What is a community? Who makes up a community? What do you contribute to the community that you are a member of? Can you be a member of more than one community? These are all essential questions to ask a class full of students who do not have a sense of identity and lack an understanding of who or what they will become in the future. "Community means where you live" said an eight year old third grader. "We live in the New Haven community" said another student in response to my question: What is a community? When you ask twenty seven third graders about community, almost everyone thinks about a location and where you live in a town. They acknowledge that a community has people living together; however they cannot tell you what it takes to be a part of a community or what it takes to build a sense of community. My students know that they live in the "Hill" or "Ville" sections of New Haven and that these different communities do not typically get along with each other. This is the main reason why I set out to gather information on the communities that my students are a part of and to provide my students with an alternative outlook on who or what they are capable of becoming.
Young children in the inner city are exposed to many of the negative factors of community including drugs and violence. But they are often not exposed to the beautiful structures, community helpers or the endless possibilities to transform the community into a better place to grow up in. As a teacher, and as a New Haven native, I feel it is my responsibility to enable and encourage my students to gather information about where they are from and use this knowledge to guide their decisions about their contributions to the community from which they came. In order to prepare my students to contribute in a positive way to their community and feel a sense of connection with others, I will provide them with the history, landmarks and demographics of their community. This unit will engage students in meaningful conversation and action planning in an effort to build upstanding citizens and active learners from young students who are normally combative, defensive and disruptive in school.
Within the past four years that I have been teaching, the Social Studies and Character Education curriculum has been lacking substance and failing to appreciate a very important key factor in education, the social capacity of the students. There are so many disruptions in the inner city classroom because students do not know who they are and they do not appreciate each other's differences. Students in inner city classrooms are more likely to argue and fight and cause trouble in the school than those students in suburban schools. There are more suspensions and disciplinary actions against students from demographic areas similar to New Haven, CT where I teach than more affluent towns across the state. To add to this, students do not know what resources are available for them in their community and they think that the only way to communicate is through fights and disagreements. It is a known fact that when in a learning environment, students score higher and achieve more when they are comfortable and being friendly to each other. This unit will build a bridge between the classroom and the community and allow teachers to teach their students about where they come from and allow the students to decide where they are going to advance to in the future.
Through this unit, my students will be engaged in activities that include "real life" interactions and inquiries within the community. In turn, students will retain the new information in order to make connections to the texts we share in class. My experiences in the inner city classroom have allowed me to realize that although I am responsible for my students' learning, there is a barrier that many of them face on a daily basis that is detrimental to their learning. Often, students' interactions with other children can determine how well the teacher can get their teaching points across to the students and vice versa. When students cannot verbally agree or agree to disagree, it causes friction and discomfort. The Common Core State Standards push for student discourse and conversations among peers to solve problems together. When teaching this unit, students will be held to their best behavior as the teacher adheres to the Common Core State Standards. This unit will promote higher level conversation between the students in school and in their community. Think, pair, share and "turn and talk" will constantly contribute to pushing the students to think more deeply about topics that are frequently discarded or taken for granted.
Initially, I set out to find why young students in the inner city public school systems lack confidence in themselves and respect for others, hand in hand. My questions were: Why can't my students say nice things to each other or about each other? Also, why do we teachers spend so much educational time trying to teach students how to work together? In order to learn together and ultimately live together in the community they share, students need to be engaged in this "research." Students in my class, and many others, lack prior knowledge of the history and meaning of community. They do not see what they can learn from each other and their surroundings to become upstanding citizens. They do not know what it means to be an upstanding citizen. They do not believe in themselves because of the mean things their peers might say or do to them. In many cases, the siblings and family members contribute to the negative interactions that damage the students' self-esteem. This causes students to fight and combat everything that is different from what they know. I wondered what I could do to help my students over these hurdles and in what ways could literature and film help me do this.
I began my research online, trying to find ways to expose my students to the past history of the community where our school is located. I wanted my students to know where they are and what it takes to be a part of a community. I found old news reports and movie titles that relate to this small yet divided community we live in. It seems that the smaller the community is, the more diverse it is and the more differences arise in response to that, as communities that are smaller have more power struggles and the need for more organized and strict policies to maintain the order. These assumptions are based on my own past experiences and prior knowledge. This unit is meant to set students up for success and empower them to take a positive role in the communities that they are a part of.
In my research, I looked for ways to expose students to the landmarks and special traits about the Hill area, whether it be the pharmacy, post office or community park. I found activities that are Common Core aligned that would promote community building and maintaining the community that has been built already as well as brainstorming ideas and ways to contribute to the community now and later in life, including community service, going green and even growing up to get community helper jobs and contributing that way. The title of this unit suggests that the community we live in stands for something and that it is our responsibility to give back to the community for all that has been given and built for us. Students will converse more than ever about similarities and differences among themselves. They will discuss community structures and the things necessary to build a community. They will also address ways to improve the community and hopes and dreams for the community in the future. My goal is to bring young people together to build unity while instilling in them the value of being kind and helpful to one another so that teachers can teach more effective lessons without unnecessary disruptions from students. Students will be proud of who they are and what they contribute to the community even if they haven't seen it manifested yet.
This interdisciplinary curriculum unit will incorporate reading, writing, math, art as well as science as students work together to strengthen the community that they are part of. Students research what we can find in our community and who/ what is important in our community. They will find what the standards and expectations are in different communities and we look closely and carefully at the landmarks and institutions that make our community what it is, including but not limited to institutions such as schools, grocery stores, hospitals and substations. This unit best serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade and it can be adapted to various types of community and classroom backgrounds.
My unit is divided into four sections:
Section I: My Family is a Community
Section II: My Neighborhood is a Community
Section III: My School is a Community
Section IV: My Contributions to my Community
