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4 Social Studies and the Young Learner

Social Studies and the Young Learner 23 (2), pp. 4–8 ©2010 National Council for the Social Studies

Young Citizens Take Action for Better School Lunches Stephanie Serriere, Dana Mitra, and Jennifer Cody

Months of civic action began from something as ordinary as the pre-made school salad. At Park Forest Elementary School in State College, Pennsylvania, the daily lunch salad was served with ham, croutons, and cheese. Three fifth grade girls at Forest Park believed this salad didn’t serve their health or religious needs. One girl, Anika, could not eat the salad because she was lactose-intolerant.1 Sana, whose family is from United Arab Emirates, was a vegetarian because of her Muslim background. Another girl, Olivia, couldn’t eat the meat on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent because of her religious beliefs as an Orthodox Christian. The three wanted to eat salad, but initially found the cafeteria workers could not serve it in any different form for them. They brought their issue to their teacher, Ms. Cody, and from there began a journey of student voice and activism.

As teachers, it may be easy to skim over our students’ grievances that “things just aren’t fair.” With an increased importance on stan- dardized testing, it’s not surprising that elementary schools remain places where decisions are often made for—and not by—students.2 Although some evidence may show that today’s youth in the United States are more disengaged and apathetic than decades ago.3 other evidence shows that they are indeed ready to take on civic issues in new ways.4 Moreover, it has been said that, “the early grades represent a critical opportunity to lay a foundation upon which civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions can grow.”5 Other researchers concur that to develop political attitudes of civic engagement, one must begin earlier than high school.6

Agents of Change This article outlines how young learners posed an authentic question from their personal experiences at school, spoke publicly to their entire school body, conducted surveys and research, analyzed data, presented their evidence and arguments to school staff and administrators, and reached a solution. We frame the actions these young citizens took to raise issues in their community using modified steps of the Project Citizen protocol of the Center for Civic Education:7

(1) Identify a problem to study

(2) Research the problem (3) Examine solutions (4) Propose a new public policy or an action plan (5) Reflect on the learning experience

Each of these steps can be used to address academic standards. For example, students and teachers are addressing a theme from the social studies curriculum standards—  CiviC ideals and  PraCtiCes—as they “locate, access, organize, and apply infor- mation about an issue of public concern from multiple points of view.”8 The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Language Arts Standards also apply as students gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non- print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.9 Other organiza- tions’ standards, such as those in math (by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) and science (by the National Science Teachers Association) also apply, but may be more dependent on a project’s specific focus.

Step 1. Identifying the Problem: “You Can’t Eat the Salad Either?” The purpose of this initial step is for students to share what they already know about a problem in their community, and to recog- nize its scope—whether it is a global, state, neighborhood, school, or classroom problem. This process could be initiated a class brainstorm. Teachers must be willing to step outside of a traditional role to allow for the discussion to unfold. It is important to have supporting adults who can take the time to listen and take student concerns seriously, yet still offer possible next steps and guide their efforts if necessary.

In the case of the “Salad Girls” (a name they have affectionately earned and accepted in their school), these students identified the issue together at their lunch table: the dietary choices offered at lunch did not reflect the students’ diversity. Anika explained that one day she accidentally signed up for the salad and sat without anything to eat since she was lactose-intolerant. The other girls at her

Okay, I can do this now. It’s my time to shine. Here, I’m going to stand here and fight for what I believe in.

— Anika, a fifth grade student, preparing to present her group’s “ issue” to the school

8 Social Studies and the Young Learner

acceptable solutions within days or weeks (or even years) is another learning opportunity and can be tied to issues in the larger society (ex., the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana). Especially in settings where young children are not accustomed to having leadership opportunities, these new roles of leading a project can be challenging for them. Teachers can take care to co-construct responsibilities with students and to see the project through to a satisfying conclusion.

Since the founding of the United States, public schools have held the key role of renewing our democracy through citizenship and civic education. This mission must include young learners, starting with their first schooling experiences. Even within the constraints of meeting Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) goals in the NCLB-era, such civic action projects remain an authentic way to meaningfully connect standards to civic action in elementary schools, and to support children’s developing skills as leaders with the power to learn about and change their world.

Notes 1. The name “the salad girls” was given to the group affectionately by their classmates.

The group included Sana A., Lauryn G., Anika M., Hannah N., Hannah O., and Hannah Y. Read a Centre Daily Times news article about the project at www.centredaily.com/2010/09/09/2197074/students-give-food-some-thought.html.

2. Stephanie Serriere and Dana Mitra, “Critical Issues and Contexts of Children and Youth Student Voice in the United States,” in International Handbook of Teacher and School Development, R. Leitch, ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, in press).

3 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

4. M. Ito, H. Horst, et al., Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, November 2008)

5. Bernadette Chi, J. Jastrzab, and A. Melchior, Developing Indicators and Measures of Civic Outcomes for Elementary School Students. CIRCLE Working Paper 47 (The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (2006), 5.

6. Carole L. Hahn, Becoming Political: Comparative Perspectives on Citizenship Education (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998); Judith Torney-Purta and S. V. Lopez, Developing Citizenship Competencies from Kindergarten through Grade 12: A Background Paper for Policymakers and Educators. (Education Commission of the States: National Center for Learning and Citizenship, 2006).

7. Center for Civic Education, Project Citizen (Denver, CO: National Conference of State Legislatures, 1996), new.civiced.org/programs/project-citizen.

8. National Council for the Social Studies, Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (Washington, DC: NCSS, 1994), 73.

9. National Council of Teachers of English, “NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts,” 2010, www.ncte.org/standards.

10. NCSS, 54. 11. NCSS, 73. 12. J. Eccles and J. A. Gootman, Community Programs to Promote Youth Development

(Washington, DC: National Academies of Science, 2002). 13. Dana L. Mitra, “The Significance of Students: Can Increasing “Student Voice” in

Schools Lead to Gains in Youth Development?” Teachers College Record 106, no. 4, (2004): 651-688; Mitra, “Adults Advising Youth: Leading While Getting Out of the Way,” Educational Administration Quarterly 41 no.3 (2005), 520-553.

The authors thank Dewey Elementary School Principal Donnan Stoicovy for her support of this and other projects.

Stephanie Serriere is an assistant professor of elementary social studies at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. Dana Mitra is an associate professor of education theory and policy at Penn- sylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. Jennifer Cody is a fifth grade teacher at Park Forest Elementary School in State College, Pennsylvania.