A Piece of Pi and a Poem

Dear Families,

It has been a busy week in the Middle School. With many of our classes focused on writing poetry, I hope that you were able to spend dome time on Monday night reading as a family and perhaps enjoying a poem or two. Poems were certainly in abundance in the halls and classrooms for Tuesday’s Poem In Your Pocket Day. My pocket featured Philip Levine‘s “M. Degas Teaches Art And Science At Durfee Intermediate School–Detroit, 1942” (click here to listen to the author reciting the poem). I like this poem for the way that it reveals the power of a particular learning moment and the possibility for that moment to transform not only how we look at the world, but how we commit ourselves to an ongoing search for meaning. As you participate in your family conference, I think you will find that these moments occur with astonishing frequency in the middle school and, as a result, create a profound poetry of their own.

Poem In Your Pocket Day was followed by our belated celebration of Pi Day (usually held on 3/14, postponed to 4/15 [the 3rd-5th digits of pi] and subsequently rescheduled for this past Wednesday, 4/22 [the 1,840th-1,842nd digits of pi]. While Pi Day provides an opportunity for us to celebrate the importance and “poetry” of math, a favorite highlight is the much-anticipated Memorized Recitation of the Digits of Pi Competition. This year, we heard from four competitors at our Wednesday Middle School Meeting. Fifth graders Alessandro and Pia recited 54 and 112 digits of pi respectively; these were impressive first efforts. Sixth grader Odelia improved her effort from last year with an amazing recitation that ran to 438 digits of pi. To give you some sense of what that looks like, here they are:

 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307
8164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505
822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644
288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104
543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540
9171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036
575959195309218611738193261

Our final contestant was math teacher Margaret Andrews who turned in a respectable effort of 86 digits. However, it was revealed that Margaret’s effort could not be entered into the Pi Day Archives as she had achieved it through the use of a bluetooth headset hidden under a scarf through which she received the digits from a mysterious Mr. Pi. Any information regarding the identity of this surreptitious mathematician should be reported to the other members of the math department.

On other fronts, the seventh grade spent Thursday in Philadelphia exploring Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center as part of their on-going inquiry into the birth of our nation and the drafting of the Constitution. Click here to view some photos.

Of General Interest . . .

1) Congratulations, Seniors!! Click here to see the latest update of our College Acceptance List. We will send home a list of the schools in which our seniors enroll in a few weeks. We are so proud of the class of 2009!

2) Red is Green Committee Updates:

  • Don’t forget to check out Lets Go Green’s website for eco-friendly water bottles, garbage bags, light bulbs, paper goods etc. LREI receives 25% of all sales as profit. Thanks for all your help. Start collecting and keep recycling!
  • If you have any questions or suggestions, please email the Red is Green committee (lhommen@hotmail.com or kbeck2@nyc.rr.com).

3) From the LREI Lesbian Gay Straight Alliance (LGSA): Join us for Marriage Equality: A Civil Rights Issue an evening event sponsored by the LGSA and scheduled for Monday April 27th from 6-8PM at the Charlton Street PAC. Marriage equality would insure that every American, regardless of sexual orientation, is treated equally under the law. Topics for the evening will include: why marriage matters, what laws are being enacted nationally and locally, how this effects our families and children and how to get involved. The evening is open to the public and we encourage everyone in the LREI parent body to attend. We would also ask them to bring friends who know the issues, but want to learn more; and, maybe even more importantly, we ask them to bring people who don’t understand the issues but could become allies if they knew more. It’s like election day and we need to get people to the polls! Every civil rights issue was won beginning at the grassroots level. For additional information, see the attached press release and poster for the event. Parents should RSVP to MarriageEqualityEvent@gmail.com if childcare is needed.

4) Save the Date: The Annual LREI Camping Trip will take place June 5th-7th at the Riverbend Group Campground along the Delaware River, about 15 miles North of the Delaware Water Gap. Students and their families may camp Friday and/or Saturday night. Watch for details and sign-up tables – coming soon.

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

6) LREI is a member of NYC-Parents in Action (NYC-PIA). 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. Please read the attached flyer to view their 2008-2009 calendar. You can also access their website at http://www.parentsinaction.org/.

This Week’s Attachments
General:
MS Parent Rep Meeting Minutes 4/21/09
Eighth Grade:
Seventh Grade:
Fifth Grade:
Sixth Grade:

For All Grades . . .
1) A reminder that Family Conferences are scheduled for this Friday, April 24 from 8:30AM-3:30PM (there is no school for students on this day). The conference will be with your child’s advisor and will address work completed in all subjects. Students and their advisors have been reviewing work completed in all of their classes over the past quarter. They have identified areas of strength and challenge and work samples that provide examples of these strengths and challenges. Students have also done reflections in each of their classes and they will share some of these in the conference. We expect students to take the lead in this conversation and the advisor’s role is to help guide them through this process. We hope that the developing holistic picture of who your child is as a learner will emerge.

With regard to the third quarter reports you have just received, it is likely that your child’s teachers’ comments on his/her work may answer many of your questions. If you have specific questions that are not answered by the end of the conference, we ask that you contact the relevant teacher directly as s/he will be best able to answer the question. The conference represents a moment to celebrate good work and to think about how the school and home can work together to support your child as we move towards the end of the year. If you have not done so already, please read my previous posts about Progress Reports and Family Conferences (and some additional resources). The structure of our Family Conferences is always an evolving one and I encourage you to let me know about your conference experience. Your feedback is tremendously useful in helping us to shape this experience so that it is a meaningful and productive one for all.

A number of you have inquired about ERB scores. We will receive these scores in the next week or two and my hope is to get them out to you by the week of April 27th.

2) Mark your calendars: Just a heads up that the MS Art Show is scheduled for Thursday, April 30th and Friday, May 1st. The Art Show is a wonderful opportunity to explore the impressive art work that middle schoolers have created so far this year.

3) It’s My Park Day: We’ll do some more work on the flower beds in Little Red Square on the morning of Saturday, May 16th. Students and families are welcome to joins us.

4) AIDS Walk 2009: The AIDS Walk is an important LREI community service event and is scheduled this year for Sunday, May 17th. We’re hoping for strong representation from all Middle School grades this year. Please remember that students in grades six and below must be accompanied by an adult. Registering for AIDS Walk New York has never been easier. Just click on this link below and choose your registration type (“Join a Team” — we are team #1222). If you prefer, you can always register by phone. Simply call (212) 807-WALK (9255) and they will be happy to register you. If you are not able to walk, please make every effort to support the team by making a donation.

5) Our annual Middle School Awards Night will take place on Tuesday, May 19th, at 6:00PM in the Charlton Street PAC. This is a wonderful night in which all students in grades five through eight are recognized for their effort and participation on sports teams and in extracurricular activities.

For Eighth Grade Families . . .
1)For students moving on to the high school: The math placement exam for incoming students will be given on Tuesday, April 28th from 3:30-4:30PM.

For Seventh and Eighth Grade Families . . .
1) Middle School Softball: This year’s coaches are Matthew Rosen and Lynne Cattafi. Practices will be held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 3:15-4:45PM from April 14th to May 20th. If the weather prevents a practice from happening, then Thursdays will be the alternate practice day. All interest players should have a glove, athletic pants/shorts, and athletic shoes. Baseball cleats are not necessary as most games are on concrete or artificial turf. Click here to download a permission form. The game schedule can be found at http://lrei.org/athletics/ms_softball.php. If there are any questions, please contact the Athletic Director, Peter Fisher (pfisher@lrei.org, 212-477-5316 ext. 233).

For Seventh Grade Families . . .
1) Our annual High School Arts Festival, is scheduled for May 1st and our seventh graders participate in this exciting event. The Arts Festival is a day dedicated to art during which visiting artists run workshops with students. Students take a three hour class in the morning led by the artists, which gives students the opportunity to focus on one area of interest. In the afternoon there is an assembly where performing arts workshops can present and perform and special guest performers inspire. This is a wonderful day for art and for the seventh graders to get a taste of the high school experience.

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

For Fifth and Sixth Grade Families . . .
1) Intramural Softball: If inclement weather necessitates practice having to be canceled, please consult the LREI online calendar, which will indicate that practice has been canceled (please make sure that you have selected and applied the filter for “Sports-MS Intramural Softball;” to do this click on the “Filter Events” link on the left sidebar). This information will be posted by 6AM on the day of the practice.  If your child has a glove, s/he should bring it with her/him to the practice/game. If your child does not have a glove, s/he will likely be able to borrow one from another player. Click here to download a permission form. If you have any questions, please contact Larry Kaplan at lkaplan@lrei.org.

For Fifth Grade Families . . .
1) From Steve Neiman:   Fifth graders are reminded to bring in photos or digital copies of pictures of family members/pets, to be scanned (or on a flash drive) for their family tree project.

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

  • View important middle school dates here.
  • 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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