Learning for Life Leader Boy Scouts of America, Fall 2005-Spring 2006
Learning for Life, a subsidiary program of the Boy Scouts of America, spreads character values to high-maintenance schools across the U.S. I worked in Calvin Smith Elementary under Linda Keyes with 1st-4th grade students. Our lessons lasted between 30-40 minutes at a time, and covered subjects like honor, peer pressure, responsibility, discovery, and gratitude. The Lessons Our lessons were highly interactive and tended to combine the traditional "stand and deliver" approach with extensive student involvement. My favorite lesson was the day our class learned about Michelangelo. After we'd briefly examined Michelangelo's life, the students taped a piece of paper to the bottom of their desks and created their own "Sistine Chapel" using watercolor paints, pens, and pencils. They enjoyed a creative break and better learned that day's lesson -- endurance -- when their arms started to tire while painting their unfinished pictures.
The Students What I most appreciated about this job was watching the kids get excited about the subject material. Many of my students lived in troubled and difficult situations involving homelessness, drug, alcohol and physical abuse, and poverty. I was both broken-hearted and excited when one of my students would tell me that because of his or her Lifeskills lessons, they hadn't been afraid when their father physically abused their mother, that they'd told their brother they couldn't take the drugs hidden in the closet, or that they'd stood up for a bullied classmate. My kids -- they became my kids over the course of the school year -- learned how to see with a maturity beyond their years thanks to the values instilled by the Learning for Life program.