LYNN — A mouthful of new foods, exposure to different cultures, and a showcase of their latest academic projects highlighted Wednesday night’s Annual Night of Excellence at Breed Middle School.
The event celebrated students’ exemplary work in math, science, art, social studies and language arts. The presentations, spread all over the school, allowed prospective families to tour the building.
“It’s a showcase for incoming sixth-graders, but it’s also a way for us to display work that our students have done and a lot of them come in with their parents which gives them a chance to see what actually happens in the classroom and what we’ve been doing for projects,” said Krista LaForte, a seventh grade geography teacher.
Julie Louf, Breed Middle School principal for the past six years, started the showcase five years ago as an informal way for students to display their projects, for parents and teachers to communicate, and for future students to get to know the school.
“We invite fifth grade students who will be coming to Breed next year and have a presentation for them in the lecture hall about expectations and what it’s like to be in middle school,” said Louf.
One of the event’s main presentations was created in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month and was equipped with displays of art and food from a variety of Latin American cultures that make up much of the school’s student body.
“We have a lot of Hispanic heritages represented in the student body here like Guatemalans, a few Colombians, Salvadorans, Costa Ricans, Mexicans, Hondurans, and then I am one of the only ones here from Peru,” said Eva Ciudad, the school’s eighth grade Spanish teacher.
Ciudad decided to teach her students about Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday that celebrates and remembers the dead, which begins on Oct. 31 and ends on Nov. 2. It was the subject of the recent hit Disney movie, Coco. The local teacher went out of her way to buy more than 90 skulls that her students could decorate however they wanted and they did so over a period of four days.
“Hispanic Heritage Month is one of the most important because we celebrate people that are really relevant in our culture and who have given so many good things to the world,” she said.
Seventh-grader Mariela Corzo helped set up a few of the presentations. The young Guatemalan and Salvadoran student, whose favorite part of the night was trying all the different Hispanic foods, was honored to help her school set up for a presentation that shows her cultural pride.
“I want people to be able to explore other cultures instead of just their own,” she said.
