Students raise more than $1,000 for cancer research
By kalea hall
Austintown
Three teachers at Austintown Middle School decided this year to build a character development class for their eighth-graders.
The class, which runs every nine weeks, lets students realize the importance of setting goals, making good choices and handling adversity.
It teaches the students “you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it,” said Dorothy Delboccio, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at AMS.
In addition to the skills they learn in the class, the students also raised more than a $1,000 for The V Foundation for Cancer Research and learned about cancer. On Monday, the eighth-grade class had the second annual “Jimmy V. Day,” where they worked on cancer-based projects.
“I liked this because students were able to relate to it,” Delboccio said.
This is not the first year students raised money for The V Foundation and learned about cancer. Last year, Delboccio showed her students the video of the ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) awards speech given by Jimmy Valvano, a former North Carolina State University basketball coach who died from bone cancer in 1993. In his speech, Valvano encourages everyone to never give up, especially when faced with difficult times such as battling cancer.
Delboccio used to watch the speech with her father, who battled cancer for eight years. She realized the video also would inspire her students like it inspired her and her father.
“Sharing that with my students, I learned a lot from them,” Delboccio said.
Like many people, a majority — if not all — of her students knew someone or multiple people afflicted by cancer.
After the success Delboccio had with showing the video, two other teachers approached her about teaching a character development class this year in place of study hall. The class encourages the students to set academic, extracurricular and personal goals and to achieve them.
Monday was a way for the students to explore cancer research, and it also was a morale-building day. Students researched cancer in social studies and science class, worked on various math projects that related to cancer and in language arts they wrote obituaries about themselves.
“On days like this, you learn from each other,” Delboccio said. “Our job as educators is to make them think and make them aware of the world. I think that is essential in life.”
Dan Schnurrenberger, a social-studies teacher at AMS, was one of the teachers who wanted to build a character development class. Schnurrenberger said the students can relate to the athletes who have been through tough situations in the ESPN videos they watch for the character development class.
“I take pride in when past students tell me they learned life lessons in my class,” Schnurrenberger said.
Nate Fowler and Kayla Ratliff, both 13, hope to see Jimmy V. Day and the character development class continue at AMS.
Both students have family members who received a cancer diagnosis.
“I think [Jimmy V. Day] shows that people with cancer need help — and we can help,” Kayla said.