Armando and Esteban, students of 11th grade Teacher of the Year Rob Schimenz
In June, we traveled to Chicago from New York City to attend the second annual Winning Ideas Weekend. We were invited to participate in the various activities and to help honor our teacher and baseball coach, Rob Schimenz, who won the 11th grade teacher of the year award.
Our names are Esteban and Armando. We were excited to participate in the Winning Ideas Weekend, which began for us with our flight to Chicago and a ride in a stretch limousine to the hotel.
This year, the event was held at the Courtyard Chicago Downtown/River North in Chicago. But we weren’t at the hotel all of the time. The weekend kicked off with a boat ride along the Chicago River and dinner by the river afterwards.
The next day, a Chicago area teacher, Donna Corcoran, demonstrated how she uses izzit videos in her classroom. Mrs. Corcoran showed how the Freedom’s Sound video could be used to show how the free market works, and how government controlled markets don’t work. There are so many different lessons that we could get from that video—lessons about government, economics, history, and so on.
Indrek Laul, the subject of Freedom’s Sound, also attended Winning Ideas Weekend and played a concert for us.
Barbara Zolli, the director of the Drake Well Museum joined us for a discussion about “How Drake’s Well Saved the Whales.” It was fascinating. We’re always taught that conservationists save animals, not capitalists. Drake’s Well became the basis for a student-created video. We went to the Shedd Aquarium with Barbara Potter and Jim Taylor, two video producers.
In Chicago, with the help of Barbara and Jim, we came up with questions to ask interviewees. We did a bit of everything, interviewing strangers about Drake and how he saved the whales, being on camera to discuss the topic, and working behind the scenes by recording, sound checking, and directing. At the aquarium, we shot footage and freely explored the aquarium with our media passes. It was exciting! Interviewing people helped us understand how Drake really did play a huge role in saving the whales. In the 1700s and 1800s, whales were often killed for the oil in their blubber. Drake drilled for oil in western Pennsylvania for one reason only, to get oil. But he ended up saving hundreds of whales—and maybe even prevented their extinction—because the hunting of whales declined as oil and its byproduct, kerosene, became a cheaper alternative. Saving the whales was an unintended consequence of drilling for oil.
We played a trading game one day after breakfast. Each person was given a bag with two items in it. We rated them, then were allowed to trade with people at our table. Then, we rated what we had. We were then told we could trade with anyone in the room. It instantly turned into a bazaar. When time ran out, we again rated our possessions. We found that the ratings—people’s satisfaction—went up as people were allowed to trade. This game was a fun and exciting way to teach the value of free trade.
The final event was dinner and the Teacher of the Year Awards Banquet. The video the students helped produce premiered, ‘How Drake Saved the Whales’. After the winners were introduced, Dr. Walter E. Williams, a professor at George Mason University and a journalist spoke about the downside of government’s power.
The second annual Winning Ideas Weekend was a success. It was educational for us and it was fun. We were constantly involved with one activity or another. We got to meet many people from other parts of the country and we learned a lot. This event was packed with exciting activities and great learning experiences.
