Students celebrate the best of
humanity by finding My Hero

Morinville Notre Dame Elementary school is full of heroes. In a two week undertaking that grouped the gr. 1-5 students according to interest, the students took part in the international My Hero project to celebrate the best of humanity and to empower young people to realize their own potential to effect positive change in the world.

“It takes a real team effort,” said principal Greg Lamer, to coordinate such an event, which coincided with Education Week.

While teacher Billie-Jo Grant’s grade four students have been participating in the project for the past three years, this is the first time the whole school has worked together on it. In cross-curricular and cross-grade groups, students were grouped according to their chosen category and required to produce a piece of writing and a piece of art about their hero.

Max McGrath (gr.4) and Chays Hall (gr. 2) display their seedlings, solar-powered cars and an upcycled object at Notre Dame Elementary school's celebration of heroes on May 2. Both of the Morinville students chose to learn about eco-friendly earth keeper heroes, with McGrath saying "I like paleontology and stuff about the dinosaurs and the earth."

The categories were mostly chosen by the teachers facilitating the groups, “building on their strengths and interests”. For example, Grant’s family volunteers with the Humane Animal Rescue Team and fosters for them so Grant led the animal heroes group. Other categories included sports heroes, young heroes, dance heroes, artistic heroes, freedom heroes, literary heroes, musical heroes and military heroes.

The project kicked off with an assembly and then the work began. The students had various guest speakers as they worked through the My Hero project, including dance troupe Fly Girlz, the Edmonton Humane Society, the Morinville Museum and Edmonton resident Lucille de Beaudrap who climbed Mount Everest last year at the age of 45.

In Lamer’s sports heroes group, he found he had to differentiate with the students between their favorite players and sports heroes. They talked about a sports hero being someone who is good in their sport but who also does something for people, such as Wayne Gretzky who was an excellent athlete but did a lot of charity work. Grant said that by the end of the project, which is Internet-based, “the kids should realize they have things in common with kids all over the world” and the work is an opportunity to celebrate diversity and commonalities.

"I thought it would be fun to learn about humans and how they helped their communities," said grade 3 student Chantel Kennedy, who chose to learn about human rights heros during Notre Dame Elementary school's My Hero project at the Morinville school. With cross-grade groupings, students in gr. 1-5 worked together to learn about others who have made a positive change in the world and to realize we each have that potential. --photos by Cynthia Wandler

The May 2 presentation at the school exhibiting the culmination of the students’ creations proved them to be varied, extensive and occasionally carrying a fundraising aspect. The musical heroes group, for instance, recorded a CD, the profits of which will be donated to disaster relief in Japan; it was the students’ idea. Other works included stepping stones, self-portraits, collages, solar-powered cars, dioramas and a student dance performance. Phys Ed teacher Tina McKinnon said that dancers are often viewed only for their entertainment value but pointed out that many dancers, such as Luke Geldert, hold performances and then donate the money to charity

Because of their scheduling difference, the Kindergarten students did not participate with the bigger groups but still wrote about who their heroes are and had their work displayed at the presentation.

Teacher Helen Cyr said the project was about teaching the kids “to use the talents you have to make a difference”.