The Current
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fastest. We realised how much of the rain forest was being destroyed. Just for one hamburger, 55 square feet of rain forest is used to raise cattle. We told people to have “meat-free Mondays,” but we knew we could do more. This is why our year group organized the chocolate sale. — Niamh Cogley and Tommaso Giammarioli, Year 3 Atlanta (second-graders)
Deal Middle School
“Oklahoma!” is in its final days of practice at Alice Deal Middle School. “Oklahoma!” is about an up-and-coming state in the early 1900s. It also has a love story in it. The play is by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Students have been practicing for this play for almost two months under the direction of Jill Roos. They have been practicing after school and even on Sundays. The performers are not the only people who are working hard. The tech and stage crew have put in many hours as well. Many students auditioned. Some of the parts include ensemble, picnickers and other small roles. Some of the main roles are Curley, Lori, Ado Annie, Judd and Will. The buzz of the play has been going around Deal, and there are posters everywhere. You can buy tickets by contact-
ing Alice Deal. The play is on May 10 and 11. The play is appropriate for most audiences. It should be amazing, so I strongly recommend that you go. — Eden Breslow, sixth-grader
Duke Ellington School of the Arts
On May 2, Peter “Puff the Magic Dragon” Yarrow addressed the school during an afternoon assembly and played songs on the guitar. He came with a message that was shown through the songs “We Shall Overcome” and “Don’t Laugh at Me.” The general themes of his performance were non-violence and coexistence. This week, students from all over the country went to the Kennedy Center to attend the “What’s Going On Now?” event to talk about important issues that are occurring in their lives today. The first event was a reception, where students elaborated on issues such as racism and poverty through different forms of art. Students used the music of Marvin Gaye’s album “What’s Going On?” and applied it to their lives. The arts they used included poetry, song, rap, videos and music videos. After the performances, the students discussed what they were going to do to solve these issues. They came up with ways to communicate and listen to each other in order to have a better understanding of what we need as a community. As a finale, students attended John
Legend’s concert of Marvin Gaye’s album “What’s Going On?” The Duke Ellington Show Choir performed with Legend at the end of the show, and select students performed poetry throughout the performance. — Langston Barboza, ninth-grader
Edmund Burke School
The moment you have been waiting for has finally come. Emotions are flying for the performers: happiness, confidence, excitement and, of course, fear. Backstage, directors and other actors tell you again and again to be quiet, not to talk, but only to whisper. This is the hardest thing you will ever have to do. It feels like you have been waiting for years to get away from the backstage jail. The stage is your freedom. Finally, it is your time to show the world someone that it has never met before — your character. There you are, right behind the curtains, waiting for your cue to show the world a new person. This is your last chance to be afraid. And then, you speak. As you speak, you stop thinking as yourself and start thinking as your character. The words you say are no longer memorized lines; now, they are natural. At that moment when you feel natural, you are your character. You think like him, and as long as your character is not afraid, you aren’t either. It’s over. You have done one performance, and you need to do two
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 more, but the second two will be different. There will be less fear backstage, or perhaps no fear at all. Everyone loved you in the performance, but no one enjoyed it more than the performers, directors, and the tech workers who made the show what it was. You think, “I can’t wait to do this again.” — Kofi Bulluck, sixth-grader
Georgetown Day School
The Girls Learn International group held a Hunger Banquet for the sixth grade in return for donations to make it possible for girls to go to school. This “banquet” was probably the must controversial thing to happen in the sixth grade. That’s because we the sixthgraders of Georgetown Day were misinformed about this banquet — it was really a simulation. In this simulation, there were three classes: yellow, pink and white. The highest class, yellow, got to eat with tablecloths and napkins, and they got the best food and were served at their seats. Pink, the middle class, had to stand or kneel around tables without linens, but they were much better off than the white class. The white class got only rice and beans and had to sit on the floor. This made the whitecard people very angry. Ali commented, “I would have wanted to be warned beforehand.” William said, “It was a learning experience.” Logan said, “Felt bad for the white-card people.” Several sixth-graders stressed: “The yellows
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didn’t get it.” I think that the GLI group should have advertised this event as a simulation, not a banquet. However, I did learn that 60 percent of people are in the hungry group. I also felt that it was unfair and I was cheated as a person in the white group. And as a side note, never do a hunger simulation during lunch. — Catherine Hay, sixth-grader
Holy Trinity School
The second-, third- and fourthgraders celebrated Earth Day by going to Disneynature’s new movie “Chimpanzee” on April 28. The movie is about a young chimpanzee named Oscar. Rivals attack Oscar’s pack and separate Oscar’s mom from the others. That night, Oscar’s mother is killed by a jaguar. Without his mom to groom him, Oscar finds it is hard to keep ticks and parasites off his body. He tries to find a new family, but everyone rejects him. A chimpanzee named Freddy, who was the leader of the pack, starts to take care of him. Rivals again attack their pack and Freddy’s pack defeats them. We learned some facts from the movie, like chimpanzees sometimes eat monkeys, jaguars eat chimpanzees and killer ants can eat chimpanzees. — Kevin Leonard and Jackson Namian, third-graders
Janney Elementary
For decades, the Janney Oak See Dispatches/Page 32