Timely Topics: A Collection of Articles from Literacy Links

Something to Think About: A Student Generated Project
That Reaches Into the Community

by Anson Green

As teachers, we often see the work we do with our students reach into their homes and places of work. Students become better teachers to their children and better adjusted providers for their families. While a price cannot be placed on this progress, we sometimes wish we could "spread the magic" further into our communities. Hard as we try, it is almost impossible to find the right approach to reach beyond the classroom.

My students recently made just such an impact outside the classroom with a completely student generated project titled "Something to Think About." As a part-time TANF/JOBS instructor in San Antonio, I work daily helping to shape the reality of my students. Class projects are a significant part of our daily schedule and have proven to be one of the most rewarding.

Project-based learning is an exciting and innovative method teachers can use to facilitate meaningful learning in the classroom. In general, our students come to class seeking the skills they need to get better jobs. To them, this usually means a GED or better language skills. As instructors, we know this does not always ensure success; strong self-esteem, group cooperation, and communication are a large part of the success equation, but we are all too aware that textbooks, classwork, and computer technologies cannot provide our students with all the skills they need to succeed. In project-based learning, students become actively engaged in their learning experience; students initiate, facilitate, and evaluate a project that is both meaningful and applicable to their lives. It is no secret that students learn better and are more actively engaged in learning when they have a concrete, meaningful goal. In addition, student projects develop the self-esteem and workplace competencies necessary for success.

Past projects in my class had never made an impact much further than the walls of my classroom. This year I was in search of a project that would not only interest my students, but also would reach out beyond the classroom and into our community.

My search ended when one of my students, Jennifer Mireles, brought up the idea that the class should go and give advice to middle-school students on the dangers of dropping out of school. Here was a project that could have tremendous potential for my class and also touch members of the community. We had been working through the "School and Education" unit of the Project FORWARD curriculum, so the importance of education and staying in school was very much on the minds of my students. They seemed excited about the idea, and we began to work on it immediately.

After several weeks of dedicated preparation, the Culebra Road JOBS class delivered a series of presentations to students at Northside I.S.D.'s Anson Jones Middle School. My students gave the middle-school students a view of what life has been like since they dropped out of school and ended up on welfare. In their personal stories, the students emphasized how drugs, gangs, abusive relationships, and (for some) jail ultimately left them alone and unable to provide for their children. Dropping out of school with limited education was their common denominator.

After the presentations, my students were congratulated by school counselors, teachers and, most importantly, the young students themselves. The counselors remarked that we had made a significant impact on a very impenetrable age group. We were invited back and asked to give our presentation to a neighboring high school.

" Something to Think About" had my students working as a tightly bound group not unlike a productive group in the workplace. By reaching out to the middle-schoolers, my students received a tremendous infusion of self-confidence and self-worth that could not be produced with traditional instruction. They saw students who were not much different from themselves just a few years before and felt they had really made an important connection with them.

This project made clear to me that when we can empower our students to make a difference in the lives of their families and in their community, we give them the tools they need to find success on their own.

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