teach tolerance

8/6/2019 Teach Tolerance

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BEYOND

A

s the holiday season nears, many schools will begin canned ood

drives — or toy drives, or coat drives or other donation drives or

the “needy.” Some will even turn it into a contest to see which class

can collect the most goods.¶ Giving should be celebrated, yet charity projects can produce a damaging, unintended consequence: Tey can reinorce

or exacerbate stereotypes students oten hold about people living in poverty.¶ o

guard against this side efect and to enrich students’ knowledge, many educators

are turning to service-learning. Te model combines inquiry into poverty with

charitable activities — and helps oster connections between students and the

human beings they aim to serve.¶ Te result? An emerging generation o socially

conscious students dedicated to empowering others, as well as themselves.

By Brandi Neal • Illustration by Ian Phillips

Fall 2007 teaching tolerance 33



Students at San Francisco

University High School

were used to the eld trips

to the poorer parts o town,

to volunteer at the soup

kitchen or a ew hours at a

time. Te annual trips were

intended to teach students

about hunger and poverty

in their community—but it

turns out they were having

the opposite eect.

“What we realized, when

we were driving them back

to school, was that (students)

were saying the same

things about hunger and

poverty that they had been

saying the day beore,” says

Malcolm Singer, the director

o community service-

learning at this private,

secular school or grades 9

through 12. “We realized we

were reinorcing the same

negative stereotypes.”

Singer decided that i

teachers were going to

change students’ attitudes

about poverty, they needed

to involve students with

low-income communities

in more meaningul ways.

As a result, the school introduced a

host o service-learning courses, including

two classes designed to challenge student

stereotypes about people in poverty. (For

a denition o service-learning, see “In

Focus” on p. 37.)

Now, class discussions ocus on the

root causes o poverty, like low wages,

lack o aordable housing, and the

ongoing reduction o social services.

Inormed and aware, students then

identiy a local problem, write an action

plan, and work with the community to

help their neighbors. Beore the course

ends, they take their message to other

area schools.

wo years ater taking a service-

learning course, senior Andrea Imho

still volunteers with St. Anthony’s

Foundation in San Francisco’s enderloin

district, where she helps serve more than

2,000 daily meals and is working with

the organization to improve its volunteer

orientation program.

“Hunger and poverty are real, live

problems in San Francisco and globally,”

Imho says. “While most o the students

and teenagers I know nd it easy to avoid

certain neighborhoods, it is impossible

to ignore the problem completely when

we are all sharing the same streets and

city resources.”

Education bEforE action

More typical than the approach at San

Francisco University High is the canned

ood drive — or winter coat drive, or hol-

iday toy drive — generally done once a

year around Tanksgiving or Christmas,

at schools across the country.

While holiday ood drives are

well intentioned and usually meet a

community need, they also can be

problematic. oo oten, holiday drives

include little education about the

root causes o poverty and almost no

interaction between students and the

community their donations are intended

to help.

Tis can be detrimental or students

in two ways. First, students miss out

on a chance to learn about the social

and economic structures under which

everyone lives — rich, poor and in between.

Second, this approach can reinorce

negative stereotypes about poverty.

A program called Kids Can Make A

Diference, also known simply as KIDS,

turns this equation on its head.

Te KIDS curriculum provides lesson

plans that examine the underpinnings

o hunger and poverty, ollowed by age-

appropriate community service activities.

34 teaching tolerance Fall 2007



Te program encourages children to talk

about hunger in their own communities,

teach their amilies and riends what

they’ve learned, and organize workshops

or other classrooms and schools.

“You’ve got to get kids involved in

the root causes o hunger instead o

just collecting ood. You have to start

earlier in the year, not in November,”

says KIDS co-ounder Larry Levine.

“Te children need to understand what

the causes in society are that make us

need to collect ood.”

Making a diffErEncE

Levine and his wie, Jane, started KIDS

13 years ago in classrooms across

Maine. Now, their program is used in

schools worldwide.

Palo Community School in Palo,

Mich., is one o them.

As spring warms in Palo, hundreds o

people gather inside the Palo Community

School’s gymnasium to break bread

with riends and neighbors. Each May,

Judy Huynh’s 6th- and 7th-grade social

studies class hosts this International

Dinner to educate its community about

global hunger and poverty.

Interestingly, many o Huynh’s

students are struggling themselves. More

than hal o the 137 students who attend

the rural Palo Community School, grades

K-8, receive ree or reduced-ee lunches,

and unemployment in the community

is higher than the national average.

During the winter months, school is

sometimes canceled because the town

doesn’t have enough money to plow the

snowy roads.

Huynh’s students spend months

preparing or the International Dinner.

IN CONTEXT

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Data compiled rom Kids Can Make A

Diference, Bread or the World, and

the National Coalition or the Homeless.




Tey build educational displays, divide

the gym into diferent “countries,” and

present a slide show about world

hunger.

Hal o the proceeds raised rom

the event go to Heier International, anorganization that provides animals like

goats and cows or amilies worldwide as

sustainable sources o ood and income.

Palo students use the rest o the

money to buy items or the class’s

reugee pen pals. Money rom last year’s

dinner helped purchase 17 soccer ballsor children in Guinea.

“As teachers, it’s our responsibility to

teach our students about the issues o social

justice in the world,” Huynh says. “Once

students become aware o the inequities

in the world, they want to do something

to make the world a better place.”In addition to the International

Dinner, Huynh’s students organize a

hunger air to teach peers about the

inequitable distribution o wealth. Tey

volunteer at the nearby Ionia County

Food Pantry, bake cookies and desserts

or the local soup kitchen throughout

the school year, and distribute ood rom

Gleaners Community Food Bank.

As a result, Huyhn’s students are more

inormed about hunger and poverty than

many adults.Seventh-grader Skye homas, or

example, can rattle of shocking acts

about hunger: “Tirty thousand people

die every day rom hunger. A lot o them

are kids under 5. Tere is a lot o ood,

but nobody wants to share.”

HungEr banquEt Hits HoME

Back in Caliornia, San Francisco

University High School sends that mes-

sage home by hosting a hunger banquet,

Resources

Heifer International s p b z ms p-

my v u by pvd vsk d ms v

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www.hee.

t National Coalition for the Homeless, wk pp w

uy xp w v xpd mssss, s mm-d s mss: d mssss. t z’s spks’ buu

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www.lhmele.

America’s Second Harvest sks d am’s uy u -

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www.ehve.

36 teaching tolerance Fall 2007



scheduled every our years so each

student will have an opportunity to

participate. During the banquet, each

student draws a piece o paper rom a

hat; what is written on the paper deter-

mines each student’s economic status

during the event.

Te exercise is designed to refect the in-equitable distribution o world

resources:

• Ten percent of the students draw

the highest status and are served a

east o chicken, safron rice, peas

and salad.

• Twenty percent of the students draw

“middle income” cards and receive a

meal o salad, favored rice and juice.

• Te remaining 70 percent represent

the lowest income bracket and are

served only plain rice and water.

In order to deepen the lesson, only the

top 10 percent are granted the privilege

o sitting at the table; everyone else is

relegated to squatting on the foor.

“It’s very dramatic,” Singer says. “We

always have an open mic, and the kids

talk about how it makes them eel to sit

on the foor. Kids at the rst world table

talk about what it’s like to live in such a

world o privilege when there is so much

need.”

Singer says the event helps students

get past taking things or granted: “It’snot to be orgotten, and what we can do

is keep reminding them.”

Andrea Imho agrees. he senior

says she’s seen a huge transition in the

attitudes o students in her school because

o the emphasis on service-learning: “It

is only through intensive community

service … that people become aware

o the problems surrounding them and

become involved in doing something

to help.” •

Brandi Neal is a freelance writer based

in Portland, Maine. She is the editor and

co-founder of Te Blue Room , a photogra-

phy-driven documentary arts publication

profling lie in Southern Maine.

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For information about how to imple-

ment service-learning in your

classroom, including a “Multicultural

Service-Learning Planning Sheet,”

visit Teaching Tolerance’s “The ABCs

of Service-Learning” online at www.

teachingtolerance.org/service

Resources

Exclusive Offer for

Teaching ToleranceReaders! A special ofer rom KidsCan Make a Diference

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IN FOCUS

What Is Service-Learning?


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