Grade 6  ‘We Day’ - Students Encouraged to Take Action

St. Augustine’s Grade 6 teacher Denise McFaul is experimenting with including more real world experiences for her students in order to link them to the important curriculum themes of social justice, cultural diversity and environmental stewardship.

“The motivation is to have and encourage students to move from the ‘me’ focus of what I need and what I want to a ‘we’ perspective and to become more globally aware of the needs of community and the world,” said McFaul, who has been teaching at St. Augustine’s for the past 15 years.

She decided to enhance her curriculum goals this
year and tackle a year-long project on social
justice and poverty to encourage leadership
in her 29 Grade 6 students through a num-
ber of community-based learning assignments
and more traditional research projects.

Her teaching innovations include assign-
ments that get students out into the world
through research and writing as well as
attending the ‘We Day’ event with Craig
Kielburger’s Free the Children and the Dalai Lama
held in Vancouver in the fall. McFaul said the
idea was to move away from asking parents
to contribute and to have students reflect
on themselves more and what kind of
actions and sacrifices they could make
in the world.

Students embraced the opportunity.
A number of them collected food for
the food bank and did other kinds of
volunteer work, in addition to school
supported projects such as an
orphanage in Kenya.

“Some went out and raked leaves for
neighbours and gave that to the cause
of their choice,” said McFaul. “A lot of it
is increasing their awareness because kids
are so privileged here. It has been a real eye
opener to explore how other children live in this world.”

Students in Grade 6 at St. Augustine’s also read articles on volunteerism and community and use this learning to explore the life story of a personal hero. They are expected to present the hero’s accomplishments in a speech in an evening called the ‘Night of the Notables.’

McFaul hopes that students will use their new experiences in leadership to gain a different - more global - perspective on their hero's contributions.

McFaul added that these innovations work because she is building on an established sense of community involvement and support at St. Augustine’s.

She said the goal wasn’t so much to get kids to do something completely new but “to recognize the importance of what we are all already doing as a community.”

Mary Lynn Young