Beginning next year, The Benjamin Middle School will offer new computer science classes for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
For the sixth grade, Mr. Nicholas Crisafi, educational technology department chair, will teach a mandatory class – Digital Tools and Citizenship – which all students will take for one quarter, rotating through the course much like the fine arts wheel.

For the seventh and eighth graders, the program will be added into their curriculum through various disciplines. For example, the entire seventh grade will take Coding for the Web, a class that will teach them the basics of HTML (hyper text markup language) coding, as part of their history classes. Seventh-grade history teachers Mr. Charles Hagy and Mr. Marshall Mullnix will be trained by Crisafi, and then teach their students. science curriculum.

The regular eighth-grade science classes will have computer programming part of their curriculum as whomever takes Mr. Sanders place will teach students how to use Scratch, a drag-and-drop computer program that will allow students to create animation and program LEGO Mindstorm creations. The advanced SEAT (Science, Engineering, Analysis and Technology) students will be introduced to computer science during the first semester, which will allow them to fulfill their upper school computer science requirement while still in middle school.
Hagy, who is also head of the Middle School, thinks that these additions will be greatly beneficial to TBS students.

“I spend administratively a lot of time on social media, digital footprints,” explained Hagy. “Those are very important issues to me as well as the physical effects that can occur when students are online too much, so the presentations with students and parents has developed into the curriculum for the sixth graders. Also, we move toward a more focused STEM and engineering approach in our science classes. Our whole mission has always been to prepare students for life, for the world they are going to enter and make a difference in when they leave Benjamin and college. Looking at the type of world [students] are going to be entering, these are the skills [students] are going to need,” said Hagy.

While Mr. Crisafi will only be teaching the sixth-grade course, he will help oversee the entire program, along with Science Department Chair Ms. Gabriele St. Martin.
“I think it’s important that students have these classes in middle school so we can bridge the gap between the coding and computer instruction that is introduced in the Lower School, and the more advanced courses offered by Mr. [Patrick] Cullinane in the Upper School,” said Crisafi.

Some of Benjamin’s middle schools are technofiles, and are excited to begin these new classes. “I believe that every student deserves to be educated in computer science and that this is a great opportunity for scholars,” said seventh grader Madeline Hart. “Computer science and technology are subjects that I find interesting. I definitely think it is necessary, and [believe that] this is a fantastic idea. I can’t wait to take these classes!”

Other students are not so technologically inclined, but are still looking forward to the opportunity. “I think that [the classes] will be a great addition to TBS,” said fellow seventh grader Brooke Hayes. “I really don’t know that much about technology, but I am willing to learn, and I am very excited for the new classes.”

Although this year’s crop of sixth graders will miss out on the DIgital Tool and Citizenship class, they feel the course is a good idea for up-and-coming sixth graders. “I think people doing inappropriate things on the Internet is more of a problem in our grade, so the idea of a digital footprint and citizenship class is good for us,” said current sixth grader Ignas Berciunas. “I am very excited that they are adding a coding class [in seventh grade] because I love coding in general.”

TBS, which prides itself on preparing students for college and beyond, is now all in with its new middle school computer science program. Next year students will be learning best practices for online behavior, how to create web pages, and how to program the vehicles they engineer. They will be building upon the skills they received in Lower School and receiving preparation for the computer science and engineering programs waiting for them in the Upper School.