Seniors Get A Taste Of The Future

By Andrew Rote

Seniors at Newtown High School pioneered in the reinstitution of the senior project/mentorship with presentations on their work in the program on Wednesday night, January 12.

The senior projects gave students the opportunity to choose a potential future occupation and learn more about it with hands-on experiences.  Mentors assisted seniors in their studies.

The night opened with Superintendent of Schools John Reed and instructors Allison Zmuda and Jeanetta Miller expressing their gratitude for the students’ hard work. Presenters for the night included Daisha Manfredonia, Amanda Cruz, Meghan Rajczewski, Amichai  Kilchevsky, Colleen Glaser, and Allison Pennucci.  They each explained their projects and how they benefited by them.

The celebration began with Daisha Manfredonia. She explored communication with hearing impaired children.  In order to communicate with Kyle, a five-year-old child, she had to learn sign language.  He had undergone a cochlear implant.

One of the ways Daisha taught Kyle how to speak was through a board game she created called “Capturing the Candy Monster.”  She expressed the impact that the project had on her own life.  She mentioned how amazing it was to watch Kyle improve from small words to five-syllable words.

Toward the end of her presentation, Daisha explained, “[The project] helped me with finding what I want to do in life.”  She especially loved the challenge and said she was happy she was a participant in this course.

Once Daisha finished, Amanda Cruz presented her experience with photography.  She had a showing featuring her work in the Booth Library on Sunday, January 8.  Amanda confided about how touched she was by people (at the exhibit) who approached her to tell her how much the pictures meant to them.

Amanda also told the audience that the pictures taught her about herself.  She said that she did not want to take a picture that would be boring after a few seconds.  She wanted people to look at her pictures a new way every day. Amanda explained that she began “working on the project with a blindfold on,” but after she got into the experience she started to find herself in the pictures.

“[Through the project] I learned so much about myself that I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” she told the audience.

After Amanda stepped down, Meghan Rajczewski presented her project on the leading cause of death in dogs and cats.  According to her research, cancer is the cause of most dogs’ and cats’ death. Meghan had been interested in animals since she was young.

After watching a man find out that his dog had been diagnosed with cancer, Meghan decided she wanted to make a difference. She found that old age is not the major cause of death in canines and stated she wanted to keep families and pets together longer.

Meghan seemed to have learned a lot through the project. She mentioned she had no idea about cancer before she started. She also found exactly what she wanted to do for her future.

Ami Kilchevsky presented a project on Israel and Palestine. He wanted to find out why negotiators had a tough time making agreements. For his presentation, Ami displayed a video of a simulated debate. He organized a classroom into two groups and explained the characteristics each must take on.  He said the project taught him to recognize that there are always two sides to a story.

Colleen Glaser was next to discuss her experience with kindergartners. She went to Middle Gate to help teach a class. She watched as students improved from knowing the alphabet to putting together sentences. Glaser explained that she learned that she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. She constructed a Web site of activities she used for her presentation.

The final presentation of the night was poetry by Allison Pennucci. She created a book of poetry and read a few examples to the audience. Her poems were about life and death, getting the inspiration for her works while visiting patients at Ashlar of Newtown. Some of her pieces were written from other people’s point of view.

At the end of each presentation, the seniors presented their mentors with certificates to show their appreciation. Six other seniors were scheduled to present their projects the next night, but a snow day postponed their presentations until this past Tuesday night.

The mentorship program is back at the high school after several years on hiatus. Senior Project Director Peggy Ragaini said this week that the mentorship program is being blended into the senior project, so that next year there will be only the senior project available to students. In the past, the mentorship program involved an application process, as opposed to the senior project, which is now open to all students.

The seniors were required to spend a minimum of 20 hours with their mentors. In addition to this time, they had to check in with their course instructors biweekly. Keeping logs was another part of the commitment the students made. Students spent an average of about 85 hours on the project.

 The students had freedom within their projects, but they had to keep their experiences thought provoking and meaningful to them.

The senior project was an honors course, where self-exploration and motivation were necessary. The main idea of the program was to benefit the students. However, it also created a liaison between the school and the community.

The course proved to be a success. It gave the students the opportunity to study areas of interest to them and get a feel for what life is like outside of the classroom.

“It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” described Allison Pennucci of her challenging visits with patients. Allison was glad she took part in the senior project. “[The course gave me a chance] to design a project that’s perfect to me,” she said.

(Andrew Rote is a sophomore journalism student at Newtown High School. He writes regularly about sports and technology for the school’s paper, The Hawkeye.)