Teaching children life skills hands-on

Monday, October 21, 1996

ACTIVISM:

‘Service learning’ benefits both students and communityBy
Richard Riley

The remnants of a Chicago crack house were transformed recently
into a schoolhouse of sorts. A group of local high school students
devoted a day of gritty, hard work to cleaning up the abandoned
residence and beginning the task of converting it into a parental
resource center. For the students, the impact of the day was
delivered in the lessons they learned about people taking
responsibility to get things done and uniting with their neighbors
to better serve their communities.

Lecture halls and laboratories remain the most basic settings
for learning, but they are by no means the only place to teach our
students. As those Chicago students showed, the classroom
encompasses the entire community. One of the best methods for
teaching basic American values such as citizenship and teamwork to
our young people is through "service learning" ­ supplementing
classroom curriculum with hands-on community service.

By enriching students’ classroom experiences with activities
that encourage them to contribute to their communities, we can
create a sense of involvement that makes students more motivated to
stay in school and graduate. A recent study conducted by the RAND
Corporation and UCLA proves the connection between service learning
and academic achievement.

The study focused on college students who participate in Learn
and Serve America, a service learning program run by the
Corporation for National Service. Those students earned better
grades, displayed a greater sense of civic responsibility, and
developed stronger leadership skills than other students. The study
also found that community non-profit organizations benefit greatly
from student volunteers and seek their continued involvement, and
that colleges and universities are increasing their overall support
for service-learning initiatives.

Community service is central to the education of hundreds of
thousands of students. Law students at Southern Illinois University
volunteer in conflict-resolution programs that help migrant workers
and elementary school children to avoid resorting to violence when
settling their differences. In North Dakota, 550 eighth-graders
learned about citizenship and preserving the environment by helping
their country extension service clear five acres of brush, a
project that allowed a native prairie orchid to thrive. Elementary
school students in Maryland raise rockfish to help replenish the
feeder streams of the Potomac River. These young people are among
the 750,000 students from kindergarten through college who engage
in service through school and community projects sponsored by Learn
and Serve America.

In a commencement address earlier this year at Pennsylvania
State University, President Clinton told the graduates: "With this
wonderful, precious commodity of a fine education, I hope you will
go out in your community and find some way to give back some of
what your country has given you. No matter what you do or how busy
you are, there is always a way to serve a larger community. The
story of your generation should be the story of how we restore
broken lives and shattered promises through citizen service." Local
service-learning projects are writing that story.

At Graceville High School in Florida, Learn and Serve students
tutored and mentored elementary school students who were struggling
with their schoolwork. The service of the high schoolers prompted a
rise of half a point in the children’s grade point averages.
Absences dropped by 40 percent. Suspensions and serious
disciplinary problems dropped to zero. One of the children said his
mentor taught him "that I can do it myself. I was always afraid to
try, but now it’s okay to be scared ­ just try and do your
best."

Think of what it means to a student volunteer to hear this from
a child he or she tutored. And think of what it means to our
country. With service as a cornerstone of their education, students
at Graceville High School and thousands more schools across the
country can make a difference while learning about the world and
themselves.

Through such projects, these young men and women learn to
believe not only in themselves, but in something larger than
themselves as well. The larger lesson can be found in the words of
Rutgers University political scientist Benjamin R. Barber, who
wrote that "the fundamental task of education in a democracy is the
apprenticeship of liberty ­ learning to be free." Service
learning teaches students the responsibilities of the American
concepts of liberty and citizenship ­ to help raise up those
around them, and to aspire to new heights for their community and
their nation.

Riley is the Secretary of Education.