Element 6 - Social Action

 

 Helping Others By Elizabeth Raum

Click Here to Purchase

Element VI: Social Action

Resources











        "Helping Others" is a great book for young children to read to learn how they can become involved in their community. There are a lot of vignettes in this book that shows famous people, such as former President Jimmy Carter, who first started helping out in his community by caring from animals and protecting cotton crops form insect and how those helping characteristics carried over to his adulthood into his presidency. It obvious that Elizabeth Raum want children to be upstanding citizens in their community by teaching them responsibility and problem-solving practices. In the book, it show children working independently as well cooperatively with adults and other children in social actions activities in a way that will promote a growth in their society or society further away. These social actions range from sorting recycling cans, fund-raising for UNICEF, collecting can donations to feed the hungry, and growing vegetables to donate to local soup kitchens. These societal problems happen all around the world. The amazing thing that this book demonstrates is that these were young people, as young as the age of six, who were tackling societal problems. Young children saw problems in their  community or further community and resource out to find solutions to those problems. Whether it was reaching out to a professional or gathering more friends to peers to help with their cause, young children found a way to correct a wrong in their community or a wrong in further society.
      
       "Helping Others" correlates to social action because it shows different problems local and global and how students can reach out and use their resources to create a better world. Teachers can use this book to show how even children their ages have raised awareness and took the first couple of steps to solving some of world's environmental or societal  problems that arouse to them. As a teacher and a future parent I would show young children that if they see a problem that they can be the ones that fix it, they do not have to wait for adults or anyone else to be the problem-solver. I would sit down with them and think about problem that community or global face. Then have them come up with some ideas that can troubleshoot the issue.