Learning by Giving: Community Service as Classwork
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| Audience/Grade: | 7 - High School Senior |
| Discipline(s): |
Community-based Service Learning General Engineering, Engineering Science |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - General |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Fran Smith |
| Description: | Article in Edutopia with links to resources on the topic. Excerpt: "To graduate from high school in Maryland, students must do more than memorize the parts of the nervous system and master quadratic equations. They have to fulfill seventy-five hours of community service -- and babysitting doesn't count. As school-based volunteering soars nationwide, educators are fine-tuning their service initiatives to create serious community-based projects and tie them to academic standards. Hundreds of school districts require elementary, middle, and high schools to build community service into the curriculum. Although Maryland is the only state that mandates service, a growing number, including California, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, actively encourage it. An estimated 10.6 million students volunteered through their schools in 2004, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service -- up from 6.1 million in 1997 and just less than 1 million in 1984. Chicago, with 105,000 students in 107 high schools, is the largest district with a strict quantifiable requirement: forty hours of service learning (real-world activities with clear curricular tie-ins and teacher oversight) to graduate, at least half of which must be completed by the end of tenth grade. Los Angeles mandated service learning beginning with the class of 2007. Philadelphia has a solid reputation for service in schools, but the district dictates only that third, eighth, and twelfth graders complete a multidisciplinary project that may be service related. Projects nationwide run the gamut from traditional charity endeavors, such as Hats for the Homeless, to environmental cleanups to human rights activities, such as campaigns against genocide abroad or gun violence at home. Maryland students raised money to preserve cannons at the Civil War battle site of Antietam and restore a room at a historic plantation. They have built Adirondack chairs at a nature center and nesting boxes for wood ducks; they have planted gardens along banks in wetlands. Teenagers elsewhere danced with senior citizens, served breakfast to veterans, and mentored younger kids." |
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Concluding paragraphs: ""What these kids are doing is incredible," says Northside teacher Christine Olsen. "They're solving problems." Decatur teacher Laurie Chetelat echoes the sentiment. "Students learn that it's not all about the government doing things," she says. "It's also our role to give back to the community." Connections, the volunteer center founded by Decatur students, started with a few committees and a $2,500 grant for a computer and a telephone. Four years later, it has grown into a thriving community hub. Organizations come to rally young people -- Connections recently established a branch of Habitat for Humanity, for instance. Students learn about needs they never knew existed -- at least, not in their hometown. And teens who have a brainstorm about benevolence can find support and volunteers to translate the idea into action. After watching his grandmother struggle to work a computer, Decatur student Wyatt Harrison spearheaded Surfing with Connections, a program of computer classes for senior citizens. The sessions, held at the school about once every six weeks, draw twenty-five to thirty elderly students (including, once, Harrison's grandmother) and thirty-five or more teen instructors. "It really feels great helping people," Harrison says. Most kids at the 1,300-student high school apparently would agree. By the time they graduate, about three-quarters of Decatur students exceed the mandatory seventy-five hours in service to their school and community -- all without complaining." |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | November 2010 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.edutopia.org/learning-by-giving-community-service-as-c |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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