Power, Promise and Potential
Author(s): Marilyn W. Smith, Ph.D.
January 1, 2010
Just imagine K-12 education in which students are engaged and enthusiastic about learning and graduate from high school. Schools are pulsating with excitement and energy, and parents are connected to their local schools. Staff feels creative and empowered, and students recognize and embrace elements of good citizenship and character.
This is the promise, power and potential of school-based service learning.
As a teaching, learning and community-building strategy, service-learning was formally defined in the original National and Community Service Act of 1990 as a method:
• under which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs and that are coordinated in collaboration with the school and community
• that is integrated into the students' academic curriculum or provides structured time for students to think, talk or write about what they did and saw during the actual service activity
• that provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations in their own communities
• that embraces what is taught in schools by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the community and by helping to foster the development of a sense of caring for others
In 1993, when Congress reauthorized the National Service legislation, the definition of service-learning was updated to reflect a deeper level of sophistication and a stronger link to civic responsibility.
Service learning is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that:
• is conducted in and meets the needs of communities
• is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education or community service program and the community
• helps foster civic responsibility
• is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled
• provides structured time for students or participants to reflect on the service experiences
More simply put, service learning is a teaching strategy that integrates academic content with meaningful community service experiences.
In some ways similar to volunteerism and community service, service learning actively engages students in action that fills a need or a void, usually occurring in partnership with a nonprofit or community-based organization. The actual service work is designed to improve the quality of life for community residents, addressing human, educational, environmental or public safety needs. Service is often focused on projects that are particularly related to poverty in such fields as hunger and homelessness, child care, literacy, tutoring, mentoring, welfare, social service, transportation, aging, housing and neighborhood improvement, crime prevention, recreation and rural development.
As an educational approach, however, service learning, goes beyond the volunteer project or community-service day. Service learning requires service activities that are designed to meet a community need, at the same time addressing clear learning outcomes for the students. Service learning is based on the premise that service activities not only improve the community but also have a direct and valued impact on the personal and academic development of the students who serve. Therefore, service learning goes beyond the "doing" and requires that students explore relationships between what they are doing and what they learning.
Quality service learning experiences can be successfully implemented through community or faith-based organizations, a summer or semester program, or an after-school program. But to fulfill the promise of service learning in schools, educators must approach school-based service learning as a strategy to teach the curriculum, not merely as an add-on or a last-minute idea. School-based service learning must prepare students for the service activity, support and arrange for students to serve and then provide the academic framework through which students can reflect and learn from their experiences.
Service Learning in Action
Recently there was a good deal of press coverage when first lady Michelle Obama invited local students to help create a vegetable garden at the White House. Students prepared the soil, planted seedlings, harvested the crops and delivered the fresh vegetables to shelters and food banks throughout the nation’s capital. This is an example of a terrific volunteer project.
As a school-based service learning project, these very same activities could be seamlessly integrated with school subjects and curricular objectives as diverse as botany, ecology, social studies, language arts and reading, geology, health and economics. In fact, a single community gardening project could be the teaching strategy for learning outcomes for students from K–12 depending upon the learning objectives and the lesson plans.
With service learning, the entire community becomes the classroom since communities are viewed as ideal laboratories for learning. Thus, there are limitless possibilities for service-learning projects that meet community needs while teaching course content and meeting student competency standards. For example:
Social studies: First-graders can plant and take care of a spring flower garden in the school courtyard. They learn about various kinds of flowers and colors and can read a number of stories to develop their sight-word vocabulary. In May, when the flowers are in full bloom, the children create bouquets to present to elderly residents in a nearby senior citizen center. When the children return, they dictate stories about their flowers and their visit with the senior citizens.
Science: As part of their science curriculum, middle-school students take water samples of their local waterways. They analyze the amount and nature of pollutants in the water and look for the source of that pollution. They write letters to their local government to inform the city officials of the problem and encourage them to take action.
History: As part of a history class, middle-school students conduct research on their community’s history and write stories that are then displayed at the town hall. The students interview townspeople and visit local libraries to collect information. In addition to enhancing writing and research skills, the students and community members gain an understanding of their community history.
Reading/language arts: Fourth-graders enhance their reading and writing skills and learn the importance of literacy for preschool children by developing ABC books for new preschoolers. The fourth-graders make bound volumes with specially designed book covers. They each then host a preschooler during the first week of preschool by helping with tours of the school and spending time reading their ABC books to the preschoolers. Through this project fourth-graders meet their own grade-level objectives for punctuation, use of expressive words, multiple-meaning words, creative writing and critical thinking, at the same time they have supported the emergent literacy of the younger children.
Physical science: Ninth-grade physical-science students design and implement a campaign to educate elementary school students and the community at large about carbon-monoxide poisoning and fire safety. After interviewing firefighters and ambulance personal and conducting library research, the ninth-graders develop lessons and run a poster contest for elementary school students. The students also install carbon-monoxide detectors and smoke alarms in the homes of high-risk residents.
Languages: High school foreign language students create and deliver English vocabulary books for elementary English as a second language students. Through creating the books, the high school students increase their foreign language vocabulary and their understanding of other cultures.
Clearly, in addition to learning specific subject matter, the students in these examples are gaining skills, traits and competencies such as acquiring and using information, making decisions and judgments, communicating, listening, critical thinking, information gathering and problem solving. At the same time, they are developing their capacities for caring, cooperation, compassion, sharing, respect and service to others.
The School Counselor’s Role
Over the past 20 years, a body of scientifically valid research has emerged to prove the effects of service-learning participation on students. Research supports the implementation of quality school-based service learning as an effective approach for:
• increasing academic achievement
• reducing risk behaviors, including teen pregnancy and youth violence
• improving civic engagement
• helping students graduate
• encouraging active citizenship and community involvement
• developing self-confidence or a sense of achievement
Surely, service-learning, as a proven strategy for students' academic and personal growth could and should be promoted by school counselors as an antidote for school malaise. School counselors can stimulate interest in service learning by first becoming familiar with the practice. Then, in coordination with the school principal, teachers and parents, they should together learn from existing examples and examine lessons learned; key program management tools; and local, state or national funding sources. School counselors can provide leadership by arranging peer exchange with service-learning practitioners or arranging field trips to see first-hand how a program model works in other schools and settings. School counselors can facilitate the communication between school and community partners in arranging sites for service projects as service learning is inaugurated.
As service-learning blossoms and takes root as an approach to learning, imagine the students who are engaged in school, achieving and developing into active and informed citizens.
So go ahead. Try planting a schoolyard garden, engaging all students, planning lessons that integrate the gardening experience with related curricular objectives. Have students harvest your vegetables and feed the hungry, pick the flowers and visit the elderly, write a poem and read to a sick child, paint a picture and decorate the hospital, study hunger and advocate on behalf of the less fortunate. What do you have to lose?
Marilyn Smith can be reached at drmsmith@comcast.net.
Get more info on service learning from:
www.nationalservice.gov
www.servicelearning.org
www.service-learningpartnership.org
www.seanetonline.org
This is the promise, power and potential of school-based service learning.
As a teaching, learning and community-building strategy, service-learning was formally defined in the original National and Community Service Act of 1990 as a method:
• under which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs and that are coordinated in collaboration with the school and community
• that is integrated into the students' academic curriculum or provides structured time for students to think, talk or write about what they did and saw during the actual service activity
• that provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations in their own communities
• that embraces what is taught in schools by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the community and by helping to foster the development of a sense of caring for others
In 1993, when Congress reauthorized the National Service legislation, the definition of service-learning was updated to reflect a deeper level of sophistication and a stronger link to civic responsibility.
Service learning is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that:
• is conducted in and meets the needs of communities
• is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education or community service program and the community
• helps foster civic responsibility
• is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled
• provides structured time for students or participants to reflect on the service experiences
More simply put, service learning is a teaching strategy that integrates academic content with meaningful community service experiences.
In some ways similar to volunteerism and community service, service learning actively engages students in action that fills a need or a void, usually occurring in partnership with a nonprofit or community-based organization. The actual service work is designed to improve the quality of life for community residents, addressing human, educational, environmental or public safety needs. Service is often focused on projects that are particularly related to poverty in such fields as hunger and homelessness, child care, literacy, tutoring, mentoring, welfare, social service, transportation, aging, housing and neighborhood improvement, crime prevention, recreation and rural development.
As an educational approach, however, service learning, goes beyond the volunteer project or community-service day. Service learning requires service activities that are designed to meet a community need, at the same time addressing clear learning outcomes for the students. Service learning is based on the premise that service activities not only improve the community but also have a direct and valued impact on the personal and academic development of the students who serve. Therefore, service learning goes beyond the "doing" and requires that students explore relationships between what they are doing and what they learning.
Quality service learning experiences can be successfully implemented through community or faith-based organizations, a summer or semester program, or an after-school program. But to fulfill the promise of service learning in schools, educators must approach school-based service learning as a strategy to teach the curriculum, not merely as an add-on or a last-minute idea. School-based service learning must prepare students for the service activity, support and arrange for students to serve and then provide the academic framework through which students can reflect and learn from their experiences.
Service Learning in Action
Recently there was a good deal of press coverage when first lady Michelle Obama invited local students to help create a vegetable garden at the White House. Students prepared the soil, planted seedlings, harvested the crops and delivered the fresh vegetables to shelters and food banks throughout the nation’s capital. This is an example of a terrific volunteer project.
As a school-based service learning project, these very same activities could be seamlessly integrated with school subjects and curricular objectives as diverse as botany, ecology, social studies, language arts and reading, geology, health and economics. In fact, a single community gardening project could be the teaching strategy for learning outcomes for students from K–12 depending upon the learning objectives and the lesson plans.
With service learning, the entire community becomes the classroom since communities are viewed as ideal laboratories for learning. Thus, there are limitless possibilities for service-learning projects that meet community needs while teaching course content and meeting student competency standards. For example:
Social studies: First-graders can plant and take care of a spring flower garden in the school courtyard. They learn about various kinds of flowers and colors and can read a number of stories to develop their sight-word vocabulary. In May, when the flowers are in full bloom, the children create bouquets to present to elderly residents in a nearby senior citizen center. When the children return, they dictate stories about their flowers and their visit with the senior citizens.
Science: As part of their science curriculum, middle-school students take water samples of their local waterways. They analyze the amount and nature of pollutants in the water and look for the source of that pollution. They write letters to their local government to inform the city officials of the problem and encourage them to take action.
History: As part of a history class, middle-school students conduct research on their community’s history and write stories that are then displayed at the town hall. The students interview townspeople and visit local libraries to collect information. In addition to enhancing writing and research skills, the students and community members gain an understanding of their community history.
Reading/language arts: Fourth-graders enhance their reading and writing skills and learn the importance of literacy for preschool children by developing ABC books for new preschoolers. The fourth-graders make bound volumes with specially designed book covers. They each then host a preschooler during the first week of preschool by helping with tours of the school and spending time reading their ABC books to the preschoolers. Through this project fourth-graders meet their own grade-level objectives for punctuation, use of expressive words, multiple-meaning words, creative writing and critical thinking, at the same time they have supported the emergent literacy of the younger children.
Physical science: Ninth-grade physical-science students design and implement a campaign to educate elementary school students and the community at large about carbon-monoxide poisoning and fire safety. After interviewing firefighters and ambulance personal and conducting library research, the ninth-graders develop lessons and run a poster contest for elementary school students. The students also install carbon-monoxide detectors and smoke alarms in the homes of high-risk residents.
Languages: High school foreign language students create and deliver English vocabulary books for elementary English as a second language students. Through creating the books, the high school students increase their foreign language vocabulary and their understanding of other cultures.
Clearly, in addition to learning specific subject matter, the students in these examples are gaining skills, traits and competencies such as acquiring and using information, making decisions and judgments, communicating, listening, critical thinking, information gathering and problem solving. At the same time, they are developing their capacities for caring, cooperation, compassion, sharing, respect and service to others.
The School Counselor’s Role
Over the past 20 years, a body of scientifically valid research has emerged to prove the effects of service-learning participation on students. Research supports the implementation of quality school-based service learning as an effective approach for:
• increasing academic achievement
• reducing risk behaviors, including teen pregnancy and youth violence
• improving civic engagement
• helping students graduate
• encouraging active citizenship and community involvement
• developing self-confidence or a sense of achievement
Surely, service-learning, as a proven strategy for students' academic and personal growth could and should be promoted by school counselors as an antidote for school malaise. School counselors can stimulate interest in service learning by first becoming familiar with the practice. Then, in coordination with the school principal, teachers and parents, they should together learn from existing examples and examine lessons learned; key program management tools; and local, state or national funding sources. School counselors can provide leadership by arranging peer exchange with service-learning practitioners or arranging field trips to see first-hand how a program model works in other schools and settings. School counselors can facilitate the communication between school and community partners in arranging sites for service projects as service learning is inaugurated.
As service-learning blossoms and takes root as an approach to learning, imagine the students who are engaged in school, achieving and developing into active and informed citizens.
So go ahead. Try planting a schoolyard garden, engaging all students, planning lessons that integrate the gardening experience with related curricular objectives. Have students harvest your vegetables and feed the hungry, pick the flowers and visit the elderly, write a poem and read to a sick child, paint a picture and decorate the hospital, study hunger and advocate on behalf of the less fortunate. What do you have to lose?
Marilyn Smith can be reached at drmsmith@comcast.net.
Get more info on service learning from:
www.nationalservice.gov
www.servicelearning.org
www.service-learningpartnership.org
www.seanetonline.org