more meaningful results. The newly implemented class of 7D, which has recently been mounted with the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in the hallway for all to see, had discovered something impactful they could do. Mrs. Bates, who, along with Mr. Kristian Dominque, is spearheading this project, said, “[The students] still get to decide what skill they want to learn and explore, but they have to connect it with the Sustainable Development Goals.” This idea is developed by Mr. Kris, who visited another international school before EEE started and attended the very first International Sustainable Development Goals Summit. He said, “I realized I could apply SDGs to our EEE focus. Or students often couldn’t find a focus for their ideas. With this we can help the environment and focus on global goals. As a class, we can bring awareness to the school. We have these issues that we need to take care of. We need to be more aware of our choices and how they will affect our future. I’ve already talked to the high school Community Service Club and presented this to them. I want their projects to have a bit more of a focus on the SDGs. And my wife, who is a kindergarten teacher, told the kindergarten team about this and they’re trying to teach them from the start. I [hope] to unite the school and focus more on what we teach.” Tiffany Chang (7D), who is creating a birdhouse for her compound for birds to rest and feed at, said that, “At first, I thought it was going to be pretty boring. We didn’t do much last year. But now [Mr. Kris] is watching us, so I’m really working on these.”

The triple E project is only found in middle school, but all the creativity and progress found in it is really meaningful and honestly, we could learn from it too.

Featured Image- Angelin Lou (8C), Joy Li (8C), Mia Wang (8A) discussing their EEE projects together afterschool Courtesy of Sophia Shan

by Sophia Shan