• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

March 25, 2013 Elementary School

Teaching Children How To Make a Difference

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Paula Kay Glass

Paula has a Masters degree in education with an emphasis on child development and child behavior. She has been an educator for 22 years. She founded a private elementary school in 2003 and is now working through the Moore Public School District in Moore, Oklahoma as a special education teacher. Paula is also a contributing writer to The Huffington Post and has a children's book published. Paula has three grown children and resides in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. You can contact her at glass foundations@sbcglobal.net or paulaglass@moorepublicschools.com.
  • Staying Within Law: Special Education Teachers and IDEA - September 1, 2020
  • Teaching With Minecraft EDU - April 3, 2019
  • Self-Care Is Priority One for This Teacher - February 13, 2019
  • Preparing Students For Teacher Absences - February 12, 2019
  • Respect in the Classroom: Earned, Not Expected - February 11, 2019
  • Dissing the Family Crazies: A Christmas Story - January 6, 2019
  • Band-Aiding The Mental Health of Our Children - November 23, 2018
  • We Must Love Them - November 5, 2018
  • Take One For the Team: The Need for Self-Care - August 19, 2018
  • The New Teacher Smell - August 19, 2018

Gandhi-Be-the-Change-DoveOne of my favorite movies is “Pay It Forward.” Trite, I know. But I’m one of those people who believe that the smallest of rocks dropped in the ocean makes ripples forever, affecting everything that comes into its path.

I’ll take trite over trendy any day.

In my school, I try to place a major emphasis on community service. In this day and age of kids focusing on the next new gadget, the next big holiday laden with gifts and performing acts of kindness with a ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude, I want to instill the importance of thinking of others first and giving back.

Without the anticipation of getting something in return.

One of the major ways we achieve this is to volunteer at our local food bank. And before we even step foot into the food bank, I have a representative come out and EDUCATE the kids on what is happening around them.
In Oklahoma:

  • Over 675,000 Oklahomans are at risk of going hungry every day. Oklahoma’s total population is 3,814,820. That’s about eighteen percent of Oklahoma’s population.
  • One in four children in Oklahoma struggles with hunger. Out of a classroom of 25 children, five of them do not have food to eat on a daily basis. Over one-third, or 15,000, of the Regional Food Bank's emergency food recipients on a weekly basis are children.
  • Fifty-six percent of school-aged children are on free or reduced meals, the school meals being the only meals many of those children receive throughout the week.
  • About 500,000 Oklahomans must make choices between food and rent, utilities or medicine. It is feared skyrocketing food and fuel costs will exacerbate this already grave problem. And these families are employed, middle-class, working families.

Wow.

When the kids realize that this isn’t just a problem which adults experience, that children just like them are going hungry, it completely puts it into perspective for them.

We visit the food bank at least four times a school year, five if we can manage it. Students who have never been to the food bank before are usually pretty overwhelmed when we arrive, ready to work our three-hour shift. I usually request the backpack program, where we stuff bags with nutritious food that will supply a school-aged child with three to four meals over a weekend until the child can return to school for breakfast and lunch. The bags include foods like granola bars, fruit cups, juice boxes, a jar of peanut butter, crackers and dried fruit. Foods that we get on a regular basis, and probably do not appreciate nearly enough.
And the assembly line begins.

We stuff and seal bags for a solid hour and a half, have a fifteen minute break, then return for another hour and a half, creating piles of meals. We usually run about 15 to 18 people, including some parents, and by the time our shift is over we have created around 5000 meals. Four meals per child per weekend. We’ve made a difference in approximately 1000 individual lives, but numerous families. How awful would it be as a parent to not be able to provide for your child? Even with working two and three jobs?

I try to drive home the fact that in three hours of our time, we have impacted an infinite number of lives, some of which will hopefully go on and remember how their lives were changed and will be able to pay it forward. And when they connect the dots and see that we have participated in this activity four or five times, the impact that we have made just grew exponentially.
When surveyed at the end of the year which field trip they liked best out of the ten we have done over the course of the school year, it’s unanimous that the Food Bank was the favorite. When asked why, the students respond with, “It made me feel good!” and “We helped people!” and “Kids aren’t hungry!”

They expect nothing in return. Just the knowledge that they have made a difference to one person is enough for them.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailSummer Planning and Pinterest The Mental State of Teaching Default ThumbnailCreating Confident Readers Out of Struggling and Reluctant Readers Taking the Anxiety Out of Student Placement in Special Education
« Primary Source Documents—An Easy Tool for Implementation
What Are We Assessing? (Charter School Diaries # 10) »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships
  • Want to Keep Special Education Teachers? Try Mentorship
  • An Idaho teen who won his school board election has a message for educators
  • Moving Beyond Diversity to Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Lessons from a Sunday Sermon

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.