Anyone who has taught middle school for any length of time will tell you that seventh grade is a rough year for many students. Parents will probably tell you the same thing. Therefore, as a team one of our goals was to create a community among seventh graders. The idea was to get students working together effectively and create a sense of connectedness. In other words, we wanted to ensure that seventh graders do not feel like the forgotten middle children of middle school. Our team has worked on various strategies to meet those goals, but this month I feel we were exceptionally successful.
Last year, I was inspired by a photo essay project called the Fearless Project. The Fearless Project focuses on LGBT athletes. While I didn’t think that would be fitting for our goals, I liked the idea of a photo project. I wanted a way for students to be publicly acknowledged and allow people get to know one another in a different way besides as students in a class. When I brought the idea to the team, they were on board immediately.