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Middle School Kicks Off Year with Joyful and Meaningful Retreat

Following the first-day-of-school welcome celebration, eighth graders loaded onto a bus for the middle school retreat (sixth and seventh graders joined the following day). 
 
When the eighth graders arrived, explains Director of Middle School Dr. Sivan Tarle, “they took part in a series of activities that had them to look inward and ask themselves what they find joy in and how they learn best.” Eighth graders also participated in a design thinking challenge where they designed an ideal fictional school for their peers based on the ways they self-identified as learning best. “We did this activity to reframe the way our eighth graders think about the high school process,” says Dr. Tarle. “We want the process to be more about individual needs and less about the grind of expectations and pressures.”
 
 The following day the sixth and seventh graders joined their older peers, as the camp became a community of middle schoolers advisory team building. In their advisory groups, students designed advisory flags—which represented the individual grade-level themes based on the Brandeis community values of kindness, integrity, and service—and presented them at the evening camp fire. And, of course, what would camp be without pool hangouts, ropes courses, and games of gaga, basketball, volleyball, and boomer ball?
 
On the final morning before departing the retreat for Brandeis, students participated in an experiential tefillah that included meditation, singing, yoga, and discussions around mindfulness and gratitude. “The retreat sets the tone for community building and expectations around communication, trust, and kindness that we hope to deepen as the year of learning continues,” says Dr. Tarle. “It’s also an amazing opportunity for advisors to develop really important bonds with their students as they become the cornerstones of much of their journey in the year to come.” MORE PHOTOS
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