Our Secondary Science Classroom Innovator is Michelle Obama!
Every year our teachers and students name their classroom after a favourite innovator. It is a fun strategy Kingsgate uses to inspire learning and innovation in our classrooms!
Michelle Obama is a lawyer and writer who was the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She is the wife of the 44th U.S. president, Barack Obama. As first lady, Michelle focused her attention on social issues such as poverty, healthy living and education. Her 2018 memoir, Becoming, discusses the experiences that shaped her, from her childhood in Chicago to her years living in the White House.
Raised with an emphasis on education, both Michelle and her brother learned to read at home by age four. Both skipped the second grade. By the sixth grade, Michelle was taking classes in her school’s gifted program, where she learned French and completed accelerated courses in biology.
Michelle went on to attend Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, the city’s first magnet high school for gifted children, where, among other activities, she served as the student government treasurer. In 1981, she graduated from the school as class salutatorian.
As first lady of the United States, Michelle focused her attention on issues such as the support of military families, helping working women balance career and family and encouraging national service.
Volunteering
During the first year of the Obama presidency, Michelle and Barack volunteered at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in the Washington, D.C. area. Michelle also made appearances at public schools, stressing the importance of education and volunteer work.
Organic Food
Ever conscious of her family’s diet and health, Michelle supported the organic-food movement, instructing the White House kitchens to prepare organic food for guests and her family.
In March 2009, Michelle worked with 23 fifth graders from a local school in Washington D.C. to plant an 1,100-square-foot garden of fresh vegetables and install beehives on the South Lawn of the White House. She also put efforts to fight childhood obesity near the top of her agenda.
College and Law School
Following in her older brother’s footsteps, Michelle attended Princeton University, graduating cum laude in 1985 with a B.A. in Sociology. She went on to study law at Harvard Law School, where she took part in demonstrations calling for the enrollment and hiring of more minority students and professors. She was awarded her J.D. in 1988.
Healthy Living Initiatives
Michelle remained committed throughout her time as first lady to her health-and-wellness causes. In 2012, she announced a new fitness program for kids as part of her Let’s Move initiative. Along with the U.S. Olympic team and other sports organizations, she worked to get young people to try out a new sport or activity.
“This year, 1.7 million young people will be participating in Olympic and Paralympic sports in their communities — many of them for the very first time. And that is so important, because sometimes all it takes is that first lesson, or clinic, or class to get a child excited about a new sport,” she said in a statement.
Putting her message in print, Michelle released a book as part of her mission to promote healthy eating. American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America (2012) explores her own experience creating a vegetable garden as well as the work of community gardens elsewhere.
Our Year Science Classroom was named “Michelle Obama” in her honour!
Ms Tasha Wong and the children are very inspired by her!
Would you like to learn more about Michelle Obama?