Sophomore Timothy Breuer was well underway on improving his jumping abilities. He had been on a rigorous diet and exercise routine for over three weeks when he encountered a sudden obstacle.
As his family prepared for their annual trip to their home country of Paraguay, Breuer realised just how difficult it would be to maintain his routine and remain away from the comfort foods and sugary treats that are so characteristic of family reunions. “It was hard, because I didn’t get to eat any sweets, and I found it difficult to keep exercising,” Breuer recalled.
However, this issue was only one of a plethora of difficulties that Breuer and other sophomores would face in their attempt to complete their Grade 10 Personal Projects.
This academic year, the WIS administration began requiring that students make a connection between their projects and a global issue. Sophomore Alise Leiboff, who undertook an internship with the International Rescue Committee agreed with this requirement, saying “it allows you to connect your project to something important.”
WIS librarian Sonali Kumar played a critical role in the organization of this year’s Grade 10 projects and shared Leiboff’s opinion, asserting that, “it asks students to think about their project in a larger perspective.”
In stark contrast, Franco Savastano, who designed and set up a website that served as a hub for DC-area charity events, said that the new requirement restricts creativity. He complained that he “found [himself] thinking more about how to connect a project to a global issue, than [he] did actually thinking about what [he] personally wanted to do”, which had been one of the perks of the project in previous years. As Alexandra Richardson, a senior at WIS puts it, “When I was in tenth grade the point of the tenth grade project was that we were supposed to explore something we were passionate about, and I think forcing a global connection into it, suddenly it becomes less of what you’re interested in and more of whatever a global citizen is supposed to be.”
WIS 10th grader Joanna Bui agreed, claiming that global issues have no place in the project, because “it’s a personal project, not a global project. You don’t actually end up doing what you wanted to do.”
Jim Reese, this year’s 10th grade project coordinator, argued that the connection to a global issue has always been a component of the 10th grade project, conceding only that it has been “more explicit this year than in the past.”
The current tenth grade project is an adaptation of the International Baccalaureate MYP program’s project, otherwise known as the ‘Personal Project’. One of these modifications was the new requirement of a global connection. “One of the things that has developed over the last three years, especially with Robert Spezzano’s input has been this idea of making a connection between the students interests and the larger world,” Reese said.
Whether the inclusion of a connection to a global issue as a requirement was suitable for WIS is still open for debate; however, it inarguably marks a significant shift in the 10th Grade Personal Project, for better or worse.
By Andrew Richardson and Tomas Medina-Mora
