Gifted Middle School Students Present Social Action Projects

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Students enrolled in Parkside Middle School’s Gifted Program in Manassas presented their social action projects to classmates and special guests on Friday and Monday afternoons.

Oscar Night Award Ceremony PMS Gifted Teacher John Nicholas presents an award to one of his students.

It was the program’s first annual “Oscar Night,” which was led by John Nicholas, the gifted teacher at PMS.

Throughout the course of six sessions—three on both Friday and Monday—120 gifted students from sixth to eight grade presented their projects.

The projects ranged everywhere from building homes for honeybees to selling handmade jewelry to help certain organizations. Although gifted students at PMS have been carrying out the projects for five years, this was the first time the presentations have had an Oscar theme.

“It just so happens that I got myself in trouble,” he said. “I kept saying, ‘well your social action projects need to be Oscar worthy.’”

Nicholas’ students took his words literally and suggested that their final presentations should be Oscar-themed. To help with this atmosphere, Nicholas interviewed each of his students as they walked into the classroom on a red carpet.

One of the presenters was sixth-grader Jolonnie Reed. Her project was developed and inspired by her mother’s Lupus and involved making bracelets to raise money for the disease.

“I thought that it would be cool to sell bracelets and donate the money to the foundation,” she said. “I’m glad that I tried to help someone.”

According to Nicholas, the social action projects are designed to help the gifted students learn and help others.

“This is not a project where in most of their classes they are assigned and the teacher keeps on them the whole time,” he said. “They were responsible for everything.”

Oscar Night Red Carpet Nicholas interviews one of his gifted students on the Oscar Night red carpet.

Unlike some schools in Prince William County, the Gifted Program at PMS is in the form of an actual class, in which students use creative and critical thinking skills. Nicholas teaches his students these skills with the acronym FFOE—fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.

“It’s sort of like special education in the other direction,” Nicholas said. “These kids are cognitively deemed extremely intelligent.”

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