How in the world can symbolism be found in a dumbbell, a broken clay pot, or a bed? The class of 2025 can tell you.

Once again, in coordination with the study of August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson, this year‘s eighth-graders did presentations on their own symbolic objects. In the play, the family piano tells the story of their family’s history. It symbolizes their ancestors, their legacy, and how they must come to terms with the past in order to move into the present.

Eighth graders looked at objects in their own lives and found an incredible amount of symbolic meaning in them. All last week, each cohort listened to the stories and physical descriptions of a vast variety of interesting object choices and engaged in some deep thinking about what they meant on another level.

During these presentations, our students express themselves effectively in front of an audience and take impressive intellectual and emotional risks. Their fine work with these objects reminds us that each of us brings something unique and valuable to our community.