Wrestling With the Idea of Engaging Youth in Service

[Angela]

I've really been struggling with whole notion of service--especially as a new experience for young children and teens. I don't know if any of you may have read Paula White's recent post, where she ruminates a bit about the challenges of truly engaging kids in learning, but that's how I'm feeling about service lately as well.

Service learning is a common thread that weaves itself into my relationships with my family and the work that I do with teachers and kids. Yet, it often unfolds in much the same way that Paula describes. It looks and feels a bit more like "parallel play" than true collaboration or even engagement. I'm not comfortable with this.

I wonder how to inspire self-motivated service learning choices better. Any ideas?? I'd be grateful for your help.

[Angela]

Hi Jenny--
I shared my thoughts about all of this in my reply to MIke's latest post. I agree with you completely, and I'm continuing to let all of this rattle around in my head this summer. Laura has joined YES (Youth Engaged in Service), which is a local volunteer organization for students. She's very excited about it too, and we're both pretty impressed with the way the kids come together to do the work that they do. I'm hoping she'll share what she's been up to here. It's a neat concept.

[Mike Poluk]

Hi Angela. Your post really pushed my thinking on this issue! I wrote a blog post that gives my own perspective on the issue. I hope it helps!

[Jenny Luca]

I've been mulling over this reply for awhile now Angela. I read Paula's post and found it interesting. I think we are still all learning how to 'work' this digital world and have our students be part of it. In terms of Service Learning, I've seen plenty of examples of kids working for a cause and raising money but not really having any idea of why they are doing it. Recently our school participated in Sleepout for Schools where we raised money for a couple of causes, one of them being Daraja Academy. On the night we skyped with the founder and Mark Lukach who helps raise awareness of the cause. I wrote a post about it and sent the students the replies I received. One fo the students sent me this response;

"thanks! it is so nice to see where our money goes and here from real people, instead of just sending money and forgetting about it."

It made me realise that being able to use technology to help the students make connections with the cause was a very positive thing.

I still think it's important that we actively encourage our students to support causes. I don't think we always appreciate or understand how much impact we have on them. Even if we impact on only a few students and have them understand that thinking outside of yourself and supporting others is a good thing to do then it is worthwhile. Sending kids out into the world who become the caring adults of the future is so important.