Sixth grade was my first year in middle school and I went to a whole new school called WAMS. Luckily, my same classmates from WAES were also there. I was excited to be able to walk around class to class and meet new people, but that got kind of delayed since almost everyone’s schedules were messed up! It took a while for the school to get it all sorted out, but eventually, we got back on track. There were (and still are) many great teachers. To name a few, there was Mr. Sahagun, Mrs. Molander, Mr. Skipper, and Mr. Gutierrez. Along the way, I made many new friends. Now that I think about it, I talk a lot more to friends from WAMS than friends from WAES. It sounds kind of sad, but I guess we parted in a mutual way, discovered new interests, and now we are growing as people on different paths. It’s a good thing, though, since we are discovering who we are.

Another highlight from sixth grade was Encounters. Mr. Skipper taught this class (and still does) which involved two aspects. It was a GT class mixed in with an English class. It wasn’t much of a hassle because we went to Encounters every day, unlike the seventh graders. They had it harder since they only went every other day which meant that in some weeks, they’d only go two times to Encounters. I really enjoyed Encounters because, although I’m not much of a crafty person, we made really creative and fun projects. Keywords: fun and creative, not pretty. I’ll admit, my projects weren’t really the most magnificent looking, but everyone else’s sure were. And from the looks of it, everyone seemed to have had fun making them. Encounters wasn’t just project making, though. We made our own research paper based on the Medieval Ages (our projects were also based on the Medieval Ages, we made shields and dioramas). I think the research paper was one of my favorite parts. Our classroom was also immensely huge since it was the old WAES cafeteria. Although sometimes it would smell like chicken nuggets or broccoli, it was perfect for Encounters. The cafeteria was divided into two parts, one for crafting and the other side had desks and was used for teaching. It was a very flexible workplace. The best part, Mr. Skipper had his own library. He had so many great books, and he would let us borrow them which made it even better.

Although everything seemed to be going swell, Covid-19 happened. We got sent home for an extended period of time. I thought it would only last a week or so, but boy was I wrong. It’s December 2020 now, and we still have Covid-19 around. I thought it was a good idea to close schools down and business, but the only thing that went wrong, in my opinion, was that they opened everything a little too early and many people weren’t (AND STILL AREN’T) following safety guidelines. It’s not that hard to wear a mask for a few hours and to social distance. That’s the least someone can do. Schools didn’t open up until after sixth grade, but we still did virtual learning. I’m totally fine with virtual classes, but I have massive procrastination problems sometimes, and leave everything last minute, like this reflection. I would like to go back to school, but if I did, it would mean that my brother would have to go as well, and I don’t want to risk him getting sick.