In just a couple of months, students will be notified about their private high school acceptances. Just like during the college admissions process, you likely applied to several schools and you can soon see what your choices are once all of the results are in.
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What does a typical Beekman student look like?
I am asked this question all of the time in interviews and conversations with people curious about our school. This is what I tell them.
There is no “typical” Beekman student. We have a wide variety of students, including:
Many science textbooks define a scientist as someone who asks questions about the natural world and seeks to answer those questions through research, experimentation and collaboration. If this is true, we all start out as scientists.
History is a collection of stories--stories that tell of events big and small. In history class, we often look at the macro story, the big picture. We might look at WWI: the causes, the effects, the battles, and the political, social, and economic costs and gains. However, what is frequently lost is the story of the 18-year-old boy, aching with homesickness and overwhelmed by his first steps outside of his small hometown, sent to fight a war that no one really understands.
If you are the parent of an 8th grader, you are probably in the midst of asking yourself the question, “How do I choose the right high school for my child?” From asking friends & fellow parents to performing an internet search to going to open houses, you are certain to be presented with a lot of options. Most (if not all) of them will sound like great places for your child to learn. So what makes a school the “right” school?
You will find several options available as you look for the school that best fits your needs. Be careful, however, because the diploma you think you are getting may not be useful for your goals.
The first thing you want to establish is if the school you are investigating is an accredited high school or an accredited online high school and, if it is, which organization accredits it.
What is an accredited high school?
One of my favorite TV shows is "The Big Bang Theory" and its theme song, with its catchy tune, summarizes the evolution of the universe, earth, and all things living on it quite accurately! If you are not familiar with the lyrics, or even if you are, read (or sing along) below:
Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait
The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool
Neanderthals developed tools
We built a wall (we built the pyramids)
These days, many parents are eager for their children to begin foreign language classes at a young age because children seem to learn foreign languages faster and better than adults.
I am an English teacher who is passionate about literature. Catch me in my AP class and you’ll see that I’m a superb lecturer (though I do stray from literature every so often; see my blog on why I teach Aristotle’s Ethics). In my standard English classes, however, as I have gathered experience over the last 10 years, I have moved away more and more from pure literature, and exposed my students to magazine articles (old and new), op-eds, and other types of non-fiction, like primary source documents such as historical memos, convention resolutions, and legal opinions.
As teachers, we often spend hours discussing classroom and student problems and how to fix them. A phone call from one of us generally means that something has gone wrong or that some work has gone undone. I probably dread these conversations even more than the student whose parents I’m reaching out to does. I far prefer the quick words shared with a parent as they drop off their kid or getting to know people face-to-face at parent-teacher night. The reason? Teachers (not unlike parents) absolutely love being able to brag about their students’ successes and achievements.