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A Story
About Living Community
Stone Soup is a heartwarming children's
story that illustrates the power of community engagement.
An old folk tale, Stone Soup tells
the story of two travellers who help the residents of
a village realize the abundance their community holds.
Retold by Heather Forrest, with illustrations
by Susan Gaber, this version of Stone Soup is a colourful,
optimistic reminder of the importance of generosity
and community in our lives.
Browse through this storybook by clicking
on the picture above. The file will take a few moments
to download, but it's definitely worth the wait!
Used with permission
of August
House Publishers. |
This is the question we set out to answer
when we began a new research initiative. Intuitively, we knew
the answer should be “Yes!” but we wanted to see
if there was any research available to support this claim.
It turned out that we found pieces of the puzzle: articles
that showed how important adult mentors are to children; articles
that emphasized the importance of supportive neighbourhoods;
and articles that described school-community factors that
influence whether children drop-out or stay in school.
Nowhere in our
searching, however, were we able to locate an article in which
researchers had studied community and its importance to children.
So, instead of one key article, we offer you a patchwork quilt
of articles, which, when you piece them together, will give
you the result that yes, community is very important to children.
We believe that
community is important for children. Children need supportive
parents, safe neighbourhoods, adult mentors, and caring teachers.
Children need role models who will help them to develop a
sense of civic and social responsibility. Children need to
feel that they belong. As a society, we need to embrace our
children. As cliché as it may sound, children are our
future and we need them to have some basic skills: to trust,
to resolve conflicts peacefully, to think creatively, and
to care for other people. The articles in this section
indicate the importance of community to children and families
and suggest ways for families, schools and the broader community
to get together and help one another. Learn
more.
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It goes without
saying that one community in which children spend a great
deal of time is school. We found many interesting articles
and resources on ways teachers can
help build community in their classroom, within the broader
school and outside in their neighbouring community.
There are some
really creative ideas out there, such as Roots
of Empathy where a parent and baby come into the classroom
once a month to teach children about parenting and developmental
stages.
At the Ryerson
Community School, in addition to ESL, language classes
are offered to students in their native tongues to encourage
them to maintain their first languages and feel proud of their
heritage. Learn more.
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There are also
great resources available for teachers to build community
into the classroom, modeling respect for others, providing
methods of conflict resolution, and helping children constructively
solve their own problems. These ideas have all been tried
and tested and the links are available here.
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There are many
fantastic curriculum resources available
for teachers on the web. Searching for them can be overwhelming,
so we’ve selected some of the best ones for teaching
community to children. Learn more here.
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What about parents?
Absolutely, parents play a huge
part in shaping their children.
We found some
helpful parenting articles with some good, sensible suggestions.
An interesting theme that kept recurring in many articles
was the beneficial impact of having parents involved in their
children’s schools from kindergarten all the way through
to the end of high school.
If you are a
parent wondering how to get involved or a teacher wondering
how to get more parent involvement, there are several articles
in this section, which offer concrete
and practical suggestions.
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Children have
the ability to use their imaginations to think “outside
the box” in ways that adults often can’t. Sometimes
the persistence and dreams of children come true and they
are able to make a significant impact in their community.
Check out this page for some examples
of the little and big ideas children had and how their projects
connected them to the broader community.
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Check out our
growing catalogue of books and resources for parents, teachers
and children. Click here!
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