ASW Students Act With Purpose

At the Lipowa centre we see students act with purpose and take responsibility in ways that are very hard to make happen in a classroom. Last Friday we took 24 grade-11 students to Lipowa to work for the morning as part of their introduction to Creativity, Activity, and Service, an IB Diploma and ASW graduation requirement. Not knowing quite who would be there and what would need to be done (as is often the case in genuine service learning), we were able to give the students only the most minimal of instructions: We need this area to be as organised as possible; we want these ingredients turned into snacks and they should look nice; if you see a mess, clean it up. In a classroom, these would be wholly inadequate directions. At Lipowa, they work. Students took over, running the centre for the morning, asking the occasional question but generally taking it upon themselves to find what they could do and make sure it got done. A recipe was improved; two students were sent to get more sprinkles; clothes were resorted and labeled in Ukrainian; children were entertained; and the centre was cleaner when we left than when we arrived. 

The magic of working at the Lipowa centre is that this kind of learning happens every day that students are there. Seeing that there is a genuine need for what they can offer and knowing that the people who will benefit from their work are standing right in front of them, students rise to the challenge. And this is not just true of high school students. Again and again since we began working at Lipowa last March, I have seen my own 9 and 12 year-old kids handle tasks I had thought much too big for them. Whether that is organising friends to join Warriors for Warsaw or (in the case of the younger one) figuring out how to restock grocery shelves with a cart when the items are too heavy, both kids have been given real responsibility to meet real needs and have risen to the challenge. That experience of solving problems and making an immediate difference is, I think, the heart of service learning and what keeps bringing students back to the Lipowa ASW4Ukraine centre.

                          Chris Taylor, Ph.D.  High School English, American School of Warsaw