Students at the Mahar Regional High School are working to make real-life differences outside the classroom.
A new class developed by teachers John Speak and Lauren Cerillo, called Senior Honors Project, is allowing students to create solutions to problems they see in their own communities right here in Orange.
“What better way to test real life things than to make progressive change in our communities and further,” said Cerillo.
The new course is a part of a push at Mahar to bring more innovative educational practices to its classrooms. Principal Scott Hemlin said the school wants to challenge traditional models of education.
“Data shows we are at a time and place where we need to look at how education occurs and become more personalized,” he said.
Back in March, four teachers from Mahar, along with Hemlin and 40 other educators from Massachusetts, traveled to California for three days to visit multiple different schools that focus on personalized learning and innovative methods to teaching. The trip was funded by the Barr Foundation.
“We really saw some great opportunities to create connections between students and teachers in a more meaningful way,” said Speak.
The school developed an Innovation Team to oversee the development of new programs. Members of the team recently won a $15,000 grant from Mass IDEAS, an initiative from Next Generation Learning Challenges at the nonprofit EDUCAUSE.
The money will help implement the programs, such as expanding the Seniors Honors Project, said Hemlin.
“The funds will be used to further the school’s effort to redesign the student transcript in order to break from the simple list of courses and grades and more effectively communicate to universities and colleges the genuine achievements of our students,” said Superintendent Tari Thomas.
During the school visits in California, Hemlin said they saw a lot of interesting work being done that could be brought to Mahar. These include restructuring of schedules and strengthening advising programs.
In order to branch outside the four walls of a classroom, Speak said students need to be learning how to solve problems. And that is what the students in Mahar’s Senior Honors Project have been doing all year.
“The kids were basically given the universe to research. Anything that drove their interest they could spend the better half of a quarter diving into … with the end goal of coming up with some way to make their topic of area better,” said Cerillo.
Some problems the students originally tackled were technology addiction, sexual violence on college campuses, the heroin epidemic and accessibility to sanitary supplies for women in schools, said Speak. The students then wrote a 20-page paper and presented their research to the class. After, the students voted to develop two projects. Cerillo said this is where a lot of learning came in.
“The kids had to walk away from an entire quarter of their own research and their own passion,” said Cerillo. “It was a lesson in growing up real fast for them. They had to take this hit, suffer disappointment and then regroup quickly like we have to do in the real world.”
One group created a running club for Orange elementary schools students at Dexter Park to get kids more active. Speak said though the club is a project within a class, the senior’s work has real life consequences in the community.
“There are real world consequences if they don’t do their stuff. There is a real opportunity for failure. We think there needs to be meaning in order for a kid to pick up and start moving on their own,” said Speak.
During the process of problem solving, Cerillo said the kids were using skills they’ve learned throughout their education.
“They are using skills they’ve accumulated over the past 12 years in public education. We are looking at statistics, we are penning letters, we are looking at public relations — they are really on their own,” she said.
Both teachers saw the course develop quickly into a success.
“These kids are empowered to do their own thing, they don’t feel like they have to wait for permission anymore,” said Speak.
The other group ran a competition between local schools to see who could reduce the most waste in their cafeterias. Originally, the group wanted to eliminate polystyrene from Mahar’s cafeteria, but Speak said after talking with experts and people at the school, they had to adapt their plans.
“They had to switch to a new thing, yet they still had just as much momentum,” he said.
Both teachers saw the course develop quickly into a success.
“These kids are empowered to do their own thing, they don’t feel like they have to wait for permission anymore,” said Speak.
The Seniors Honors Project is just the beginning for a larger initiative Mahar is formulating to give more opportunity to students outside of the traditional educational model. By the 2019-20 school year, Hemlin said Mahar aims to create two parallel tracks for students: one being the traditional educational model, while the other is more personalized. As of now the Mahar Innovation Team is calling the project the School of Applied Research.
“We are going to have bumps but we plan to figure them out along the way,” said Hemlin. “However, the School Committee will have to vote on the overall program and the name next year.”
Hemlin said the program will move away from being confided to classrooms, starting and stopping at a bell and solely changing from subject to subject. He hopes to nurture students’ curiosities and interests by allowing them to develop skills that will further each individual students’ goals.
Speak said students will be able to take the skills they’ve learned at Mahar and use them to solve messy problems in the future.
“We are giving these students courage to say, ‘I can do this, I have ideas worth while,’” he said.