Ronan High School

Location
Ronan High School
Drawer 5
Ronan, MT 59864

Contact
Sandy Welch, Principal
Phone: 406-676-3390
E-mail: swelch@ronank12.edu
Web site: www.ronan.net/~rsd30/news.htm

New Life for an Old War: Even the Graffiti Suggest History Has Taken on New Meaning for Flathead Students

—By Maya Muir

When English teacher Christa Umphrey began a unit on World War II with her high school freshmen, her initial thought was how very long the next months would be. When she asked for questions about Pearl Harbor, the students came up with such insightful queries as, "Why did we bomb them?" and "What country is it in?" Many of her students couldn’t figure out why they should care about the war at all. To these kids growing up on the Flathead Indian Reservation at the turn of a new century, the war seemed awfully long ago and far away.

But by the time those freshmen had completed a semester-long project involving history, earth science, math, drama, band, and choir in addition to English, Umphrey found the perspective of those same kids transformed.

"When one of the four schools in our district was found a 'School in Need of Improvement,’ the superintendent mandated that all schools adopt a comprehensive whole-school reform model," says Ronan Principal Sandy Welch. "We chose a project-based model because the staff said that we’d get the same results if the teaching didn’t change. Project-based teaching was a real change."

Umphrey broke the ice by having her students look through a number of books on the war, followed by brainstorming questions. Then she took them to see the movie "Saving Private Ryan." Immediately, she sensed a breakthrough. Students were caught, curious. Umphrey followed with readings such as Elie Wiesel’s Night and John Hersey’s Hiroshima. The class examined war memorabilia at a museum and heard a woman talk about having been in the Resistance in Holland.

Then students interviewed local WWII veterans, bringing the war home in a new way. "My favorite project was my interview," says student Stacy Harris. "I got to know my grandma better and find out about World War II from someone who lived through it." Students wrote up these biographies. In art class, they drew portraits of their subjects from photographs.

In math, students studied the invention and use of radar. They researched the physical activity and caloric intake of a European soldier, a U.S. soldier, a Holocaust survivor, and a French farmer, then graphed their findings using Microsoft Excel. In earth sciences, the kids mapped Germany and Japan and studied their natural resources.

Midsemester, a drill instructor arrived in Ronan to put students through a simulated "boot camp." He taught drills and rudimentary first aid, and gave them a small dose of military history along with some MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). Even initially skeptical students enjoyed the experience.

At Christmas, the drama and choir classes collaborated in a wartime musical, I’ll Be Home for Christmas. The choir sang 1940s songs while the drama classes designed sets and costumes and took on the roles of a family from that era.

The culmination of the semester came in January with the presentation of a World War II open house in the high school gym. The room was filled with exhibits, computer-generated images of the war projected on the walls, and proud students ready to explain their particular project to anyone interested. "It was so nice to see all the elders’ faces when they saw everything we’d been working on," says freshman Krystle Slover. "They looked so happy." In one corner, Cathy Gillhouse’s choir put on a USO-style show, singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and other 1940s hits in front of the red, white, and blue.

Another high point of the open house was the band’s recital of "Dresden in Memoriam," a commemoration of the firebombing by Montana composer Dan Bukvich. A difficult piece under any conditions, it was a challenge for the Ronan band, starting with the piece’s nontraditional notation. But it intrigued students from the first time bandleader Jeff Long played them a recording of it. One student said, "Mr. Long, if we play this, the audience will cry." Long replied, "That’s the point of music." The kids rose to the occasion, perhaps inspired by a visit from the composer who came to work with them on the piece.

The unit was deemed such a success that it is being repeated this year with only minimal changes. Sandy Welch notes that through the project, teachers were able to engage many students who weren’t normally high achievers. For example, a perennially disgusted and uninvolved student of Umphrey’s arrived one day with a backpack full of material on the war gathered from family members, along with already-underlined Internet printouts. And Umphrey found herself laughing one day at some new graffiti on one of her already battered desks. A previously existing hole in the desk had been labeled "Hiroshima." "Maybe that student could even tell me where Hiroshima was," Umphrey observes, "or what country bombed it."