Vista Grande High School invites Taos residents to special event Dec. 22
Vista Grande High School would like to invite the Taos community to our fall 2016 “Celebration of Learning” Dec. 22 at 5 p.m. We have much to celebrate this year with the news of our recharter and many new extracurricular clubs. Vista is feeling the momentum and will be opening our school to anyone who would like to see the great work going on right here in Taos!
The Celebration of Learning is a biannual event that showcases student work and expeditions that occur during the semester. This year, we will present student exhibitions and fieldwork, two published chapbooks, a chess club, drama club, website, flash mob performance and more.
Our semester’s expedition work was solid and full of fieldwork. The students traveled to the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, Wild Rivers Recreation Area in Cerro, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe and other locations to gain an understanding of each unique expedition.
Presented at the event will be examples of student work and final products. Ninth-grade students will debut a website created for Taos teens to serve as a field guide for local youth. It will include activities to do indoors and outdoors, self-help links and be specifically catered to the lifestyle of Taos.
The 10th-graders will be showing a video of a flash mob mannequin challenge they pulled off at the Dec. 2 lighting of the Christmas tree in the Plaza. This performance piece was an expedition product for art and activism to bring love and peace in the darker times of the Christmas season.
The 11th-grade students will show their fact-checking video for a “Bias in the Media” expedition. They have been studying Cold War politics this semester and have done much fieldwork in this area. They will also be sharing a published journal from their creative writing class, which is available on amazon.com under “House of Gold.”
Lastly, the 12th-grade class will present a published journal currently being distributed on amazon.com. It’s called “Minds Like Diamonds,” which is a compilation of individual stories of success, both fiction and non-fiction.
In addition to all the hard work on expeditions, Vista has created new clubs for students to show their strengths in extracurricular activities. First, we are very proud of our dramatic arts class, The Vista Grande Players. They performed a modern version of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” adapted by L. Don Swartz at the Metta Theatre recently. This was the first live theater performance in Vista’s 10 years!
Vista has also formed a competitive chess club. We had our first tournament at West Las Vegas High School, where we fared well against other high schools. In addition, Vista has an exciting off-road biking club that has been on many trips in the area, including rides down into the Río Grande Gorge.
Staff members at Vista Grande have also been doing expedition work of our own, and we are proud to be implementing a new EQ (emotional quotient) curriculum on SRT (social responsibility training). We are thankful to Barbara (Shanti) and Yale Jones, who have donated the workshop and individual workbooks to each student for the next semester. We would like to thank Lane Lancaster, creator of SRT, for the knowledge he shared with us at our seminar. This curriculum is based on skills for life success and we all look forward to its implementation!
The Celebration of Learning is a showcase of the extraordinary work done by our students. It is open to the public and free. Light refreshments will be served.
Vista Grande is located at 213 Paseo del Cañón East.
Miceli is a language arts teacher at Vista Grande.
