They did it! The kids actually did it!
In August, when a crazy colleague and I decided that we wanted to have our kids do social action projects as their end of the year projects, we really had no idea how to do it. We knew what we were hoping they'd do, we knew we wanted them to try to influence public policy and their communities outside of the school walls. We knew that we didn't just want them to join an effort already underway, that they needed to START something. We had some models to follow, and had spent the summer thinking through the process, but to actually do it is something completely different.
When we started explaining to the kids this spring what they were supposed to do, it was hard to even get them started because we weren't entirely sure what it would look like. We gave them some examples (and then had to suffer the consequences when half the groups decided to try to deal with litter/trash/recycling at local parks or beaches), but we really wanted them to get creative. We wanted them to look around their worlds to find things that needed changing.
Without a doubt, this was one of the most challenging projects I've ever attempted.
And they knocked my socks off.
We had a group decide they wanted to increase service on a bus route in their community. They rode the bus and talked to the passengers and got them to sign a petition. They took that petition to a meeting at the Metro offices downtown with the man who is in charge of the bus routes.
We had a group trying to deal with overpopulation of stray animals who interviewed (and recorded the interview!) with a woman from the city who oversees the shelter program to learn more about how the spay/neuter programs work.
We had a group get a bunch of balls and sports equipment donated and take them to a local elementary school that had NOTHING for the kids to play with.
We had a group decide to educate their community about yesterday's primary election. They wrote their own voter guide with simplified information about the propositions and went out in their community to talk to people and educate them about voting. They sent their pamphlet to the Secretary of State's office, and got a 3 page long personal email back from Debra Bowen herself.
I have never seen my kids as excited as I've seen them in the past three days.
I've never been as proud of my students as I am right now.
