How can you create closure for students after this tough year?
Written by Kyle Wagner | Adapted from TransformSchool
Pastoral leadership has one last and critically important task to complete before we release students for Summer break. Please note, I am not calling it a holiday, as these Summer months will see many families still separated from loved ones. Pastoral leadership has been the theme of my last 2 posts, and I would like to end this series with some very practical advice from a good friend and highly regarded facilitator, Kyle Wagner. In his most recent #pblchat post he provides 5 great ideas for helping students process the events of this past school year and prepare them for moving forward. If you aren’t already, make sure to subscribe for his weekly newsletter; it always has a gem buried in it.
No matter which way we slice it, this year has been incredibly tough. We've been through a global pandemic; required to teach in mediums we've never experienced before; stretched beyond our normal working hours; and socially distanced from the environment we know and love.
And yet we have endured. It is a testament to our resilience.
As we close out this tough year, how will you spend the final days with learners?
With grades closed and testing complete, there has never been a better time to engage students in experiences that build empathy, equity, and emotional awareness.
Here are five project ideas for how to spend the final week.
#1 Suitcase Project (Empathy)
In this project, students pack a suitcase of the most cherished items that help capture individual stories. The catch: they aren't packing their own suitcases. The suitcase could be for refugees; Holocaust survivors; victims of natural disasters; classmates; or those who have been hospitalized due to CoVid. Contents could include letters, photographs, poems, or artistic artifacts.
Driving Question: If you only had time to pack a suitcase, what items would you include to share your story, identity, and values?
#2 'Just' Laws Podcast (Equity)
In this project from ILEAD, students use the plight for social justice this past year as a window into exploring unjust laws and exposing them in a podcast. Each podcast episode reveals an unjust law, its history, and how it can be remedied to improve social justice. Here is the student-curated project and link to the podcast.
Driving Question: How can the re-writing of broken laws increase social justice and equity?
