Our Place in the World

Dear Families,

Our thoughts over the past few days have been with the citizens of Haiti and with our own LREI families who have relatives and friends in the country. Over the next few days, we will be thinking about how to best coordinate an institutional response and students will play a crucial role in shaping how we respond. Students have been asking lots of questions about Haiti and about earthquakes and we are helping them to find answers to these questions. Why these  kinds of tragic events occur are, of course, harder  questions to answer, but they are also at the forefront of our work with your children.

Understanding our relationship to others and our relationship to the larger world in which we live has never been more important. Many of us carry powerful tools in our phones and in our cars that help us navigate from point A to point B. These tools offer incredible opportunities for better understanding our world and the many ways that it is interconnected. At the same time, if we are not careful these tools can also induce a certain passivity that can preclude our active engagement with the world (i.e., I simply follow my Google map instructions without really understanding where I am going.) So the geography strand of the middle school curriculum plays an important role in helping students to better understand the concept of place and how place informs the way we live in and with the world and with others. In this spirit, each year middle schoolers participate in the National Geographic Geography Bee.

At this Wednesday’s Middle School Meeting, we had our annual National Geography Bee. Preceding the meeting, students competed in their homerooms to identify our eight finalists. The first round was exciting and challenging. Students pondered a range of questions and supported each other as we worked through this preliminary competition. A number of these competitions were decided by tie breakers, which added to the excitement. So with a thank you first to all of those students who participated, the participants in the Final Round were as follows: Fifth Grade – Sadie Isabel W., Sixth Grade – Kai and Allesandro., Seventh Grade – Elizabeth and Marcelo, and Eighth Grade – Viviane and Ivo. At the end of the Final Round, two students – Kai and Alessandro – moved on to the Championship Round. The Championship Round was decided after 3 questions with Kai emerging as the champion. Next week, he will take the qualifying exam for the State Geography Bee competition. The state level competition will take place in the spring in Albany, NY. Congratulations to all of the finalists for a job well done!

In addition to the good fun that the National Geography Bee provides, it also points to the critical importance that a basic understanding of geography plays in being an informed citizen of the world. As technology makes the world smaller and increases our interconnectedness, we should not let ourselves be fooled into thinking that the boundaries, borders, and geographic features of our planet don’t matter any more. The geography of our planet provides a key to understanding important aspects of history and culture and provides a lens for focusing on issues that are “of the moment.”

Knowing where something is by necessity establishes a relationship to it. With an understanding of place, we can gain a deeper insight into the people who inhabit that place while we simultaneously gain new insights about our own place in the world. It is these moments of insight that help to define us and our relationship to the larger world. These ideas are very much on our minds as we work to understand what has happened in Haiti and as we think about how we can best respond.

Of General Interest . . .
1) From Director Phil Kassen: I write with a reminder from the Parents Association Community Service Committee and from me to consider spending part of this weekend honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through participation in a community service project.  Click here for a list of projects that the committee has generated.  If you have ideas for other projects that will be available to LREI families during the coming weekend, please email them to me at pkassen@lrei.org.

2) If your contact information—address, phone numbers, email addresses—has changed since we distributed the directory in September, please contact Mary Shea, mshea@lrei.org, as she is preparing an updated directory for distribution in the coming weeks. Thanks.

3) Save the Date for Karamu! Friday January 22nd… Karamu! is LREI’s annual multicultural event of music, dance, and food celebrating the diversity of our school and community. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, January 19th… Karamu! always sells out; get your tickets early (discounted tickets available – contact Juliet Burrows: julietburrows@mac.com). We need food and volunteers! …Sign up boards will be in the 6th Avenue Lobby – please volunteer and join this wonderful community building event. If you would like to solicit a donation of food or wine from a restaurant or business please use this letter and forward information to Juliet.

4) New LREI Event “Stir the Pot”— The next committee planning meeting will be held on Tuesday January 12 at 8:45am in the cafeteria at Sixth Avenue. We would like to have as many volunteers as possible and hope that you will join in making this a wonderful LREI evening. You can let us know by contacting Jenn Esposito (jenn_espo@msn.com), Ceci Van Blerkom (cloebl@gmail.com), or Maude Kebbon in the Office of Advancement (mkebbon@lrei.org or 212-477-5316, ext. 232).

5) Please read the attached letter from the Lesbian Gay Straight Alliance committee about the upcoming Visibility exhibit.

6) Red is Green Committee Announcements:

  • During the month of January we will be recycling holiday and greeting cards. These cards will be donated to St. Jude’s Ranch. No photo cards please. For more information click here. Also during the month of January you can bring in your wrapping paper scraps. These scraps will be used to decorate the school for Faculty/Staff Appreciation Day. Look for the box in the lobby after the holidays.
  • For more details about our monthly recycling drives and Go Green to School dates, please click Red is Green PA Page.

7) The LREI Cookbook Committee is working on creating a LREI community cookbook. The theme of the cookbook is potlucks. If you have any recipes that you would like to submit for consideration, please send them to cookbook@lrei.org. Also, if you are interested in participating in the creation of the cookbook, email Kathryn Kellinger at kksidedish@aol.com or Susie Marples at susiemarples@yahoo.com

8) Click here to access the new LREI on-line photo gallery.

9) For updates on faculty performances, openings, presentations, and publications visit the Faculty in the News page on the school web site.

10) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA – http://www.parentsinaction.org/). NYC-PIA provides parenting education, information and a communications network to help parents prepare their children and teenagers to cope with social pressures and to make sound choices towards a future free of alcohol and drug abuse. Click here to view upcoming events and/or to download their calendar.

For All Grades . . .
1) A reminder that you can access teachers’ blogs by following the “Digital Classroom” link on the sidebar.

2) Read about our Middle School sports teams and game summaries at http://lrei.org/athletics/news.htm.

3) The second Middle School Students of Color Meeting will take place on Thursday, January 28 from 11 am – 12 pm. Again we will share lunch together before attending to any agenda items and celebrating our community. Please consider encouraging your child to attend this next meeting. Feel free to direct any questions to Sherezada Acosta at sacosta@lrei.org or Chap, Director of Diversity and Community at schapman@lrei.org. Thank you for your ongoing support of our school and your/our children. Click here for information about the group’s discussion at the first meeting.

4) Just a reminder that the Middle School dance is scheduled for Friday, January 29th. The dance will start at 6:30PM for fifth graders and at 7:00PM for sixth through eighth graders. The dance will end at 8:30PM for fifth and sixth graders and at 9:00PM for seventh and eighth graders. Permission slips will go out the week of the dance.

As part of our on-going community service initiatives, this year we are partnering with the organization GETTING TOOLS TO CITY SCHOOLS (http://www.gettingtoolstocityschools.org/home), which seeks to procure and deliver free basic school supplies to low-income public schools in New York City. To support their on-going efforts, we are encouraging students who attend the dance on Friday to bring in one or more of the following school supply items:

    • * 1.5″-2″ three-ring binders
    • * pocket dividers (sets of 5)
    • * pencil pouch (three-hole to be used in binder)
    • boxes of pens
    • boxes of pencils
    • lined paper packs

*most needed

GETTING TOOLS TO CITY SCHOOLS was started by a former LREI parent. This Friday’s dance will be one of several opportunities that will take place over the course of the year in which LREI students will support the group’s work. This service relationship is also connected to our reading and on-going discussions about Three Cups of Tea; our work with GETTING TOOLS TO CITY SCHOOLS reinforces the value of education and the need for activism to ensure that all children have access to quality schools and materials.

5) Please read the attached letter from the Middle School math teachers regarding prep for the upcoming ERBs, which are scheduled for February 9-11.

For Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) A reminder that final payments for the DC trip are due on February 18th. If you have payment questions, please let me know. If you have not registered, please do so ASAP using the attached form.

2) The student-parent meeting for the spring Spanish class trip will take place on Thursday, January 28th, at 8:00AM. If you have questions, please contact Gabrielle Keller. Before the meeting you should:

  • check the expiration date on your child’s passport (or apply for a passport TODAY)
  • check your Explorica account and see that you have paid in full- they won’t make our reservations until the group has a 0 balance
  • fill out the Parental Consent form which your child will bring home on Thursday this week. The form gives me permission to travel with your children to Costa Rica. It must be notarized and Jesse, the Lower School librarian, has very generously consented to sign your completed forms at the meeting.

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
No updates this week.

For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Click here for the team rosters. Regular team practices will start on Wednesday and Thursday, December 16th and 17th. Players must have a completed permission slip to play. Forms can be downloaded from the Athletics section of the LREI website.

For Sixth Grade Families . . .
No updates this week.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .
1) The fifth grade will visit the Brooklyn Museum to view their Egyptian collection on Friday, January 22. Students should bring a bagged lunch (no nuts, seeds, or glass bottles) on this day.

============= For additional information, follow these links: =============

  • View all events with the LREI On-line Calendar
  • Click here to see the 2009-2010 calendar.
  • LREI Athletics. For general LREI Athletics news go to this link . This page will provide general announcements, game summaries, league standings and season recaps.
  • Click here to view the Middle School Photo Gallery.

A reminder that the individual homework blog and the “feeds” for every class can be accessed from the Digital Classroom link on the sidebar (you may want to bookmark this page for easy access). These feeds provide an easy “one-click” solution to find out what has been assigned for homework. Keep in mind that a feed will only show what has been posted as of the time you check it.

Don’t forget to check the LREI website for updates and other interesting school-related information.

Be well,
Mark

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