Kids Who Care
Spotlight on:
PleasanTech Academy
Pleasantville, NJ
Grades K—8
PleasanTech Academy students care about:
Supporting community members in need:
senior citizens and struggling students
Although service-learning is sometimes discussed as an entity in itself, it is best understood as the moral action component of character education. A school that consistently stressed that connection is PleasanTech Academy, a charter school in Pleasantville that has guided its ethnically and racially diverse student body in service-learning projects that stressed responsibility, respect, empathy, and good citizenship.
In the “Intergenerational Bond” project, students in grades 2—4 visited The CARING Place, an adult day-care facility in Pleasantville, for two hours per week over a six-week period from October through December. Before the visit, the students studied what life was like “back then” and were prepared to interview the senior citizens. The students and seniors worked together on projects, the primary one being a retelling of the lives of these individuals. A celebratory luncheon at the school culminated the project at which the students made a presentation about a character trait. This experience brightened the lives of these seniors, many of whom were very lonely. The children gained much from the encounters. At the end of each visit the students met together to discuss the activities and what they have learned. As the project progressed, both the group discussion and reflective journals revealed a deepening of empathy for the senior citizens and an increasing sense of responsibility and pride in their work.
The second project also focused on providing valuable help, this time to struggling students. The “Peer Tutoring Project” trained seventh and eighth graders to help younger students in grades 4-6 who were experiencing difficulties, particularly with standardized tests. The Peer Tutors, nominated by their teachers as being superlative in math and language arts, and identified as having good interpersonal skills, did short-term independent study in their social studies and science classes in order to receive instruction in teaching language arts and math skills to younger students. Tutors met bi-weekly to discuss what they had learned and to exchange ideas and experiences. Their reflective journals indicated that they had relearned important material by teaching it to others and also developed empathy for the students who were experiencing difficulties. Although both groups were delighted to see an increase in standardized test scores, the celebration breakfast at the end showed the program’s effect in another way—the tutors and the tutees had bonded with one another!
Get these lesson plans:
- “Intergenerational Bond”
Core Ethical Values addressed: Respect, responsibility, citizenship, trustworthiness, caring
Curriculum Connections: Language Arts; Social Studies; Consumer, Family & Life Skills - “Peer Tutoring Project”
Core Ethical Values addressed: Respect, caring, responsibility, trustworthiness, citizenship
Curriculum Connections: Language Arts; Mathematics