Last spring, GIS graduated our first 8th grade class. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to sit down with a few of them to learn how well GIS prepared them for the rigors of high school. Do they feel academically prepared? Was it hard to move from such a small school to a big high school? I started with Oliver, a freshman at Sunset High School, which has about 1,500 students. I was curious how well he felt GIS prepared him for the transition.
Academically, Oliver says things are going really well. His literature and composition classes and his history class are easy compared to what he’s used to, and much of the math is review, so he was placed in a higher-level course. He’s in advanced classes now. And those strengths have become the way he meets people. Oliver was enthusiastic when he told me that kids want to sit next to him because he knows what’s going on, and they ask him for help all the time. He doesn’t give answers, but he uses those moments to turn classmates into friends.
That didn’t happen right away. The social part was a struggle at first, and he sat alone for his first few lunches. What helped was building relationships in his classes, because shared coursework gives you something to talk about. He looks for people who make their own choices and don’t just follow the group. Now he’s met people, and it’s funny, he says, because they know people in common, and it all turned out fine. It also helped that he’d come to understand something new about high school: you’re not with the same kids all day anymore. There are little communities in different classes, and he had to learn to handle that many different relationships. Coming from a small school was both good and hard. The size of high school was a shock, but his classes at GIS were great, and he got a lot of support. That translated into confidence and capability in high school. In his words, he says has the skills he needs to be successful.
Oliver said that high school is also a lot of work. The workload is the hard part. There’s much more homework, and clubs and extracurriculars go on top of it. His planner helps, but he still struggles to manage it sometimes. He prioritizes, but he’s still learning to manage his time. He told me he once studied twelve hours for a math test, and a kid who studied just two hours a day all week did better. He learned from that: you need to pace yourself!
He’s glad for what he learned at GIS. In particular, Oliver appreciated his LENS class. LENS (Life Essentials and Navigational Skills) is a unique class at GIS that builds students’ life skills for personal and academic success. It covers things like self-advocacy, time management, emergency preparedness, public transportation, digital citizenship, stress management, and craftsmanship. From that class, Oliver reflected on the importance of learning how to use a planner and how to handle money: earning, planning, spending, saving, interest rates, and organizing accounts. He found it really helpful and built his confidence. Frau Prince told him he had to advocate for himself more, and so he did. In a big school, you have to get used to raising your hand, and he felt prepared for that. He sees kids who don’t ask for help. Teachers are there, he says, but you have to speak up. If he could change one thing, he’d have GIS spend even more time on topics covered in LENS. Because being organized, both materials and time, is key.
His advice to current 8th graders is to do the foundation work. He learned that from basketball: it’s not the showy skills you practice, it’s the basics. If you have things like organization down, you won’t be surprised by the workload. There will just be more of it. You can have two tests in one day, and if you stumble, you pick yourself up and try again.
He also says to sign up for as many clubs as you can. Some won’t fit your schedule and you’ll have to drop them, but people in clubs share your interests, so you connect right away. It makes a big school feel smaller.
Finally, Oliver says to put your health above your grades. Eat well, get rest, and pace yourself! Thanks, Oliver—we miss you at GIS and we are glad and proud you are thriving in high school
