Vespers Concert - Francis W. Parker December 2014

Every year, Francis Parker has an event called Vespers every year in December where the lower school, the middle school, and the upper school choir sing. This year, I went because my sister is in the upper school choir. I thought that it would be an incredibly boring event that I would try and sleep through. However, this year Vespers was actually much better than I remember it being when I was in it. Maybe it was because of the fact that I'm no longer in it. Regardless, I found that it was actually interesting this year.

Francis W. Parker FTC Robotics Tournament

The FTC Robotics tournament was in early December. Francis Parker has a robotics program in order to compete in First Robotics, which is a high school robotics program where students can compete in various tournaments around the country (US) using robots that they have built. If you want more information, you can find it here. FTC is the smaller of the high school programs, and we hosted a tournament for it. I acted as a volunteer, because we're not allowed to participate in our own tournaments. This was actually cool to see, because when you go to these tournaments, you don't realize how much work it takes behind the scenes to make it run. Being part of the people behind-the-scenes give you a new appreciation for how hard it is to run these tournaments. However, if there was one thing I would have done differently it would have been to start the entire event a bit later. Everyone appeared to be stressed, which I believe could have been avoided if the tournaments had been started an hour or so later.

<img src="12514.jpg" alt="Robotics Tournament" height="42" width="42">

Civic Engagement: The Good and The Bad

The first time we went to Alcott School in Chicago was in October. We went to a church, where we were split off into groups and brought to various areas. From then on, each group was introduced to their separate group leader. For my group, our leader appeared to be unprepared because it seemed that all the activities for decided on the spot. Many of the Alcott students in my group were also unwilling to do the activities for the majority of the time. This was surprising, because it seemed like the Alcott supervisors didn't take any action to try and bring their students into the activities. What could have made this experience better for me was if the group leader had taken time to prepare for the day, and if the Alcott students made some effort to include themselves in the activities. Overall, I feel that the day could have been spent better going to classes, because the day did not engage Parker students with students or even people from other communities as the program is intended to do.

TL;DR: Parker Sophomores went to Alcott School Chicago, the leader was unprepared, the Alcott students did not participate, the day could have been better spent going to classes.

NOTE: I was not able to participate in the second field day, as I was touring Princeton University in New Jersey.




Jordan Merrick