Open house to showcase posters celebrating diversity

Students at Jefferson Elementary School demonstrated the role of diversity when deciding how to illustrate a poster honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Dale Hoover, a fifth-grader, first thought about showing differences using a dog and cat in her poster. But she soon settled on a picture of a child on a soccer field being helped by another child.

"Instead of looking at their differences of skin color, they looked at the situation through friendship," she said.

The Martin Luther King Jr. poster contest, sponsored by the local chapter of the Missouri National Educators Association, asked students to illustrate a poster based on the theme "Finding Strength in Our Differences." Students worked on their posters at school while learning about King, diversity and differences.

Hoover's poster was chosen as a third-place winner and will be displayed tonight during an open house at the school. The posters were judged by staff in the Cape Girardeau School District and will advance to the state level.

Second-grader Morgan McGuire got the idea for her poster after talking about the contest in class, and thinking about what she does well. She wanted to draw a poster that would show those things and include how helping others makes you stronger.

Third-grader Jazmine Mohdzaine wanted to draw a poster that showed Martin Luther King surrounding the world with freedom. She drew inspiration from a poster in her science classroom that showed King holding a flower. But she wanted to show how people are split by fighting.

Mohdzaine had trouble depicting her ideas. "That didn't work because you can't show fighting," she said. Her poster, instead, shows people of differing colors holding hands and circling around the globe. Yet her poster won first place in the second- and third-grade category.

Teachers helped the students learn about the civil rights leader and his contributions as part of the poster contest.

Samira Hubbard, contest chairman, said the contest helps reinforce those lessons. "Some subjects are difficult to approach so we try to keep it simple," she said.

Hoover already knew about King's work and how many blacks weren't welcome in restaurants until after the civil rights movement. "Then people started respecting them," she said. "If it weren't for Martin Luther King we'd still be on that first step."

cpagano@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 133

Want to go?

* What: Poster contest open house

* When: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. today

* Where: Jefferson Elementary School, 520 Minnesota