The Middle Schoolers describe their experiences at North Branch School in the collaborative poem below. Please enjoy their thoughts and vision of their school and the pictures posted following their words.
This Space by the NBS Middle School, September 2022, inspired by Beth Strano’s untitled poem
This space is an equal,
creative,
wild,
learning,
beautiful space.
It has hard projects, easy jobs, and funny people.
It has couches, books, and maps.
It has a timeline filled with the history of our world.
It has the qualities that millions of people want
and strive to obtain
and a mutual respect for one another
that many people will never get to experience.
It has imagination corners and tables for making new ideas reality.
It looks like soaring through the clouds,
a string of confetti,
a circus with all the colors,
a seagull’s nest.
It looks like a creative space to learn and make friends.
It looks like the image America longs to be.
It sounds like the whoosh of the wind,
the waves crashing on the beach,
the scratching of pencils on paper working on a problem,
pages flipping,
a well maintained steam engine at work.
And when we are in this space, we are idea makers,
students working together to learn,
communicating,
laughing,
learning from each other,
building a tower of knowledge together.
Because we have friends here.
We all trust each other,
we can work together as a team,
with great teachers guiding us over the ups and downs.
Sometimes it is not fun,
but we are equal,
and we have fun together
in this space.
