Student of the Week - John Bianchi

Congratulations to John Bianchi, who was named Student of the Week at Wednesday's all-school meeting. John is a 12th grade Alpine athlete who comes to KMS from Hingham, MA. He was nominated for this award by math department chair Steve Tuckerman, who shared, "I would like to nominate John Bianchi. John has consistently done well in Pre-Calc and participates well in class."

English department chair Alex Crivici agreed, "I also would like to nominate John Bianchi. As his academic advisor and teacher, I talk to John a lot. The last few months John has been balancing his school work, athletics, and the stress of college applications quite gracefully. Over the last two years, John’s writing, ability to communicate in an academic setting, and overall maturity has grown drastically. I really enjoyed teaching and getting to know John, and I am positive that he will be successful in all of his future endeavors."

World Language Department co-chair Robert Cavanna added, "I would also like to nominate John. It has been a pleasure to work with him the past three years. He has matured both academically and personally.

"I have to agree with Steve and the others," commented World Languages department co-chair Claudia Revenko-Bowen, who continued, "I haven't taught John since eighth grade, but I can see how he has matured intellectually and personally. He is always willing to help, guide and mentor younger students and he definitely stands out as an example to others."

Social Studies Department Chair Courtney O'Keefe rounded out the nominations, adding, "I would like to also add my support for John Bianchi's nomination for Student of the Week this week. I have the pleasure to teaching John in my Introduction to Psychology course this year. John continues to impress me each class with his high level of engagement and interest in the topics we study. It is apparent that this course is one which John values, seeing it as more than a simple graduation credit requirement for social studies. To him, this course offers two main opportunities: the first being the means to understand both the human mind and human behavior more in a more in-depth way in order to better understand the world around him, and the second as a means to challenge himself as a growing scholar."

Courtney continued, "John actively participates in every class, often adding to whole class discussions as well as utilizing the opportunity to ask great, thought-provoking questions. There have been many times when these questions have benefited all in class, causing deeper exploration and discussions on such topics as learning, motivation, emotion, and personality. It is obvious whenever he contributes to any class conversation that he is always thinking of what we are learning, how it relates to his previous understandings of such topics, and how the new information he is learning impacts and enhances his current understanding of the world around him. His work is always of the highest quality, and is both polished and reflective. It is obvious that he lives by my course expectation of using his work to showcase his growing academic abilities, as a way to make himself proud of how he is growing as a young academic. There has never been a time when I have questioned John's effort of focus with regards to his work. It is apparent that with each assignment, he prioritizes his time and energies to create an awesome product of which he can be proud."

"Finally," Courtney shared, "John is highly respected and well-liked by his peers. He is a great addition to our class, as he gets along with everyone, myself included. He is friendly, helpful, and supportive. There have been times when he has reached out to others to see if they are okay, offering a friendly ear for support as well as a source of encouragement and unbiased opinions. I have also seen him take time to help fellow students, whether it be clarifying what we are learning in class with a private conversation before or after class as well helping someone understand the instructions of an assignment on Google Classroom. Overall, I can't think of a more deserving student for Student of the Week. Nice work, John. Be proud!"

Congratulations, John!