Maya McFadden Photo
Edgewood students sing with Thabisa Rich.
The Edgewood Free Birds took flight on stage, dancing and singing about their dreams for love, peace, and liberty for all.
That was the scene during Edgewood Creative Thinking through STEAM Magnet School’s most recent school-wide town meeting. Students at the quarterly gathering to present the work they’ve done this past marking period as part of the school’s ECHO program, which began three years ago under Principal Nicholas Perrone as a response to the social-emotional challenges of the pandemic.
Since then, students have participated every week in a range of enrichment activities, relationship building exercises, and celebrations of student talents and interests. Many programs are staff-led while others have guest artists teach students new skills.
Past K‑8 programming included graphic novel making, guitar lessons, yoga, chess, kayaking, and babysitting training.
Each quarter, the school invites a new guest artist to work with a grade level and put together an end-of-quarter project to show off what they’ve learned.
This quarter, third grade students worked with musician and arts organizer Thabisa Rich (who also lives near the school).
Wednesday’s town meeting was emceed by student senate leaders Ja’Mese Hunter, Andreus Locke, and Jonah Ssemwezi.
Thabisa Rich, who goes by her first name alone when performing and has worked with Edgewood in the past, hosted a class of third graders this quarter. With a theme of love, peace, and liberty, the South African-born recording artist taught them about different genres of music and prepared them to present a live concert performance at the quarterly gathering, which was held Wednesday.
“Love, peace, and liberty are things we all deserve and need no matter how old we are,” Thabisa said.
The class sang “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” by Nina Simone.
Click here and here to watch the students perform alongside Thabisa.
To close out the Wednesday celebration of student work, Thabisa sang to the crowd of students, staff, and parents, bringing students out their seats to join her on the dance floor.
Performance art teacher Danica Hawkins also worked as a guest artist with a group of fourth graders this quarter to teach them about theatre.
During the end of the showcase, the students held up signs reading phrases like “always build kindness,” “stay positive,” and “be the best you possible” while crossing the stage.
They each shared their dreams to be future engineers, animators, animal activists, meteorologists, soccer coaches, police officers, electricians, athletes, YouTubers, veterinarians, circus performers, lawyers, restauranteurs, chefs, doctors, and teachers.
Other ECHO classes that showcased their work included the presentation of two science fair projects by fifth graders. One project asked the question, “Does color influence taste?”
The other investigated which shape is the strongest. Fifth grader Mateo Lopez Stevens and his science partner tested three shapes: a triangle, rectangle, and circle. Lopez Stevens said the project idea stemmed from his interest in being an architect one day.
The students used construction paper to craft the three shapes and then tested their strength in person at Wednesday’s showcase with cement blocks.
On Wednesday and during the students’ three trials, the circle proved to be the strongest by holding five bricks.
Fifth graders Eliana Bontly and Mateo Lopez Stevens who worked with Ms. Bianca Fiondella and Sarah Clarke on their science fair projects during ECHO choice time.