Students sing for freedoms
Students of Edith Bowen Laboratory School celebrated being a “First Amendment School” by performing in a pageant Wednesday at 7 p.m.
“I am amazed with how well the students were able to portray our government, as well as memorize so many lines at such a young age,” Wellsville resident Amber Smith said while watching the program from the back row in the auditorium.
The seat overlooked attentive parents and fidgety children. Smith attended the program to see her 11-year-old brother, Stevie Tracy, perform as Friedrich Schiller.
Dorothy Dobson, who is now retired but taught at Edith Bowen for 22 years, is the director of the First Amendment school project at the elementary school. Dobson said she wrote the pageant with Deb Roghaar, a parent and mentor and Karen Steele, a teacher.
“The parents have been enthusiastic and wonderfully helpful. They did the costuming and were extremely helpful in assisting the kids to learn their lines,” Dobson said.
The students have been rehearsing since December.
“The Words Live On,” pageant entailed five scenes that demonstrated each of freedoms in the First Amendment. The five scenes: Religion, Expression, Press, Assembly and Petition featured historical figures played by students. James Madison was a one of the featured figures in the scenes.
“We chose James Madison because of his great influence in writing the Bill of Rights,” Roghaar said. Roghaar said Lady Liberty, another figure featured, personifies the opportunity for the free exercise of an American’s basic inalienable rights.
Other figures presented in the pageant by students were Sojourner Truth, Barbara Johns and Langston Hughes. In the “Freedom of Expression” scene, a slideshow of the students’ artwork were projected on a backdrop.
Dobson said the purpose of the pageant was to show how the First Amendment has been a part of the history of the United States.
Every student in the school was a part of the production. Roghaar said she hopes “every student will learn the importance of the First Amendment in their lives.”
“Our hope is that as the students learn about the five freedoms, they will learn how crucial it is that those freedoms are protected,” Roghaar said.
Other than families of students, more than 60 invitations were sent to local and state government leaders, Edith Bowen supporters and university faculty.
Edith Bowen is one of four elementary schools in the nation titled a First Amendment School. According to www.firstamendmentschools.org, the project’s initiative is to “transform how to teach and practice the rights and responsibilities of citizenship that frame civic life in our democracy.”
First Amendment schools are part of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center. Edith Bowen has been granted $12,000 per year since 2002 by the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C. The fund goes to supplies, resources, program, travel for training and honorarium, Dobson said.
Dobson said she thinks it is important for young kids to learn about the First Amendment because they have knowledge of it to build upon.
“We are helping to create active citizens who begin to think for the common good from a very young age,” Dobson said.
The First Amendment is taught in everything the school does: class meetings, discussions about picture books, learning about U.S. history. It is just a part of “what we do,” she said.
Principal Kaye Rhees said the program has been and effective learning tool that has allowed children to understand the concept of voicing their opinions.
“Being a First Amendment school has really helped our students apply the rights and principles taught in the First Amendment through different projects,” Rhees said.
Roghaar said she has notice students becoming more aware of their differences.
“I have seen children express their views openly and respectfully because they know they have a voice,” Roghaar said.
Dobson said, the performance was “incredible.”
“The kids dealt with being on stage with such maturity and poise – I was very proud of them,” Dobson said.
-doantn@cc.usu.edu