MDI students take senior exhibitions to heart

BAR HARBOR – A new graduation requirement is compelling high school seniors to make their education more meaningful, officials at Mount Desert Island Regional High School said Friday.

From “how much will technology help improve my golf game” to “how do I rebuild a truck,” the mandatory senior exhibition program has given all 170 members of the class of 2006 the chance to ask – and answer – one essential question that is important to them, according to Principal Sally Leighton.

“I think, all in all, it’s been a hugely popular experience,” Leighton said. “I’ll tell you, [the exhibitions] have just knocked our socks off, every single one of them has been just incredible.”

Emily Richardson, 18, of Bar Harbor chose to do a summer internship at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Florida that performs abortions. Her two-month stint there made her question her pro-choice politics, she said, but she now believes that she can back up her rhetoric with experience.

“I came in with a preconceived idea that I was pro-choice,” the senior said. “Every night I came home with some different opinion as to what is right and what wasn’t. In the end, I still consider myself to be pro-choice, but it seems to be a bigger thing than before.”

The structure of having a mandated senior exhibition gave her the impetus to complete her clinic internship, she said.

“My essential question was, ‘How can I immerse myself in the debate surrounding women’s reproductive rights so that I can better form an opinion of my own?'” Richardson said. “When I talk about it now, it comes from … experience, instead of just parroting the media.”

Budding policymaker Kala Clark, 18, of Bar Harbor stayed closer to home for her project.

“My question was, ‘How can you help solve a social issue?'” she said. “The sibling bill that I worked on was the focus of my senior exhibition.”

The bill she described was passed into law on March 29, the same day that she presented her exhibition to a panel at the high school. It will give Maine’s judges the ability to order visitation for siblings separated by foster care. The topic hits close to home for the politically motivated teenager, who has been in foster care for five years.

“It had affected me in my separation from my brothers,” Clark said.

Her two half-brothers live just across Mount Desert Island from her, but because their visits are “sporadic,” at times it might as well be a world away.

“This problem is going to continue until a solution is brought up,” Clark said.

The success of the senior exhibition program has been heartening, and a little surprising, for the school principal.

“I had a fear that kids wouldn’t buy into it and really work at it,” Leighton said, “that they would treat it as just another requirement. My surprise is that that did not happen.”

Students were able to apply for grants of up to $500 from the private Mount Desert Island Educational Enhancement Fund, and that has been a help, she said.

“If they hadn’t made available the funds, lots of these kids wouldn’t have done such spectacular things,” Leighton said.

Alisha Tinker, 17, has submitted a grant proposal so that she can travel to Boston to talk to food industry professionals.

“My essential question is, ‘What skills and resources can I use to design my own bakery?'” she said. “I’m starting a business from scratch.”

Christy Spurling, 18, of the Cranberry Isles has aimed her exhibition efforts at raising global awareness through art.

Standing in front of her elaborate mural that shows children laboring in India, a woman pulling water from a stream, famine victims in North Korea and refugees from the genocide in Sudan, Spurling shared her hopes for her project.

“Mostly I want people who see it to think beyond themselves,” she said. “Since you can do [the exhibition] on anything you want, you can do it on something you’re really passionate about.”