Ron Adams is the teacher adviser for the after school volunteer group called Operation: Day's Work, which is dedicated to working one day each school-year to raise funds to educate peers in a poor, developing country. The Broad Meadows Middle School students co-founded Operation: Day's Work during the 1998-1999 school year. This is the 11th year the Quincy students have participated. About a dozen schools nationally make up Operation: Day's Work. As a result, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised nationally, and a school or an orphanage has been created in Haiti, El Salvador, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
Following is a brief interview with Ron Adams.
How does the Make a Difference Award demonstrate adults showing a belief in the ability of young people?
The JFK Presidential Library and Museum Middle School Make a Difference Award recognizes the middle school student's desire to change the world a little. I have learned in my 25+ years as a middle school Social Studies or Language Arts teacher that middle school students know quite a bit about what's not fair in their own community and in communities far, far away. Middle school students want to take action to help those communities. They are too young to drive or vote, but they are not too young to figure out meaningful ways to help others. This Make a Difference Award reminds Massachusetts communities that middle school students are active citizens engaged in positive change. Too many people dismiss adolescents as self absorbed or ignorant about local, national or global issues. Congratulations to the JFK Library for creating an award which highlights annually the amazing community and global service initiatives of middle school students. My students were absolutely in awe that their after school global service project called Operation: Day's Work was being honored by the world famous JFK Presidential Library and Museum. Students being honored wore their best clothes to the awards ceremony, brought camera phones, parents, siblings and grandparents. Families felt their 12-year-old was truly part of JFK's legacy and rightfully so. Honored students were answering JFK's challenge to "Ask what they can do...." These middle school students can do so much good and are doing so much good.
How important is it for young people to continue making a difference in their own way?
"Ask what you can do...." hangs on the front wall of our school in Quincy, Massachusetts. President Kennedy was not directing those words to adults only. Being an American means knowing your rights and practicing actively your responsibilities to family, faith and country. Asking students in middle school what is unfair or what is missing challenges students to identify problems they see and they care deeply about. Stopping there teaches students that there are problems around them. Take the next step and challenge middle school students to "Ask what they can do..." Take it from a veteran middle school teacher. Middle school students care AND they want to take caring to the next level which is taking action. The key is to let students discover the issues they feel are unfair or missing. Asking or forcing students to care about the teacher's pet issue is wrong and an abuse of authority. Trust in the students' abilities to identify social injustices and in solutions. "Ask what they can do..." Then sit back and watch middle school idealism turn into positive activism. Once middle school students learn how to team with others across neighborhoods and age groups, once middle school students learn to organize, once they learn to communicate needs, once they learn how to create meaningful, sustainable solutions, they have learned how to change the world a little. This just might become a lifetime habit of active citizenship.
What can teachers do to encourage more children to make a difference?
Adults, not just teachers, can create more opportunities for middle school students to become actively involved in assessing community needs, brainstorming solutions, organizing peers to implement student-designed solutions, partnering with like minded organizations and groups. If such opportunities are not regularly made available to middle school students, then two messages are sent by adults to middle-school-aged children:
1. Your ideas about social justice are not needed.
2. Participating in student council elections is all the experience you need in order to become an effective voter when you turn 18.
By the way, besides voting in student government elections, when do your students practice democracy and not just get tested on it?
What are your thoughts about other Library programs?
Often teachers spend the majority of professional development sessions on analyzing MCAS data and exposure to teaching strategies. Both are very important to the development of skillful teachers in Massachusetts. However, deep study into content is often not part of professional development programs offered by school districts. One way to get monthly, in-depth understanding of social studies content is to register for and attend the free Kennedy Library Forums. The Kennedy Library Forums "foster public discussion on a diverse range of historical, political and cultural topics reflecting the legacy of President and Mrs. Kennedy's White House years. They are conducted as conversations rather than lectures." Teachers, sign up. Bring your teaching team. Go out together for pizza and a Kennedy Library Forum. Your middle school teaching team will thrive if you have shared experiences beyond the student crisis of the day.