It's Demystification Season!

Each student is demystified in her first year at Purnell. This sounds scary but it's not!  Demystification means that one faculty member gathers lots of data from teachers, parents, and the student to understand the student’s strengths, affinities, and weaknesses.  This faculty member develops learning strategies for that student. The student is presented information about her strengths during a 30-minute meeting so the student understands how she can be her best self.  After the meeting, her teachers and the rest of the Purnell community help her strengthen those strengths and affinities while addressing weaknesses. Understanding how your strengths can help you helps each student maximize her success in school and in life. Purnell's 9th graders would like to share with you some of what they learned in their demystification, and how they can use it to strengthen themselves.    

Ariel 

I learned that my best strength is that I don’t give up and I work to the best of my ability.  I also learned how to better complete my homework by writing my assignments in my planner so I can plan my homework time more wisely.

Emily

I learned that my best strength is visual learning.  I can use my visual strengths when reading by using post-it notes to annotate and watch movies to help me better understand what I read.

Nalah

I learned that my best strengths are my visual learning and my musical intelligence.  I can sing songs and draw diagrams and pictures to help me learn and study for tests.

Kadrea

I learned that my most important strength is my linguistic intelligence.  I’m a good reader and languages come easily to me.  I have a harder time reading charts and maps, so it’s important for me to talk through my learning.

Esmé

I learned that my most important strength is my ability to be a leader.  I’ll be finding leadership programs of camps to participate in this summer, and I’ll join Ms. Malik’s leadership activity for the next school year.

Lucy

I learned that my most important strength is my creativity.  I learned that I should choose to incorporate art into my school projects and assessments.

Minjoo

I learned that my most important strength is my higher order cognition, especially in science and math.  I should use my higher order cognition to help me improve with my English by starting a blog or writing in a journal.

Devin

I learned my most important strength is my musical intelligence.  I can use music to help me relax and focus.  It can also help me learn concepts and study for tests if I put my learning into short songs.

Huan

I learned my most important strength is my musical intelligence.  I should use music to help me relax, and I should continue to develop my musical skills so I can pursue it as a career in the future.

 

Amira

I learned that my most important strength is my interpersonal skills.  I should use my social skills to help me continue to pursue acting, and to work in groups as much as possible.

Hanna

I learned that my most important strength is my ability to communicate with others while speaking.  I can strengthen my reading comprehension by color coding my annotations and using the post-it note vocabulary strategy.

Emma

I learned that writing is my most important strength. I can explain my feelings and describe them well when writing.  I can use my strength in writing by journaling more often and making sure I brainstorm before completing assignments.

Alison I learned that my best strength is singing.  I can use that strength to help me memorize vocabulary, learn in class, or to study for a test.