Social Awareness and Responsibility

Context

The Teacher’s Voice

Children in our classroom often create pictures in their journals. This student created several drawings in her journal that were about being kind to others. Just like the people in her drawings, this student is often kind and thoughtful to others.

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• Student Work Sample (PDF)

Context

A student decided that she would use the money that she would have spent on a graduation dress in a way that would benefit others. She decided that she would forgo a fancy dress and would wear a burlap sac to grad. Earlier in the year, the student’s class made a trip to Manila where the student visited an orphanage. She decided that she would try to raise money for the orphanage through her initiative of wearing a burlap sac to graduation.

The public learned about the modest student’s campaign and she was able to raise over $10,000. Following her graduation, the student returned to the orphanage in Manila and donated the funds to the orphanage.

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Activity Photos

Teacher Voice

At a community organization, students helped unload and unpack the food bank delivery, prepared food, assisted with kitchen clean up, and provided friendly interaction with the visitors. After completing these activities, the students visited the men’s hostel and learned about the services provided to the men who stayed in the hostel each night. They learned that mental illness and a lack of affordable housing were issues for many of the homeless men.

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Activity Photo

Context

This child is not yet verbal enough to communicate using his words. After seeing an adult cut their finger, the child pushed a chair from the play dough table over to the counter where the adult was and pointed at the chair for the adult to sit down. He kept tapping the chair until the adult sat down and then he put his hand on her shoulder and patted it.

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Activity Photo

Context

In a class, each student was paired with a ‘daily partner’ who changed each day. Together, they created a daily partner plan that provided an opportunity to get to know classmates they did not typically work or play with.

The partners discussed what they were going to do during recess, drew a picture to represent their plan, and orally described their plan for an adult to scribe. During recess, the partners would play together and try to enact their plans. Students would then met with their partner again to discuss, draw, and write about what happened. This gave them the opportunity to reflect on their plan, the outcome of their plan, and the decisions they made. Some days, partners were successful in staying and playing together and on other days, one partner might run off leaving the other partner alone to manage their emotions and their choices. For example, the student left behind might ask themselves, “Do I look for my partner or do I choose someone else to play with?”

The classroom teacher worked with the School Support Worker (SSW) to support students with their daily partner plans. The SSW was outside with the children during the lunch recess and was available to provide immediate support.

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Activity Photo

Context

Students were given time to pursue their own personal inquiry topic. One student chose to investigate this issue of poverty. Her brother had visited Uganda with his baseball team and had seen extreme poverty. She initiated a fundraising effort by creating homemade crafts and selling them at school and at after-school events. She also made a video to document her journey of self-realization, comparing her life in Canada with life in developing countries.

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Student Reflection Video

Context

Students in a class each chose a tree seedling to adopt. During the year, they investigated their trees’ needs and growth. They reflected to compare their trees’  ‘identity’ with their own identity and asked the following questions:

• How were they the same/different?
• How could the tree be a metaphor for discussing our roots (past), our trunk (present identity) and our branching out (future identity)?
• How are all of these learnings connected?
• How am I changing?  How does the cross-section of a tree reflect its life and what might a cross-section of my life look like?

During the project, one student fell in love with trees. He dug a tree out of a lot that was slated for development and repotted it in order to save it. He slowly gathered and cared for fourteen trees from different areas and continued reflecting on their growth and his growth.

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Activity Video

Context

While participating in a class beach clean-up activity, a student explains the effects of garbage on the beach and his concerns for the ocean and the animals.

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Activity Video

Context

During free choice time, a student wrote an apology letter after kicking down a friend’s tunnel.

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Student Work Sample

• Apology Letter (PDF)

The transcription reads, “I’m sorry Benny for knocking down the tunnel.”

Context

Children at this class enjoy outdoor play time almost every day. They choose their own activities and materials, with some support and modelling from the teacher.

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Learning Story 

”You mud?”

During outdoor play time, one child (“B”) was watching other children use brushes to spread mud on a table outside. He found a chair at another outdoor table, sat down,  and began to spread mud around with his hands.  A peer joined him at the table and moved her chair closer to him as he worked.  She began to spread the mud as well.

He looked over to what she was doing and said, “You mud?” She nodded her head and then they began to move mud around the table together and although were not joining their mud play, they were observing each other and playing well beside each other.

Activity Photo