Laying Down The Law

Story and photo by Marcus Barbour

At Blow Pierce Junior Academy, “Laying Down The Law” was the 8th grade theme for the first quarter. Our English and Science  teachers created lesson plans that are evolving with our theme “Laying Down The Law”. The eighth-grade English class is participating by reading a novel written by William Golding, who was a literature and philosophy teacher. Shortly after that he joined the Royal Navy. Finally, he wrote the amazing novel that we're reading “Lord of the Flies”.This theme connects the classroom to the world and real life situations.

The novel is about a group of boys who are being evacuated because of World War II. While on the plane, they were in a crash that landed them on an island. 48 boys lost and confused, without any “parents” had to learn to survive on their own. Laying Down the Law supports our reading of the novel because the boys created their society and rules to govern themselves until rescued. The author’s purpose is to show readers how there can be evil in everybody whether you know it or not.

Our science teacher is bringing our attention to "Laying Down The Law" by teaching us forces and motion. That means she is teaching us about Newton's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd laws of motion. His first law was that “every object in a state of uniform motion tends to  remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it”. The second law which is the acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables - the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. Newton’s third  law of motion states that “a force is a push or a pull that acts upon an object as the results of its interaction with another object.”

This theme is valuable to the 8th-grade students and teachers. This theme doesn't only apply to our school, it is applied in everyday life. Laying down the law is seen everywhere; from schools to jobs, and all over the world. Laying down the law is everywhere because without rules and laws, our society as we know it would force everyone to be evil in order to survive.

Marcus Barbour is an eighth grade student at Friendship Blow Pierce Academy.