August DiStefano
My 2019-2020 ICE Experiment
June 4th, 2020, exactly 394,560 minutes from when me and 72 other kids first said "what on earth is the point of this stupid class and why do we get so much work".
To this day I am still not sure why we got so much work especially at the end of the year however, if there is one thing that I am sure of it is that all of the students in Grade 9 not just 9B have changed there opinions on the ICE class.
Before coming to York I went to a school that had a very closely knit community where everyone knew each other even across multiple grades. It created tones of great friendships because I even knew very deep and personal things that the grade 3s were dealing with, in grade 8. After having to graduate this school (because it only went till grade 8) I looked for another school that was at least somewhat equal to the size of Sterling (my old school) and maybe a school that looked like it had a closely knit community like Sterling.
Before coming to York I already knew about 5 or 6 people so I felt pretty comfortable with my new friends and just being around them all the time. However, after spending time with everyone and every friend group in the grade I eventually realized that more or less everyone in the grade is associated with each other. To me this resembled the relationships from my old school and made me really enjoy York.
Along with the social groups that the kids at school created for themselves, I also found that the ICE classes which every student was enrolled in, also created somewhat of a community. I think that ICE was very good at bringing people together because we often shared the same projects, went on trips with other classes and other things that we did as a community. I think that ICE was especially good at bringing kids together that were in the same classes, yet in completely different parts of their lives, maturity and personality. The thing that I most enjoyed about this was how there were so many different kids in my ICE class and each one of them brought something unique to the table. Our class had a mixture of shy kids, loud kids, crazy kids and calm kids, but somehow it all worked itself out. We actually create a balanced classroom where we had enough energy to have fun and also enough restriction to buckle in and do work.
I think that ICE is a good way of teaching kids but is also a very difficult way for the kids to learn. Personally I am more of a doing and learning via success and failure type of person, so a lot more hands on. I realize that some people are not like this and prefer to take notes and listen to teachers talk all day long. That is why I think that ICE is a pretty good way of making a compromise. ICE definitely has a lot of talking and lecturing, (and I honestly listened to about 1/4 of it the whole year) but it also has a lot of time for you to do your own work and for you to be very hands on with what you are doing. I think that by keeping everyone genuinely interested at most times about the subject on hand, it helped keep the community close and the kids together.
Along with actual class activities and stuff, I think something that kept the kids going and allowed us to fuel off each other was the entire grades mutual hate for ICE class. I know it doesn't sound good but I think that if everyone loved ICE it probably would of turned out different.
One particular ICE experience that I found to be my favorite one was the bus rides to and from Ottawa and the bus rides to and from Winter Camping. I know that as far as bus rides go they are generally the same things, stupid gossip, jokes, games and everything else. However, I think that these bus rides (the one to and from Ottawa in particula) had some special kind of vibe to them.
During the bus ride to Ottawa I can remember that everyone was hyped up to be going on our first overnight trip together. I in particular was pretty excited because I had just made my first like really close and good friends and I was excited to be spending some time with them so that I could secure our bonds. However, on the bus ride there I found that it was not a normal bus ride where you just chat with the people behind you or in front of you. Instead it was a huge moshpit of 11 or 12 kids all sitting in 4 seats that were all facing each other. I think that having this interaction between kids where everyone is kind of supporting each other's weight, and using each other legs as makeshift benches and stuff, kind of creates a special vibe in the area that somewhat brings everyone together and makes everyone feel like we are a part of something a little more than our respective classrooms.
All in all I know for a fact that I have complained about hating ICE and not being able to have enough snack time more than most people have. However, at the same time I believe that now because we are at the end of our 9B and ICE class thingy I am now a little bit happy that this happened to me.
Thankyou Ms. Thornton and all the other ICE teachers.