At HKMS we believe all students should be thriving whether performing below, at, or above grade-level standards.  This section will highlight just one of the ways we support learners or extend their thinking. 

All of the wonderful activities, events, and learning going on around HKMS this week (and beyond!). 

The Planning and Zoning Commission and Easton Land Use Department are creating for two “Welcome to Easton” signs with the intent of holding a student art contest for an artistic representation of what Easton means/represents to them. Two “winners” would be chosen by a judge’s panel consisting of members of the Easton Arts Council and Easton Arts Center. This contest will be open to students from Easton. Each winner’s artwork would be used for the signs, one on each. The signs will likely be 4 feet wide by 5 feet tall and the artwork would be roughly a 4 foot by 4-foot display on the sign. 

Take a moment to read about the perspective of a current 8th grader at HKMS.

We, as adults, strive to understand and support our adolescents so it is vital that we see the world through their eyes.  

SENSITIVITY 

As an 8th grader who started middle school in a “normal year” and is ending it in a “COVID year,” so, SO much has changed. Switching from all the uncertainty and fear in early 2020 to hope and confidence in early 2022 has been tiring, enlightening and life changing. One thing that I’ve learned is the best way to help yourself and others get through difficult times is…kindness, empathy and understanding. Simple words and phrases that we’ve been taught since Kindergarten. However, I’ve realized that not everyone chooses to put these words into action. Kids can be mean. That’s always been true and it probably always will be true. But this year meanness and nastiness has hit a different level. Racial slurs, homophobic slurs, sexist comments, judgmental words are everywhere.

More and more kids are feeling the effects of these words. We - as middle schoolers - are at the age where our brains are so incredibly impressionable. We soak things up like a sponge. In this era, with social media being so easily accessible, we’re getting exposed to the meanness and nastiness of the real world, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The bad part is that students are using the meanness and nastiness they’re seeing online, in person, towards others. And the hardest part is that they don’t always realize they’re doing it. We hear things. And then we say things. But a lot of the time, we don’t think in between. We don’t think about the other person. We don’t think about the consequences. We don’t think about the effects of our words. And a lot of the time, that’s because we don’t know what we’re saying. I don’t mean that we’re clueless, I mean that we literally don’t know the definition of a lot of the words we say. 

And I know that your first reaction as a parent would be, “Well, just look it up! You have the whole world at your fingertips, for goodness sake!” But switch your perspective for a minute. Imagine if you were a middle schooler today. Not in the 70s, 80s or 90s. Today. When everything you look up can be tracked. How confident would you be to search a word that you knew was offensive if you knew that the your parents and teachers could find out? How confident would you be to ask your parents what an offensive word meant? A lot of kids would be too worried about getting punished. So, instead, we…assume. We assume we know what words mean. We assume people will know we’re “joking.” We assume no one will find out. We assume no one will get hurt. Well, we assume wrong. We don’t know what words mean. People won’t know we’re “joking.” People will find out. People will get hurt. So, what I’m asking you to do is to talk to your children. Explain what racial slurs, homophobic slurs, sexist comments, and judgmental comments mean. As hard as it is, these conversations need to be had. We need to learn that we impact people every single day and that we, and we alone, have the power to decide if those impacts will be positive or negative. But we need support. And that support starts at home. 

Ideas to help the conversation: 

• Think before you speak

• Is it something you would want someone saying to you?

• How do you think they would take it?

• How do you think someone passing by would take it?

• Understand that anything you say can affect someone positively AND/OR negatively

• Look at how someone could take it positively.

• Look at how someone could take it negatively.

• Take responsibility

• Own up to a mistake.

• Apologize.

-by HKMS Grade 8 Student Maansi Tibrewal