Minuteman High School to collaborate with Diamond Middle School on a unique new educational initiative

By Judy Bass

A group of Minuteman High School teachers and students will soon participate in a first-of-its-kind educational outreach project designed to enrich the learning experience of seventh graders at the William Diamond Middle School in Lexington. It will also demonstrate to them the value of career and technical education (CTE) like that offered at Minuteman.

In the first phase of this outreach, students from Diamond will enhance what they studied in their academic classes, including English, history and health, through a morning of hands-on activities and demonstrations provided by students and teachers from Minuteman. The two-pronged topic - understanding how the industrialization of farming impacts our food supply and knowing how to make healthy nutritional choices - is derived from two books the students have already read.

For the second phase, the middle school students will travel to Minuteman to visit two technical programs of their choice and to shadow Minuteman students to discover the usefulness of career and technical education. The goal is to show them how to “focus on what you like to do and what you do well,” as Minuteman Superintendent Dr. Edward A. Bouquillon often tells the high school students.

This project, months in the planning and crafted by teachers and administrators from each school, is scheduled to take place at Diamond and Minuteman on May 7 and June 1, respectively.

Minuteman is well-suited for a collaboration such as this. It is an award-winning regional high school that gives its graduates a competitive edge in the new global economy by providing them with a high-quality career and technical education, coupled with a rigorous grounding in mathematics, English, science, and social studies.

Minuteman offers a wide selection of academic courses and programs, including foreign languages (Spanish, French and Latin), art, Advanced Placement courses, and Girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). It also has a wide range of sports and does not charge any fees to participate. After graduation, more than 60% of the school’s graduates pursue college or advanced training.

“Minuteman High School is piloting a program that integrates experiential career and technical education into a middle school curriculum, with a little twist: It’s being done on both the [Diamond] and [Minuteman] campuses at two separate events,” explained Maryanne Ham, coordinator of middle school outreach from Minuteman.

The first, she said, is an expo where Minuteman is sending several career and technical teachers and about a dozen students to provide student-run demonstrations and experiential learning activities. The theme is based on two of Diamond Middle School’s reading selections, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan and “What the World Eats” by Faith D’Aluisio. Students will be engaged in extending their learning on the food supply as a result of industrialization on farming, and the cause and effect relationships between what we eat and the way we live.

The seventh graders will rotate through four nutrition-themed food stations set up in the Diamond Middle School cafeteria, staffed by Culinary Arts, Horticulture, and Hospitality junior and freshman students from Minuteman. They’ll give demonstrations and answer questions. The focuses of these stations, all of which depict aspects of healthy eating, will be From Farm to Table, Nutrient Density, Low-Fat Cooking Techniques, and Learning to Make a Low-Cal Cookie.

The second event, said Ham, titled “Discover Your Passion,” will be a Diamond field trip to Minuteman, where 88 seventh graders and nine teachers from will participate in two showcase events highlighting programs that align to individual interests. Students will be provided with a survey and the results of the survey will place them into two of the sixteen program majors offered at Minuteman to experience. The event will wrap up with a lunch that includes healthy choices prepared by Minuteman’s Culinary Arts students under the guidance of professional instructional chefs from Minuteman.

A key feature of this career-based exploration is a “scavenger hunt” requiring each Diamond Middle School student to find teachers and students who match certain descriptions. This is intended to get the seventh graders thinking more intently about what they do and see at Minuteman, and it also encourages them to interact with the teachers and students they meet.

To cite a few examples, the seventh graders are asked to pinpoint “a person who shares a similar career plan as you,” “a person who lives in your town, or a surrounding town close to yours,” and “a teacher who shared a career you may like to investigate more.”

Ham observed, “We hope the [Diamond Middle School] students will not only extend their learning…but also ignite a new motivation to learn as a result of learning about a career they want to investigate further and can see themselves doing.”

She pointed out that the program began with an idea developed by two Diamond Middle School teachers, Chair/History teacher Ed Dube and English teacher Diane Gallagher, who reached out to Minuteman. It has evolved into a program Minuteman hopes to expand to other middle schools based on academic themes that could be integrated with one or a combination of Minuteman’s 16 program majors.

Teachers and administrators from Minuteman involved with this program include Maryanne Ham, Interim Principal Jack Dillon, Interim Assistant Principal George Clement, Career and Technical Education Director Michelle Roche, Culinary Arts teacher Marty McElhinney, baking teacher Dan Charbonneau, Culinary Arts / Hospitality teacher Anita Currier, Hospitality teacher Patti Metcalf, and Horticulture teacher Sarah Ard.

Ham added, “The more outreach we do, the more knowledgeable people become about what career and technical education is.” In addition, the experience allows Minuteman students to display their leadership skills, be mentors and role models for younger students, “and show their excitement and how motivated they are to learn.”