Clarke Central High School International Baccalaureate and gifted coordinator Larissa Jean speaks to students during the Personal Project Luncheon and Dessert Social on April 21 in the Media Center. The luncheon was held to honor those who successfully completed their IB Middle Years Program Personal Project. “You guys are definitely self-motivated people to complete a long-term project from beginning to end,” Jean said when addressing the students. “It also shows that you have excellent time management. These are skills that are transferrable now in high school and then beyond as well.” Photo by Zoe Peterson.
By ZOE PETERSON – Photography Editor
With a low turnout of International Baccalaureate personal projects turned in this year, Clarke Central High School teachers work to make it a more positive assignment for students in the future.
As part of an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program district, Clarke Central High School students are expected to complete an IB personal project when they reach their 10th grade year. Though there are over 300 students in the 2016-17 sophomore class, only 23 projects were turned in.
“To be honest, it was a little disappointing because I wanted a little bit more, but a lot of the students, when they realized it wasn’t going to affect their grade point average, just chose not to do it,” CCHS IB personal project coordinator Ammon Hammett-Bregger said.
According to Hammett-Bregger, completion of a personal project will appear on the student’s given transcript. If one does not complete the project it will also be on their transcript, shown as incomplete, but will not affect their GPA.
“You can say something is mandatory but if there’s no negative consequence or effect attached to it, then students think it’s (not) mandatory so ‘I don’t have to do it because I’m not gonna get in trouble,’ so there was no negative motivation,” Hammett-Bregger said.
In order to encourage more students to participate in the project, Hammett-Bregger aims to influence next year’s IB supervisor to implement a few new rules. While the decision is ultimately up to CCHS Principal Marie Yuran, Hammett-Bregger hopes his insight will be impactful.
“I hope the new IB coordinator and the new personal projects will do it more through 10th grade advisement,” Hammett-Bregger said. “My suggestion was to have it as a half-credit, so it would have an effect on GPA because I really believe in the project. I think it’s really worthwhile and the students benefit from it.”
CCHS IB and gifted coordinator Larissa Jean agrees that the personal projects have been extremely valuable to students who have finished them.
“Completion of the personal project really reveals several things about who you are as a global citizen,” Jean said. “It reflects that you are creative, passionate people. A lot of times when we enter these students in the past, they say that this was really the only time in their high school career that they could pursue something of interest that was not teacher-led.”
CCHS sophomore Sandra Barcenas completed the personal project this year and feels thankful for the chance to explore a topic close to her heart.
“My IB project was on trying to help animals in animal shelters get adopted since there’s so many of them in the animal shelter,” Barcenas said. “They either get euthanized if they’re not adopted within a week or two so it’s sad to have them in there with a cage and they don’t know what love is. Animals have a pretty big part in my heart so that’s why I made it such a big part of my IB project.”
Moving forward, Hammett-Bregger hopes that the negative connotation amongst students surrounding the personal projects will shift towards a more positive light.
“I really don’t like to use a negative motivator and I hope the person who comes into this role isn’t like ‘If you don’t do this, you’re gonna get a zero,’” Hammett-Bregger said. “I’d like to see it more like ‘If you do this, it’ll be a great experience for you and you can learn a lot of skills.’”
