ERIC EJ945705: Share the Love: Why Not Celebrate Valentine's Day by Encouraging Kids to Give Back to the Community?

2011·0.28 MB·English

by  ERIC

Share
THE
Why not celebrate Valentine’s Day by encouraging kids
to give back to the community? By Nancy Mann Jackson
D
uring February, love is in the Elementary School in Vestavia Hills,
air. Students are swapping val- Alabama. “Children have such compas-
entines and penning versions of sion for others, teachers need only to
Roses are red.... It’s a natural encourage their compassion and guide
time to teach students that love their response.”
involves more than hearts and candy—it Here are the stories of four teachers
also means giving of oneself. who helped their students learn the true
“Our responsibility as educators meaning of love by leading classroom or
is to help students recognize that they schoolwide outreach projects, plus take-
are citizens of the world,” says Terri aways for brainstorming and launching
Kennamer, a third-grade teacher at West your own effort.
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Share the Love
Running
for Relief
A
t Public School 269, also known as
The Nostrand School, in Brooklyn,
New York, nearly half the students are
of Haitian descent. When a category
7 earthquake devastated Haiti last
January, the relief effort became the
year-long focus for the school, which
requires students to participate in at
least one service learning project each
year. The Haitian relief effort was the
perfect project for P.S. 269, as many
students and staff lost parents, siblings,
and grandparents in the quake, says
Principal Phyllis Corbin.
While the initiative included several
efforts, one of the most unique fundraisers was a one-mile
Raising Funds
run organized in collaboration with Mighty Milers, a New
York Road Runners program that helps promote fitness in
for Kids in Need
schools across the country through “fitness fundraisers,”
PH
a4 0h0e paaltrhtyic aipltaenrntsa ctiovlele tcot ecda npdleyd agneds bbaaskeed s aolne sth. Meiro rme itlheaagne When Terri Kennamer’s third-grade class read Three OTOS (FR
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goals, and together they collected $3,300 in donations after Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, they learned of M
they each ran a mile around a nearby track. the author’s work to support girls’ education in remote TOP): C
In addition to the run, the school’s Service Learning regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. From the students’ OU
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Mission Board to assemble 200 hygiene kits for dis- revealed their concern that other children did not have OAD
tribution to Haiti. And the district’s Beacon Program the same resources that they had. They decided that RU
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sponsored a “Million Pennies for Haiti” penny drive. Pennies for Peace [a nonprofit organization affiliated ER
Together, the staff, students, families and friends with Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, which helps fund S; N
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raised an additional $2,000 for relief efforts. To keep education] would be their service project for the year.” Y-B
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students engaged, school leaders created a “Wall of With “just a little guidance” from their teacher, the LY AR
Comfort” in the lobby, where students and teachers third graders planned a schoolwide fundraiser, Kennamer PAD
could write well wishes for loved ones, friends, and rela- says. “Their plan included making posters to hang around /SH
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tives. In addition, students made posters encouraging the school in order to generate interest from other TTER
everyone to get involved. “I would like to think that we classes,” she says. “The class worked together to create STO
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demonstrated the power of giving,” Corbin says. “The a PowerPoint presentation advertising the campaign. K
students were tremendously happy knowing that they The students divided into groups and went to each
were a part of something so important to others.” classroom, using their PowerPoint to talk about the
project. They decorated coin containers and left one
in each classroom following their presentation. They
TAKEAWAY: MAKE IT PERSONAL
also had a large jar set up in the office.”
Students will get more out of the project
Each day, students emptied the jars from the
if they are personally involved in giving
office and other classrooms into the large
back. Ask them what causes they care classroom jar, so they got to see the coins
about, or what news stories have caught pile up. At the end of two weeks, the class
their attention. Use their interests as the held a “coin-counting party.” The students
seeds for your work in the community. worked in groups to roll the coins, and they
ended up with $500 to donate.
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Share the Love
Replenishing
the Wetlands
P
art of the seventh-grade curriculum at J. B. Martin
Middle School in Paradis, Louisiana, includes learning
about the disappearance of local wetlands. “Every year,
the students study how the wetlands impact our lifestyle
and culture,” says Katie Bordelon, a seventh-grade teach-
er at J. B. Martin. “I hear the same comments every year:
‘All we need is more trees,’ ‘Trees can solve the problem,’
‘Why can’t we just plant more trees?’ That is when we
decided that we needed to give them that opportunity to
help. They needed to realize that even at their age, they
can make a difference in their community.”
With fellow teacher Ashley Mills, Bordelon applied for
and received a service-learning grant from Youth Service
America to plant and monitor more than 800 trees to
eventually be transferred to area wetlands. Three hun-
dred seventh-grade students worked together to build a
can yard to house the growing, fragile seedlings. They
had to dig a 10-by-10-foot trench to bury pipes for the
automatic sprinkler
system, and dump sev-
Giving the Gift TAKEAWAY: MAKE
eral bags of gravel into
IT A LEARNING
the yard to create a
of Literacy OPPORTUNITY. The
filtering system.
“They took great J. B. Martin project
J
oan Lutz, a middle school teacher at Horizon Charter pride in planting began with a class
School in Sacramento, California, says she has always Nuttal oak seeds and discussion. What are
tried to foster a love of reading and giving back. So when bald cypress seeds, you talking about
she heard about the African Library Project, she knew two trees that are that could lead to a
she wanted to get involved. “When I presented the idea to very important to our project? Joan Lutz,
students, the response was overwhelming,” Lutz says. wetland ecosystem,” teacher at Horizon
The African Library Project helps establish libraries Bordelon says. For Charter School, rec- PH
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organization, and then asked students to research thinned the seedlings. area your project will TO
Swaziland. Each student created a PowerPoint presen- This past November, be serving, or bring P): C
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tation about the book drive and the needs in Swaziland. the students trans- in a guest speaker EPKO
Together, the class set a goal to collect 250 books, but planted about 800 trees to discuss how your DAN
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After the books were shipped, the African Library Terrebonne Parish. /SH
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Project sent the class photos of the students reading To keep students motivated, their teachers “worked TTER
their new books. “It to connect coastal land loss to the students’ real lives,” STO
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really brought home Bordelon says. “On a field trip to a local park, they got to K; C
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project helped make their own backyards. Their families’ livelihood, their F JEN
my students more favorite foods, and their weekend activities will also be NIFER
aware of how they can impacted by the disappearing wetlands. In learning that H
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make a difference in we have lost miles of coastland in our own community, RISO
the lives of others.” they were extremely motivated to make a difference.” N PR

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