Middle School Revs Up for REV Night
Thanks to a new element in Middle School’s core program, families are set to enjoy a performance this evening that involves every student in grades six through eight. As Ben, one of the two eighth-grade student hosts for this evening’s show, plans to tell parents, “REV is a revolutionary idea involving revolving classes that reveal revelations in student thinking.”
Over the course of the academic year, all students will revolve through each of three trimester-long, multi-grade classes in art, drumming circle, and drama/improv. “These REV classes give us an opportunity to explore new experiences that, for many of us, are a bit out of our comfort zones,” says Ben’s co-host, Emma. “The skills we learn will help us in the future.”
The Middle School faculty couldn’t agree more. They see the REV experience helping to achieve a range of objectives that positively impact both student learning and the educational environment. Specifically, Preschool–8 Principal Kimiko Ott says, REV helps students
- increase their appreciation and respect for diversity and difference,
- develop the ability to listen with purpose and intent, and
- engage thoughtfully and confidently in their education.
And, not least of all, Dr. Ott explains, the REV program is designed to help students take stock of and understand how each of them contributes to “one stupendous whole”—a phrase from poet Alexander Pope that Mary Baker Eddy uses twice in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany (pp. 165 and 269).
Tonight, parents and family members will see their children enriching and being enriched by the “stupendous whole” that is Principia Middle School. The drummers will make music on plastic buckets as well as traditional African djembe drums; the improv/drama students will demonstrate their “Yes, and . . .” mindset as they take ideas and build on them in fast-paced, witty sketches; and the art group will share their creative costuming and insights about urban landscapes.