Teachers use Vital Signs to connect classrooms with communities

This fall, the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF) will be launching a project called Imagineaction that supports student-driven social action movements.

As part of this project, CTF will be producing teacher resources for all grade levels that provide ideas for using Vital Signs reports from Community Foundations of Canada to determine a starting point for social action projects.

Vital Signs reports are useful starting points for social action projects. They encourage educators to think about our communities in relation to national findings. These reports present facts regarding 10 key issues: work, gap between rich and poor, getting started, health, learning, housing, belonging and leadership, safety, environment, and arts and culture.

Teachers can identify which of the 10 key issues are most relevant to their curriculum or, alternatively, teachers can use all 10 key issues to help students explore their own community.

What I like about CTF’s resource is that it acknowledges that social action projects are most successful when students are highly involved in making decisions about the project, including the initial scope and direction.

It has been my experience that students are deeply interested in their communities, as well as other communities in Canada. Last year, my Grade 12 students in rural Nova Scotia explored issues in our local community and then visited a contrasting community in northern Alberta.

They published a book called 21st Century Communities: A Youth Inquiry Project and produced a documentary called Questions to Learn: A Youth Inquiry Project. This project was initiated by my students and was a response to their desire to think about their roles in current and future communities.  I am excited to bring additional resources about communities to my classroom, knowing how information about our communities, such as Vital Signs reports, might be used in classrooms and to help young people think about social action.

Social action can take different forms in our schools. It might be as focused as an awareness activity with a small group of students in one class, to as broad as an extra-curricular club that accomplishes year-long projects. It is important to note that one social-action activity can lead to another, that it can foster projects that include a wider community involvement, or that it can produce multiple initiatives to support a community.

Regardless of the scope of the initial interest, CTF’s Imagineaction resource will offer ideas to help teachers and students use Vital Signs reports to determine a starting point for social action.

Steven Van Zoost, PhD, teaches at Avon View High School in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Find out more at www.stevenvanzoost.com