Service Learning
MKA's numerous "service-learning" opportunities enable students to put their ethical understandings into action through helping others. From helping in a Food Bank to assisting teachers in a Head Start classroom, students are encouraged to reflect on what such activities can teach them about themselves and their world. They are asked to consider what strengths they may have to share with others and to identify needs for service within both their local communities and throughout the world. MKA provides myriad, age-appropriate volunteering opportunities through partner organizations; Service Learning Coordinators at each campus, together with other faculty and parent representatives, provide necessary support and guidance for students' service initiatives. Groups of students — by grade level, advisor group, team or club — undertake specific service projects. At the Primary and Middle Schools, each grade level has a service-learning project.
The Primary School introduces children to the joys of giving and the responsibility we share in helping members of our immediate, as well as our global community. A curricular foundation is provided by the Brookside faculty to support the work of the PAMKA Community Outreach representatives in the execution of outreach projects, such as the Coat Drive, Food Collection, Giving Tree, and Book Drive. Curricular engagement ranges from reading appropriate empathic literature to participation in classroom activities designed to empower students to affect caring actions and change. Brookside students are encouraged to donate their time to the tri-campus MLK Day On to work toward a common service goal along with their older fellow MKA students. All service learning curriculum is designed to lend authenticity and meaning to actions taken by Brookside's Little Cougars.
To promote students’ service to the community at the Middle School, the fourth grade is involved with Head Start of Montclair and collects for the hat and mitten tree during the holidays. Fifth grade students visit residents of the Van Dyk Nursing Home four times throughout the year. Students in both fourth and fifth grades participate in collecting food for the Human Needs Food Pantry and in various service projects sponsored by the Student Government. Sixth grade students coordinate and carry out the Middle School's recycling efforts, seventh grade students work at Head Start of Montclair, and eighth grade students work with the Food Bank in Hillside. All students collect food for the Human Needs Food Pantry and participate in various service projects sponsored by the Student Government, such as Denim Day, UNICEF, Thanksgiving baskets and the faculty-student basketball game fundraiser.
At the Upper School, students are involved in a myriad of community service projects. From volunteering as tutors at TEAM Academy, MKA's partner school in Newark, to organizing benefit concerts for causes of their choice, from leading basketball practice for autistic children to working on Habitat for Humanity building projects, students assume responsibility for initiating, supporting and furthering community service. In addition, a freshman day of service in the fall and a campus-wide day of service in the spring, sees MKA students assisting local non-for profits ranging from Head Start to the Van Vleck House and Gardens.
