In 2015, Boston Public School fourth-grade teacher and Mattapan native Sean Fitzgerald hit a roadblock. Society was different, technology had upgraded, and his students had changed.
“I was having a difficult time engaging kids,” says Fitzgerald, who teaches at the Richard J. Murphy School in Neponset. “I found that I was working way harder than the kids were, and I was like how do I get them to be more engaged in their learning and have some more ownership over it?”
One day, Fitzgerald had an epiphany as he spent the day helping his in-laws move from the North Shore to Florida.
“I was driving home, and I was thinking that it was such a cool feeling to help somebody. How can I replicate this feeling for my kids? My kids have so many skills, but they’re not showing up academically because they have all these other challenges and obstacles,” said Fitzgerald, who now lives in Marshfield.
“I went home and I did a little research about service learning and just helping people out and I was like, you know what, I’m going to put my kids in position so they can experience this really good euphoric feeling of helping others and think about how that might impact their self-esteem, their sense of purpose, their level engagement,” he said
Originally known as We Not Me, the service-learning initiative that Fitzgerald started gives students the chance to identify needs in their school community and take meaningful action. It’s now called “Btru,” short for “be altruistic,” meaning doing good for others without expecting anything in return.
“I started including the kids in the decision-making process because that was really important. I said, ‘Well who in our community needs our support, needs recognition, needs our help,’ whatever it was,” explained Fitzgerald. “The kids started generating all the people who are not even getting recognition, we talked about our custodial staff, the lunch monitors, our specialty teachers, so we started with that.”
Ryan Santiago, now 20, was a part of the first class of students engaged in the effort.
“In fourth grade, we used to make posters for janitors and a lot of underrepresented faculty,” he said. “I remember being so enthusiastic about the idea of being selfless.”
Now studying Aerospace Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Santiago said he carries that “we, not me,” mentality with him everywhere.
“Ten years ago, I had the most challenging class academically and behaviorally, and that’s why I wasn’t reaching them,” Fitzgerald said about Santiago’s class. “Once we made the short shift into going to the ‘we,’ they started doing their homework at a higher rate, they had fewer behavior incidents, and they were making academic gains within two weeks.”
Seeing the impact Btru had on his students and the school staff, Fitzgerald made it a key part of his and other Murphy teachers’ curriculum. Over the last few years, they’ve branched beyond the halls of the Murphy and into the streets of Boston, helping to raise funds for the Women’s Lunch Place and the Greater Boston Food Bank. This winter, the students made and sold ornaments to raise money for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP), which provides access to quality health care for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
“Sean reached out to a member of our development team here,” said Samantha Ciarcocco, a clinical social worker and BHCHP’s director of trauma services. “Because I also live in Dorchester, they reached out to me to go and talk about the work we do, accept their reward, and have the students ask questions.”
She added, “I talked a little bit about how hard it is for people who are experiencing homelessness to be able to get all their daily needs met. Then we opened it up, and they were able to ask me questions about things. We had great dialogue with some really insightful thoughts. Sean did a great job of prompting the question, ‘What is the one thing you would miss if you didn’t have a home?’”
Samantha Ciarcocco, left, of Boston Health Care for the Homeless with Murphy students and teacher Sean Fitzgerald. Photo courtesy BHCHP
Throughout the conversation, Ciarcocco explained that these people were missing things as simple as a toothbrush or shampoo. Thanks to the students’ efforts, BPHCP will now be able to distribute around 600 personal care kits.
“That’s 600 of our patients who are going to be able to have dignity and have that interaction with a staff and be able to take care of themselves,” said Ciarcocco.
“We’ve got eight-year-olds up to 13-year-olds making a really tangible, measurable difference, and if they can do that, then what else can we adults do?” added Fitzgerald. “The kids are kind of becoming the examples for this whole mindset of giving back. It doesn’t have to be money out of your wallet. It could be decorating an ornament or doing whatever.”
Fitzgerald knows that service learning isn’t new; a lot of private schools incorporate it into their curriculum, but he wants to see it become a part of all of BPS.
“B-tru is not a one-off; it is a philosophical educational shift that I have made that private schools do really well throughout the country,” he said. “Public schools haven’t adopted it yet. Service learning is a thing that happens at the high school level. That’s great and everything, but imagine if you started early and kids didn’t think of service learning as a check off but service as long as integral to their education.”
He continued, “That’s where Btru comes in. From the beginning of the year all the way to the end, they do a series of service projects. They’ve turned ‘Btru’into a verb. ‘I’m Btruing.’ That’s what they’ll say to me.”
