Teaching and Learning: Service in Action
Grade 6 students at AES .
The American Embassy School of New Delhi (AES) in India had a goal: they wanted to embed a meaningful service learning experience in every grade level of the school from pre-kindergarten to grade 12.
They knew they needed help to make this happen and leaders reached out to Inspire Citizens. What has transpired? An incredible partnership, a lot of enthusiastic teachers and quite a bit of professional learning magic.
“We needed someone who would walk with us side by side to get service learning off the ground in a meaningful way,” explains Elementary School Teaching and Learning Coordinator Diane Ajamian. “Aaron came on board and has provided such practical guidance for us.”
Aaron Moniz, co-founder of Inspire Citizens, designed an experience for a pilot group in 2021/22. The teachers in this group met with Aaron to learn and plan, implementing learning experiences as they progressed with this meaningful work.
“The feedback we received - left, right and center - from everyone was so positive and there was such a buzz about what Aaron was doing,” smiles Diane. “Soon other teams were asking if they could have time to plan with Aaron, too, so going into next year we have offered an open invitation for grade level teams to plan a unit with him. The following year, we’ll get the remainder of our teachers on board.”
The pilot team included the grade 5 team from the elementary school, the entire social studies team for the middle school (grades 6,7 and 8) and the grade 9 social studies team for the high school. They met with Aaron during a professional learning day in November and then again for two 90-minute Zoom planning sessions per team.
“We celebrated our partnership with Inspire Citizens with a school-wide launch, supported by the pilot teams and our service learning core team in February. This launch included every member of our faculty and staff as Aaron shared our definition of service, introduced the Sustainable Development Goals and the Empathy to Impact model.” explains Diane. “Aaron was also able to share his story with our whole faculty and there’s been a lot of energy around the whole initiative.”
Teachers have been exploring the Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact cycle alongside tools and resources to engage in purposeful service action embedded in curricular outcomes.
The grade 5 team worked on redesigning an end-of-year unit with a health and well-being theme. They focussed on sleep, nutrition, screen time and other key aspects of health and well-being to prepare students for summer and for a deeper sense of self-knowledge. Students learned about the Wellness Wheel and spent time reflecting and setting personal goals.
Grade 5 students working on a wellness reflection.
“Wellness is an important topic for our students and teachers right now,” says Diane. “Another educator who teaches English as an Additional Language (EAL) and yoga after school met with Aaron because she wanted her yoga classes to connect to these themes. As a result, she did a pop up zen den event for the whole school and it was so successful that our leaders are wondering if we need to offer regular zen den events.”
AES is adopting Toddle for curriculum mapping and this will make it easier to tag units with connections to the Sustainable Development Goals and to service learning. As teams continue to design service learning units, this will generate a cohesive map of these Pre-K-12 experiences.
In addition, the school is bringing on a whole-school Service Learning Coordinator for 2022/23 who will work with the Teaching and Learning Coordinators in all divisions and establish an advisory council that will include students, parents, a board representative and teachers.
“We’re excited to have the advisory council liaise with community partners, and to develop those partnerships well,” adds Diane.
In 2022-23, Aaron will be on-site at AES and he will continue to work with teams on Zoom throughout the year to provide ongoing support and guidance as the service learning curriculum comes to life.
AES is transforming its curriculum. As a result of working with Aaron, in a very short period of time they have been able to accomplish so much to impact student learning aligned with the school’s vision.
“The AES and Inspire Citizens’ partnership has been inspiring, invigorating, engaging and impactful. AES’s willingness to include all members of the community in their roll-out plan was a major element to their on-going success,” comments Aaron. “The visioning work with stakeholders and strategic design of a whole-school implementation plan involving pilot teams, capacity building teams of passionate coordinators, administrators, and then all stakeholders from students to academic faculty to non-teaching faculty has resulted in all-around positivity. Pairing this approach with the structure required for success, and the opt-in invitations for early adopters has resulted in a desire for other staff members to take this work deeper and has left them in very strong standing at the end of our first year of the partnership.”
Aaron continues: “I look forward to working with AES to further strengthen systems for community engagement, student leadership and empowerment, and use teaching and learning as a way to engage all community stakeholders in reciprocal learning opportunities resulting in impactful and sustainable service and action.“
The Grade 5 team hosted Well-Being events to promote health and well-being for the whole community.