By: Maria Garcia-Coronel (Senn Junior)
To celebrate March Madness and get the Senn student body hyped up to learn about different colleges, teachers and students decorated their doors with various colleges and universities across the country.
At the start of March, teachers were randomly assigned different colleges in Illinois. There are 184 colleges and universities in Illinois. Senn High School does this event every March to be able to promote college awareness among students. The students at Senn appreciate looking at the information on their classroom doors.
The teachers did not get the job done alone. Senn students helped their teachers come up with ideas on what to have on their door. Students found this opportunity fun, where they were able to learn and be crafty at the same time.
Senn judged the doors by the categories: overall best, most creative, and most informative.
Rachel Lackey won first place in overall best with the University of Michigan.
Lackey said, “I had students participate in the design and the creativity, so it was really fun. It took us longer than I thought, so it was exciting to do it but a lot more of work than I thought.”
A fun fact about Lackey’s choice was that she was the first out of her whole family to not go to University of Michigan. Instead, she went to a small private school named Hope College.
Spanish teacher Luz Andreu won first place in the most creative category with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
“I was really happy for my students when we won because they created the door,” said Andreu. “I enjoyed this because I got to know my students. It was a moment where I was able to get out of my class routine. I was really pressured since I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t know my college. But when my students helped me it felt like we did it!”
Social Studies teacher David Fingado won first place in the most informative category with New Mexico State College.
“I feel very fortunate to have won because there were some awesome door decorations for March Madness,” said Fingado. “I absolutely love doing this every year at Senn. It’s a very cool way for students to learn about universities that they may not know about around the country. And I love college basketball so of course, I enjoy doing this. It was fun that my students could help research the university that we got and learn more about it”
The spirit of teamwork was not just on the basketball court this March, but also in the classrooms between the teachers and the students.