Student Contributor -K Reidinger
The organization that I chose was our local Spokane Police Department, more specifically, the Downtown Precinct. Here, the officers are working hard to protect our community and to keep us safe!
The Spokane Police Department is such an important organization in our community. They provide us with so many services that help protect us and our safety. The officers that work at this organization are so kind and passionate about what they do. When I reached out to them for this project, they were so helpful and went above and beyond my expectations. Police officers are key members of our community and it is important that we teach our students about them. Kids need to know who to call if they are in danger and what police officers can do to help them. It can also be inspiring to students when they are thinking about what they want to be when they get older. The Spokane Police Department is a great organization to partner with if you are looking to inform and inspire your students.
For my project, I partnered with the Spokane Police Department’s Downtown Precinct. They were actually located in the neighboring building from the school I was placed at so it worked out perfectly! I reached out to them to ask if an officer would be willing to volunteer 30 minutes of their time to come talk to the preschoolers about what it is like to be a cop. This was an excellent way to get the preschoolers to learn about community members. They came up with questions to ask the officer and were so excited to talk to the volunteer. The officer was incredibly nice and patient with the preschoolers. He even brought them all stickers (which of course they loved). He was able to answer all of their questions and talk to them about being an officer. It was such a wonderful experience for them! I even noticed that after the officer left, some students were putting on the police costumes in the classroom so that they could pretend to be a cop! The students learned a lot from this positive experience and will definitely remember this!
M. Reynolds- I did this civic project as well. I brought a Spokane County Sheriff into my first grade classroom and the children loved it. The school I did this for is a lower income, rural elementary school with many troubled students. Many of my students have family who struggle with law enforcement or have poor views of officers. I saw the need to address this community connect and reached out to the Spokane County Sheriff to come and talk with my students. We began by reading a story about many types of officers and their roles in our community. After reading this story, many students had question to ask our guest officer and he answered their questions. Next, the officer guided us out to the school parking lot so the students were able to look at the officers car. Each student had a chance to sit in the officers car and ask questions. After the fun car experience, students said their thank yous’ and goodbyes’ to our guest officer. I had spent a lot of time pre organizing this experience and I remade letters for the students to write thank you notes on. When we went back to our classroom, our students wrote their thank you letters and turned them into me. I collected them and sent them to the sheriff who visited our classroom. Overall this experience was such an amazing connection to my students and their community. One thing I would do differently next time is asking more connecting questions during reading the book I purchased. In hindsight, I should have given more time for students to connect and retain information they learned from the book. However, I still think this lesson was effective and a pleasant experience. I would recommend this lesson to any teacher who wants to connect their students to the community in more depth.