Pride

As a first year teacher at McAuliffe, I am experiencing a lot of new things this school year. The most recent was the space project and the Christa McAuliffe Remembrance Event. 

I am so impressed with all the hard work that went into the projects, the care and effort each of you took constructing your displays and how poised you were in front of friends, family and judges. it’s not easy to speak in public, but you all did well, and I think you were a little surprised at how much you had learned about your project topics when judges and other questioned you.

I am so proud of each of you. 

You have worked hard, you’ve learned from experts in the fields you all studied, and you all learned so much. 

I bet there’s not another eighth grade class in the country that can speak about ion thrusters, Venus volcanology, the workings of the SOPHIA telescope and a host of other project subjects to the depth that you can. 

You learned a lot and you taught much of it to yourselves and each other. That’s one of the goals of this project, to expose you to the process of researching a subject of which you had little or no prior knowledge. You figured it out.

The experts were a key component in this process. I don’t know how many middle schoolers have gotten a chance to question astronauts, rocket scientists, or NASA geologists, but I bet the number is pretty small. Interviewing the experts is a special experience and you are a special group.

I hope you are all proud of your work - you should be.

The process wasn’t easy and wasn’t perfect. But, what is? This is what the “real world” is like - it’s messy and complicated and frustrating. You all pushed forward despite difficulties and that’s called perseverance. That’s one of the things you need to remember from this experience - that you kept moving forward, overcoming obstacles, rethinking and revising as you progressed. 

I think I can speak for the entire eighth grade team when I say, we are all immensely proud of you.