By Ian Cho ‘26
Are you interested in building your own book? Do you want to produce an original 3-minute narrative film or learn how to produce stunning content for your social media? How about helping young athletes with and without intellectual disabilities participate in basketball tournaments? With the 2022-23 winter Saturday classes, you can explore diverse, inventive opportunities, ranging from media production to volunteer opportunities.
Unlike standard classes, the Saturday classes at St. Mark’s fully empower real-world experience. This means students will, as written in the ‘2022-2023 SM Saturday Course Guide’, “engage in interdisciplinary, hands-on, responsive learning.” For instance, instead of simply learning about issues around human migration, students will take the initiative and advocate for and volunteer at an organization. Through these classes, students will gain new perspectives and skills and develop leadership and confidence.
The classes will take place on just five Saturdays this season: January 7th, January 14th, January 28th, February 11th, and February 25th. They generally begin at 9:00 am after school meetings and end at 11:30 am.
A few weeks ago, students filled out a google form to rank their top five choices for their Saturday classes. Unfortunately, not everyone will get enrolled in their first-choice class. To stimulate and create an environment for quality and robust conversations, relationships, and collaboration, there is a limited and minimum number of slots available for each class.
During the fall Saturday class season, Third-formers and Sixth-formers took their core classes. Core classes are mandatory Saturday classes customized to fit the needs of students of different forms. The main objective behind core classes is to gradually learn our roles as global citizens and as part of the St. Mark’s community. This season, the Fifth-formers will take their ‘V Form College Core,’ and the Sixth-formers will take their ‘VI Form Lion Term Design Core.’
As students progress through their St. Mark’s career, it is important to think about what components make up their identity and who they want to be in college in the future. In the ‘V Form College Core’ class, students will start to establish skills and habits that will help them in the college application process.
In the ‘VI Form Lion Term Design Core’ class, Sixth-form students will plan for their 2023 Lion Term. The ‘2022-2023 SM Saturday Course Guide’ describes that “Together, the VI Form Winter Saturday and Lion Term provide a framework for students to chart their courses, capitalizing on their time at St. Mark’s while also possibly previewing future endeavors.”
Students participating in the Term Global Trip will register for a winter elective instead.
There are many exciting opportunities and experiences that await students in the winter Saturday class season! What will your next chapter for Saturday Classes look like?
To learn more about the upcoming Saturday class season, visit the course guide document.