Teaching Hope: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Vital Stats

Andrew H

Seattle, WA

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  • People Doing It 5

The Problem

Many students from the hood struggle to read and write at grade level expectations. As their language arts skills become an educational barrier, these students also receive mixed moral messages from gangs, media, and peers that skew perceptions of themselves, others, and what is right and wrong in this world. In the Rainier Valley of Seattle, a community rich in diversity but poor economically, these skewed perceptions have resulted in an overwhelming wave of teenage violence. This violence, coupled with mediocre academic achievement, demands investment in the academic and moral education of area youth.

Plan of Action

Since an individual effort is only amplified by community, I will give my curriculum to Urban Impact after I finish it this spring. Urban Impact is a non-profit organization in the Rainier Valley that seeks to strengthen families and raise servant leaders by building life changing relationships. Urban Impact will then use the curriculum to teach sixth grade students during their summer day camp. As Urban Impact teaches this curriculum to their students, I will constantly maintain communication and gain valuable feedback about the effectiveness of the lesson plans. With this feedback in mind, I will edit the curriculum before sending it to various publishing companies. Ideally, the curriculum will then be published and available at low cost to community organizations in urban areas around the country. In the meantime, I continue to tutor area students and have started recruiting friends to do likewise as I write the curriculum based on this experience coupled with academic research.
Go
Education
Homelessness and Poverty
Bullying and Violence

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