The four "Life in Middle School" columnists from Cayman International School for the 2021/22 school year have now started their summer vacations. When they return to school in the late summer, they will be middle schoolers no more as they enter high school.
To wrap up their column contributions, each the four students wrote a short piece about what he or she learned, started doing or found memorable while in middle school.
Laia Swaminathan
Even though I wake up half an hour earlier, something enjoyable I’ve started doing this year is jam band. It offers challenging pieces and gives me more opportunities to practise the flute. I learned and have done many things this year, but the thing I remember most is holding a mock trial of Christopher Columbus in social studies, which I enjoyed greatly. I believe that high school will offer interesting and exciting opportunities, but I will always remember these past three years in middle school and how much I’ve done.
Nathaniel Shaughness
I think I can state for all of my peers that we have learned a great deal through memorable projects and knowledgeable tests in the final year of middle school. What I believe to be the most useful skill I have learned this year is how to budget my time appropriately and manage my daily workload. Whether purposefully or habitually, procrastination has been something that I – like a lot of my classmates – have dealt with at one time or another. This skill will certainly help me as I enter my high school career.
Rhea Swaminathan
Ninth grade is coming up. Eighth grade went by in a flash, but I have some fond memories, especially about some of the fun projects we did. My favourite one was the science project where we were assigned a chemical element, researched it and built a 3D model of it. We then presented our findings. I've always loved researching and building the model was fun, too. In middle school, our teachers always tried to give us interesting projects, so we can "show" our learning. I hope that'll continue in the future.
Kylah Murphy
I write this during the notorious final stretch, with a vast workload demanding my attention. Although I can almost taste the freedom of summer, nevertheless, with summer comes the dreaded goodbyes. For most, the goodbye is temporary; for others, it is not. I, unfortunately am part of that latter group of people. It will hurt to utter those final goodbyes, even though I know some of the friendships I’ve made here at Cayman International School will last a lifetime.
This article was originally published in the July/August print edition of Camana Bay Times.