Entry #10: "Service learning" begins to pay off.
Can the lessons be applied to family outreach?


Hooray for Hollywood! Every Friday I go to the movies as soon as I get home from school. By Friday afternoon, I'm more than ready to unwind and a darkened movie theater has always filled the bill. Today we went to see "The Insider." I enjoyed the performances and was moved by the courage of the main characters.

I love the drama of a Broadway or Hollywood production, but while I enjoy the spectacle and the heightened, even calculated tension, I still appreciate the lives and contributions of the rest of us in the workaday world. Do our students? Unfortunately, in many cases, I don't think so.

I think we are at least partially to blame. If we don't share our simpler pleasures, if we don't celebrate each other, how will they know that we believe what we are doing is worth the effort?

I keep coming back to these issues which are raised in Csikszentmihali's book, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." The whole notion of intrinsic motivation and personal satisfaction in work that's well done has gotten buried in our society and the loss is reflected in our schools.

Some people say you cannot teach these ideas or lessons. They say that, like empathy, you either have it or you don't. I don't believe that. I don't think there's a lesson plan or a rubric you can follow, but I do think modeling and organizing experiences that give kids multiple opportunities for cooperative success can teach these values.

I'm pleased that the focus on service learning is being pushed in our schools. It would be nice if everyone just volunteered on their own, but short of that reality, I'll take the service requirements.

There needs to be more conversation among the staff though. If service learning is viewed as one more thing to add to the endless list of things to be done, it won't be fully successful. The service shouldn't be an add-on which interrupts the basic learning,. It should make the skills we're trying to teach worthwhile.

We need to combat the view that it's uncool to help for the sake of the common good and maybe the conversation of authenticated learning needs to be shared with the kids and their families too.

Perhaps we can best do that by sharing our own experiences -- but maybe we've lost sight of the pleasures ourselves. . .

I was certainly out of touch with my focus or flow at the start of this term. Feelings of inadequacy and frustration were front and central. My sense of humor was buried beneath an almost martyred approach to my roster and curriculum. What kid in their right mind would want a piece of that?

I had to get back in touch with my sense of purpose before I could begin to teach my new assignment effectively, so it stands to reason that the kids need to know why they have to learn all this stuff too.

* * * *

This week when I returned to school, I shared a few things I'd learned and done in Orlando. I showed my kids the silly pictures I'd made at EPCOT, the ones with my face on a lizard and beagle body. I showed them my book and shared my pleasure and surprise at being published. I also shared my sadness at visiting my grandfather, who due to Alzheimers, did not recognize me.

Once again, I worried that we were losing some of our computer time. But we were connecting, we were sharing parts of why we're together in a classroom in the first place. These connecting moments act as the glue that keeps things together during those inevitable times when the kids are bored or the equipment breaks down etc. It's still hard to connect with 300-plus kids, but we are making progress.

The week flew by and while it had its ups and downs, it was where I wanted to be. I was especially happy to be able to appreciate the growth of my eighth graders. Some of our silliest seventh graders have become budding leaders in grade eight.

This weekend I'll be reviewing some of their applications for our planned Climate Committee. The committee is our latest effort to turn the tone of our hallways and stairwells around.

The influx of new students -- both sixth grade and special education -- to our building has made it a lot noisier this year. And it's not just the noise, it's the language and the aggressive behavior too. There's no longer the general sense of calm and order that we've always been proud to claim as our own.

We've all been disturbed by this development, but short of complaining and nagging kids to behave, we haven't taken many decisive steps to turn it around. At our last small learning community meeting we decided to enlist the support of our eighth graders. Some of them will help monitor the halls and stairs between classes. It will be tricky, but I think just having them present and collecting information on the trouble spots should help.

We hope to also have them let us know which classes are doing a good job, too. And most importantly, they'll help us plan activities and trips that will foster a sense of community pride and ownership on the part of our whole student body.

Along the same lines, my tech tutors started this week. Two kids in each section are coming in early for skills preparation once a week so they can help me answer all the cries for help that I hear during a given period. Here again, the kids are contributing a real service -- their peers need the help, and so do I. They're also feeling quite proud of themselves, because they're able to teach others how to navigate the technology.

In both these situations, I'm learning a lot about and from my students. A girl who I had real problems with last year applied for both positions. When I raised questions about her attendance, she promised to work on it. When she was absent because of a funeral on Monday, she came and explained on Tuesday. This turnaround is remarkable and has spilled over into her classwork and overall demeanor.

The presenter at the service learning session I attended in Orlando talked about the overall benefits of the experience for the students. I took her word for it, but it's great to see the actual results. Now I'm thinking about how these same lessons can be applied to our family outreach efforts. If we truly reach out and solicit family members' ideas and skills, I think we'll see a different picture of home-school relations.

Up to now we've still tended to want parental support for "our" plans and programs. The time is overdue for full partnerships that help design the programs. Time or the lack of it, can no longer be the excuse for our failure to promote substantive collaboration.

I'm looking forward to the first meeting of our community outreach committee this week. I hope that we can finally move beyond traditional one way relationships with our students' families.

Sometimes I wonder how I'll have time for all these committee meetings, but without them I feel like I'm just marking time waiting for June to arrive. At least with the meetings and the groups, we're trying new things and being proactive. I still feel tired at the end of the day, but my perspective is back in place. I think this year is going to be a turning point for student and parental empowerment at our school. I hope so because I believe that a united approach by parents and teachers is the only solution to the widespread crisis in our urban schools.

The democratic candidate won our mayor's race on Tuesday, but I'm not naive enough to believe that it will make a difference without a united, organized effort by the only real advocates our kids have -- their parents, neighbors and teachers.

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