SEASON FOR CARING
Kids learn life lessons the write way
Students at Bryker Woods Elementary learn about compassion, charity by writing letters to, raising money for the Mbaya family.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, December 11, 2007Click HERE for a photo album on the Austin American Statesman web site.
The letters written in the scratchy, neat script of 6-year-olds express a heartwarming level of curiosity and compassion for a group of strangers.
"How long were you all in Africa? I hope you love your bikes. I hope your father/husband can come soon. I will give money, too. I hope you get what you like."
Bret Gerbe
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Ryan Bonesteel, 6, writes a letter to the Mbaya family. He is a first grade student in Ms. Lorene Wallace's class at Bryker Woods Elementary School.
Bret Gerbe
AMERICAN-STATESMANBryker Woods Elementary first-graders Oby Mbachu, left, and Saylor Cline point out the letters that they wrote to the Mbaya family as part of a class project about compassion. By learning how to help the family, the students, including Ryan Bonesteel, top, are also learning about geography, immigration and how to distinguish needs from wants. See more photos of the kids and their letters at statesman.com/multimedia.
Composed by first-graders in Lorene Wallace's class at Bryker Woods Elementary in Austin, the letters were written to Chantal Mbaya and her five children, one of 12 families in the Austin American-Statesman's ninth annual Season for Caring campaign.
The letters are part of a class project about the word "compassion." Wallace thought the Season for Caring campaign, which raises money for Central Texans in need and area nonprofit agencies, would be a useful aid to help explain the term to her young pupils.
"Compassion is such an ambiguous and abstract concept for a first-grader to understand, until you put the word into a practical application (such as) when (you) help someone," she said. "This way you can put it into a context that the whole school can understand."
The students presented their project to 350 students and dozens of parents and teachers during a school assembly Monday, and the letters are temporarily on display outside a classroom.
Wallace chose Mbaya and her family because she thought that her students could identify with them. Before immigrating to the United States in 2006, the Mbayas lived as refugees in Zimbabwe for four years. They fled there from their home in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Mbaya's husband, who had been kidnapped by rebel forces in 2002, was reunited with the family shortly before the Mbayas were permitted to immigrate. He has to stay in Zimbabwe until his immigration is approved.
"We have a student in our class who recently emigrated from Africa," Wallace said. "Also, the mother of one of our students was born in South Africa. The Mbayas also have a child who is in first grade, so there were a lot of these little connections that I thought made this a good project" for the class.
The 17 students are compiling the letters into a book to give to the Mbayas as encouragement — and to seek answers to the first-graders' most pressing inquiries: "How is first grade? Are you studying rocks like we are studying rocks? How much writing do you have to do? Do you do a lot of writing or not very much writing?"
In class, the students have read and discussed articles about the Mbayas that have appeared in the American-Statesman.
"Coincidentally, we have a little girl in our class whose father works in California, and he comes down on the weekends to visit," Wallace said. "So she was really able to relate to (the Mbayas) and feel the sadness they feel about not having their father with them, even though she is able to see her father and they aren't."
Working on the project has also helped connect the dots between lessons the students had earlier in the semester.
"We just wrapped up a section on geography, and we did a lot of work about continents," Wallace said. "We also did a little section on immigration earlier in the year. We've discussed needs and wants in class, and we took the Mbaya's wish list and divided it up into needs and wants. It's a really good application of some of the subjects we've been studying for the last 14 weeks and helps bring it all together."
In addition to the letters, the class is raising money for the Mbayas to teach the students about charity and putting the needs of others over their own. So far, they have raised almost $300.
"Most of the kids are more used to getting things for the holidays instead of having to give," she said. "That's one thing that I wanted to stress to the parents — I'm not trying to raise hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I would rather have a kid with $6 and he has to give up $1 to the Mbayas so he will see what giving and making sacrifices is really about."
rdennis@statesman.com; 445-3601
