By Jacob Chang
[email protected]
On Feb. 20 and 21, 14 MHS students participated in the Family Career Consumer Leaders of America (FCCLA) conference held at the Hawaii Convention Center. Nine of them placed, with Seniors Laura Ambrosecchio and Megan Togami taking gold in Focus on the Children. MHS also placed silver in Life Event Planning, Illustrated Talk and National Program in Action and Culinary events, and participated in events such as Knife Cutting.
“(FCCLA) is to promote consumer economics. So basically, it centers around the family. What you can do for your family, how you can be efficient for your family, things you can do to promote family growth and student growth in becoming a responsible citizen,” said Career Technical Education coordinator Sheila Dagarag.
At the competition, students were graded by a panel of judges who, after reviewing all of the projects, picked the winners in each event. The topics that students competed in revolved around career and technical fields, allowing students to expand on their interests. “The bigger (events) that we usually participate in are the culinary, the education one, the ones that deal with education because that’s our education classes (or) any type of speeches (that) could be interpersonal communications (or) any kind of prepared speech,” said FCCLA adviser Jamie Ludwig.
Ambrosecchio and Togami’s project focused on teaching fourth graders at Mililani Waena Elementary School. “We had to create a lesson plan for students anywhere from toddlers through adolescence,” said Ambrosecchio, “Our lesson was about career planning, so we went over different careers with (the kids) and had them do different activities to kind of get a feel for what their skills were to kind of start looking at careers that would suit their personalities.”
Despite the work that each project involved, students believe it was worth it. “I learned a lot about time-management and really rehearsing your speech before you go down there,” said Ambrosecchio, “(I) also (learned how to work) with groups and (learned) how to work well with other people.” Togami added, “I learned more about how to be (not only) a teacher but also how to present in front of people and be somewhat of a better public speaker.”
FCCLA also allowed students a chance to experiment with possible careers to pursue after high school. “(FCCLA is) important to me because I’m planning to be a teacher, so it was a good experience for me to get hands-on experience with actual students and actually do a lesson,” said Ambrosecchio. In addition, FCCLA presented students with opportunities for scholarships and helped guide other school activities such as Senior Project.
Togami and Ambrosecchio are currently preparing for the national competition to be held in San Antonio, Texas from July 6 to 10.
