Service learning combines classroom learning with real world application. Throughout the year, the PA PKS Service Learning Committee (Service Learning Committee) has been working to identify service learning opportunities for students to learn through experience and make connections within their communities. Here are some exciting current projects.
Integrating Service Learning with Learning English as a Foreign Language (ESL)
Since March 2021, Middle School students have connected with immigrant and elderly students enrolled in Edith Witt Senior Community’s ESL class to serve as their conversation partners. The Edith Witt Senior Community is a community-based organization that assists seniors in obtaining and maintaining safe, quality low-income housing and affordable resident services for those in need. Students and seniors communicate with each other in English and Mandarin on topics that the teacher provides. The ESL class takes place every Tuesday from 3-4 pm.
Launching the PKS-On Lok Pen Pal Program
Since January 2021, the Service Learning Committee has partnered with On Lok to engage our students in service learning. On Lok is a community-based organization that has provided Bay Area seniors with comprehensive medical and health care, bilingual case management, home-cooked meals and opportunities to socialize for over 50 years. You may have seen their green vans zipping through the streets to drop off meals to seniors at their homes.
During the past several months, PKS students launched two pen pal projects, one led by the Middle School student government and the other by students in English Literacy Teacher Will Carroll’s 4th Grade Purple English class. The pen pal projects are intended to promote connectedness between students and seniors, who had been in isolation during shelter in place. Writing and receiving letters creates a continuing cycle for building skills in reading, writing and story-telling. And getting to know people of different ages has enormous benefits for all involved, helping them stand in the shoes of others and seeing life from a different point of view.
In these projects, students are paired with senior pen pals at On Lok and exchange handwritten letters, in both Chinese (Middle School) and English (4th Grade).
The Service Learning Committee will host a reception at the end of the school year where pen pals will meet each other virtually.
PKS Lower Elementary Sends Cheer to Senior Centers This Year
For Lunar New Year, Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders made 110 pieces of lunar auspicious art for seniors at Edith Witt Center to decorate their living quarters. The words and colors and symbols are suppose to bring good luck, happiness, and health to whoever hangs it up.
During National Poetry Month, 2nd graders, guided by their English Teacher, Christina Garbarino, each illustrated a poem to send to seniors at On Lok. The illustrations were beautiful and thoughtful and receiving personalized mail was very meaningful for On Lok seniors.
