S.K. Duff

Service Learning

Martin Luther King Day Celebration

“Peace, freedom, justice! Equality!” - S.K. Duff director of service learning at Hoboken Charter School, chanted down Washington Street today as he led a procession of schoolchildren, teachers and parent chaperones to City Hall, 94 Washington St., in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

More than 100 children holding handmade posters and signs calling for peace and equality participated in the 12th annual march that began at Fifth and Garden Streets shortly after 10 a.m. The students in the K-6 school’s theme this year was "Making Friends of Enemies."
The Hudson School, Elysian Charter School, Stevens Cooperative School and Demarest Alternative High School also participated in the march.

As reported on NJ.com website: "Annual march honoring MLK takes over Washington Street" by Mark Maurer/The Jersey Journal
January 15, 2010

For more reading and to look at amazing photographs and video shot of this very special tribute:

VIDEO on NJ.Com: Annual march in Hoboken pays tribute to MLK -- y Mark Maurer/The Jersey Journal
January 15, 2010

Hoboken Patch Article: March On Washington Street -- More than 500 Hoboken charter and public school students marched from Church Square Park to City Hall Friday morning in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
By Claire Moses -- January 15, 2010

Hoboken Patch Article: Martin Luther King Day in Hoboken -- A concert will take place at All Saints Episcopal School at 4 p.m. Monday.
By Claire Moses -- January 18, 2010

Hoboken Patch Article: Hoboken Community Gathers for MLK Celebration -- he event was organized by the Hoboken Charter School, but involved many organizations in the community
By Claire Moses -- January 19, 2010

Teaching Social Responsibility
A Culture of Service Learning

- As reported on the ASCD website - Educational Learning, - by Deirdra Grode - May 2009, Voume 66, Number 8

"Weaving service learning throughout its curriculum helps an urban charter school create highly engaged—and highly responsible—learners.

In late fall 2008, 3rd graders at Hoboken Charter School cheered, "Shave it off!" as two of their favorite teachers were publicly sheared in a fund-raising event to bring clean water to a village in Kenya."

A carnival planned a

nd put on by the children raised $3,500 to build a water retention system for a community in Kenya.

Read the full article here.

Get “Water Wings” and Fly!

As reported on the H2O For Life Website:

Hoboken Charter School's teachers and students, led by Mr. S.K Duff, had a fantastic time learning about the water crisis, and then taking action to make a difference. His 3rd grade art students participated in the newly created UBUNTU art and service curriculum.

The school, located in Hoboken, New Jersey, raised $2,640 to fund rainwater catchment, latrines and hand-washing stations for Chelelach Primary school in Kenya. Mr. Duff said, “I am so proud of our third graders, their regular classroom teachers, Ms. Shain and Ms. Nuygen and our entire school, and am truly grateful to the hard work and efforts of H2O for Life.”

Get Water Wings For Life

UBUNTU

African Art & Building Community with SK Duff at The Hoboken Charter School

This curriculum will have a Service Learning Emphasis on Water as we work with H20 (Help 2 Others) and UNICEF’s “Wash Initiative”

Art will again be our catalyst as we become better global citizens in a unique hybrid of art and service learning revolving around African art and culture.

At the core will be Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s philosophies centered around the building of “community” – i.e. “Ubuntu” or the essence of what it is to be human.

Our art projects will cover kifwebe (or African masks), Ndebele dolls and village painting styles, African mud cloth, burlap weavings, Kente clothe, Zulu love notes, indigo dying, etc. As we learn more of the cultures of Africa via its amazing artworks we will reach across oceans in partnership with two organizations:

H20 for Life (Help 2 Others)

UNICEF’s “Wash Initiative”

We will fund-raise in the style of AGGG!!!* with art projects (related to water) to fund the building of a basic well and water system for the Kinagoni Nursery school in Kenya, thus bringing clean water to children who currently live (and die) without...

At the core of our learning will be the text Our Poisoned Waters by Edward F. Dolan. It is certain to be an exciting year of collaborative learning as our water studies will also reinforce existing curriculum based on our community and its relationship with the Hudson River.

* AGGG!!! is an acronym for Art of Greater Gravity and Giving and is now a national organization originally founded at Hoboken Charter School in 2005.

In the Wake of a Hurricane

My art, poetry and teaching afforded me a Dodge Foundation Teacher Fellowship in 2005. There are times when personal opportunity allows you to touch the lives and hearts of the many. Please follow this link to the Geraldine F. Dodge Foundation website and read about the impact of this Fellowship on my students, "...In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina"

My students have learned important lessons about grass roots advocacy, folk and art history, and even recycling--they helped to preserve an art form that defines us as a nation, and that in itself is history-making.