SemBlog

Students participating in the Platypus Swim collected small stuffed animals on their way out of the tube.

Students listened to poems about Australian animals on Australia Day.

Dressed in outback-style clothes, the children decorated their boomerangs.

Koalas climb, platypuses swim and kangaroos jump, and so did 25 Wyoming Seminary Lower School kindergarten students as they celebrated Australia Day. Each January the students study the history, culture and flora and fauna of the country Down Under. As part of their celebration of Australia’s national day, the children took part in a series of events called the “Outback Olympics,” which consisted of the Koala Climb (rock wall), the Platypus Swim (crawling through a blue tube), the Emu Race (foot race around obstacles) and the Kangaroo Jump (standing long jump).

The students also played a lawn-bowling game called Bulls; listened to a reading of “Kids Rhymes of Bygone Times,” a book of poems about Australian animals; snacked on Australian licorice; painted boomerangs, didgeridoos and their own versions of Aborigine cave wall images; and traveled to a nearby Australian-themed restaurant for lunch.

By Alexandra Zaloga ’16

Over the past month, Mr. Switzer’s eighth-grade American history class has been studying immigration. We started out learning about push-pull factors of immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We studied Ellis Island and the hardships that all immigrants had to go through, especially once they arrived in America and began searching for jobs and trying to make a living.

Eighth-grade "immigrants" enjoy a lunch of Italian and Polish food.

Alexandra Zaloga tries to read Japanese characters as part of an "eye exam."

Alexandra and other class members had to answer questions during the Immigration Day admission process.

After learning about these topics, we participated in Immigration Day, where we all came dressed as immigrants. Everyone brought in an ethnic food like Polish pierogies and Italian pizza.

After lunch, we all went through a simulation of Ellis Island, where international students came from the Upper School and made us undergo the different examinations, such as eye exams or basic knowledge tests, that the immigrants experienced.

We really understood how the immigrants who didn’t speak English felt, because the Upper School students asked us questions not in English but in their native languages! We walked around frustrated and confused because we could not understand them.

The day after Immigration Day we took a field trip to the real Ellis Island in New York City. It was so cool to see the medical exam rooms, the old artifacts people brought over, and the Great Hall where everyone was processed. We walked down the stairs of separation and read manuscripts of interviews with immigrants. Now we all really appreciate and understand the struggles our ancestors went through to come to America.

By Patty DeViva

Front row, left to right: Jess Swoboda '11, Villanova; Omeed Firouzi '11, George Washington University; Meghan Hourigan '11, New York University; Connor Kincheloe '10, PSU, University Park. Back row: Emily Smallwood '10, Clarion University; Cat Clements '11, Bucknell University; Becca Hosey '11, Wellesley; Gregory Barber '10, Lehigh University; Charles Amara '11, Moravian.

Every year in January Wyoming Seminary invites recent Sem grads back to campus to give invaluable insight for current students on the college process. No college catalog or Web site can convey real-life experiences like the ones expressed at the College Panel.

“I think the college panel is designed to bring back recent Sem grads who represent different types of students who have all survived the college process and have adjusted to college life. Usually we hope they will be students who were very involved in aspects of our community so they are familiar to the sophomores through seniors. I try to have a couple of college sophomores as well, because they have a greater perspective, have decided their majors, perhaps pledged a social organization like  a fraternity or sorority. We try to include at least one person in a special program. This year Emily Smallwood ’10 had taken a gap year, and Meghan Hourigan ‘11 is in theater at New York University which requires an audition. We also need students who are at small schools in small towns, in extra large state schools, and on city campuses,” said Jane Slaff, College Panel coordinator and associate director of College Guidance.

Senior Eric Cholish also added, “I think the College Panel always has value. Getting a perspective on college life from actual college students is always useful. They have first-hand experience, and many of them have only recently started to attend, and can more easily relate to students just about to enter college themselves. The panel covered a large variety of different types of students (student athlete, drama and theater, math and sciences, undeclared, etc), which helped provide insight on what to look for in a college and how to pursue your passions, be they athletics, arts, or anything else. Emily Smallwood’s information on the gap year was also really helpful, since many people aren’t ready for college at eighteen, but are afraid that putting their education on hold for a year will hurt them in the long run. It was a great way to show that there are other options besides going straight to college.”

Watch the College Panel video excerpt below:

By Patty DeViva - Started by junior Sarah Spillane, Sem’s Sign Language Club is one of the newest and most popular groups on campus. Sarah’s interest in sign language and the deaf started young. While attending elementary school in Minnesota, she made friends with deaf students who attended her school, and it made a lasting impression.

Sarah hopes that members of the club will learn sign language and perform at a fundraiser at the end of the year where students can sign their favorite song. Sarah hopes that funds raised from the event can fund a field trip to the Scranton School for the Deaf.

Watch the interview with Sarah, below: