Melissa's Service Learning Reflection

For our project, our group decided to do a presentation on bullying with the preschoolers at Bright Horizons. Jenn, Alanna and I decided to break the students up into groups to have a more personal discussion with the kids. To start the discussion with my group I asked the children what or who a bully is. My students came up with the following thoughts: someone who is mean, someone who doesn't like you, someone who makes you cry. After we discussed what a bully was, I read the book "Have you filled a bucket today?" After reading the story I asked the students to all go around in a circle and say something nice about the person sitting next to them so that everyone was complimented. I then discussed with my group the importance of being nice to people and 'filling buckets.' I then decided to ask the children what they should do if they are being bullied or see someone being bullied. My group decided that the best ideas would be to tell a teacher, tell your parents or ask the bully to stop.

It felt to do this project with the young children. I think that it is so sad that bullying happens this young, but it does and it is important for young children to know what to do if they or someone is being bullied and also the importance of being nice and caring to their peers. I think that the book was a great addition to this lesson because the children were very engaged with the book. It felt great because I feel like I really got through to the children because they were discussing and engaged in the lesson.

I would definitely do this lesson again with my future students. I think that bullying is something that unfortunately is going to be around for a while, and our students need to be educated on this topic. Depending on the age of the students I would change the discussion questions and the book that I read, but keep the same overall concept for the lesson. I think that I would do this project in the early years of my teaching and continue on with it throughout my career. Like I said, bullying is always going to be an issue and even if it isn't, children should always be taught to be caring to their peers and how to react to bullying. 

I think that service learning would fit better into the methods course if the topics were more designed for young students. Personally, my topic was one that could be taught to students quite easily but i know some other groups might have a had a hard time turning their topic into a lesson for elementary aged students.