My Step-Up Day at St. Andrew’s Upper School
By Max Domel '22
On October 25, my eighth grade class at the St. Andrew’s Middle School boarded buses to the St. Andrew’s Upper School for the grade’s annual “step-up day.” When we got there, lunch was being served and so we got to eat in the dining hall. Their cafeteria was a lot different from the Middle School one. After lunch, we were allowed to play games like tag and spikeball on the Nazro Green in the center of the campus. Then we followed the high schoolers into their big chapel and experienced what one of their chapel periods were like.
On October 25, my eighth grade class at the St. Andrew’s Middle School boarded buses to the St. Andrew’s Upper School for the grade’s annual “step-up day.” When we got there, lunch was being served and so we got to eat in the dining hall. Their cafeteria was a lot different from the Middle School one. After lunch, we were allowed to play games like tag and spikeball on the Nazro Green in the center of the campus. Then we followed the high schoolers into their big chapel and experienced what one of their chapel periods were like.
Once the regular students were dismissed, we followed ambassadors to our first class. My first class was English 11, which is the English class for juniors and is taught by Mr. (John) Works. As soon as I walked in the door, I was happily welcomed by Mr. Works and the juniors. He was surprised that any eighth-graders would want to come to a class for 11th graders. Besides me, one other eighth grade classmate visited English 11. They had already started reading a 3000 page book full of theses and epigraphs from famous writers including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They were also studying some of their famous quotes and what they meant. Overall, I had fun experiencing this class and hopefully if I come to the Upper School, I can take that course as soon as possible.
For step-up day, we only get to visit two classes, so after English I had a ninth and tenth grade Geometry class with Mr. (Vinh) Dang. This time, there were about four or five eighth-graders in my class. They were reviewing a previous discussion of Theorem 3-11 (the sum of three angles is 180 degrees). There are four corollaries for this theorem which each need at least five proofs to show how statements are true. Most of it seemed random and didn’t make sense, but after finishing my Algebra class this year, I could probably understand it better. Mr. Dang seemed like a cool teacher because he had a good sense of humor and told stories in the beginning of class.
Then we went with Mr. Mele (who used to work at the Middle School but now works at the Upper School), to the trail in the back of the campus near the woods. Soon there will be an outdoor student center there and he wanted to show us how they cleared the land and what it looks like now.
Before we entered our last activity of the day, we ate pizza near the Nazro Green. After dinner, we walked over to the DFAC, which is the big fine arts center in the back of the campus. On step-up day, the Middle School always sees the Upper School’s fall musical, which this year was Catch Me If You Can. The play is a musical version of the hit film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks about a teenager who escaped the FBI through his schemes to impersonate jobs for money. I thought that they did really well and that the whole performance was on point, technically and artistically. Following the end of the musical, we were picked up by our parents.
In conclusion, I enjoyed my step-up day at the St. Andrew’s Upper School and hope to relive that environment next year.
