Celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

On Friday, January 15th, each grade honored the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. with meaningful activities in their classrooms. As part of their tradition of community service, groups of Eighth Graders were in all of the Lower School classrooms helping out with the younger students, or working on ways the school community could contribute to Haiti relief efforts.

Some Eighth Graders read theme-related stories to our youngest students, while others helped them make quilt pieces depicting their vision of Peace and Non-violence.  The pieces will be sewn into a quilt to go on permanent display in the new Lower School in Waltham.  Third grade students painted Peace flags reflecting the fundamental themes for that grade: inclusion and equality. 

Fourth Graders listened as Lower School counselor, Liz Shuman, read Doreen Rappaport’s, Martin’s Big Words.  She also facilitated a discussion on civil rights themes, focusing on the "I Have A Dream" speech. The students identified their own dreams, with help from their teachers. The next phase of the project will be children writing their dreams on a cutout of their hands, again for permanent display in the new Lower School.

The Fifth Grade made Tibetan Peace flags of felt on the theme of the hope/wish they have for the world and for Carroll. Two students’ wishes were, “I wish that there would be no war and everybody would be treated equally”, and” I wish that more dyslexic kids could go to Carroll.” The plan is to string the flags between trees along the driveway—a boon for people in the cab line!

Sixth Graders learned about the Civil Rights movement as a part of the history of African Americans, and about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and work, before viewing the video of the “I Have a Dream” speech.

Seventh Grade teacher, Molly Buckley, adapted the “Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes” experiment for the Seventh Grade.  Immediately every student was taken out of their familiar world and plunged into a different one with different rules and consequences.  At the end of the day, the group came together to discuss the experience.  In their history classes, students watched the footage from the actual experiment begun in the 1960’s. 

The Carroll community actively participated in meaningful ways to honor the life of a visionary leader whose legacy will impact the lives of our community forever.