Students learn to make a difference
As I browsed my daughter’s booklet of high school course offerings recently, I was struck by the variety of electives available. It listed classes in advanced British literature, 3D animation, Chinese, and one devoted to service learning.
I had heard of service learning because I serve on a board in Northfield called the Healthy Community Initiative. The board has awarded grants to students who’ve taken the class and developed worthy projects, such as organizing a benefit concert to raise money for cancer patients. What I didn’t know, until I interviewed some experts, is that service learning is more than a class. It’s a teaching strategy that combines academic instruction with meaningful community service, for students from kindergarten through college.
Michelle Kamenov, service learning specialist with the Minnesota Department of Education, says it’s important for parents to know that service learning is not the same as community service.
“Community service has incredible value in so many realms, but service learning is different. Service learning is a teaching and learning pedagogy. Structured time for reflection is really built into that, time for students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that have been acquired,” she says.
Service learning can incorporate a number of different skills and subjects. At St. Peter High School, 11th-grade U. S. history students used technology to preserve the memories, documents, and diverse perspectives of local veterans who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. At Edina High School, students in an environmental studies class used various testing programs to determine the water quality index for a local creek, and then worked with watershed district officials to announce the results.
Fostering connections
Schools across the state have worked to integrate service learning into the K-12 curriculum for almost 20 years. Since 1993, the state education department has received service learning funding from a federal, independent government agency called the Corporation for National and Community Service. The state funnels the money to school districts through a competitive grant application process. Districts also can levy special community education funds to support youth service programs.
Service learning has been shown to improve student attendance, boost academic achievement, and foster greater connection to community. Students who participate in service learning also are less likely to engage in risky behaviors, and are more knowledgeable and realistic about careers.
Kamenov says seven Minnesota districts that have received service-learning funding are currently involved in a multi-state study that is looking at how it affects student achievement and student engagement. Those districts are the Carver/Scott Educational Cooperative, Duluth, Edina, Morris, Northfield, St. Paul, and Virginia.
Kathy Bartsias, a full-time service-learning specialist with the Duluth Public Schools, says service learning fits all subjects and connects with all types
of learners.
A former classroom teacher, Bartsias helps teachers within the district integrate service learning into their curriculum, ensuring it connects to academic standards and incorporates important principles like youth voice, reflection, diversity, meaningful service, and reciprocal partnerships.
She also helps foster connections between the classroom and community partners.
“I have yet to receive a negative reaction to service learning, period. People can see the good in it right away, and people are eager to work with us,” she says.
In one recent classroom project, concerns about radon connected Duluth students with their community. The teacher of an advanced chemistry class arranged a partnership with a company that had radon testing equipment but lacked people power. The students went into homes, conducted radon testing, interpreted the data back in the classroom, and then provided the results to the company.
Bartsias says much of the service learning that takes place in the district is intergenerational, and helps students appreciate the differences that exist between people in a community, whether it’s age, skin color, or religion.
“Sometimes young people, through circumstances not under their control, have to figure out ways to survive, and they can’t begin to understand things beyond their world. Service learning helps them, it gives them an opportunity to learn about other people’s worlds, develop empathy, and learn about caring and respect.”
When service learning is integrated throughout a school, Bartsias says it causes a change of culture within the building, and reinforces the idea for students that serving and helping is part of becoming a responsible adult.
“Not only does it change our students, it changes everyone in the district, in terms of how we behave, and how we go about our business of being people,” she says.
Joy Riggs is a writer and mom of three experiential learners, ages 14, 12, and 10.
