Jets paraded their accomplishments at the first Student Showcase of Learning on March 15th. Student groups, Lunch Clubs, and After School Activity participants prepared presentations, performances, demonstrations, and display boards for visitors to appreciate. As an added treat, Mr. Jolly topped the night off with grilled hot dogs for all.

Mrs. Cameron and Mr. Balint conceived this idea early on in the year and brought it to life. Mr. Balint said, “The point of the event was to give a space so that students can demonstrate to their parents and their families the kind of learning that they do and the kind of activities they’re involved in.” After months of preparation, they managed to successfully pull off this celebration of learning. 

But this event couldn’t have come together without the help of various student leaders and teachers. Mr. Balint commented, “Mrs. Cameron did a lot of work and a bunch of other people helped — Mrs. Jolly helped a lot, Mr. Hutchings was running around doing all kinds of presentations and helping with all the sound stuff.” He also thanked all the clubs that put together such a fantastic display of their activities. 

In particular, the Drama Club debuted with Hansel, Gretel, and Pretzel — their own rendition of the famous fairy tale — and hosted the entire event. Mr. Cameron, the crew’s advisor, said, “We were talking to Mrs. Cameron about our event because we always wanted to do an evening performance and Mrs. Cameron said, ‘Actually, we have this Student Showcase of Learning coming up. Would your club like to be the MCs of it and lead it off?’ Because drama performances aren’t something we do every day here, we thought it was a very special opportunity to showcase our work.”

12th grader Christie, the leader of the club, explained, “I think it was really fun and overall successful because I’ve only heard good things, like feedback, from other people.” She also commented that the event provided a great opportunity to perfect the play because at assemblies, people won’t get to see the show in its full glory.

Despite all the fun, the showcase had some hiccups. Mr. Balint reflected, “A lot of clubs were like ‘I don’t know where I’m going,’ or ‘we need more space for this,’ or ‘we need less space for that.’ For the Yang-ro won Photo Club, they had their name spelled wrong.” But the show had to go on, and in the end, everything worked out with some clever on-the-spot decisions. 

The event finished with overwhelming success. Mr. Balint said, “I was happy that a lot of people came. I was happy that people had fun, and I was happy that people stayed right until the end. People really enjoyed the hot dogs. I saw Mr. Jolly and Mr. Bergan with the Mini Jets cheer squad with the pompoms and stuff. That was fun.” 

DIS put on a great show this year. Now that the Jets have gotten into the groove, we expect next year’s event to be an even more dazzling showstopper. 

Gallery • 24 Photos

Jane and Christie elevate the night as student MCs. Photo by Solah Han.