If you’re in AP® Psychology at MICDS, you don’t have to go very far to observe many of the topics from class in action. This month, our Upper School psychology students immersed themselves in the learning environments of our Beasley Lower School students to better understand certain concepts from their course. “The academic purpose of the Beasley visits is to observe developmental psychology concepts in real-time and through real-world experiences. It’s a way to make the textbook reading come alive,” explains Upper School History Teacher Diane Gioia. “Another major reason we collaborate is to take a break from the daily routine of our AP® Psychology classes and just have fun learning.”
For this collaboration, three sections of Gioia’s students went to the Junior Kindergarten, Senior Kindergarten, and second-grade music classes of Lower School Music Teacher Dr. Katy Nichols. The Lower School students were preparing for Grandparents and Special Friends Day, so together, the Lower and Upper Schoolers learned songs, gestures, and choreography. They practiced body percussion, flag waving, and rhythmic exercises to the new songs while having a lot of fun.
“Our youngest musicians had a fantastic time making music with the psychology students this past week,” Dr. Nichols said. “Each psychology student paired up with a Lower School student to create music throughout the class. The Upper School students participated enthusiastically and supported the Senior Kindergarten students who were memorizing lyrics, learning choreography, and practicing speaking parts for their upcoming spring performances. The Senior Kindergarten students demonstrated how to properly approach the instruments, showed resting positions with their mallets, and indicated when to play their instrument parts for the psychology students. Smiles and joy were plentiful as the Lower School students taught the Upper School students how to play one of their favorite singing games, Apple Tree, while also working on maintaining the beat and rhythm of the song. Everyone, including the high school students, wanted to receive a music hand stamp on the way out the door. It was delightful to make music together!”
Another group of students visited the classes of our two Senior Kindergarten Homeroom Teachers Kelly Hummel and Stacie Schneider. The psychology students observed the morning routines in both classes and assisted with math lessons for the day. In the math lessons, the Upper Schoolers observed the SK students counting up and down.
“The SK students are always a little shy when the older students come in, but once things get going, they have so much fun,” said Schneider. “By the end, they don’t want them to leave. It is so nice to see the Upper School students engaged with the SKers by playing games, working on activity sheets, and helping out however they can. It is always a great time when they come to visit!”
Several of the Upper School students shared some of their takeaways, highlights, and favorite moments from observing and collaborating with the Beasley students:
“Throughout the Beasley visits, I learned the importance of helping young children stick to a routine by seeing how the kids knew what they needed to do before the teacher said anything,” said CeCe Harris ’25. “My favorite part of the whole experience was getting to spend time doing something different and participating in the class with the kids. It was super fun to get to go down to Beasley and connect with the kids.”
Riley Crawford ’25 said, “One thing we learned was the constant positive reinforcement, which we learned about in AP Psychology, but seeing it with such an adolescent group and the positive impact it had on their involvement and participation in the class was really cool. We also saw the role of classical conditioning, when Dr. Nichols did the hand motion, all the students knew it was time to stand up and it was really nice to see. Also, performing their disco songs and dance routines to match was so exciting because you could tell the kids were so excited to be a part of the class and sing with the big kids visiting from high school. It was genuinely the cutest experience ever, and I went into the rest of the day with so much serotonin.”
“Through the Beasley student visits, I learned about the stages of child development and saw a real-life example of them,” said Oscar Sun ’26. “My favorite part of this collaboration was meeting and interacting with the kids because they were nice and energetic. One of the highlights of the experience was when Ms. Gioia asked the kids to guess her age and the guesses varied from 20 to 99 years old. I thought that was hilarious!”
Rose Sabalvaro ’26 said, “I learned how important it is for younger kids to see good behavior be modeled and how important it is for good behavior to be reinforced. It was really cool to see how good the kids were at following instructions and following along with rhythm and beats. I think it’s easy to underestimate younger kids, but they really are capable of an impressive capacity of understanding and learning. I personally love spending time with kids, and I also love music, so it was just really fun for me to get to spend the afternoon with the second graders and see them enjoy music class. I think the Beasley visit was a really great way for the psych students to apply and learn our developmental unit, and Ms. Gioia made a really good decision to organize the collaboration.”
“The Beasley visits are the highlight of the year for our students,” adds Gioia. “As soon as they set foot in the door of Beasley, every single student was smiling and looking at the student work that was proudly displayed in the halls. It’s impossible to keep from smiling when you see and hear the energy in the classrooms. Every year we talk about how much the little kids enjoy being with the big kids, but I have a feeling the big kids enjoy it even more. It reminds them that just trying and being “wrong” is ok and even fun at times. It reminds them that learning is challenging regardless of the age level, that positive reinforcement and encouragement are a constant in the Beasley classrooms, and learning can be super fun.”
Thank you for bringing such fascinating developmental psychology concepts to life for the Upper Schoolers by just being yourselves, Beasley students!