Many thanks to Julie Coiro, Yonty Friesem, and Joyce Valenza for providing their insights and guidance on this inquiry!
Crowdsourced projects such as this entirely locally produced video was a celebration of how even in a pandemic, Life Goes On.
This spring schools closed and classrooms were moved online. Confusion and anxiety ensued, revealing strains in relationships within school communities. It also revealed strength of character and resilience. But I believe with a shared love and celebration of learning, we can restore trust and a sense of school community that has been gradually lost Post-9/11, NCLB, Sandy Hook, and pandemic.
I believe we can reaffirm a lost sense of trust and community by routinely asking its members to contribute to shared celebrations. This belief was tested in the spring as students and staff were suddenly homebound. In my school, my elementary colleagues got together and created opportunities for students to reconnect and feel a sense of belonging to an entire community.
We invited students to help produce videos by submitting short clips related to a theme.
There was the 3 Words video project, in which we asked students to show us three words that represent how they're doing. There was the Life Goes On music video (left) in which we combined performances from adult and student musicians, as well as video and photos showing students playfully thriving at home. There was a music video of This Pretty Planet, sung by second grade students. And teachers also collaborated on an original poem, in which they each drafted a sentence, and then recorded themselves reading a line.
Our K-5 students also provided the content for an entire Earth Day Assembly. They pitched in with drawings, photos, videos, and poems (left). And finally, 5th grade students served as live Talent Show emcees, introducing videos submitted by schoolmates. We've done many school talent shows, but this was the first produced online! All events were well received by students, parents, and teachers. Many responses were emotional and joyful, and for those who organized or contributed content to the events, there was gratification in being a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Action Plan
As we prepare for a fragmented school social environment this Fall, it is essential to find ways to keep our community intact, so that teachers, students, and parents contribute to a school identity that live up to a well known line from our school song-- "Edgewood School is the finest place to be." I hope to accomplish this with my colleagues including fellow
Tier 3 participant, William Yang, the Assistant Principal in my building, by doing the following:
+ continue organizing crowdsourced events and maximize student (and often teacher/parent) participation: video productions, assemblies, talent shows, etc
+ revamp Edgewood News, so that it continues to share student produced stories of our community, but no longer as an in-person lunch time club. Instead its newsroom will live online through Google Classroom, with mentoring meetings for students (realtime & anytime!), in an effort to maximize student engagement with digital storytelling tools.
+ organize workshops for parents to provide curriculum and technology support. This will give them a space to ask questions, ease anxieties, and make connections with people.
+ amplify the narrative of maintaining a healthy, trusting school community that serves the needs of everyone in it. This includes presentations at staff & PTA meetings, Edgewood News stories, and posting to my school and professional social media accounts with hastags that underscore community.
+ creating a communications survey for parents to find out how they prefer to receive their information.
+ remember my Tier 2 training!
Community service is about appealing to the heart. It's about summoning that natural goodwill we keep in reserve for those in need. Caring for others comes easily to children. When parents and teachers model empathy and compassion, children are quick to demonstrate it right back each time a friend stumbles on the playground or is just having a bad day. Children were born to nurture friends and classmates back to good health and good cheer.
When we give our students the opportunity to explore problems in their world and devise ways to act upon them, we are lighting their path to a larger calling that involves global citizenship. Lately, I feel our school has not been lighting that path. We have not been endorsing their pursuit of solutions to global problems.
For years in our school, civic engagement has been encouraged, with adult mentoring. Students were allowed to set a course for research as they followed their hearts in understanding a problem, raising awareness, and creating a call to action. Members of our Knitting Club (right), have for years donated their blanket to a local children's hospital. Knitting was a fun social learning experience, but their efforts came with the heartfelt bonus of providing for someone with needs greater than theirs. Their stories were shared in the local paper and at school assemblies. There were two girls who interviewed a local librarian about her efforts to gather books from the community to donate them to non-profit groups (right) and then they wrote her story in the school's news outlet Edgewood News. On another occasion, students read a story about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and held a fundraiser for the Ocean Conservancy. They raised over $400, selling ring pops to sugar-starved classmates, during and after a school wide presentation. There are a number of examples like these through the years.
But in recent years, our well-intentioned parents have begun organizing a schedule of charitable events. They organize events across the calendar to prevent "donation fatigue" among parents. But they overlook disengagement among students. These events are highly organized right up to student assignments, which often involve carrying in a donation from home or taking part in a template driven art project. No research. No grassroots energy. No need for personalized expressions of empathy.
This must change. And students must be placed back in the driver's seat. My hope is that we can redirect the energies of parents to supporting grassroots fundraising events driven by impassioned students. We must also implement a media and marketing campaign. I hope a renewed effort of Civic Media by way of news articles and video stories presented through Edgewood News will validate the importance of students mobilizing schoolmates for good causes.
Knitting Club volunteers donated their blanket to a local children's hospital.
Student visited the local library to learn about how books are being prepared for donation to non-profit groups.
Action Plan
This action plan addresses two issues. First, we need to restore the students as primary drivers of community service events. Second, we need to share the story and purpose of these events through news articles and video and audio productions that will be shared to our Edgewood News website and our EagleVision displays in our hallways.
+ present to parents the value of student-run charitable events, of engaging students as researchers, problem solvers, event organizers, story tellers, and trailblazers.
+ revamp Edgewood News, so that it continues to share student produced stories of our community, but no longer as an in-person lunch time club. Instead its newsroom will live online through Google Classroom, with mentoring meetings & editorial discussions, (realtime & anytime!), to maximize student engagement with digital storytelling tools.
+ provide realtime and anytime student training in media production, including audio and video editing using tools such as Garageband and WeVideo.
+ establish contact with local newspaper beat reporter and prepare news releases that can be sent to all area media outlets to provide them with a reliable stream of content.
+ remember my Tier 2 training!