Westerville North seniors mark Black History Month making videos, reading books for kids,

Westerville North High School senior Madysen Adkins-Smith and other seniors have been spending February making short videos for Black History Month — but in different ways than you might think.

"It's more than Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.," Adkins-Smith said.

Senior Kaylana Logan said that topics include music and clothing, but also microaggressions and stereotypes.

"The fun aspects and the hard aspects," she said.

"Often times in history classrooms, you only see the bad things that happen to Black people," Logan said. "We don’t want to just highlight slavery and the civil rights movement, but also the accomplishments that pushed us this far."

Adkins-Smith said they try to make a video a day.

So became the Black History Month History Minute. One video shows students explaining what is Black History Month and why it is in February.

Adkins-Smith said she and Logan made a video about microaggressions, such as explaining to white students why using African American vernacular around Black people may come off "kind of weird."

The videos are part of their African American history and literature classes. They are shown to students at the high school.

The seniors are also recording videos with them reading children's books for younger students. They'll be visiting elementary schools and preschools this week. And the videos have been posted on YouTube.

Social studies teacher John Sands and English teacher Jen Bowers are behind the effort.

"In the past, my classes have taken on projects in February during Black History Month," Sands said. In January, he asked them what they were interested in doing.

"High schools sometimes default to what happened last year," he said, such as door decorating, or talking about a subject during annoucements.

"I pushed for something else," Sands said. They came up with the idea of making videos.

"Each day we have a play list about a topic. Today was funk and soul music," Sands said. "They got pretty excited about that."

Sands said he and Bowers also asked them to do something for the younger kids. "They came up with reading children's books," he said.

"It's been kind of trial and error.," Sands said. "The kids have really gotten into it."

Bowers said the school district has many children's books related to diversity. "The kids are doing readalouds and videoing themselves," Bowers said. "They're stopping to pose questions, then talk about the lessons of the book. The kids learn from it."

"It's so much fun," Logan said. "Our whole classroom is just coming together. So fun to record. They create a script and say what they want to say in their own video.

"It's an opportunity for new friendships and new bonds. We just have fun shooting these videos."

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Westerville North seniors making videos to mark Black History Month