We have introduced our 4th value this month: Community Action, which is all about valuing and nurturing an overall awareness, respect and care for our surroundings, community and environment. We had our monthly Town Hall to announce this next value.
Teachers Ryan and Emily did a fantastic skit on what Community Action means by demonstrating a mess they found and helping to clean it up even if they didn’t make it. They went over some other examples of Community Action with the kids.
Then we talked about how each classroom will be taking care of a new Pothos plant, with the help of our gardening teacher Sophie. The idea is for them to work together to take care of something, a plant that has value and purpose (the Pothos plant is not only beautiful but as a phytoremediators, it can remove toxins from the air, soil, or water. It can even purify fish tanks if they have their roots sitting in the water!).
Finally, we reviewed what each class’s yearlong Community Action Project is, and how this project and their informed awareness, will help care make school, the Bed Stuy community or planet a better place. The first phase of these projects has been researching the topic and this next phase is to assist/educate their school (the final stage is outer community outreach). The kids came up to explain:
Prek’s Food Study: The kids will be revising their snack lists to make sure they are healthy!
K’s Recycling Study: The kids will be assisting classrooms and the school in making sure they have efficient systems set up for recycling.
1st Grade Homelessness Study: The students will be coming around to classes and educating the school on what it means to be homeless and how to help others that have less.
2nd Grade Tree Study: The kids will be trying to get a tree planted on our block and will teach our classes on why trees are so important to us/the planet!
