New Tech students recreate historic era

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The 46-year period from the end of World War II in 1945 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was one of the most significant periods in modern history, a period known worldwide as The Cold War that includes the Sinews of Peace” speech of then-British prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1946 — in which he first used the term “iron curtain” to refer to the Soviet Union and its satellite nations — to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

It’s also the time period that freshmen New Tech students at Van Wert High School used in making dynamic presentations that were featured Friday in the high school gymnasium.

The Cold War period encompasses a number of historic events, including the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Europe following World War II, the Berlin Blockade and airlift, the civil rights movement and integration efforts, the Korean Conflict, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War and anti-war protests, the Space Race, the Iranian hostage crisis, the nuclear arms race and the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Those decades also featured a number of notable personalities, from black leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, to feminist Gloria Steinem, farm union organizer Cesar Chavez, Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, Senator Joseph McCarthy and U-2 pilot Gary Powers, who was shot down by the Russians in a prelude to what evolved into the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The period also includes the terms of nine U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman to George Herbert Walker Bush, as well as the tenures of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Mikael Gorbachev and the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

Since the New Tech program centers on project-based education and the use of technology, it is appropriate that the school year end with a project that encompasses some of the most significant historical events and people of the 20th century.

New Tech incorporates the use of technology (all 130 VWHS freshmen students have laptop computers) and team projects in the educational process. Chris Covey, an English teacher and New Tech coordinator, has said the process better prepares students for higher education and the business world, since team projects are a staple of both business and college, while also improving students’ ability to remember what they have learned.

Not only did students create dynamic and sometimes interactive presentations that incorporated posters, as well as computer-generated content, but many also wore clothes that were appropriate to the subject matter of their project. Vietnam War presenters were in camouflage fatigues, the Black Panther project team wore black clothes and berets and those presenting on the Vietnam protests dressed as hippies.

In addition to Covey, New Tech teachers Jennifer Trittschuh, George Scott and Myrna Hamrick were also on hand to evaluate the students’ projects.

In addition to completing a project, freshmen also learned from each other, as the New Tech students also had the opportunity to check out other students’ projects, as did current eighth-graders at Van Wert Middle School, who will be involved in the New Tech program next year as freshmen.

This year’s freshmen will continue in the program as sophomores, and, eventually, all four high school grades will be involved in the program. Plans are also being formulated to extend project-based education into the middle school and possibly even to fifth-grade students, because of the program’s ability to promote critical thinking and problem solving and to assist students in better retaining what they have learned.