Thursday, October 4, 2012

Service Learning Project


Wow… sorry I’ve been AWOL for a couple of weeks. You wouldn’t believe how busy I’ve been. Unless of course you are a teacher, then I guess you would. Anyway, the year is in full swing now and we’ve hit the ground running with some scary exciting new projects. One of these projects is a Service Learning Program. If you’re not familiar with service learning, basically it’s a student-run community service club that aims to tie in curriculum while helping those in need. When I was first approached by the Grade 5 teacher with this idea, I was more than on board and excited, given my background in non-profit and my love for volunteer work. As it turns out, this takes quite a bit of time, planning, organization and WORK. I know, I know, I should have guessed that, but you know, I’m delusional at times.

Luckily, the current theme of “Citizenship & Government” was the perfect launching pad for something like this because there are so many teaching opportunities and concepts that overlap. Our group of 5th and 6th graders started by doing a needs assessment of the community to choose two separate “causes” that they’d like to fundraise for. This is where living in a place like Vietnam is so completely different than America. Because Vietnam is a developing nation, there are a lot of newly wealthy people here but it still looks like a 3rd world country in many ways. As you know, we started the year by reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes about a young girl who develops Leukemia as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on her city by the Americans. This hits close to home here because the aftermath of Agent Orange is still all visible… even 4 generations later. So one of the needs we came up with was to help the child victims suffering from the effects of this deadly chemical at a local hospital. The other charity we chose is a wonderful non-profit group here called Wildlife At Risk who help endangered and injured wildlife in and around Vietnam. Both are worthy causes and both are in need of our support.

Once that decision was made, the real fun started with brainstorming about fundraising activities, setting goals, discussing budgets/profit margins, and marketing. We formed committees and assigned jobs to each student to make the experience more meaningful. Each committee is in charge of everything from contacting the organization, to making flyers, writing and translating letters to the parents, organizing the fundraising events, collecting data, and working together to problem solve. That is not an easy task list for most 10-12 year olds. I am so proud of the students for rising to the challenges presented to them. Our first fundraiser is scheduled for next week during recess where the groups will be selling smoothies and popcorn. I will keep you posted on our progress and later about our field trip to deliver our donations to the kids at the Peace Hospital. Very exciting stuff. Have a great day, everyone!  

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