Point of View
This article was written by Ms. Miller, one of Pine Creek’s Digital Learning Coaches and Certified Teacher-Librarian.
The Idea
At a time when parents and students often expressed grief caused by things they felt had been taken away from them as they approached Graduation, the Pine Creek Library staff continuously brainstormed around the question, What can we do? (Repeat x 1,000). Having run the Richmond Marathon several times as well as the New York Marathon, I remembered that both races had a name wall containing the name of every runner who participated in the race. At the New York Marathon there were actually enough names that the event planners created a separate display for almost every letter of the alphabet!
With this in mind, I thought – What about a name wall to celebrate the graduating class? Each student in a graduating class shapes the Pine Creek Community in a way that’s just irreplaceable. My thinking was that each student’s name would be written on the wall in-full (first, middle, and last) to symbolize their individual journey, as unique as their name, and their accomplishments. But then all names would then be combined and displayed as a single unit (i.e. a wall) to symbolize the success of the entire class and the communities that supported them.
A Learning Opportunity
There was only one snag with this idea: none of the Library staff, a creative three-member team, had formal training in Graphic Design. This meant that if a banner were to be designed and printed for the first time, not only would we have to learn how to use the tools necessary to do it, but we would have to do so within roughly a month and a half.
Well, we'll give it a go, I thought.
When we started the process, we knew we needed to create a design to be printed 10 feet tall by 25 feet long, but were unclear as to what we wanted the design to look like and didn’t always know what questions to ask, so it made it tricky to seek help. In the Spring of 2021, the first time a banner was created, teachers and students were still engaged in synchronous learning* which limited the opportunity the Library staff and I had to reach out to experts within the building for assistance.
The Struggle
A particularly low point in the creation process came just as we were nearing the deadline to submit the project to be printed. The team had created the design for the banner and was trying to fine-tune its details when the school desktop the team was working on crashed. We shifted to trying to use my school laptop since it was newer than the desktop, but my school laptop also crashed. Then we thought the design file might respond better in the Cloud, but quickly discovered the design wouldn’t open in the Cloud. At this point we decided to test the problem on a personal device and a different wifi. So, I went home and tried to open the file on my personal laptop, a small, refurbished Mac. My personal laptop crashed. I then tried to open the file in the Cloud on my home wifi, but encountered the same error I'd had at school. Finally, remembering that the public Library had Makerspaces with equipment that was "designed for this stuff," I decided to reserve a desktop at Library 21C. The end result: another crashed computer. At that point it was glaringly apparent that we had not fully understood the limitations of the tool we had selected and in not knowing these limitations had selected the wrong tool for the job.
(Insert HUGE sigh.)
A Time to Persevere
I gave my team points for optimism and persistence in the first round, and then we started the process over again using a different tool. The design was successfully completed and submitted half way through Spring Break and, with the help of the custodial staff, the banner was successfully displayed for the Senior Celebration** in April of 2021.
Unexpected Outcomes
When it came time for the Capping Ceremony for the Class of 2022, the first that had been held since the Class of 2019, the school asked the Library staff to create a celebratory banner once again. In addition to the Class of 2021, we've created a banner to celebrate the Class of 2022 and the Class of 2023 as well.
“It’s always very well received,” Senior Capping Ceremony Event Coordinator, Pam Krzeczowski said of the Class banner. “Every year I get at least one parent who calls and asks, Can we bring Grandma by to take a picture with ____ (insert student name) in front of the banner? "
And so what began as a single attempt to communicate to a graduating class that they had not been forgotten, became part of Senior Season. The design each year is different, but the sentiment behind it is the same.
Things to Remember
Sometimes the things you are most looking forward to (traditions of Senior Season, Graduation, life…) don’t play out exactly like you’d envisioned in your mind. In those moments, look around you. Something new may be happening. Perhaps there you will find unexpected joy.
Go, Eagles!
*About Synchronous Learning: For high school students, synchronous learning on a hybrid schedule was an instructional method employed during the 2020-2021 school year whereby half of the students in a given class attended school in-person while the other half of the class remained at home, attending via Microsoft Teams. The teacher, while wearing a face mask, simultaneously guided both the in-person group and the synchronous group of students through the activities and lessons for the day. All students who attended in-person also wore face masks.
In order to determine when a student would attend in-person and when they'd attend from home, the entire student body was assigned to either Group A or Group B. Group A attended the first two days of a given week in-person while Group B attended synchronously from home, every Wednesday both groups attended from home, and the last two days of the week Group B attended in-person while Group A attended from home. Then, repeat. Families were also given the option for their student to attend synchronously from home 100% of the time.
**About Senior Celebration 2021: Due to health concerns associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic, there was not a formal, in-person Senior Capping Ceremony for the Class of 2020 or the Class of 2021. Instead, Pine Creek was excited to be able to offer a Senior Celebration in April of 2021 which featured the inaugural Class banner, a visit from the Josh & John's Ice Cream Truck, a photographer who took individual student photos that were later assembled to create the Class of 2021 Panoramic Picture, and pickup of Graduation cap & gown, yard signs, memory boards, Senior T-shirts, and Pine Creek-themed party supplies created by the Library staff exclusively for the Class of 2021.
