During the 2008 Search Institute conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Susan Solar was struck with an idea. The Clarkstown South High School teacher started thinking about ways to get more time in the school day for asset building. Clarkstown South High School’s Assets Team, a student club formed to promote the 40 Developmental Assets, had recently been established, but their brief meetings didn’t seem like enough time to devote to asset building. Solar considered what it would be like to have students spend 45 minutes every single day working on developing assets in their own lives and lives of their peers. From this thought, the idea for a Developmental Assets class was born.
From the beginning, the Assets Team set out to make their mark on South High School. “We didn’t want to be just another club; we wanted to be integrated into every aspect of the school. So, we talked to the coaches, we talked to the teachers, we go into the classrooms. Every time there is an event at the school, even if it’s not one that we’re spearheading, we offer our help,” said Solar. The club, which started with 5 students, now involves 200 students in activities such as community service events, fundraisers, parent workshops, and Developmental Asset trainings. According to Solar, the team is “really trying to become a central part of the school and that’s why it’s so important to us to create this course.”
The Developmental Assets class, which is being developed for the 2010-2011 school year, is a course with the aim of “teaching kids to be good, capable, kind human beings,” said Solar. The half-year elective will be team-taught by Solar, district social workers, and guidance counselors, and broken up into three different 6-week sections, focusing on the individual, the school, and the community. During the course, each student must complete one semester-long project that they work through from idea to resolution. Examples of this include researching a community organization and getting involved with it, and recognizing a challenge in the school, such as students not recycling, and coming up with ways to change it. “I think that’s something the kids can really sink their teeth into and put a lot of time and energy into it and see a result at the end of the three months,” says Solar.
Another aspect of the curriculum design is the Assets Get Active activity handbook that was designed by Solar and Assets Team members. The guide includes three or four activities for each of the 40 assets. The book contains a variety of activities, from small group discussions, to journaling activities, to games, to all-school functions born from ideas gathered at Search Institute conferences, Web sites, health and social studies curricula, and those generated by the Assets Team. High school junior and Assets Team member Anthony Pecorano said of the Assets Get Active handbook, “One of my favorite asset activities is from #38: Self-Esteem. It’s called ‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.’ You get a piece of paper with a mirror on both sides. You write 5 things that you see in yourself and you give it to someone else and they write 5 things they see in you and it has to do with self esteem.”
Clarkstown South High School, with the help of Susan Solar and the Assets Team, will become an even more asset-filled learning environment for students next fall. South’s Developmental Assets course is an important step forward for asset building in schools, and provides an excellent example of how students and teachers can work together to integrate asset building into a school environment.
(In photo from left to right: Julianne Skrapits, Anthony Pecoraro, Debra Tarantino, Erin Solar, Susan Solar, Deb Leh, Alex Donnelly)
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