Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic this year, 贝博体育app’s seventh, eighth, and ninth graders explored the themes of empathy, purpose, and connection through the 上学校’s service learning program. 通过独特的服务学习经验，学生们被挑战去思考他们作为个人和全球社区成员的责任，并找到方法来做出积极的改变。

 

Throughout 上学校, the focus of the Service Learning program tracks with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s that describes the basic needs that all humans must meet before they can achieve “self-actualization.”

 

In seventh grade, students focused on a human’s most basic needs as they learned about food waste and food insecurity, a particularly pressing problem given the estimated rise in the number of Americans experiencing food disruptions from 35.2 million in 2019 to 45 million in 2020. 首先，学生们会见了两个非营利组织的代表：马萨诸塞州斯普林菲尔德的生态技术中心（Center for EcoTechnology），该中心帮助企业和个人减少食物浪费； and Lovin’ Spoonfuls, the largest food rescue organization in New England. 然后，对问题有了更深入的了解，并对组织如何发挥作用有了一些想法，学生们分成小组，专注于问题的一个方面，集思广益，想出解决方案。 “The kids tend to want to solve huge problems, and we encouraged them to avoid that,” says Creativity and Design Teacher Andrew Shirley, who took students through the 贝博体育app Design Process to guide their thinking. “We want students to learn that dedicated small actions can make a real difference with these issues.” Students came up with various creative solutions—from educating the public about expiration dates to prevent unnecessary waste to encouraging people not to take more food than they need— and they designed websites to present their final ideas.

 

在八年级，学生们关注的主题是安全和归属感。 They formed a new relationship with Head Start, an early childhood education program that provides resources to low-income families, and their mission was to write, illustrate, and bind children’s books written around themes of diversity and equity which they could give to the Head Start students. After meeting with representatives from Head Start to learn about their work and the background of the families they are serving in Worcester, Massachusetts, 贝博体育 students started their research by reading a variety of children’s books and learning about the four Social Justice Standards: identity, diversity, justice, and action. 接下来，学生们以三到四人为一组，围绕各种各样的话题和主题创作他们的故事。 例如，一个小组写了一群石头，他们排斥一个成员，因为他头上有一个看起来不一样的肿块，直到他们意识到他的内心和他们一样。 在另一个故事中，主角是一只小狮子幼崽，他因为笨拙和软弱而被欺负，直到他从一群土狼中救出了欺负者。 A third book focuses on an autistic child who is teased because he doesn’t like to talk to people until the new girl in school befriends him, and they enter and win the science fair together. “The book is about respecting people’s individuality and recognizing that not everyone is the same,” says Victoria Liu.

 

九年级的学生在Outreach360做志愿者，Outreach360是一个教育非营利组织，为多米尼加共和国和尼加拉瓜的教育不足的学生经营学习中心。 他们工作的重点是通过教育充分发挥一个人的潜力。 多年来，贝博体育app的学生都会在冬天去多米尼加共和国，通过Outreach360项目花一周时间教授英语。 虽然今年旅行是不可能的，但学生们有机会在上周六上午为Outreach360的学生讲授英语。 学生们在一个团队中工作，每周为他们的班级制定一个课程计划。 费伊的九年级学生每周都和同样的学生一起工作，服务学习主任克雷格·费拉罗（Craig Ferraro）指出，他们随着时间的推移建立的关系是这段经历的亮点。 “There was a benefit to meeting once a week throughout the fall instead of one intense week,” says Craig, “because it takes time to build those connections.” The Outreach360 refrain of “poco a poco,” meaning little by little, was apt as each week 贝博体育 students strengthened their relationships with the children.