‘Hidden Figures’ opens dialogue between students

by Betty White, service learning director

USN and Cameron students see Oscar-nominated film together.
Students in the USN Creative Writing class, a collaborative venture between sixth graders at Cameron College Prep and USN ninth graders, culminated their latest unit by attending a private screening of “Hidden Figures” on Thursday, Feb. 16. Encouraged by the sixth-grade team following its study, the ninth grade Writing and Service class designed preparatory lessons and materials to provide background understanding of the film. From the very outset, the high schoolers reveled in this undertaking.

“Yes, we have to take our class,” commented Ella Nordberg ’20. “The movie has so much in it: race issues, women’s rights, history, the space race.”

The class jumped into action, raising money through a bake sale, learning the historical background, and planning the class lessons.

Meanwhile, our USN sixth graders embarked on fundraising, which resulted in $700 toward the admission fee for 60 Cameron students. Each student also wrote an individual letter to a Cameron student commenting on some aspect of the movie. The sixth-grade team provided resource materials from their “Countdown Interdisciplinary Unit” to assist USN ninth graders in their preparation.

“We’ve taught it together for three years now, and it gets better every year,” said Greg O’Loughlin, sixth grade English teacher. “The last couple of years we’ve been very lucky with timely current events, such as Cuba and Russia. The countless ‘aha’ moments from students as we slowly roll out the cross-class connections are invigorating.”

As we reflected on the film this week at Cameron, students agreed “Hidden Figures” is a must-see for everyone.

Elizabeth Phelps, our co-teacher at Cameron, said, “This was such a wonderful event; it was truly an educational and inspirational experience.”

Neveah, a Cameron student, commented, “I learned that people did super hard work by hand that required mathematics.”

Another student stated, “Katherine was really smart and she didn’t let anything stop her.”

Jessica added, “Katherine was working hard, but people didn’t notice it.”
  
The writing and service class is a USN High School academic elective, open to ninth graders, which focuses on assisting students in the development of their own writing skills while mentoring sixth graders at Cameron. In this service learning class, ninth graders plan and implement lessons based on recommendations from the teachers at Cameron. The collaborative partnership is the key feature which has made this class so popular for 10 years.
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