We wanted to share with parents some news about upcoming visitors the 8th grade class will be hosting in the coming weeks. It is not that often when we have multiple special guests coming in consecutive weeks to meet and speak with our 8th grade class. Each of these guests exemplifies our middle school core values of Belonging, Empathy, Respect, and Trust (what we call BERT) and gives our students an opportunity to put into practice these same values the days each of these guests comes to the middle school.
On Friday May 23rd we are meeting with Andrew Pilkington, a Wayland graduate and soon to be a URI graduate, who lives with cerebral palsy and has become a filmmaker and director. Andrew is coming back to the Middle School to share his message with the 8th grade of keeping a positive attitude and perseverance. In addition to Andrew’s remarks ,he will be showing clips of his movies that were shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Upon graduation from URI , Andrew will be attending graduate school for film making.
On Friday May 30th we will again host Staff Sergeant Matthew Pucino’s family. Our school has developed a strong bond with the Pucino family, and we are active in fundraising for the Matthew Pucino Foundation to help soldiers and families in Massachusetts. On our 8th Grade DC Trip we pay our respect to Sergeant Pucino at his gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. We will be having a short ceremony in the theater and then unveiling a memorial tree on the school grounds during their visit.
On Thursday June 5th we will be again hosting Rena Finder. Ms. Finder was born in Krakow, Poland in 1929. She survived the Krakow ghetto, the Plaszow concentration camp and four weeks at Auschwitz. She was saved through the actions of Oscar Schindler. For over twenty-five years, Ms. Finder has been speaking to our eighth graders about her childhood, her journey through the Holocaust and the importance of being upstanders. In 2011, she became our school's first honorary alumna.
All of these visitors are very special to the middle school and to the 8th grade in particular as each are examples of the importance of demonstrating our middle school values of belonging, empathy, respect, and trust both inside and outside the walls of Wayland Middle School.
No comments:
Post a Comment