My Social Action Project: Lebone Nake.

The Effectiveness of the project:

Social action projects address inequality in the lives of children and function as effective teaching tools (Edible Schoolyard, 2023). Projects involving social action are good for the classroom. They call for a degree of application, conceptual integration, and analysis that promotes deep learning and development (Edible Schoolyard, 2023).

One way to enhance student engagement is to encourage them to base their learning on their own interests and curiosities. Social interaction can take place in the classroom where learners and teachers can influence the issues that affect them through participating in social action projects (Edible Schooyard, 2023).

The social action project that was carried out had to be planned in a way that will not only create an awareness in the school, but in a way that will leave learners with a long lasting impact of its importance. The mentioned below was accessed through the social sction project:

Creating awareness: the project helped create awareness in the school by educating learners about respect and having discipline. Respect is a broad term, so the campaign focused at teaching learners the different types of respect they need to know and should apply not only in their school live, but life after school. The reason the campaign was successful is becuase learners in the school struggled with respecting each other and respecting their elders.

Educate: this project aimed on educating learners on lifelong skills that they would need in the future. Learners were educated about the project through art lessons, an assembly, and a creation project.

Unite: learners had to work together for the creation of all the porjects they needed to create, which means bringing ideas together. They had to respect the ideas and suggestions of their peers. Learners worked together to create the bins and the posters for the notice board.

This social action plan will impact the school which is part of the community as it will teach learners the importance of respecting each other, their teachers, their parents, their environmrnt, their belongings, and themselves. The aim is to pread the atmosphere of positivity.

How has service learning help the teacher change:

This social action project not only allowed me to be creative, but it allowed the learners and the teacher the opportunity to address an issue that affects the school which is respect in this case. This allowed me to challenge myself in finding solutions that will not only benefit the school, but will teach learners life long interpersonal skills which learners will use outside of school.

How has service learning developed the teacher professionally?

Service learning has helped me develop my professional ethics. I was able to develop on the following:

Patience and compassion: this project tuaght me to stay calm when things were not going the way they were planned. Some learners did not carry out the instructions the way they were expected to, which led to them derailling the project as a who and it would have ruined the campaign if pattience was noot exercised. I had to learn to accept the situation at hand, and try and get learners to focus on the project again by repeating the instructions and giving learners another chance to try.

I also had to be compassionate to learners by bringing myself to their level and trying to understand what was happening in their minds.

Energy and enthusiam: carrying out this project required a lot of energy and enthusiam, energy to keep up with learners excitement for the project, and enthusiam to believe that that project will pan out the way it was initially planned. Having the energy and enthusiam for this project to work out well allowed the learners to see how important it was for the school which rubbed onto them as well.

Communication skills: this project involved a lot of communication in its entirety. learners, teachers, school representatives, and parents had to be spoken to to make them aware of the project and the importance of the project. This means the communication had to be clear, articulate, and pass on the message it was intended to pass on. This also meant the type of words, and the way I conducted myself had to be taken into consideration and it had to suit the audience the message was entended to.

Organisation and discipline: for this project to be as successful as it was, I had to make sure that every aspect was taken into consideration and organised. everthing had to be planned before hand before carrying out the activities and everything had to be moniored and supervised to ensure learners safety while having fun. This meant being in-control of what is heppening in the environment learners were in and having extra eyes (help from other teachers) to make sure that the activities are completed in a way that is safe, whether in or outside the classroom.

How will the initiative benefit the school?

The project will benefit the school in that it will advocate for a school environment that promotes a healthy and positive atmosphere, which will not only stay within the school environment, but will spread out to the community. it aimed to model learners behaviors towards each other, their parents, their teachers, their environemt, and theirselves by teaching them the acceptable and unacceptable behaviours of society. The project will be sustained by parents and teacher who will help correct learners on their behaviours if and when they need to be remindered.

References:

Edible schoolyard. 2023. Social Action Projects: teachers resources, 2023. [Online]. Available at: https://edibleschoolyard.org/file/867403/download [Accessed 25 October 2023]