Be the Change: Guiding our Children to Make a Difference
Do you have teens who want to make a difference in the world around them? Be the Change self-paced online homeschool curriculum from Orenda Learning can help you guide your teens into meaningful community engagement and volunteering services.
Don’t miss the FREE community action templates from Be the Change!
(Read on to discover more about it and how to use them.)
Find more family-friendly volunteer opportunities to make a difference and teach life skills to round out these concepts in your homeschool.
What is Be the Change?
As homeschoolers, we recognize the benefits of online learning to ensure our kids have a well-rounded education. It’s also a help to homeschool moms because we can expand the topics our children have access to, including things we might not ordinarily teach ourselves or that might be outside of the usual curriculum. When it comes to the high school years, teens often want to explore outside interests and electives.
Be the Change from Orenda Learning is an online learning program that teaches teens how to make a difference in their community and globally through service. It is underpinned by a comprehensive service curriculum that outlines clear conceptual understandings for learners to work towards.
Be The Change is made up of two parts: a series of eleven lessons and a toolkit. The eleven lessons are each one hour long, and are designed to give you the foundational understandings you need to participate in real life service experiences.
The second part of the program is the Toolkit, which is separated into the five stages of service: Investigation, Preparation, Action, Demonstration and Reflection.
Each stage will contain a series of guides that you can use to help you work through each stage of service:
- Reflection (overarching)
- Get Connected: Investigation
- Be Informed: Preparation
- Take Action: Action
- Inspire: Demonstration
Navigation throughout the course is simple and will be familiar to anyone who has taken an online course. There is a dashboard, modules, and built-in quizzes, so there is no prep time required for homeschool parents.
Lessons are a combination of videos, reading, quizzes, journaling/reflection, discussion, and taking action. There is also a course Glossary with all vocabulary words and a course reference list.
How to use Be the Change in your homeschool
My daughters were intrigued by the idea of learning more about service projects since they are naturally compassionate and know that there are many problems that need to be addressed in the world. Be the Change is a great place to start.
Teens can easily log in and complete the lessons on their own, making this ideal for independent learning and taking ownership of their own education. Progress is shown as a percentage of topics completed in each module.
Be the Change makes it clear that this is not a “rescue mission,” but rather an educational and practical way to help others that will be sustainable for them. It addresses the issues of climate change, poverty, hunger, and natural disasters while showing teens what they can do through research, direct action, indirect action, and raising awareness and advocacy.
Because of this, Be the Change is very respectful of the communities and cultures in which they serve, encouraging best practices as described throughout the course. Alice Whitehead, M.Ed, PG.Dip, B.Bus, is the founder of Orenda Learning. She was a teacher and service coordinator at United World College in Singapore so she has both educational and practical working experience with global service projects.
Why take the Be the Change online course?
There are many good reasons to include Be the Change in your homeschool curriculum. As I mentioned, teens need electives to meet high school requirements. They also need a chance to pursue their passions and interests in a more independent way, which includes serving others and doing something meaningful in the world. This is part of purposeful homeschooling overall. These topics are specifically addressed in modules 6 and 7.
Another consideration: Some colleges and universities require service projects for entrance applications. There are also apprenticeships and jobs that will require this type of work, too.
Taking the Be the Change course will help your teens not only to meet educational or occupational requirements, it will help them to develop empathy, entrepreneurial thinking skills, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. It will help make them active and productive citizens in their community and the world.
Free Digital Resources from Be the Change
You can download some free digital resources from Be the Change to get a better understanding of what they offer:
These templates will give you:
- Ideas and inspiration for service engagements.
- Clear frameworks to underpin a cycle of service: Investigation, Preparation, Action, Reflection, Demonstration.
- Guidance and a focus for solo or group service.
- Ready made material that saves you precious time.
- A window into the content of Be The Change, an online program in service for young people.
You can also follow them on social media and read their blog for the latest updates.
Learn more about Be the Change from Orenda Learning
I encourage you to consider Be the Change for your teen in high school. This is the type of service program that isn’t often available for homeschoolers and it shouldn’t be overlooked.
Visit their website to learn more and enroll in Be the Change self-paced online course today!
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