Service Credit

It may not seem so to our students, but those of us who teach are always trying to update and improve our classes. We spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing what went well, dissecting what went awry, and debriefing ourselves for next time. Most of this is to reach our students more fully, but a tiny bit is to keep ourselves from going batty with boredom at the repetition that happens so easily (and necessarily) in education. I teach four sessions a year of the same class and have as many as three sections in a session. That’s a lot of sameness. So, I try every semester to make the course a little different than the previous semester. With varied levels of success. But some things I will always keep because I have seen their impact. One of these keepers is the Community Activity my Small Group Discussion students are required to complete. As a group, they must “identify a need in the community and do something to fill that need.” They are given fairly broad leeway with the definitions of “community,” “need,” and “do something,” so I get to see a range of projects each time--with a crowd favorite being throwing 60 lb. hunks of meat to the tigers living at the local wild animal rescue, the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation. They love that stuff. And so does the little guy in Margret and H.A. Rey’s Curious George Feeds the Animals. Sometimes community service is really cool.

http://www.amazon.com/Curious-George-Feeds-Animals-ebook/dp/B002JM0X8G

http://reyfriends.net/margretandharey/