• Ask local YMCA or other after-school programs who use Learning for Life if you can teach one of the lesson plans to the group. Visit each area page for a list of organizations that participate in LFL.
• Practice creating your own lesson plans. Each Explorer can produce a lesson plan on a different topic. Include visual aids and activities that enforce the lesson.
• Research the term "self-fulfilling prophecy." How does the phenomenon relate to teaching?
• Become a tutor to younger children.
• Organize a community service project related to social services. Some ideas are: becoming a mentor to a younger child, reading to the blind, reading to the sick or homebound, organizing a children's book club at a school or public library to promote literacy, or contacting the National Institute for Literacy to learn more about other volunteer programs.
• Research childhood disorders such as ADD and ADHD. Invite a teacher with a background in special needs to talk about behavioral disorders and positive ways teachers deal with those disorders.
• Practice planning skills by participating in Adventure Days camp. Explorers can help with the organization of the event and gain community service hours by working one of the Adventure Days.
• Be a teacher's aide on a class trip for younger children.
• Participate in the YMCA's summer day camp program.
• Choose a simple skill, such as making a sandwich or brushing your teeth, and make a teaching outline and then teach a group the skill. Allow them to critique your teaching skills.
• Interview a teacher, guidance counselor or administrator to find out what attracted that person to a profession in education.
• Produce and direct a play or puppet show for a group of younger children, such as at a day care center or elementary class.
• Find out the education requirements to be a teacher, guidance counselor and administrator. Research the availability of teaching positions in your community.
• Research the correlation between student achievement and teacher expectation. For example, do teachers expect less from low-income students? Do teachers' high expectations produce high performance levels regardless of social or economic standing? Present your findings to a group.
• Find out the steps to hosting a foreign exchange student and the steps to becoming a foreign exchange student. Consider participating in the program or interviewing someone who has participated in the program.
• Arrange to tour a school in a different social environment than yours, such as an inner-city, rural, suburban or private school. Consider the similarities and differences to your school.
• Learn how much money your community, state and nation spend on education. What are the revenue sources for this money? What are the restrictions on how the money is spent?
• Research how your school district is governed. Is your superintendent appointed or elected? What about school board members?
• Attend a school board meeting
• Interview a school board member or superintendent to find out about his/her job and responsibilities.
• Learn how computers help your schoolwork.