The 8th grade students, in partners, are working on taking notes each week before winter break.  Below are the links to each group’s notes.

Eva + Olivia

Noah + Noah

Julia + Jessi

If you are interested in being updated weekly as to what is happening in our classroom, please click the link below to take you to all the weekly updates written thus far.

Weekly updates link.

Additionally, on a weekly basis, groups of students will be taking notes during class concerning what we cover and discuss.  This ongoing note taking process is just that; an ongoing learning experience for all students.  If you want to follow along with our progress, please head to this link to find out more.

Week of 10/16 update written below:

Shalom,

Hello seventh grade families!  I hope you and your family enjoyed the last of the short weeks for some time!  We are now in the thick of it; approximately five full-time weeks until Thanksgiving Break.

The last few weeks have been exciting if nothing else.  We spent a fair bit of time working on completing our Sukkah (and eventually enjoying a nice breakfast in it, to which I missed out unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts).  Otherwise, continued to work on documenting our successes and failures (also known as learning) and to reflect on what we could do differently next time.  We also started all of our student blogs (which should be up and running in no time), which has been exciting.  Lastly, we began our next/current unit of focus: homelessness, particularly as it impacts Milwaukee.

This week will allow us the time to continue to dive into our area of focus of homelessness.  Last year, the students strongly voiced an interest in studying more about homelessness and helping solve that issue as it impacts Milwaukee.  We have since started by reading a few choice articles about what homelessness is, as well as how it impacts our community.  We have even been fortunate enough to have access to a local photographer’s work as it relates to homelessness (most of us have actually met this person at St. Ben’s where he eats on a regular basis.  His entire collection of photos is of homeless people in Milwaukee; it is a really powerful set of photos).  We will continue to explore the topic of homelessness and eventually, figure out an avenue of action we would like to take in relation to this topic.

Please be mindful of these upcoming events.  On October 23, the 7th and 8th grade classes will be involved in an event with Milwaukee College Prep and Bruce Guadalupe at MJDS.  The program is put on by an organization called Serve2Unite; which brings people of different cultures/races/religions and teaches them how to better work together and bridge the cultural gaps.  The students are very excited about this!  Additionally our next St. Ben’s trip is on Monday, October 30.  Lastly, I do have a student teacher coming in from Cardinal Stritch one time per week (on Wednesday morning).  She will occasionally be teaching a class (with me present) concerning our topic we are covering.  Also, starting next week, each student (in groups) will be responsible for taking notes in class.  These notes will be taken each day and will focus on numerous aspects of class.  Selfishly this helps keep informed those that miss class, but it targets a skill many students struggle with (note taking).  Eventually the notes will be made public on my blog so stay posted for that.

If there are any questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know and I will be happy to address those issues with you.  At any point you do not understand what or why we are doing something, I will happily have that conversation with you.  We all want what is best for your child and together, we can make that happen.

Thank you,

Noah Kaufman