Known for making history come alive for her lucky students, Caroline Pew, 6th grade social studies teacher at South Orange Middle School added a new provocative event to her infamous line-up this year—Spy Day! Inspired by students’ incredible interest in the world of spies while studying the Cold War, Ms. Pew and her 6th graders decided to become spies themselves and spend a day working collaboratively while trying to solve an international crisis.
Dressed as Cold War Era spies with dark glasses and magnifying glasses, Pew’s 6th grade students were given their very own spy credentials (whether CIA, MI-5, or KGB) and each team had to proceed from classroom to classroom around the middle school, collecting clues from teacher “handlers” while trying to decipher a launch code to prevent the deadly, devastating detonation that would follow.
It was an amazing experience for the students and their teacher. “It was such a fun and exciting activity to see students working together so well and drawing upon content knowledge to gather the clues needed to solve their crisis,” said Pew. “I also was entertained at how well my colleagues played their “handler” roles! Some were very mysterious! Thank you Team 6A for being so fabulous.”
