News
Student projects benefit community, near and far
11/29/2010
Author: Bob Braley
Published by: News Sun
For four years, Central Noble High School students have been organizing projects to help the community, and even overseas, saying it was a project for "Mrs. Bitting's Film-Lit class." But why would students in a film and literature class work to help the community?
According to CNHS English and drama teacher Jane Bitting, it was because students in the classes of a few years ago consistently wanted to make a difference.
"The class is actually titled Social Issues in Film and Literature," Bitting said. "The class looks at social issues as they are handled in print form and in the hands of Hollywood.
"We discuss the Holocaust for the first six weeks of class and look at the variety of social issues that allowed this human atrocity to happen. We then look at other genocides throughout history and today to see if the same social issues are still at the root of the tragedy," Bitting said.
"During the second nine weeks of this class we focus on the social issues of racism and poverty in the United States. These issues seem to fuel much of the mainstream debate within this country," Bitting said.
"When I first started teaching this class, I asked students to research a social issue that they were interested in and then write a research paper on that issue. What I found was a group of students that spent time researching issues also became students that were asking what could be done to help these issues.
"When I saw that students genuinely cared about these issues, I changed the research paper into a service learning project," Bitting explained.
The service projects over the years have varied, Bitting said. "We have had meals cooked, cars washed, baked goods made, photos taken, T-shirts sold, money raised, clothing donated, time given and all to help better the community."
The biggest project ever is one of the 16 undertaken by students this year.
Emily Cole and three other Central Noble High School students left Nov. 20 for Tupungato, Argentina, where they will work in several local schools doing service projects and teaching English to the students. Cole, Sara Pounds, Matthew Pounds, Connor McCoy and two adult chaperons will make the trip. They will return today.
Because two of the schools are needy country schools, the group collected items to take to the children who attend them, including new or gently used shoes, sweatshirts, coats; various school supplies such as pens, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks and scissors; and hygiene items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste and hairbrushes.
Cole organized fundraising efforts to make the trip possible. It cost $1,600 per person.
Other projects this year include assisting LEAP of Noble County, donating books for children who can't afford them, raising money to help a church fix a structural problem, a coat drive, teaching children the responsibility of raising animals, a talent show to aid Pilot House and a children's health fair, which took place Saturday.
There were also sports activities, like three-on-three basketball for the Central Noble Food Pantry, a 5K run for the Steven Johnson's Syndrome Foundation and "Catching time with your kids - the bonding activity of fishing." One student worked with adaptive physical education for special needs students.
Two projects in previous years stand out to Bitting.
Brook Winebrenner, a 2009 CNHS graduate, wanted girls to understand that they didn't need to be so wrapped up in "boys" all of the time, Bitting recalled. In November 2008, she held "Girls Night Out." Brooke is now a sophomore at Purdue and she came back this month to hold her third annual "Girls Night Out."
"The point of these projects is to have this lasting effect on students and I think Brooke is a prime example of this," Bitting said.
Chris Vance, of the CNHS Class of 2010, held a video gaming tournament last year with the help of the National Guard to raise money and food for the food pantry. "Chris then felt the need to hold a second tournament in the spring of last year to help out the victims of the Haiti earthquake," Bitting said.
"These projects are never easy, but they are always rewarding," Bitting said.
That's even true if a project doesn't work out as well as the student hoped. One principle of the class is that it's OK to fail in an effort to help, and not all projects succeed, Bitting said. But things can be learned from failures as well as successes. Back to Top