Each person on the Academy team misses our extraordinary students! I, for one, am looking forward to being back in person to check progress on Rubik鈥檚 Cube solving times, see pictures of growing puppies and kittens, and hear everyone鈥檚 latest research interests and favorite jokes.

But even though we miss seeing each other in person, we have been more thankful than ever for technology! It was great to be able to finish out the spring session of Academy virtually and to see ingenious work submissions rolling in. Seeing how adaptable our students and teachers have been to the new format has made us excited to see what masterpieces emerge from our online summer session!

Here are three especially impressive student creations that were submitted during the virtual portion of the spring session:

1. A creative story set within the Harry Potter universe. For their final project for 鈥淗arry Potter: Behind the Words,鈥� which will also be offered this summer, students wrote multi-chapter stories that take place in the same world of the Harry Potter series. In addition to a delightful story, one student also created images by collaging pictures of Lego figures with online graphics. Here is one example, which finds Voldemort swimming in Hawaii:

听听

2. An excerpt of a poem from the perspective of an object. This was written for 鈥淗ow to Eat a Poem,鈥� a class about sensory poetry for 6 to 9-year-olds. Lucy Blagg, who taught this delightfully creative class, will be teaching 鈥淢ythology of Many Lands鈥� this summer.

I start as a flower.
I鈥檓 tart but not sour.
My favorite season is fall,
That鈥檚 when I grow tall.听

I鈥檒l tell you who I am,
I鈥檓 part of a fruit.
I鈥檓 tasty when you squeeze me,
I鈥檓 small and I鈥檓 cute.听

Believe it or not,
I鈥檓 from this planet.
Let me introduce myself,
I鈥檓 the seed of a pomegranate!

3. An invented species for a virtual 优蜜视频 Aquarium. For their final project in 鈥淢arine Biodiversity,鈥� students designed their own ecosystems, filled them with made-up species, and wrote about the ecological and evolutionary history of the community. Grayson Kent, who taught this and other animal courses, will be teaching Myths & Monsters, Ultimate Guide to Predators, Cenozoic Life and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

It was so difficult to choose just a few projects to showcase our students鈥� creativity, adaptability, and love of learning. To learn more about Summer Academy Online, visit our website and sign up to join us for our . We can鈥檛 wait to see familiar and new faces in a few weeks when the session begins!

It鈥檚 Teacher Appreciation Week! 优蜜视频 Program Manager Hillary Jade shares her thoughts on why teachers should be appreciated, revered and supported.

Last week, program hosted its second Teacher Appreciation Evening, which was instituted in December as a way to honor our teachers who inspire, challenge, motivate, and encourage their students each session. Throughout the evening, Academy teachers shared stories, anecdotes and quotes from the Spring 2019 session 鈥� all of which were inspirational, witty, and indicative of the high caliber students who grace us with their presence every day. Truly, our teachers are invested, observant, passionate and committed to serving the gifted and talented students who walk through our doors.

As we reflect on the end of the Spring session 鈥� and the end of the school year at large 鈥� a fitting pop culture anecdote comes to mind:

Dead Poets鈥� Society is the quintessential teacher appreciation movie. Throughout the film, John Keating 鈥� played brilliantly by the late Robin Williams 鈥� inspires a group of reluctant prep school teenagers to love poetry, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Some of them dig in their heels; some of them instantly embrace it. When they find his old yearbook and learn he was a member of the Dead Poets鈥� Society, they strive to emulate him and his legacy. For he wasn鈥檛 a poetry nerd; he was a poetry god. The most iconic line of the movie is often quoted in everyday life: 鈥淐arpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.鈥�

鈥淭here鈥檚 a time for daring and there鈥檚 a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for,鈥� Keating goes on to explain, hitting home the need to push oneself and take risks 鈥� albeit calculated ones. And that is why he, like our instructors, is passionate, revered, talented and sensitive to the needs of adolescents.

don鈥檛 settle for second best. They push students to push themselves. Keating emphasizes to his students, 鈥淎 man is not very tired. He鈥檚 exhausted. And don鈥檛 use 鈥榲ery sad.鈥� Use鈥︹�檓orose鈥�!鈥� On the post-class student surveys we distribute each session we frequently get feedback like, 鈥淭his class was challenging 鈥� but in all the right ways!鈥� Instead of doing the minimum, Academy students stretch their boundaries, their limits and their safety net to produce extraordinary results. They couldn鈥檛 do this without our teachers, who burst through the Learning Center doors excited to delve into the differentiated curriculum.

Thank you, teachers, for inspiring our students to be engineers, historians, makers, debaters, scholars, peacemakers, artists, and innovators. You are the reason our students run up the sidewalk each day, eager and excited to learn from you and engage in academic inquiry. You are the reason we have such a high session-to-session student return rate. You are the reason we are able to offer innovative classes that students can鈥檛 find anywhere else, such as Zoo Design, Math for Future Architects and Rube-Goldberg: Machine and Mazes. Because of you, the Learning Center is filled with inquiry, laughter, advocacy, positive challenge, friendship, curiosity and heart.

As we head into Teacher Appreciation week, we encourage everyone to take time to thank the teacher(s) that has/have meant the most to them 鈥� whether in-person, via a hand-written card (a true form of appreciation!) or by recommending them or their class to other students. During an impassioned analysis of poetry with his students, Keating proclaims, 鈥淣o matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world!鈥� We firmly believe that. In fact, we know that to be true of our instructors and the students who admire them.

听Here are a few quotes from our Spring session, directly from students, about their teachers:

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there could possibly have been a better teacher for Kitchen Chemistry than Miss Alka. She鈥檚 amazing and knows everything!鈥澨�� Sebastian (8)

鈥淎lka was SUCH a fun teacher to work with. She taught the KITCHEN CHEMISTRY class. She helped us if we needed help. She corrected us if we were wrong. And best of all, she was very, VERY nice.鈥�

鈥淭ristan was an AMAZING teacher to talk and relate with. I was in his class NEWTON: FORCES IN MOTION. I loved the apple-dropping experiment . Especially the part where you get to eat the apples (there were three apples.)* Tristan also helped us. He also corrected us. And he WAS NICE.鈥�

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