Sarah Percoulis
AmeriCorps VISTA for The LEAGUE Michigan
Service Learning. A common practice for few, but unknown to many.
To give a little background: Service learning is an educational practice where the teacher uses curriculum aimed at their specialty subject like math, science, social studies...pretty much anything, while tying it to a service project where students learn about philanthropy, community, doing good, paying it forward, and much more. Service learning not only caters to those kinesthetic learners who need a practical piece to classroom learning, but it gives all students involved “real-life” experiences with developing their leadership and communication skills, building relationships, and gaining project management practice.
The most important aspect to service learning is that it is YOUTH DRIVEN. Yes, the teachers decide on the specific lesson plans and help facilitate service project discussions, but the students decide everything - from assessing their community’s need to determining how to help, along with deciding which community organization to partner with to how to fund their project.
With such a seemingly great teaching framework, how is it that few educational professionals know little about it?
While working with The LEAGUE, a nonprofit organization supporting the K-12 service learning movement, I discovered the difficulty to motivate and recruit teachers to join in on this widely supported educational practice (to only those who are familiar). I am perplexed everyday on the question of getting buy-in from local teachers. As educational support staff, the thing is, we “support” teachers in anything they would need to integrate service-learning into the classroom…yet only a handful are interested in being involved.
Questions to ponder (and to comment on): As a teacher, how would you be persuaded to involve yourself in service learning? What would deter you?
