A comment by Joel Heffner made me consider the fact that I can get a type of tunnel vision in my blogs.  I assume that people know me, that they know how much I love my job and that they know that I am usually pretty optimistic . . . okay, with a slight cynical streak.

When the quarter closes and I feel tired, I realize that I can start to sound negative.  It might even seem like I don't enjoy teaching.  The reality, though, is that I look back on the quarter and I feel great about what my students have accomplished.

The students have logged in over 1,500 hours of community service, painted a mural, worked on a documentary, coordinated the school-wide recycling program, designed a school website, wrote letters to soldiers, crocheted blankets for a local children's hospital, raised money for life straws, wrote articles for our class online magazine / blog (you can visit it at socialvoice.blogspot.com.  Kids give up their free lunch time to do research projects and book clubs and a group of them have started writing a book that combines their thoughts on a social issue, a service project connected to it and an interview with someone connected to that issue.  You can check out some of what we do at thesocialvoice.com/impact We have done most of these projects in partnership with the Social Awareness Club, who has organized service projects, created a fundraising dance, designed a quilt and created other service-related projects.

What we do is not an exception at our school. There are so many things going on at our school.  Coaches are holding Saturday practices accompanied by tutoring and I've noticed the difference in the classroom.  A PE teacher raised almost $2,000 for a cancer charity.  The choir participated at a festival and afterward they ate at one of Phoenix's nicest restaraunt.  A patron of the restaraunt wrote a letter to the school about how amazed he was by how well behaved our students were.  On other teams, students have started doing service projects.  One team has organized guest speakers that connect to what the students are learning in social studies.   

I realize that this may sound like bragging.  Yet, I feel lucky to work with the students and teachers at our school.  Though we may be labled as failing (because our ELL population didn't improve by a high enough margin on the standardized tests) the reality is that some amazing things are happening here.

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Social Voice Video is a part of the whole Project Social Voice that combines multimedia technology, service learning, authentic experiences and rigorous academic standards.

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