Blog

A Commitment to Service Learning

Angela Bergeson

Head of The IDEAL School

“No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts itself off from its youth, severs its lifeline.” –Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General

As part of our commitment to inclusion and acceptance, The IDEAL School provides students with a service learning framework that supports their development into “good citizens.” Service Learning is different from community service in several ways, the first being that it is outreach that ties directly back to classroom themes and curriculum.  Service learning is used in a structured way that connects classroom content, literature, and skills to community needs. This type of learning allows the students to:

•           Apply academic, social, and personal skills to improve the community;

•           Make decisions that have real, not hypothetical results;

•           Grow as individuals, gain respect for peers, and increase civic participation;

•           Gain a deeper understanding of themselves, their community, and society;

•           Experience success no matter what their ability level;

•           Develop as leaders who take initiative, solve problems, work as a team, and demonstrate their abilities while and through helping others.

Service Learning can be structured in the following ways:

•           Direct Service – face to face outreach that has an immediate impact;

•           Indirect Service – impact a cause or need that is not personal;

•           Advocacy – advocating for a cause or need through information sharing and raising awareness;

•           Research – seeing an issue and doing constructive research on how to solve the problem.

When our students participate in service learning projects, they incorporate academic skills and gain a more comprehensive understanding of issues facing our community.  Additionally, they develop a deeper understanding of skills through real-world application of tasks. This year, The IDEAL School will once again focus on hunger and homelessness.

Through service learning, students will examine conditions that cause poverty and lead to hunger and homelessness. They will become familiar with local needs and the services that address them, and study history through lenses of hunger, homelessness, and poverty, thereby making the issues more human and real.  Literature, both fiction and nonfiction, can vividly bring these events and the people who were affected by them into students’ lives today. Although affecting policy concerning people who are homeless is very challenging, students can work to help shape sustainable programs, can participate in new and existing programs, and can help in many other ways to meet immediate needs.1

To learn more about the ways this work will be integrated into students’ experience throughout the year, IDEAL families are encouraged to attend our Service Learning Kickoff Assembly on Friday, November 4 at 8:30 am, here at the school.

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1 The Complete Guide to Service Learning. Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A. (Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing, Inc., 2004).