By Earl Chelkowski
LREI’s first minimester since 2019 is returning in style! Minimester is a two day experience where students don’t attend classes and instead are in small groups to explore a specific topic of the teacher’s choice. On Thursday, October 24th, the faculty came together and gave a presentation about the various options for this year’s minimester during assembly. Students had a lot to look forward to. Minimester fosters community building across grades and gives a new approach to the progressive learning that is the hallmark of LREI.
Karyn, our school’s librarian, has been at LREI for 21 years. She says there was a minimesters every year until 2019. She has led many minimesters from Escape Rooms to Candy Making. Karyn explains that minimester is a “progressive principle put into practice; learning by doing.” Often “using the city as a classroom.” Additionally, minimester is a very good tool for teachers to test out ideas that they might be looking to turn into clubs or classes. For example, James’ All Day Studio Art class was the product of minimester based on that.
This year there were a multitude of minimester options. The courses ranged from “Dissection” with Kelly O’Shea and Linda Liao where students completed a series of dissections, beginning with owl pellets and finishing with a frog dissection, to “Kwaidan: Japanese Ghost Stories” with Frank Portella and Jessica Tan. In this minimester students read Kwaidan and learned about how translation affects storytelling, as narration changes with different languages.
Otto Walker, a Junior, who was in the hiking course with Joan Jubett and Anna Gonzales, said, “I really enjoyed minimester.” He took a lot away from it, continuing, “minimester was an opportunity for me to pursue a subject, hiking, that interested me. It was also great to interact with all three other grades.” He enjoyed it so much that he suggested making minimester into a week-long intensive, where students could focus on a specific subject for a longer period of time, getting to experience in depth research.
Another Junior, Secret Snow, who was in Big Painting with James French, was also thankful and happy she got the experience of minimester. Secret says she learned a lot from the two day course, explaining, “I further strengthened my painting ability and I stepped outside of my comfort zone by painting on a bigger canvas than usual.” Similar to Otto, Secret was enthusiastic about another minimester, saying, “I’d love to do another minimester. I think it’s a great opportunity to hone in on something you enjoy and where you can have uninterrupted time to focus on it.” Secret really understands how beneficial the whole experience can be.
Overall, the 2024 minimester was a success. Minimester is an event that is extremely in line with Elizabeth Irwin’s vision for the school. It promotes learning by doing, and is important for growth not just as students, but as young adults navigating in the world after High School. It gives students the ability to take risks and get out of their comfort zone both physically and mentally in minimesters like Hiking and Big Painting. Students have the option to delve deeper into a subject that they are passionate about or don’t even know anything about. Otto Walker says, “one of LREI’s main principles is giving people the opportunity to pursue their interests and expand their knowledge past academic classes.” This is exactly what minimester does; it gives students the platform to follow their passions and learn beyond the classroom.