Our team begins the year with a name project, and now I'd like to build on that with the Hello Campaign. At a recent diversity presentation at the MTA Summer Conference by Great Island Consulting, they suggested that saying hello is a critical component of building inclusive teaching/learning environments.
Since our school has a great tradition of service learning, we may make the Hello Campaign a service learning project.
The first step in service learning is the learning. We'll tackle the following questions as we learn about this campaign?
- How do people say hello?
- Why does saying hello matter?
- What is the best way to say hello?
- What do the experts have to say about saying hello?
- How do people react when you say hello?
Then, students and I will come up with further questions. Once we have the discussion and do some research, we'll then plan the campaign. Our plans will include the following:
- Introducing the campaign through a school assembly presentation and posters
- Determining how we'll track the campaign's success, and then collecting that data
- Deciding on next steps
I'm excited about this service learning project as I believe it will foster a positive teaching/learning community and year. We may also be able to integrate this project with music, social studies, art and more.
