The Most Important Resource of All: High School Student Essays on Lessons Learned from Community Service

Publisher Marketing: Since 2005 the American International School of Hong Kong has developed an Outdoor Education and Leadership Program that enables the whole high school to annually go off campus and take part in leadership programs designed to inspire high school students to give back to the global community by participating in service projects in parts of the world where help is needed most. Through this experience students learn to not only take, but to give. They learn the roots and causes or poverty and they work with organizations dedicated to eradicating poverty and illiteracy. The Adventure Week program is designed to develop students holistically in a way not possible in the classroom or home setting. During the 2014 - 15 academic year students from the American International School of Hong Kong traveled to the following countries: South Africa, Vietnam, China, and New Zealand. Every year before their Adventure Week trips, I teach my twelfth grade students the craft of travel writing. During Adventure Week, when students disperse across the globe, they compile notes, conduct interviews, observe, write in their journals, and when they return to the classroom, they draft, compose, edit, and revise their travel essays. This collection of essays reflects the students' experiences. In these essays students consider the impact of poverty on children and families; on how little it takes to make a person happy when life is stripped down to its barest essentials; and on how good it feels to replace electronic friendships with live ones. This anthology is divided up into sections by trip categories. Each section is introduced with an essay written by a teacher who accompanied the students on the trip. By sharing my students' essays I hope to inspire more high school teachers and administrators to lead their students to experience the satisfaction of giving to the global community. Laima Sruoginis, Head of High School English Contributor Bio:  Sruoginis, Laima Laima Sruoginis teaches Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.