"to whom much is given, much is expected." week 4

Everything is seriously going by way too quickly. Week 4 is coming to a close, and here's a brief look at what all went on this week.

Monday:
Every Monday morning, as you know, we have our Ethics and Leadership case introduction. This week our case study was about education. To kick off our case study, we discussed Social Contract Theory and the veil of ignorance with Noah. He then asked us several questions about our ideal school (while we were under the veil of ignorance of course). After that Heather presented a detailed powerpoint about the different education divisons - public, charter, and private. I'm really excited for this case study because it relates directly to us! It's a hugeeeee part of our lives.  Today we also had a very interesting speaker in math and spanish class. Maylen likes to find various spanish speaking people to come speak to us so we can expand our knowledge of the language. We met with Tony Seba, a professor at Stanford. He talked to us about his work in clean energy/solar energy. He talked about the same thing when our math class met with him. Today was also one of those days when we go out to lunch. I went to Firehook, a bakery and cafe, with Winson, Jorge, and Teddy. Firehook is yummy and we get a 20% discount with our student id's.

Tuesday:
Tuesday was pretty much a regular school day. Yay school!

Wednesday:
This week was another one of those crazy weeks where the schedule gets flipped around. Instead of having E&L, we had a regular day of school. It was another one of those out for lunch days. I went to Smoothie King/Subway with Will, Everett, Trevor, Teddy, and Aaron. We also have a new staff member! His name is Stephen, and he just graduated from WashU. He's our new food coordinator and he's really cool!

Thursday:
Today, we had E&L in the morning and regular school in the afternoon. We met with Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug-Free Schools. He provided a lot of insight about education and reform. This week's case study has been very interesting. We also had another Arabic lesson and we learned a lot of new words. It's really hard to learn, it's such a fascinating language. Also, I went to dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house. It was really great to see my cousins and family for the first time since I've been in DC. We watched the olympics and just chilled. It was nice.

Friday:
Today was legit E&L class. We visited a think tank called Education Sector to meet with Kristen Amundson. She had a wealth of knowledge about school systems from her many years serving on the Fairfax county school boad.  After that we were all allowed to go out to lunch. I went to this little indian restaurant called Naan and Beyond with Kyra and Winson and then we went to Robek's. In the afternoon we did school visits to see how different types of schools work. We visited Sidwell Friends to get the private school outlook and then we visited Thurgood Marshall Academy to get the charter school point of view. Both schools were amazing! After dinner we went on a special field trip to Good Stuff Eatery, which is Chef Spike from Top Chef's restaurant. I had one of the best milk shakes that I had had in a long time.

Today, we are going to see a play called Permanent Collections. It should be really good! I'm excited!

Yupp. This is my home now! I don't want to leave. Everything is going by way too quickly.