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Working and Learning with Our Neighbors
Townshend Elementary School's Fourth Grade Community Projects by Julie Dolan, 4th Grade Teacher 
I started the Vermont Studies Community Projects in 1993. I was looking for a way for my students, and the school to connect with the community.I wanted it to be a history project, so as to make the study of history less abstract. I also wanted to involve the kids in a project that would stretch their skills as writers. That first year we worked on an Oral History project. Each child identified an area of interest having to do with Vermont. They chose topics such as lumbering, the Long Trail, hunting, bears, and running a business. They were matched with someone in the community who was knowledgeable about the subject. Their assignment was to learn about their topic as well as about the person's life and experiences through an interview. Life Skills In addition to the information they learned and the life stories they were told, students had the opportunity to gain a wide variety of "life skills". They wrote letters and made follow up phone calls to arrange interviews. They drafted interview questions and practiced interviewing each other. They conducted their adult interviews with tape recorders and later, back in the classroom, transcribed the tapes. It took hours of listening, transcribing and redrafting to create their final pieces. I remember being stunned by the maturity with which they carried out what could have been a painstaking assignment. They took on each step of the assignment with enthusiasm and ease. We published the narratives with photographs, as we have done each year since, and presented the town with a handmade quilt to go along with the project at a ceremony the following fall. I was pleased with both the process and the results of the project. The student's pieces were rich and colorful and packed with priceless stories; they were a clear indication of the learning that had taken place. My wish to have them stretch their abilities as writers was clearly achieved. As for creating a bridge with the community, we succeeded in reaching out to and drawing in members of the community who hadn't had contact with the school. I decided to make the community project a yearly part of the fourth grade's Vermont Studies. I had one concern, though. While a few of the children had been able to form a bond with the adult they had interviewed, the majority had not. I noticed this at the ceremony that fall. I had expected the students to go over to, greet, and sit with the person they had spent so many hours listening to, writing about, and quilting. But most of them didn't. It occurred to me that out of all those hours, only 30 minutes were actually spent with the person. In planning for the next year's project, I decided that I wanted the students to spend more time with the adults they were learning from. The next two years our projects were mentor based. Knowing that relationships have a huge impact on a child's education, we focused less on the -interview process and more on spending time watching, doing and chatting. The first year their task was to learn as much as they could about a skill, livelihood, or historical aspect of town. They chose to learn about furniture making, working with stone, woodcarving, timber framing, raising llamas and the history of Leland and Grey Seminary. Each student spent three afternoons with their identified adult(s). They went out in pairs or trios, mostly for logistics and a bit for comfort. They kept journals, in which they recorded observations, answers to questions and a lot of drawings. Later, as writers, their job was to report on what they had learned and experienced and to create an article with photographs and technical illustrations for our publication. We used the Foxfire approach as our model. During the course of our work we discovered that a similar project had been carried out by teachers in our district many years earlier. They had studied with the folks from the Foxfire project! We spent some time looking at their publications as a model for our own. The journal we created was filled with their experiences, technical information, and drawings. The kids had learned a great deal from their mentors and they were eager to share it. Most importantly, their experiences in the field had been very positive. Our weekly sharing times were animated discussions in which the kids ecstatically shared their knowledge and experiences with each other. The adults as well enjoyed the kids and the opportunity to share this knowledge and experience with them. I repeated a similar project the following year. The focus was on doing chores. The kids went out in small groups to four different sites on three consecutive Friday mornings. Their mentors had been asked to put them to work and so most of their time was spent doing chores such as moving brush piles, picking rocks out of the field, feeding llamas, or collecting sap from buckets. This was the most hands on of all the projects. The writing that came out of it wasn't as impressive as other years, but for this group, it was the doing that mattered. As I went from site to site I was impressed by their involvement in their newly learned routines, such as feeding the llamas, or their excitement as they did something for the first time, tapping a maple tree. There was their explanations of awe as they showed me how big the baby lettuce plants had gotten, or their fascination at having seen their birth certificates on record at the Town Hall. The kids were great helpers and good listeners and it was a joy to witness their enthusiasm when they came back together to write in their journals and share what they had done and learned. The kids got to ask questions and watch, but mostly they were busy working.
Last year we went back to an interview project in order to study and record a history of Townshend. The focus was more on historical research, less on oral history and mentorship. While each student conducted an interview and transcribed a tape to create their written histories, the projects were all unique. Some used the video camera to augment their write up. One student researching the history of bridges in town, went out on a search for all the stone arch bridges. We were treated to a video tour of the fire house, and one student got to tour the gate house of the Townshend Dam. By interviewing the person in the community who had the longest history with their topic, the students got a chance to learn about change from an expert. This year we'll soon be immersed in an archaeological study of one of the student's farm. We will be researching the history of this site by "digging" through town records, maps, cemeteries, and conducting interviews as we receive leads. Hopefully we will get to do a bit of on site ground digging as well. Our written document this year will actually be an "official" report to the state archaeologist on our findings. In all its forms, the community project has provided opportunities for the children to make connections with adults in the community. They have learned about work and the acquisition of skills, hopefully picking up words of wisdom and role models for lifelong learning along the way. They have also experienced history as a living and ongoing process.The books that we have created are their contribution to the history of their community and are on record at the Town Library and the State Historical Society. As teacher and coordinator of the projects, I too have been learning about the community and the wealth of knowledge that exists in the experiences of our neighbors. By varying the project each year, I have been able to broaden our impact on the community and the people and resources we were able to be involved with. After four years we have collectively worked with forty eight different individuals. What a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience we have tapped into. |
