Service Learning: Veterans and the Bronx

I'm lucky enough to work at the Bronx Lab School, a community that has made a commitment to service learning as a part of our philosophy and curriculum. Each year, for the last three school days before spring break, all students participate in a service learning project that is designed by one or two teachers in a program called Explore Week. After working with the music teacher on a project last year, I was looking to develop my own project for this year. Because of my experiences working with Operation Wounded Warrior through my volunteer fire department (chronicled on this blog in the past) I knew that I would love to do a project where our students got to work with our nation's veterans. When it was time to design our projects, a colleague of mine in the history department had the very same idea and our project was quickly developed: giving our students a chance to meet and interview veterans about their experiences, as well as issues relating to veterans and to make a short film about both.

After brainstorming about partner organizations, I reached out to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), an amazing not-for-profit organization who are helping to serve the over 2.2 million new veterans returning from Iraq and/or Afghanistan. We pitched them our idea and they agreed to have us down to their office in Manhattan so that our students could meet with staff/veterans and film their interviews.

The students spent Tuesday of this week researching one issue relating to veterans (PTSD, physical disabilities, unemployment/homelessness and the new GI Bill), developing questions for their interviews and gathering information and photographs that could be used in their "mini-docs." We spent almost two hours at IAVA on Wednesday interviewing the veterans before finishing up at school today editing the films and having a pizza party/premiere.

The last few days were fantastic. In full disclosure, I often dread Explore Week because it can be a lot of work during a time of year when you're starting to feel a bit burned out. However at the end of Explore Week the last two years, I was grateful for the experience that I was able to have with the students at my school. Service learning not only allows students to get out of the classroom (it such a pleasure to see that student who drives you crazy in the classroom excel outside of a traditional setting) but it also allows them to learn by doing and see the amazing work that is happening in our greater community. The students that I worked with did a tremendous job researching, creating and editing their films and they also learned a lot about the issues facing the brave men and women who serve our country so proudly.

If you have the time, please check out the students work at the links below (Blogger took way too long to load the video directly on the blog) and check out the great work that is being done at IAVA on their website www.iava.org

Finally, if you ever get the opportunity please thank a veteran and never forget what they do for all of us.

Film #1: PTSD (click the title)

Film #2: Physical Disabilities (click the title)

Film #3: The GI Bill (click the title)

Film #4: Unemployment/Homelessness (click the title)