the knighting

Jackson, Rylee, Cyndi and I went to the academy Sunday. It's about a mile away. There's a bike path off the street behind our house that goes to the acreage and another one that goes to its gate. We drove and parked at the lower campus. Inside the west gymnasium, next door to the natatorium, Amy, who interviewed Jackson, greeted him. He shook her hand and we got our name tags downstairs. There they had an assembly of the newly admitted sixth grade students, the Class of 2020, and their families. Judy, the admissions director, welcomed us. This is her last year. The head master spoke. He talked about books that have a map inside the front cover. These, he said, were fantastical maps to a future adventure and the home on the map of their adventure was the academy. A senior spoke about her time at the academy and she and the head master asked the new admittees to stand up. These are your classmates, they said, asking the students to look around, and your friends for the next seven years. A knight's armor stood on the makeshift stage, and the senior passed a sword overhead, welcoming the children to the Chargers. The 6th grade department head, a Spanish teacher, began by reading a passage from a book in a choose-your-own-adventure series and introduced the teachers. An a capella chorus sang a song with lyrics written for the event. There was such pride in the parents. I spoke to one woman. She said her children went here, and now her grandchildren. Jackson knew a good handful of the kids already, and we knew some of the parents.

We walked first to the far side of the lower campus to the visual arts building. The art room was filled with student drawings, paintings, and sculpture. Three sixth grade students were printing the frontispieces for their portfolios on a printing press. The art teacher told us about filmmaking opportunities in the future and an artist in residence program next year. We then walked to another building which had two wings: a technical applications wing and a performing arts space. We met a drama teacher and he filled us in on some of the choices. As I recall there were dramatic arts, orchestra, band, dance, chorus and guitar. There was also a club for stage technicians. In the other wing was a creative arts installation based on sea life. They also use the performing arts center on the upper campus.

We then walked to the 6th grade building. There were more people there, a few we recognized, and some friends Jack already knew. We met one of the English teachers. There was Shakespeare inside, but also Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. The English teacher next door had student mythology stories on the wall and language reference books on every table. In a science room, we met a science teacher and the head master again. The large room looked made for experiments and projects, although not a lab how I remember. (More labs are located in a separate building in the middle of the campus.) The sixth graders are taught life sciences, and I gathered that included some fundamental scientific tools and many different subjects and whatever seasonal or celestial event that was happening. There was a handmade periodic table of the elements along one wall. We visited two history teachers. One room was filled with classic history posters and her class concentrated on U.S. History from the Industrial Revolution to World War I. The other room was an explosion of popular culture ephemera and the subject matter included most of my lifetime.

Inside this building are lockers and a student common area with one wall dedicated to daily schedules. We indulged in the refreshments there. The sixth graders are divided into two halves, what they call, in their pod-speak, pods, and those are further divided at least two times until you get a family of one teacher and 10 or less students who eat lunch together every day in their dining hall in yet another building.

We almost didn't go the lower campus administrative building, but it was only half administrative. There was an atrium and a small bookstore inside and several more classrooms and more lockers. Jackson got to talk with the Tech App teacher. She understood him. In her class, each student creates their own web page using html script; not so much, she conceded, the java script Jackson is now using, among whatever else he's doing. We also met, unfortunately so briefly, a Spanish teacher and finally a math teacher. Spanish is required. I wondered how advanced the students might be in math but Jackson was soon talking with the teacher about calculating volumes, which he is doing now in his general class, and a mathematical theorem he must have learned in his gifted class. In between we visited the music room, filled with instruments and keyboards, and talked with the teacher.

That was a full two hours. It was sunny that day, no breeze, and we were still exhausted from the previous day. We had already visited the upper campus and the library before, and the boys and I have practiced on the some of the athletic fields already. Ry and I have run around its track. I have swum in its pool and run on its cross country course. We didn't get to visit with the physical education program or get much information on athletics for sixth graders.

The remainder of the day was spent with yard work, computer gaming, a work out, church, catch, soccer, French toast and leftovers. I saw Jackson sitting with Rylee that evening, helping him with graphs on his homework. I do wonder what will come in three years with Rylee. As Jackson said the other day, their scores for applying to gifted were exactly the same. I love the smarts I see in both. Ry is still 7 but he wants to do now what Jack is doing, whether it's sports or academics. In ways, he's excelled earlier than Jack. While he exudes confidence and ability, he's also still shy around adults. Jack was never shy. Ry gets to start his gifted class at Dennis Chavez tomorrow.