Learning to Serve

“I have an ouchy on my toe,” Savanna announced. As I gave Savanna a band-aid, I asked, “Can you put it on?” I am thinking to myself, “I can’t do feet.” I can help with a lot of things—teeth, noses, hair, but I just can’t help with toes.

Hmmm…Jesus did feet! Dirty feet, big feet. He didn’t tell the disciples they would need to wash their own feet.

I am thinking about service and how I can serve my students. I often tie shoes, and that is a way I can serve first-graders who often don’t know how to tie shoes. I fix hair, comfort children, pick up things, help them find missing items, and clean up messes. Really, these areas aren’t too challenging for me. Just a part of the job, something I regularly do. Maybe I should look for something more challenging that would cause me to LEARN to serve. Next time I could kindly put the band-aid on the toe. I can put aside my free time at recess to help Daryl with his remote-control car that isn’t working. I can give up my planning period to sit in the lobby and chat with the child who needs some extra attention.

Our school’s core value for the year is Service, as in our motto, “Learning to Serve.” We’ve been reminded of serving and how we can serve right here at school by picking up trash, wiping up spills, or cleaning up in the bathrooms. We will have a big day of service when we go into the community and pick up trash.

We try to clean up in the cafeteria at the end of lunch by wiping the tables and sweeping the floor. At the beginning of the year, I rewarded those who swept by giving them gummies. Sweeping is not a very fun job, especially when the class before you did not clean up very well so you are cleaning up for your class and theirs! After a while I decided that sweeping could be a way for my students to serve so I said they would take turns sweeping and then we wouldn’t have gummies. I want them to develop the idea of serving without always receiving a reward.

Some years I have bought supplies and had my students pack little “goodie bags” for the seniors to take on their senior trip. I did not purchase extra for my students; I wanted them to pack these bags and see the fun items that they would also like and then give the bags away as a means of service (gum, tissues, mints, hand sanitizer, candy).

Some years ago each class was to do a service project. Younger classes made cards for people: shut-ins, people in nursing homes, people who had lost a family member or friend. My class made a scrapbook and took it to the great-grandparents of a student and gave them the scrapbook and sang for them. We went Christmas caroling at a local nursing home and gave student-made cards to the residents. Some of the older grades did Christmas caroling at a nearby store and along the downtown street. Classes did service days by packing supplies at relief organizations while others assembled kits for relief groups. Students helped clean up in the neighborhood and for school families after storm damage. Students helped a family move. We collected supplies for a family who had a house fire. There are many areas where students can be involved in serving in the community. They can also serve right in the school. One teacher had his students write notes to someone who had influenced them. Several years later I still have notes I received that day.

I feel I am serving parents when I care for their children at school and when I take time to communicate with the parents as we work together to support their children. I can serve my colleagues as I offer to bring a class back from recess or share a book or some needed supplies. I see that a teacher is not feeling well so I bring their class to my room for a special story time to give that teacher a little rest.

Recently as we walked to the library, there was a chocolate chip laying on the floor. Everyone walked past it. Soon we came to a piece of trash. I stopped and asked, “If we are learning to serve, what should we do?” Several children responded, “Pick it up!” So two children picked these items up. Learning to serve…yes, this is the core value for the school, not just the students, but all of us who are involved in the school.