An old story I know…
Once, there was an old man who, after a long life, passed away. Now, I know what you’re thinking, what a sad way to start a story! But he really was an old man and he’d lived a long and happy life. And anyway, it’s just a made-up story. But, I digress.
So, having passed away peacefully in his sleep with a smile on his face, this old man woke to find himself in a well-lit but foggy room of white clouds and no walls with a woman in white robes standing before two doors. I know, it’s a very Judeo-Christian version of the afterlife but this is how I’ve heard the story and I hope we’ll all find it very inclusive in the end. Anyway, the woman in robes greets the old man and asks him if he’s ready to move on to heaven.
“Absolutely,” said the old man, excitedly.
“Very well” said the woman in robes as she reached for the handle on the door to the man’s left.
“But can I ask, why are there two doors?” said the old man, and the woman in robes paused.
“Well, the other door is for the other place,” said the woman in robes. “Would you like to look inside before you go to heaven?”
“Can I?” replied the old man.
“Yes,” said the woman in robes, “You can look, but do not step inside.”
And so, the woman in robes opened the door to the right, and the old man peered inside. He saw a richly appointed banquet hall that seemed to go on forever. There were large tables with magnificent center-pieces and fine china, and on every table were succulent foods of every variety. Every table setting had a flute of champagne. There was soft, beautiful orchestral music playing in the background and all of the people were dressed in fine tuxedos and evening gowns.
“I don’t understand,” said the old man, “It’s beautiful; how can this be Hell?”
“Look again,” replied the woman in robes.
And so, he did. Nothing about the room changed, and he was as bewildered as before, until the people began to eat, or try. Each held up long chopsticks, at least two meters in length, and every time they attempted to feed themselves, they realized that they could not bring the food even close to their mouths. The old man watched as time and time again the people picked up the food only to drop it on the floor.
“I see.” said the old man. “How terrible to be presented with everything one could ask for and yet be unable to actually attain it.
“Are you ready for your door now?” asked the woman in robes.
“Yes.” replied the old man.
And so, the woman in robes opened the door to the left, and the old man peered inside. He saw a richly appointed banquet hall that seemed to go on forever. There were large tables with magnificent center-pieces and fine china, and on every table were succulent foods of every variety. Every table setting had a flute of champagne. There was soft, beautiful orchestral music playing in the background and all of the people were dressed in fine tuxedos and evening gowns. At each place setting rested long chopsticks.
“But I don’t understand.” said the old man.
“Look again.” replied the woman in robes.
And so, he did. Nothing about the room changed, but just then the people inside began to eat. Each used their chopsticks to pick up a delicious morsel of food, and each turned to their neighbor to feed them. And as the old man stepped inside, everyone smiled and ate.
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This message, that a life of service to others is more fulfilling than a life spent in service to oneself, is perhaps the most influential on my professional life as a school principal. It is the foundation on which my “why” (to help others be and become their best selves) rests and is the foundation of the work we’ve put into building service-learning programs at Lincoln School over the past six years.
That journey began quite accidentally at an international teacher’s conference I attended in Mexico. The keynote speaker on the first day spoke about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the work he was doing as a school consultant in helping others build curricula and programs focused on international and local issues affecting the environment, equity, etc. He was a dynamic speaker and I found myself so moved that I spent the rest of the three-day conference attending each of his sessions. After, I went back to Lincoln and almost straight to the office of the Middle School Assistant Principal (Katia Alfaro) where I shared what I learned and found someone who was just as eager as I was to build a service-learning program at Lincoln. Together, we created the Middle School CLAS program.
CLAS (Creativity, Leadership, Advocacy, and Service) has evolved in the years since with input from an incredible team of educators and students who have become equally dedicated to the premise that our students can be agents of change in local communities right now, without waiting until after graduation. We began with the UNSDGs and divided them into four categories including environmental sustainability, animal welfare, human dignity, and equity and justice. Then, we spent a full school year interviewing local NGOs to create partnerships for our service-learning opportunities. Each NGO was assigned to a relevant category, and each agreed to host our students for multiple “boots on the ground” service days each year. A basic part of this agreement was that CLAS would not include fundraising activities or any other exchanges of money. Instead, we would focus solely on giving students opportunities to do the work themselves. Finally, we built an advisory program to create small groups of students with a teacher-leader to actually do the work. This helped us manage the logistics of the program and meshed nicely with another school goal of creating a pastoral care program to address students’ social-emotional learning needs.
The following year (the first of the program’s actual implementation) we assigned each group to an NGO. The group started the year by learning about the NGOs work and the issues they were seeking to address. Students also learned about the UNSDGs and the specific goal(s) related to this NGOs mission. Having done their research, student planned a day of service on-site. Some worked with the elderly in geriatric facilities, others fed animals, made them toys, and cleaned their enclosures in rehabilitation facilities, some students worked in community centers for under-served communities, and still more worked with children with special needs. After spending their day enacting their plan, they reconvened at school, debriefed their experience, and planned again for another day of service with a different NGO. They did this four times throughout the year; each time focusing their work within a different one of the four categories of the UNSDGs.
As I mentioned earlier, in the years that have passed since that first year of CLAS, several notable changes took place in the program. I moved into the High School, and the new Middle School principal worked with Katia and others to recategorize the UNSDGs and create additional NGO partnerships to keep the program sustainable. They also baked our entrepreneurial planning process into the CLAS formula to better align our programs and to give students more authorship of their work. Along with this, they made the change that each advisory was partnered with an NGO at the beginning of the year and then stayed with the NGO for multiple visits, allowing them to build stronger bonds and better understandings of the issues. Meanwhile, as High School Principal I worked with our team to bring a more student-directed version of CLAS into the High School and integrate it with our IB CAS program. Simultaneously, the Preschool and Elementary School teams used the CLAS acronym and mission to re-imagine our service programming for our youngest students. In that second year, our CLAS program grew from a middle school initiative to a whole-school program of over 1400 students from Preschool through Twelfth Grade.
The Covid-19 pandemic and corresponding school closures have forced us to pause much of this work. We’re haven’t been able to send students on-site since March 2019 and the loss of academic time under virtual and hybrid modalities has forced us to prioritize class time over the planning of service. But this is a pause, not and stop, and I for one can’t wait until our students get out into the field again, making their local communities and the world a better place, one act of service at a time.
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