December 8 and 9, 2010, I returned to Nampa High School to evaluate Senior Project Presentations, as I have continued to do since retirement.
Earlier this semester, in correspondence with colleagues at NHS, I was asked how the Senior Project began. That was a long time ago, but I scratched my head, consulted some old notes and correspondence, and came up with the following history, which I believe to be pretty accurate.
Nampa High School does not claim to have invented the Senior Project, but I believe that we were the first in the valley if not in the state of Idaho, starting in 1990 or thereabouts. Since then, it has been constantly refined and improved, but no fundamental changes have been necessary.
I am aware of one project that considerably predates ours. It was initiated in 1973 at Woodlands High School in New York as Woodlands Individualized Student Experienced. When one of the founders, Vic Leviatin retired in 1991, he and a colleague went proprietary and formed WISE Services, a firm which, for a fee, helps schools set up their own senior projects. I met Mr. Leviatin at a High Schools That Work conference in Atlanta. We discussed Senior Projects at some length. Project WISE projects are in many ways remarkably like ours, in other ways, primarily credit structure and governance, are remarkably different. In a 2001 memo, I noted these differences as follows:
Victor Leviatin, president of WISE Services, a private non-profit consulting firm, stresses the necessity for a governing board, task force, co-coordinating committee, project team, or whatever you wish to call it. The board should consist of teachers, administrator(s), students, and supportive parents. Leviatin says a governing board is important because
§ The project needs to involve the whole school. It needs to be interdepartmental. It needs to be part of the school.
§ Teachers, administration, students, and parents are all stakeholders. All involved parties need to have ownership.
§ If ownership of the project is limited to one department or one person, sooner or later those key people will leave or simply burn out on the project, and the project will languish and die.
I feel it necessary that we do this. It should be formed this year and should have charge of next year’s project. [This never happened and may or may not represent a lost opportunity.]
The WISE project seems to be a separate, elective course of more than one credit. It may, for example, meet both Language Arts and Social Studies requirements. But in most places, it seems to be integrated into one or more existing courses, required of everyone, much as we do it here. http://www.wiseservices.org/about_us/about_us.html
Nampa High School’s Senior Project was inspired by a similar project at Ashland High School, Ashland, Oregon. They had been doing a project for about a year, having picked up the idea from Medford High School. Where Medford got the idea, or if they invented it independently, I can’t say. In early 1989(?), a group of Ashland teachers visited NHS, for what reason I forget. They mentioned their project, it aroused our curiosity, and we discussed it at length. We continued to discuss it in the days and weeks after. The general consensus was that it would be complicated, and we should start planning for the following year. Peggy Grant, however, jumped right in with less than a semester to go, and brought it off. NHS had a senior project. At this time, my main assignment was Junior English, so I can’t take credit for being one of the founders….
I would like to share some reflections on what I heard and saw at HSTW 2001 in Atlanta. Most of this has to do with Senior Project, since I made that my conference theme. But some of these have implications for the program beyond the project itself.
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Most senior projects I encountered at HSTW were very similar to ours in concept and execution. They were talking about things that we had been doing for years. I feel that we have long been leaders, and with minor exceptions, we are still way ahead of just about everybody else.
Only the vocational and trade schools, because of their tight focus, differed much. These projects tend to be demonstrations of skills acquired in the shop.
All seem to have pretty much the same component parts: A research paper, some kind of field or hands-on component, a journal, and a presentation. Particulars may vary. Research papers vary in minimum length from 5-25 pages. Journal expectations range from a basic log to some pretty ambitious journaling. Presentations (some schools call them demonstrations) range from 10-45 minutes. We seem to be pretty typical.
Duration can be one semester, one year, or, in one case, Tri-County Regional, Vocational Technical High School, three years, culminating the senior year. At first, we confined it to second semester. Starting in 2001, we planned to have everybody committed to a project by the end of first quarter, have the research paper done second quarter, and have the culmination in April, has it had been before. Since I retired in 2007, the Project has come to be confined to first semester, for various reasons, not all of which I agree with. If we expect really ambitious, quality projects, I think we must give further thought to time for the student to do his project.
Please see the NHS Senior Project Handbook, 2006-2007 in From the Files. This is the most recent I have, from the last year I taught the Project. I am sure that it has changed in detail in the intervening four years, although it is my impression that it has not changed greatly in its main provisions.