Jada Terrell- Capstone

Posted by Jada Terrell in Capstone - Pahomov - Wed on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at 11:41 pm

For my capstone, I started a National Honor Society chapter at SLA. National Honor Society is an national organization that promotes leadership, scholarship, service, and character. It is popular in most high schools in Philadelphia, but there has never been an active chapter at SLA. I heard about NHS from my previous middle school, which also was a high school, because they had a chapter. The reason I took interest in this organization is because service and being an overall well rounded student means a lot to me. Education's importance has been emphasized in my family always. This process for my capstone began in

June of 2015 when I was brainstorming what the 2015-16 school year would look like for NHS. My capstone mentor, and previous NHS member, is Ms. Jonas. Collectively, we brainstormed different service opportunities, how the application process would go, leadership activities we could execute, and more. I decided that service and leadership would be the two aspects that were emphasized. All NHS members executed their own volunteer work throughout the school year and have been committed to attending meetings. Meetings were about once a month, just to check in, plan what's coming next, etc. We had a formal induction ceremony at the Franklin Institute where all members received a pin for recognition. NHS is not over. We have a group service project to close out the school year. I haven't quite decided what we are going to do exactly, this process of finding an organization with lots of opportunities for us is harder than I expected, but it's in the works.

"Welcome, Students." National Honor Society. N.p., n.d. Web. Feb. 2016. <https://www.nhs.us/students>.

This is the National Honor Society website. I used this source for a lot of different reasons. I wanted to truly understand the mission/goals of NHS. There is a lot of information on this site about how to start a chapter, renewing a chapter, getting scholarship information, a link to the NHS apparel website and more. I learned about the 4 aspects of NHS: leadership, character, service, and scholarship. Reviewing this website, I now understand that it is essential to continue building leaders for this generation and servicing our communities, which are the two aspects I plan to highlight in my chapter.

2. "Teaching Youth to Identify Essential Qualities of a Leader." FASTEN. N.p., n.d. Web. Feb. 2016. <http://www.urbanministry.org/wiki/teaching-youth-identify-essential-qualities-leader>.

This website was a good example for how to have the leadership development. In the NHS chapter, we need a foundation in such a way that we can build off. This website concluded that the major aspects and qualities are: courage, risk taking, confidence, self discipline, honesty, and perseverance. These I agree are qualities and skills that it takes to be a successful leader. A main aspect of NHS is leadership and I was concerned with having the proper tools necessary to have a leadership course. I think the most important are confidence, self discipline, and risk taking. Without those, you probably won’t be a successful leader.

3. "National Honor Society (N.H.S)." Central High School. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. <http://www.centralhigh.net/pages/CentralHigh/7197040085141361346/Main_Nav/6675467167782716626/Clubs_1/National_Honor_Society__N_H_S_>.

This is Central High School’s National Honor Society website. The reason I used this as a source for research because this is the first time I’m being directly exposed to NHS. This website serves as an inspiration for my website. I will add much more to mine but they have links to sign up for tutoring, an introduction article, etc. This website actually didn’t much information, but it served as an example of a website because I’m making on.

4. "Mayor Jim Kenney's Office of Civic Engagement & Volunteer Service."Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://volunteer.phila.gov/#s>.

This website serves as a volunteer match database for Philadelphia. I have used this source in the past and will continue to do so as I am looking for different volunteer opportunities. This site, in my opinion, does a wonderful job in organizing the opportunities because they are broken down into different categories. It also gives the location. NHS could use this source because depending on the time of the year, the holidays, etc, we can plan accordingly to somewhat fit a thematic scheme.

5. El, Savannah. "What Is NHS Like?" Telephone interview. Sept. 2015.

Savannah El is a close friend of mine who is a member of NHS at Girard Academic Music Program. I spoke with her to get an understanding of what NHS is. I also looked for different ideas that her chapter have done because this is something I’m doing for the first time.

6. Jonas, Pearl. "What Is NHS?" In Person interview. June 2015.

Ms. Jonas, who is also my capstone mentor, was a NHS member in high school. The purpose of this interview was to establish her as my mentor. I also spoke with her about how we can implement NHS (a traditional club) in SLA (a modern-non traditional school). We worked over the summer to get ready for the school year. The interview was informal, however we outlined a lot for the year.

7. SLA Juniors/Seniors. "NHS at SLA." Online interview. Oct. 2015.

I conducted a survey for SLA juniors and seniors. I got the word out to SLA about NHS by putting information on the advisory memo. The survey was for people to sign up. The information that I gathered from the survey was that most people are interested in leadership development/networking and service. The majority of people had volunteer experience and were interested in continuing it. That is how I got the idea to emphasize on leadership and service.

8. Perle, Elizabeth. "Is National Honor Society Membership Worth It?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/is-national-honor-society_n_3267251.html>.

This article was published on the Huffington Post by Elizabeth Perle. It is about whether or not a NHS membership is worth it or not. The article was very thoughtful is talking about what the membership actually means. The author explored the idea that it doesn’t matter if you are a member, it matters how active you are. At the end of the day, people aren’t interested in just hearing that you were a member, they are interested in hearing what you did as a member. That is something that I want to keep in mind as I am bringing this to SLA. I want to make sure that we are all active members and we keep a good name for NHS at SLA.

9. Boyington, Brianna. "7 Essential Life Skills for High Schoolers to Build Before College." US News. U.S.News & World Report, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2014/11/05/7-essential-life-skills-for-high-schoolers-to-build-before-college>.

I used this source to get ideas for things we can talk about/explore deeply about during times when we aren’t planning for an event. I want NHS to be about leadership development just as much as service and I want for us (the members) to learn together how to become better versions of ourselves. The seven essential life skills for high schoolers to build before college according to this site are: managing money, planning, staying safe and healthy, studying, apartment hunting, getting around, and cooking. I can try my best with my mentor to see which of these skills we can talk about.

10. National Honor Society, Handbook 17th Edition. Reston, VA: n.p., 1974. Print.

This is the National Honor Society handbook. This handbook outlines everything regarding the chapter from procedures, mission, background, etc. This handbook helps the group outline the induction ceremony, how the members are selected, the duties of the chapter officers, the advisor, and the council, graduation ceremonial things, etc.

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