The Significant Project
School is the preparation before entering the real world. It sets up oneself perfectly for some of life’s experiences, but for other experiences, no preparation is provided. This includes real-world communication, stepping outside of comfort zones, and tackling never seen before problems. School most definitely addresses these, but when taking on the world outside of school, these topics appear in a new form, with new exposures. The Community Project introduces all of these topics to students, improving their composure when facing reality.
The first aspect of this project that exposes students to actuality is the freedom to pick one’s topic. Anything that the student can think of, from what they care about, notice in the world, have prior knowledge of, or curiosity about, they get to choose what to explore. In school, students are always doing assignments assigned by the teacher, resulting in the lack of ability to create their own work. With this project, the first step is to deep dive into the minds and interests that they possess, opening up many possibilities that students may not have known existed before. This is similar to picking one’s occupation, except here students need not worry about the revenue their projects generate.
Secondly, students can further connect to the world around them from their projects. In picking, they are asked to think of issues in the world that they care about or want to be addressed. As they pick a topic and begin research, expectedly, knowledge on the topic increases. This results in students learning about why issues form, why they may remain, how efforts to fix them have failed and succeeded, and ultimately, how the world thinks of those issues. This learning experience forms a connection with the students in having these constant realizations of how society operates, sometimes effectively and sometimes in need of improvement. After pinpointing the problem with the world, students can then begin to attempt and fix it.
Finally, a vital benefiting factor in the Community Project is the factor of working with other people. This does not include only one’s partners, but people outside of school. In school, you have teachers and students, and that about sums it up. This isn’t undermining the social factor of schools, as one may have friends, best friends, enemies, favorite teachers, and strongly disliked teachers. It’s a whole system that plays a crucial role in each person’s characterization and growth, yet it’s different from the real world. When in the action part of the project, students encounter people who they attempt to persuade, charm, prove worthy of, gain acceptance, evaluate, judge, and so much more. It feels like a breakage from the familiarity of school, that being repetitive conversations and expected encounters with one’s teacher. Students learn to talk to others.
Not only phenomenal preparation for later in life but also a crucial experience for countless other factors, the Community Project’s importance is self-explanatory. As students continue to prosper and move up the ranks in middle school, high school, and eventually college, special moments throughout their educational careers stick with them. These moments usually consist of events where they learned or experienced something special, significant, and beneficial not only to academics but maybe to their life. The Community Project is handed this title; little pushback can be made.
