When young people so readily joined the nation’s massive outpouring of generosity following September 11, their public spiritedness came as no surprise to one group of people—the K-12 teachers who use service-learning in their classrooms. Service-learning is a teaching strategy that combines classroom curriculum with community service, to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. According to a report released recently by the National Commission on Service-Learning, chaired by former Senator John Glenn, service-learning offers the chance to actively engage young people by channeling the inclination to help others into activities that promote academic achievement.
“Even before September 11, young people in this country were looking for ways they could help other individuals, their communities, and their country,” said Glenn. “The desire to make a difference runs strong in American youth, when passions are intense and the search for self-definition is at its peak. Service-learning builds on the growing willingness of students to serve their communities—and makes sure there is a high-quality academic component to that community service.”
“Service-learning can help to lay the foundation for good scholarship—and good citizenship—for every young person in our country,” said Glenn.
“I watched September 11 ignite in young people an incredible burst of enthusiasm for helping others,” said Sharon Buddin, MetLife/NASSP National High School Principal of Year. “Service-learning is the perfect outlet for this instinct, and it has the additional benefits of engaging students in their studies and increasing academic achievement.”
Service-learning stands at the intersection of civic and academic engagement. For example, Miami High School in Oklahoma is close to one of the nation’s worst toxic clean-up sites and when a group of students and community members learned that children in their community had high levels of lead in their blood, they formed the Cherokee Volunteer Society to increase community awareness of the hazards of exposure to lead and other heavy metals found in local water.
The teachers at Miami High School collaborated with Cherokee tribal leaders and the Environmental Protection Agency and biology students conducted sophisticated water monitoring procedures, language arts classes engaged in creative writing essays and research projects related to toxic waste, and journalism classes tackled public relations, public-health communications and community awareness issues. The students at Miami High School reaped numerous academic benefits while helping the community.
Similarly, in West Philadelphia, a neighborhood that had been consistently undercounted by the U.S. Census, eighth graders at Turner Middle School came up with strategies to make sure that people there were fully counted. After a year-long project that applied math, social studies and language arts skills, their neighborhood had the most complete census count of any in the city.
According to Anne Bryant, Executive Director of the National School Boards Association, “Striving for high academic standards, designing assessment and accountability measures to gauge student progress—all these things are futile unless kids are motivated and energized to meet these standards. Authentic learning requires the sort of mental and emotional engagement you see employed at Miami High School and Turner Middle School.”
Studies show that large numbers of young Americans are not fully engaged—intellectually or otherwise—in the teaching and learning enterprise. As many as half of all high school students find their classes boring, and substantial majorities see no particular reason to get good grades in school or to refrain from cheating on tests. Disengagement also extends to activities fundamental to democratic society, such as voting and keeping up with current events. Service-learning has proved to be a powerful antidote to student disengagement, in addition to offering the following benefits:
- Reinforces and extends the standards-based reform movement by providing real-life context for learning and giving students a sense of the practical importance of what they are learning in school
- Builds on students’ willingness to become involved in service while adding an academic component to the service
- Contributes to young people’s personal and career development
The National Commission on Service-Learning challenges the country to ensure that every child in a primary and secondary school participates in quality service-learning every year as an integral and essential part of the American education experience. The Commission makes four specific recommendations to achieve the broad goal of making service-learning a universal experience in American public schools: Reclaim the public purpose of education by expanding the definition of student achievement to include students’ community contributions; increase policy, program and financial supports for service-learning in K-12 education; develop a comprehensive system of professional development regarding service-learning; and provide meaningful leadership roles for youth in all aspects of service-learning. The results of this comprehensive study can be explored in greater detail in the Commission’s full report, which is available on their site.
About The National Commission On Service-Learning
In 2000, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a longtime supporter of service-learning, appointed the National Commission on Service-Learning to study the current state of this practice in American schools. The Commission, chaired by former United States Senator John Glenn and co-sponsored by the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University, consists of 18 education, government, and community leaders. These leaders spent a year reviewing research data, visiting schools, and questioning students, teachers, and other advocates in order to understand the prevalence and practice of service-learning.
The National Commission on Service-Learning is coordinated and staffed by EDC. The Commission is one component of the Learning In Deed initiative, a comprehensive four-year effort to expand high-quality service-learning in K-12 education. Other parts of the Learning In Deed initiative include a five-state demonstration project, a research network, and a national partnership of practitioners.
Originally published on February 1, 2002