Why all students should volunteer to wrap gifts at the holidays

     This weekend, I spent a total of 7 hours with a handful of students wrapping presents at a local Barnes and Noble and I will spend 3 more with them next weekend.  When we were contacted by Barnes and Noble with this opportunity to do this as a fundraiser, I imagined money, lots of it, being given to my students for a service they would provide.  Our club needs money, so I thought it would be an excellent opportunity.  In seven hours, we earned a whopping $15 between 6 people.  That's right! Way less than minimum wage and about the same amount that I was paid per hour before tips for waiting tables in when I was in college back when dinosaurs still roamed Earth.

      Though this activity was not financially lucrative, my students are richer for having had this experience.  Here are four reasons why....

1. Customer service and business communication skills -  I would venture to say that the majority of my students do not have an after school job.  Their parents believe that school and getting good grades is their job.  Most of them only interact with 3 groups of people; family, friends, their teachers.  And I think that it has created a world where teens do not know how to talk to people outside their bubble, although this is a skill that they are going to have to develop when they become adults.  Better to learn now than later.

During the seven hours of our volunteer service, I stepped back and let them do the work. I was there to supervise after all.  When a customer approached the table, they greeted the customer, asked to see their receipt, and then asked questions of the customer to clarify how they would like their gift wrapped.  They made sure that the customer was satisfied with the job that they did and explained who we were and why were there.  It was interesting to watch them develop this skill over the three or four hours we were there.  By the end of the shift, they had it down and even the most timid student became more assertive.


2.  Dealing with disappointment  I think we all had dreams of making some bank this weekend.  I know that I was disappointed.  I'm pretty sure the girls who gave up their time this week were disappointed as well.  There were also customers who came to the table and didn't like the gift wrap that was provided by the store and left without getting their items wrapped.  There were others that did not donate to us even though we provided a service.

I could be very wrong, but I think this is good for students to learn to deal with.  All of the students who were with me are very strong academically.  They may bomb a test or quiz twice in their lives, but it is highly unlikely.  It is important for them to realize that things do not always go as planned or hoped for, but life still goes on.  It should be about the experience and not just getting what we wanted.


3.  Teamwork and learning something new  Gift wrapping for me has always been a craft that I take great pride in.  I learned how to do it at a very young age and improve over the years. I even make my bows by hand.  I like to crease the edges of the paper and make them sharp.  I like the way the paper bends and crackles under my fingers.  I like putting the care and love into wrapping the gift.  It somehow has more meaning than when I toss it into a gift bag.

As Bailey said today, "Thank goodness that my mom taught me how to wrap gifts."  She was really good at it too!  She was the only one that I did not have to teach how to wrap gifts.  Everyone else simply throws a gift into a gift bag and throws some tissue paper in with it.  The art of gift wrapping was lost on them.  Until today.

Bailey and I taught 5 girls how to wrap gifts today and Friday. They helped each other problem solve difficult package wrapping.  They handed each other tape, held edges and inspected each others' work.  This might be an excellent team building activity!  And more importantly, they took pride in their work, the final product and the appreciation in their customers' eyes.

4.  Conversation 

We had a lot of down time.  A LOT.  We had about 2 customers an hour.  Because we were in a "business" situation, I did not allow them to be using their devices; their phones, their iPads, their anything.  It is not very inviting to customers when your service provider is "involved" with their device.  They respected this and really did not argue or push back.  And they talked to each other and me (though I was grading papers in the corner) for the 3-4 hours we were there.  They laughed and teased each other.  They talked about silly stuff, stressed about school, and giggled.  And it was good.  They entertained each other for hours.  Our kids need to learn how to talk to each other.

And we are richer today because of this experience.

Your French teacher says, "Show your work!!!!"

    I don't want to jinx myself, but I really must say that my AP French class this year is top notch.
They are hard-working and constantly work toward improving their French in everything that they do.  They are energetic and fun.  I have made some changes to how I teach the class this year (and how I taught them last year) and I think that it has made a world of difference. Or maybe I am disillusioning myself and they are the difference that I see this year.  They were, after all, a pretty great class last year.

     Many years ago, I started integrating technology into my language classes.  This was an important move because it brings the French speaking world to them.  I cannot take every one of my students to France each summer, even though I would really like to, so I needed to bring it to them.  Their textbook is electronic, they complete open-ended speaking exercises on lingtlanguage.com, they write presentations and business letters in Google docs, and they watch videos and read articles written by and for French speakers on various websites from the Francophone world.  The use of technology in my classes allows me to give students personal feedback on their progress and allows me to give them a variety of activities to show their progress.

     Their practice workbook comes with access to the activities online so they know immediately which questions they missed and why.  In years past, I have trusted that they are spending the necessary time to do the activities and have not done more than check off the work in the gradebook after reviewing their answers to see where they are having trouble.  This year, I am requiring them to show their work in their paper workbook.  They must underline and define words that they do not know.  They must show where they got the answer in the readings and take notes on the listening section.  Doing so encourages them to interact directly with the document.  It intensifies concentration and encourages good habits of the mind.  They are performing better on these activities than students in years past.  I believe this for 2 reasons.  I am holding them accountable for their own learning by showing their work and they are focusing on getting the answers correct instead of simply getting them done.

     I require the same amount of interaction in their business letter responses.  They must identify the reason the sender has written to them.  They must identify any questions or requests in the letter.  They must underline and define words that they did not know.  This helps me when grading because I can grade their response and then look at their workbook to see where they went wrong with their response.  Did they not understand vocabulary?  Did they misunderstand the sender's request?  I can then give them feedback on how to improve their second draft.  On free response sections, I allow them to turn in a second, third or even fourth draft.  It rewards effort to improve.

    Similarly, on the presentational sections, 2 minute spoken presentation or 5 paragraph essay, I require them to outline the main points they are going to make.  This encourages organization and discourages stream of consciousness responses that do not seem to make a clear point.  For both sections, I also require them to tell me where they found their information.  In the oral, they must cite it in their response.  In the written presentational, they must cite the source and show where they found the point in the sources with underlining, asterisks or note taking.  They must also cite any words they looked up in a dictionary for use in their presentation with the word they searched in English and the dictionary they used, which discourages plagiarism.

    Finally,  I ask them to code their presentational written essays so that I can easily see that they have included a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary in their essay;  Green for subjunctive, purple for si clauses, blue for vocabulary, red for places where they had difficulty and want me to concentrate.  As we move on through the year, I introduce more colors for more elements.  This encourages them to be more mindful of what they are expected to include in their writings.  It holds them accountable for their learning.  One girl drew a sad face on her paper and said that hers was not very colorful, then asked how she could make it more colorful.  Coding their writing facilitates my ability to give them feedback in a timely manner.  I can see what they know and what they need to work on more.

    I have seen a great deal of improvement in this class in just the first marking period.  Their writing and speaking is superior to where it was at the beginning of the year and classes in years past.  Their grades are better than in other classes I have had in years past.  They have worked hard and it shows.