Let your life speak!
Friends believe that faith requires action in the world, thus Friends schools seek to promote a caring community, peaceful resolution of conflict, and service to others. The adults in a Friends school community help children grow into caring and responsible individuals who recognize their interconnectedness with the larger human family. Children learn at the most fundamental level that service to others and thoughtful stewardship of the environment or institutions such as libraries, parks and museums creates ties and builds community.
At San Francisco Friends School, service to the school community, and to people outside of our school, is an important part of children’s education. We try to incorporate learning into each service activity, so that children experience sharing as a mutual exchange, rather than as an act of pity or charity. In keeping with the Quaker belief that “there is that of God in everyone,” children begin to understand how to find the gifts and unique qualities in every individual, and to share of themselves generously and without condescension.
Community service is introduced in gentle, age-appropriate ways. Students begin by serving their own immediate community. Each child completes a daily chore, such as cleaning work areas, tending our school garden, or collecting the recycling. Writing letters of appreciation or condolence to school community members is an emphasis in the early writing program. These are all ways in which children can learn to give with love.
Teachers work together to build ties to organizations, both local and international, so that service learning may be developed as a thoughtful, sustained program. We are fortunate to have many excellent organizations in our neighborhood and city with which to create lasting connections. Teachers incorporate service opportunities into the core curriculum, so that children can see service as an integral part of learning. As part of our science curriculum, for example, students have weeded and mulched plants at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, helped with native plant restoration in the Presidio, and grown herbs, flowers and vegetables to share with others.
In a kindergarten study of goats, children listened to the story of Beatrice’s Goat and learned of the impact that a goat can have on the nutrition, and the educational and economic opportunities of children in developing countries. Through a series of small service projects at home and in their neighborhoods, each child earned money to contribute towards purchasing a goat from Heifer International. Children also have the opportunity to act as leaders through service. Following the tsunami in Southeast Asia, children proposed that the school’s penny jar be used towards aiding those who lost their homes and schools. Working with our local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, we raised funds to build temporary schools for children in the Banda Aceh area of Indonesia. At SFFS service to others includes the sharing of love, respect, created or collected material goods and - most especially - purposeful work.