I believe that the aim of our years spent at school, should be to send out into the world, well rounded young adults. There should be a healthy balance between academics and life skills taught at school.
Each year every class in our school has to do a community service project. Boy Childs class chose to do a Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign, in honor of one of the moms in our class who lost her battle with melanoma late last year. The campaign, through sheer hard work and determination on the part of the kids, and tremendous encouragement from their teacher, became huge. The kids made posters, designed a website, designed and had T shirts made, organised a sun screen collection drive for under priveleged families among other things. Last week our class walked up to our high school and during passing period handed out information pamphlets and sunscreen samples to the high schoolers, as well as educated them on the dangers of skin cancer - a huge thing for a group of 10 year olds to do. As a mom who chaperoned, I couldn't have been prouder:-)
The class on their way to High School
Boy Child educating some High School boys on the dangers of skin cancer
The T Shirts they had printed, and the literature they distributed.
This evening his teacher and class made an appearance on the evening news!!!
Boy Child standing by the WFAA 8 broadcasting van
Their teacher and class on the evening news
As our school year ends tomorrow, I believe that his 4th grade year has taught him 2 very valuable life lessons...
- It doesn't matter how big or small you are, everyone CAN make a difference in this world.
- Whatever you dream, CAN become reality, if you're prepared to work hard enough at it.
Long after math and science lessons have been forgotten, I have no doubt that he will remember these 2 things, taught to him by a teacher who truly believes in teaching the whole child ..... for that, I will be forever gratful to her.
If you want to, pop over to the website the class created, I think it's pretty impressive, but I may be just a little biased:-D
Wow this is a great project! I think these are very important lessons for your son to learn. It sounds like he's had a good experience this year.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear about the cuts at your school. I'm a 4th grade special ed teacher. This year the job market is tough even for special ed teachers. Usually SPED teachers can always find open positions. Not this year(at least in my area,) there have been lots of cuts and if you're lucky enough to have a job you hold on to it!
I hope things work out for your school and they get to keep their SPED resources!
what a wonderful project they did....cancer strikes so many people and takes so many forms...
ReplyDeleteAs for the cuts in school....oh boy, they are EVERYWHERE.