By Jada Matson, 6th grade
Sherman Middle School
There are multiple ways middle school students absorb their middle school education. Students at Sherman Middle School learn best while being in a workable environment and also being comfortable enough to talk to teachers and classmates as if they were family. Students on the HaPaNa team enjoy learning about relevant topics and issues because nine times out of ten, they already have background information on the topic. One recent encouraging experience was when the sixth grade HaPaNa team went to Geeks Mania Arcade for the “Gamers Meet Gaming” unit.
A goal the HaPaNa team set for the mini unit was to use the information they were given to learn about video games and their rise to fame. They also learned the history of video games. There were several assignments given. One was when our class watched a Ted Talk about the history of video games. Students used an AVID strategy to analyze what they noticed, what it meant and why it mattered. Students use this tool frequently to observe and analyze information. An interesting experience was when Catherine Stull from Human Heads Studio on the East side came in and talked about her job as a community manager, something very new and interesting to our class.
The final in-class part of the unit was to either create your own video game or compare two video games to each other. A lot of students really enjoyed that since there are so many creative minds in the sixth grade HaPaNa team classroom. I asked the students what they thought of the unit. One student said, “It surprised me how fun this unit was. I’m not that big of a gamer, but I really enjoyed learning about video games’ history.” Another claimed that video games help him personally with his anger and video games, to him, are kind of a stress reliever. A student expressed that it was pleasing but weird to see his peers open up and come out of their shell.
Finally, the best part of the unit was definitely the field trip to Geeks Mania Arcade. According to Jennifer, it was an interesting experience. This further explains why teaching middle schoolers about relevant topics is not only enjoyable but educational.
