“Great Teachers are Equal Opportunists” Chapter 7: Schmidt

In this chapter, Schmidt illustrates the importance of using the community as your classroom. In the reading she gives strategies on how to take advantage your local school community and create learning opportunities for students that can be supplemental to the classroom work as well as giving students real life experiences that the classroom cannot provide for students. Creating community-based projects will allow students to grow in all of their intelligences by investigation issues and creating solutions to issues. Not only will this create an opportunity for students to be more familiar with their surroundings but also be aware of what their community can offer them as well as what they can offer their community. These skills that students will practice working in their community are very important for students to learn to become critical thinkers, understanding and application to current issues, and opportunities for volunteering to help their community.

As a physical and health education teacher, I have the ability to create many opportunities for students to work within their community. Taking advantage of the park district alone would allow students to experience many aspects of their community. Students can become familiar with recreation programs and other facilities in the community where they can go for sports and learn about other recreational games that the school many not provide. Being involved with the park district can give students many opportunities to volunteer for any events within the community. An example that I could use as an assessment for students to work with the community, I could have students first volunteer for a running event/race. Here students would observe and understand the work and planning it takes to run an event successfully. Once students understand the budgeting, marketing, theme, and an idea of the reasoning for many races, I would have students as a whole help me put together a race that would benefit the community within the school. The race/event would take place at the school but students would have to give ideas for raising money, where the money would go, how it is beneficial to the school and the community, who is involved, where students are going to recruit other volunteers, and a reason for having the race. This assessment would be beneficial for both health education and physical education.

Another community based project for students in the subject of health education would be to investigate the environmental health of the community. Students would investigate the hazards of air, water, and soil pollution. In determining the finding, students will understand the environment that they live in effects their quality of life. During the investigation students can keep journals, take photographs of environmental hazards with in their community, and chart data of what they have researched about pollution in their community.

I truly believe that taking students into the community gives students an opportunity to learn and experience issues that are within their own community and how they can impact the issues that concern them. As Schmidt stated in this chapter, it is essential that teachers continue to create opportunities for authentic assessment that creates authentic learning opportunities.