Student of the Week - May 24, 2017

Congratulations to Bastian Blaafalk who was named Student of the Week at this week's all-school meeting. Bastian is an 11th grade Alpine athlete who comes to KMS from Denmark. He was nominated for this award by Science Department Chair Terri Isidro who shared her thoughts, "Bastian consistently shows up to class prepared with his assignments ready. As the school year winds down, he has continued to challenge himself to keep up with this complex course despite heavy duty training sessions and some recent travel. But the most notable growth I have seen in Bastian this year is his positive attitude when it comes to difficult science vocabulary terms. It isn't easy learning a vocabulary-intensive subject like Biology when English is your second language, but Bastian has been successful and always gives his best effort--especially in recent weeks!" Math Department Chair Steve Tuckerman echoed Terri's comments, saying "Bastian is doing very well in my class, understands the concept of probability." History Department Chair Courtney O'Keefe weighed in as well, "I would also like to nominate Bastian for Student of the Week this week. Bastian is one of the hardest working students in my Cultural Anthropology course this year. He started the year off strong, immediately impressing me at the start as he was one of the first individuals to begin turning in work and navigating successfully our new Google Classroom courses. Throughout the year, Bastian has continued to impress me with his determination and positive attitude. He has stepped up throughout the year and challenged himself to improve with each assignment. It is apparent that he is interested in Cultural Anthropology by his work and classroom participation, which fuels his motivation and his improving work quality. He takes everything in stride- from complicated vocabulary to strange and new anthropological abstract concepts and ideas. He works hard to understand everything that we learn as well as reflect on his own cultural values and norms and how they might impact how he views and understands others from different cultures. I have seen him become a more culturally aware and open minded individual as the year has progressed. He is also a positive force in the classroom. He always comes in with a smile and asks how my day is going and how my weekend went. I have enjoyed talking about his home country. He gets along great with his peers, which always makes class interesting. Overall, Bastian is a definite nominee worthy of this recognition. Way to go!" Nice work, Bastian!