Teachers start the semester with a set plan, a well-detailed syllabus of how a course will run.  However, we sometimes encounter road bumps that lead us on a different path – the road bumps being students steering the class in a new direction.  Do we stray from our set curriculum and “go with the flow?”  You never know what the impact of a class project might be.  In this case, the direction the students took the class was pretty heartwarming. 

At Penn State, we have a new minor in Civic and Community Engagement.  There is one foundations course required for the minor.  With several faculty interested in teaching the course from varied disciplines, there were six faculty co-teaching the course in Spring 2006.

I was responsible for lecturing about public scholarship in the fields of science and technology.  I was planning on giving a formal lecture on the topic, but an interesting chain of events took place that derailed my course content.  So I didn't necessarily get what I wanted taught in the course, but who says what I wanted was better for the students or for the long-term impact on the community?

Right before the semester started, I was visited by an adult student on campus.  John had received his associates degree from the campus back in the 1970's and was now coming back to finish his bachelors degree.  He wasn't interested in getting the minor, but he wanted to help out in any way he could with community service efforts.  He showed up at my office with a binder filled with newspaper clippings of volunteer events he had participated with.  He asked how he could get involved, and I suggested he could talk to the students one day during class so they could hear about his work in the community.

But one of John’s newspaper clippings caught my eye.  He worked with a group of middle school kids on making Huggie Pillows for a local hospital's cardiac recovery unit.  Huggie Pillows are used by the patients to practice breathing exercises after surgery.  The hospital relies entirely on donations of these pillows for the patients to aid them in their recovery.  As John was a former heart surgery patient, member of the Zipper Club and speaker for the American Heart Association, this project meant a lot to him.

I couldn’t turn this adult student away from meeting with the students – his passion and life story I knew would open the eyes of everyone.  So I decided to give him my class period on science and technology.  Since the class period was going to be two hours in length, I suggested that perhaps he speak for the first hour and work with the class on doing a hands-on project for the second hour.  So I went out, bought some fleece and fiber-fill, and dragged my grandmother's sewing machine to campus for a talk and session in making Huggie Pillows.

All but one of the eight girls enrolled in the class was hesitant to use the sewing machine.  Everyone stated that they had never used a sewing machine since middle school.  But with John's encouragement and my rusty sewing skills, the girls were able to catch on quickly.  The group created eleven pillows, each one with a handwritten inspirational message on the back providing the patient some encouragement.  At the end of this class, John made each student an honorary member of the Zipper Club and gave them zipper pins. 

One student was missing from class that day.  During the next class period, the students were talking excitedly about the pillows, and the missing student began to share her story.  It turned out that she had heart surgery at age eight.  She explained how she never had a pillow, just a stuffed animal, and talked about the fear of going through such a procedure.  One student asked if we could do the project again so this student could get a chance to participate.  Soon, the students had planned an entire day of making Huggie Pillows on campus.  The students arranged for the event to be open to the entire campus community to help out.  The students in the class and on campus made an additional 30 Huggie Pillows.  But that wasn't enough, as the students from the class wanted to go to the hospital to deliver the pillows.

John was eager to jump in and get involved again.  We loaded up the campus van with all the students and pillows and headed to the hospital.  John arranged for the students to meet with the director of volunteering at the hospital, two nurses in the cardiac recovery unit, and a patient about to go into surgery.  The students also received a tour of the unit. 

After the hospital visit, the students received a letter from one of the nurses in the cardiac recovery unit, thanking them for taking the time to create and deliver the pillows.  The students also received an unexpected letter from a patient at the hospital.  He not only thanked the students for his brightly-colored pillow, but he included a photo of himself in the hospital with the pillow.  Some of the students were in tears as I read his letter to the class.

The impact on the students was impressive and more than I could have ever imagined.  The end-of-semester comments the students provided clearly showed that this was their favorite part of the entire course.  The group wanted to see Huggie Pillows continue in the future, and other students on campus are asking how they can become involved in making Huggie Pillows.

Was this what I wanted in the course?  No, not originally.  I gave up one lecture period on science and technology in civic engagement.  But engaging students young and old in a volunteer project that has caught on with the wider campus community - is that so bad?  Sometimes, the road bumps lead us to paths worth exploring.