Post by NightWing on Jan 12, 2008 4:46:34 GMT -5
Actually, my Middle School years weren't bad at all, because my older brother had already been through it for a year or so and so my parents knew how crappy a school it was, so I was home-schooled. When I finally did go to a school in 8th grade, it wasn't a typical school.
CMP, California Montessori Project, was where I went for 8th and 9th grade. What was so different? We didn't have periods and all of that crap.
We were given a 'weekly work chart' on Monday, and everything was usually due by friday, if something had a different due date, it was listed. Sure, there were lessons, but the majority of the day was independant work time. Now, this does not at all mean it was easy, heck no, it was and still is the hardest I've ever worked in school, but I enjoyed that school.
I actually managed to make a single friend, and through him met a group of 5 or 6, there was me, David K. and Richard [ Paternal twins ], Brendan, Gabe, Dylan, and I think that was it. I wouldn't have survived that school if not for that, the class was of 38 kids total though, so it wasn't as bad as normal by any stretch. I still keep in contact with David, Richard, and Dylan, because Dylan lives two doors down from David and Richard, but I don't get to see them that often because they live an hour away, in the middle of nowhere, Mather, California.
We had two teachers, one taught english and spanish, the other taught everything else. But as I said, lessons didn't take up much time. The reason everything was due friday is because it's a 'weekly' work chart, and because friday was test day. Every friday we had a test for every single subject. Math, history, science, english, grammar, roots, vocab, everything. Also, every 6 weeks, we had a major group project. This thing was huge, you got a group of three and each contributed about 6 pages of the report, worth something like 20% of your grade for the six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, we went on a field trip related to the project we'd done.
First six weeks there was no project, and the field trip was to a ropes course, for two days, to get to know each other, and build trust and teamwork. Second six weeks, it starts. First project was on geology, so I got into a group, got my 6 pages done, etc. The field trip was to a place called "Devil's Post Pile", a rock formation, got it's name because it's a bunch of basalt pillars, hexagonal, all together. It was really cool. That trip was I think three days. Next six weeks was oceanography, followed by a trip to UCSB [ University of California: Santa Barbara ] for about 5 days. So the cycle continued all year, six weeks of working your rear off, awesome field trip for a couple days to a week if your grade is a 'C' or better.
9th grade wasn't as good, because the organizer of the program, the teacher that taught everything but english and spanish, couldn't do it anymore. It was causing problems with her family, so it was picked up instead by another group of teachers, and ended up being almost like a typical middle school, just with smaller classes and a far more personal approach. We lost the work charts and the super projects, and the field trips stayed, but only sort of. They weren't as good as the previous year, but it was still an awesome experience. The 9th graders, there were 9 of us, got seperate classes from everyone else. I was really very fortunate to have found this school, and I'm so glad I did.
CMP, California Montessori Project, was where I went for 8th and 9th grade. What was so different? We didn't have periods and all of that crap.
We were given a 'weekly work chart' on Monday, and everything was usually due by friday, if something had a different due date, it was listed. Sure, there were lessons, but the majority of the day was independant work time. Now, this does not at all mean it was easy, heck no, it was and still is the hardest I've ever worked in school, but I enjoyed that school.
I actually managed to make a single friend, and through him met a group of 5 or 6, there was me, David K. and Richard [ Paternal twins ], Brendan, Gabe, Dylan, and I think that was it. I wouldn't have survived that school if not for that, the class was of 38 kids total though, so it wasn't as bad as normal by any stretch. I still keep in contact with David, Richard, and Dylan, because Dylan lives two doors down from David and Richard, but I don't get to see them that often because they live an hour away, in the middle of nowhere, Mather, California.
We had two teachers, one taught english and spanish, the other taught everything else. But as I said, lessons didn't take up much time. The reason everything was due friday is because it's a 'weekly' work chart, and because friday was test day. Every friday we had a test for every single subject. Math, history, science, english, grammar, roots, vocab, everything. Also, every 6 weeks, we had a major group project. This thing was huge, you got a group of three and each contributed about 6 pages of the report, worth something like 20% of your grade for the six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, we went on a field trip related to the project we'd done.
First six weeks there was no project, and the field trip was to a ropes course, for two days, to get to know each other, and build trust and teamwork. Second six weeks, it starts. First project was on geology, so I got into a group, got my 6 pages done, etc. The field trip was to a place called "Devil's Post Pile", a rock formation, got it's name because it's a bunch of basalt pillars, hexagonal, all together. It was really cool. That trip was I think three days. Next six weeks was oceanography, followed by a trip to UCSB [ University of California: Santa Barbara ] for about 5 days. So the cycle continued all year, six weeks of working your rear off, awesome field trip for a couple days to a week if your grade is a 'C' or better.
9th grade wasn't as good, because the organizer of the program, the teacher that taught everything but english and spanish, couldn't do it anymore. It was causing problems with her family, so it was picked up instead by another group of teachers, and ended up being almost like a typical middle school, just with smaller classes and a far more personal approach. We lost the work charts and the super projects, and the field trips stayed, but only sort of. They weren't as good as the previous year, but it was still an awesome experience. The 9th graders, there were 9 of us, got seperate classes from everyone else. I was really very fortunate to have found this school, and I'm so glad I did.
