SPOKANE, Wash. — As we wrap up Teacher Appreciation Week, we want to take you to Sacajawea Middle School to show the responsibility and hard work displayed by students. If you want to engineer the best possible version of a middle school class, you need a variety of tools, but more importantly, you need a purpose.
Kimberly Taylor, a teacher from Sacajawea Middle School said, “Anybody that knows about teaching and learning, you have to set the why for them. Why is it so important that we are doing these things?”
In Mrs. Taylor’s 4th Grade class, it is normal to have several projects all going at once, all sharing the same purpose.
Right now, all of their efforts are focused toward the nonprofit Joya.
Eighth grader Sydney Banks said, “In the Advanced Engineering class, we get to help people.” She added, “ We are making wheelchairs and therapy toys for all the kids there.”
Eighth grader Justin Geffken said, “My group at least is working on a wheelchair to help a Joya kid has lesser mobility because of a birth deficiency.”
It isn’t just any wheelchair either. They are building a wheelchair with a Porsche seat attached to it!
Taylor said, “It’s a real community, they all help each other because they know they they’re really good at certain parts, but they are not so good at other parts.”
Because there’s no time to focus on drama or stare at a phone, they focus on something else.
When asked about why she started the program, Taylor said, “I started the program in the beginning to have kids take a focus off their lives. Because some of their lives were pretty tragic and use all that that energy and focus on someone else's life that's even more difficult, and it gives them a different perspective about what they can do and how they can change a path of somebody then they can also change the path of themselves.”
You know you’ve got a pretty special class when you’re in the period before lunch, the bell goes off and no one is rushing out the door. Those projects you saw will be presented to the children they’re being built for in June.
WATCH RELATED: A look at construction on the new Sacajawea Middle School (March 2022)