Growing up in London, junior UMBC forward Daniel Akin wasn’t exposed to a ton of quality basketball.
A track and field and handball talent growing up, Akins saw his first high-level basketball game in person during the 2012 Summer Olympics, when he watched the Team USA take on Spain, but he didn’t pick the game up officially until he was 16, after a growth spurt pushed him to 6-foot-9.
“I was kind of forced to play after that,” Akin says.
On Wednesday, Johns Hopkins University engineering students gathered in Levering Hall to put their design and construction skills to the test.
Led by mechanical engineering professor Steven Marra, the annual contest challenges students to make a glider that is propelled by a falling weight. The goal is to shoot the glider from one end of the room to the other, while also flying over a suspended string.
Ample research demonstrates the multiple benefits that regular exposure to music education provides for children of all ages: improved attention, memory, focus, auditory and memory skills, and overall cognition. Yet, too often, budget cuts squeeze music education funding, forcing schools to pare down or eliminate music classes altogether for school-aged children. St. James Academy in Monkton, however, is bucking this trend. In recent years, their music and performance arts offerings have increased in number and scope due to the quality of the St. James program, creating life-long music enthusiasts and confident performers.
Much of the credit for St. James’ strong performing arts program stems from a supportive administration and extensively trained faculty who not only teach but also perform professionally. Director of Performing Arts and vocal music teacher Randi Martin, who holds a master’s degree in music education from Loyola University, a certification in YogaVoice® Technique, and additional training in the Alexander Technique, Vocal-Cross Training, Orff, and Gordon Music Learning Theory, sees the performing arts as much more than a dispensable academic elective. At St. James, the extensive performing arts program includes courses in dance/movement, Orff for percussionists, wind and string instruction, plus three musicals.
New RPCS Curriculum Offers Students Toolkit to Effect Change
How is leadership learned? At Roland Park Country School, our teachers and administrators strive to show our students what leadership looks like and the paths they can take to get there through integrity, courage and character. But we also recognize the worth of real world experiences.
To help empower students in grades 9-11 to find their voices, lead for the greater good and put their learnings into practice, Roland Park Country School recently rolled out a new program called R.E.D. (Reflect. Explore. Do.) Block. R.E.D. Block is the central strand of the RPCS Leadership and Entrepreneurship Institute, which equips our Upper School students with robust offerings designed to embolden them to create positive change in the world and help them consider, with their numerous strengths, what kind of difference they intend to make, and how they might begin to make their ideas into realities.
In R.E.D. Block, every student is involved in activities that require deep-thinking, exploration and creative problem solving to foster resilience, promote healthy risk-taking, nourish passions and curiosity, and promote purposefulness.
“We are always looking for intentional and meaningful ways to encourage our next generation of women leaders,” said Caroline Blatti, Head of School. “R.E.D. Block shows our students what is possible and how their actions can truly change the world.”
At Roland Park Country School, we want our students to live healthy and balanced lives; in fact, it’s one of our core values. This starts with an academic program that challenges and engages our girls, while allowing them to be children and teenagers. But wellness goes beyond the student workload and through intentional programming at every grade level, student-led initiatives, and resources for parents and guardians, we make sure that every student has a strong social-emotional support system to help them be healthy and well.
To support this effort, a new wellness suite was recently constructed on the RPCS campus, with offices for several members of the Student Services team, including the Director of Counseling, counselors at each division level, and the counseling intern, as well as the Director of Leadership and Entrepreneurship. The inviting offices are spacious enough for the counselors to hold classes, but are also comfortable for private meetings with students. Student artwork decorates the suite and a mindfulness wall in the cheery hallway displays several take-one cards for students, offering tips on wellness topics including desk stretches and breathing techniques. Slips are also available in the wellness suite for students to confidentially request one-on-one meetings with a counselor. “This is a space that students can access at all times,” said Makeda King-Smith, Upper School Counselor. “It’s so important to help students with stress and anxiety as early as we can.”
Independent schools offer more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. The below program profiles, from our annually published “Guide to Baltimore Independent Schools,” explore the classes, internships, experiential learning and more that enrich the curricula at area private schools. Applications are due in December at most schools. Check websites for exact dates.
Beth Tfiloh – College Counseling
Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School is Baltimore’s only co-educational college preparatory Jewish day school spanning preschool through 12th grade. Faculty members address each individual learner’s needs throughout the rigorous dual curriculum while building creativity, leadership skills, and community ties.
By: Dr. Susan Holzman, Lower School Principal, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School
“Your students are so nice!”
That’s what Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School principals and faculty members hear time and again from their colleagues at other schools about the BT students. That kind of niceness is the result of Beth Tfiloh’s mission to grow Jewish citizens who are ready to face the world with poise, knowledge, and humanity.
Our students can trace the roots of this education back to lessons they learned in BT’s PreSchool and Lower School. BT’s Lower School places the highest importance on imbuing classrooms with a spirit of derech eretz — the code of proper behavior that binds us to each other as human beings and as Jews.
By Elliott Davis
Capital News Service
FOREST HEIGHTS — Sen. Bill Ferguson, likely Maryland’s next Senate president, stood in Forest Heights Elementary—a school shut down temporarily for safety reasons—on Wednesday, and said the building “tells its own story” when it comes to education in the state.
“We can, we must and we will do better,” Ferguson (D-Baltimore) said during a news conference.
Ferguson, along with other Democratic leaders from both the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates, and other officials, announced Wednesday a $2.2 billion plan to build and renovate schools across the state that will be taken up during the 2020 legislative session.
By Dan Novak
Capital News Service
WASHINGTON– Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Maryland may lose more than $4 million in federal funding if Congress does not reauthorize mandatory spending for those institutions beyond the current academic year.
Maryland’s HBCUs “face a funding cliff due to congressional inaction,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
At the end of practices, before every game and at halftimes for close to 30 years, Johns Hopkins football head coach Jim Margraff would share a simple but fiery message with his team.
Standing near the 50-yard line, his players huddled around him, Margraff pointed out a note or two about the team’s game plan, or about the halftime adjustments the coaches implemented in the locker room.
Then, with his players hyped, jumping around him, he’d shout three simple words.
“Pride and poise!”
