Clubs ‘sacred time’ at MP Middle School Students engage in over 30 clubs for the first time for 2018-19 school year

Mt. Pleasant Middle School students in animal club are preparing to host an adoption fair at the middle school later this year.

During club time on Friday, Jan. 11, the sixth, seventh and eighth-graders were on the phone with Paws and More Animal Shelter in Washington, making plans for how they will transport dogs and cats to the middle school, how they will spread the word about the adoption fair and what they can do to raise money for the shelter in the meantime.

'There's a lot of animals in the world. I just want to help them,” said Summer Carver, an eighth-grader in Animal Club at Mt. Pleasant Middle School.

The animal club is just one of over 30 new clubs at the middle school that is doing big things after launching for the 2018-19 school year.

Twice a month on Fridays from 1:45 to 3:20 p.m., all students at the middle school can be found volunteering, cooking, playing sports, engaging in board games, crafting and learning more about their favorite hobbies.

Clubs are not graded. They are not a time for students to worry about whether they are succeeding or failing. If a student is failing a class or behaving poorly, club time will never be taken away from them as punishment.

'This is sacred time,” said Adam Smith, exercise science teacher at the middle school. 'This time is so important for everyone. Those kids who don't like school, who fail classes, we want to connect with them in a club. They need a reason to smile at school.”

When teachers began planning for clubs for the first time for the 2018-2019 school year, one of the premises was to give students something to come back for on Monday. Because of the clubs, students are thriving, said instructional coach Brittany Roberts.

The idea to bring clubs to the middle school came out of a book study teachers participated in over the summer. During the book study, teachers learned about the importance of students being in the right 'head space” to learn.

Clubs seemed like a good way to connect teachers to students and students to each other as they engaged in something they are passionate about.

Clubs like the Gilmore Givers - named for the teacher of their club Julie Gilmore - visit senior living homes and organize other volunteer activities in the community. The fishing club plans on taking a trip to go fishing once the weather warms up. Students in the sports/8-man football club play football outside in the snow.

Three clubs meet at Cottrell Gym at 310 E. Madison Street in Mt. Pleasant since there is not enough space in the middle school's gymnasium for everyone.

During club time on Friday, Jan. 11, Victoria Wilson, a sixth-grader in social media club, walked around the middle school looking for the Theatre Club to profile them for the MPMS Highlights Facebook page.

Wilson, along with other members in the social media club, interviews students about clubs, take pictures and posts them to Facebook and Instagram. She even has her own Mt. Pleasant Middle School press pass approved by Principal Nate Lange.

'It's not just posting pictures,” Wilson said. 'We post weekly and inform the public about what we're doing.”

'I like that it gives us a break from our everyday life and gives us time to interact with other students from other grades,” said Anneliese Sallee, a sixth-grader in social media club. 'I love that we got to kind of pick which club we could join and it is just a really fun experience.”

Owen Vansickel, an eighth-grader in the pickleball club, said he and his fellow students look forward to going to school more because of clubs.

Vansickel enjoys pickleball club because it teaches students good sportsmanship, he said. Teams have to learn how to communicate with each other, 'pump each other up,” and give each other advice, he said. Vansickel said he also enjoys getting to be a good role model for the younger students in pickleball club.

Seventh-grader Coleman Mowery, also in pickleball club, said he is becoming a better pickleball player by playing with classmates who have more experience than he does. Mowery said clubs are a safe space - no one is going to make fun of anyone else for messing up a play.

'They can give you good advice,” Mowery said. 'They're good role models and people to look up to. It's good to have older friends.”

Jema Settles, an eighth-grader in theatre club, has been in performances her entire life, including performing with Mt. Pleasant Community Theatre last year.

Settles said club time is always fun because instead of just going home and scrolling through social media, she gets to spend some extra time with friends and learn more about something she loves.

The theatre club differs from other performing arts activities Settles has participated in the past because it's focused on learning skills such as improvisation, opening up to the audience and enunciation.

Theatre club isn't just for students who want to perform, Settles said. They focus on what happens behind the scenes, too, like creating backdrops, doing makeup for the actors and audio.

Clubs were organized by students submitting their ideas for what kind of clubs they would be interested in. Teachers then compiled those into a list and students selected their top choices for what club they wanted to join.

A group of teachers stayed after school on a Friday for four and a half hours to do their best to get students into the clubs they wanted to be in, Roberts said.

'We tried our hardest to get kids where they wanted to go,” Smith said.

Smith said sometimes when he gets asked by students whether there are clubs on Friday and he tells them there's an early out, they're disappointed.

'It makes me smile when kids would rather be in clubs than get out of school,” Smith said.

Smith said that the middle school as a whole is 'without a doubt” stronger this year. Whether or not that's because of the clubs he couldn't say for sure.

'When we made these clubs, we didn't know what some would evolve into. They took directions we didn't expect,” Smith said. 'We saw these like-minded kids together come up with something productive.”