OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Loranger Middle School students learned about tolerance, relationship building and other cultures during the annual S.T.A.R. Day on Wednesday.
The annual S.T.A.R. Day focuses on four themes: Safety, tolerance, awareness and respect.
The day started with a presentation in the gymnasium with keynote speaker Barry Dana, former chief of the Penobscot Indian Nation. After Dana’s presentation, students broke out into groups by grade level and gathered together again in the gymnasium after lunch.
Fourth grade students made papier maché egg time capsules, which they filled with items and decorated to express their individuality. The eggs were to be put in a nest the students created with Dana as a gift to the school. The students will be able to open up these time capsules in four years.
The nest represents the school, which takes care of the children, who are represented by the eggs, said school clinical social worker Matt Michaud.
Fourth grade student Caitlin Perrigo said she put a string the length of her height in her egg, so that when she is in eighth grade, she can see how much she has grown, and a short letter to herself to read four years from now. The egg was designed with words and pictures that described her, such as a feather, which is a Native American symbol for strength, and words that included “kind” and “hope.” She also added a flower, she said, for “added pizzazz.”
Fourth grade student Ben Holt added the word “Harry” on his egg, as he is a Harry Potter fan. He said over the next four years, he may forget that he made the egg and it will be “cool to see it” in eighth grade.
Dana said school is a place where students learn their own potential and how to get along with each other, and like family and community, school is critical to a student’s growth before they spread their wings as adults.
Fifth grade students learned about good relationship skills and how to address social challenges, in a presentation by Patricia Mew and Tom Nash of Marti Stevens Interactive Improvisational Theater. Mew and Nash worked with a group of eight students to perform four skits for the rest of the fifth grade. The skits portrayed scenarios including a girl who was being excluded from a lunch table and two students who were being excluded from an athletic game. After the skit, students in the audience asked the actors, who answered in character, about the situation and why they acted the way they did. After the skits, students broke up into small groups and discussed solutions to the situations.
Fifth grade student Zach Hersom said he thought the presentation was fun. He said he learned to give people a chance and not to judge them.
Eighth grade students attended a presentation by Kieve Leadership School teachers, a follow-up to their week-long stay at the Camp Kieve Leadership School in Nobleboro in October. Seventh grade students listened to a presentation about the Holocaust by Jackie Littlefield, former educational coordinator for the Holocaust and Human Rights Center in Augusta, and listened to the stories of Holocaust survivors Charles Rotmil and Max Slabotsky. Sixth grade students listened to a presentation by martial artist and social worker Chuck Ngyuen, who spoke about his childhood in Vietnam and the topics of bullying, harassment and resilience.
— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.
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