Tis the Season for Service
- Jennifer Dosher
- Nov 29, 2023
- 3 min read
Service in action based on the learning in the classroom is an important movement. We recognize that many schools have community service initiatives that are not connected to the curriculum and we value their importance. We also recognize that this time of year many schools will have food drives, gift drives, and clothing drives that we highly value and in fact have led before. However, this episode’s focus is about inspiring students to take action on their own.
When most of us think about service, we just think about volunteerism and fundraising; however, when we talk about service learning, we always look at the four types of service students can do.
Direct Service is any type of volunteering from coastal cleanup, working at food banks, and visiting with seniors at assisted living facilities. These are things where students have a direct impact.
Indirect Service is where student actions indirectly impact others. These actions include activities like fundraising, food drives, and walkathons
Beyond direct and indirect service there are two more types of service learning: advocacy and research, and these two are easier to tie to curriculum.
Advocacy is where students take initiative to spread awareness of a cause – this could be something like an infographic to display, a brochure, or a podcast to give information.
Research is when students conduct research to learn more about a cause. This could be doing water quality studies or conducting surveys on school bullying.
One way to start is to ask the students “now that we learned all of this information- what can we do?”
Sometimes they have an answer and sometimes they don’t. Sabrina recounted that after teaching a unit on conflict to eighth graders, her students could not come up with an idea for service. After reminding them that there is a Veteran’s Hospital less than five miles from campus, someone came up with the idea of writing letters. She also related about a time where an idea for service surprised her. After learning about Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, her students decided to create PSA’s to advocate for a better school culture.
Jen reminded that service for advocacy and research can all come in the form of both formative and summative assessments. For example, after studying World War II, her students wrote letters to World War II veterans who were taking the Honor Flight to visit the memorial in Washington, DC. She used this as a formative task inviting her students to share something that they learned about the war in the letters along with expressing gratitude for their service. Another project that she did with her classes was inspired by a childhood friend who lost her father in Vietnam. Knowing the students would visit the memorial on their trip to Washington, she had them research a veteran who was on the Vietnam memorial. They created cards to leave that veteran which made the overall experience more meaningful for them. Another assessment that she has done is have her students create books or videos on the information learned to share with elementary students. All of these are ways to connect the curriculum to a real world situation to add more meaning for students.
Sabrina shared one technique that she learned as a PYP coordinator and that brought to a 2nd grade classroom that was studying the environment: Stop- start Change. The protocal ask students
What can you stop doing to reach a goal?
What can you start doing to reach a goal?
What can you change to reach a goal?
In the case of the environment, students decided they could stop using plastic bottles, start recycling more, and change by turning off lights. This framework can be applied at any grade level and in any content or situation. It even works well for goal setting.
There is a really great book out right now that addresses students taking action. It’s called Worldwise Learning: A Teacher′s Guide to Shaping a Just, Sustainable Future. The book, by Carla Marschall and Elizabeth Crawford considers the global challenges of today. There is a detailed framework for educators, practical classroom strategies, exemplar units, samples of student work and stories to inspire students. Speaking of inspirational stories, the Ashoka organization, whose mission is to identify and support social entrepreneurship, their website has a collection of stories for changemakers. Such as the story of William Kamkwamba, a young Malawian boy who built a windmill to save his village from drought – his story was made famous in the film The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. We also suggest exploring the UN sustainable goals which is a great starting point when teachers who want to spark ideas in their classroom.
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