P-16+ Service Learning

Service Learning in Illinois

Challenges in Service Learning

"Service learning engages students in education, offers them opportunities to strengthen basic skills in meaningful situations, and helps connect their personal lives and community responsibilities with their own academic achievement" (Anne Bryant, National School Boards Association). In K-12 service-learning research, Florida reports consistently strong improvement in three key areas: grades, attendance, and conduct (Follman and Muldoon, 1997, 22). In higher education, "Students in service learning sections had more positive course evaluations, more positive beliefs and values toward service and community, and higher academic achievement as measured on mid-term and final examinations" (Bringle and Hatcher, 1996, p. 223).

1. Academic Achievement

Examples of academic achievement come from two very different academic settings, Field Middle School in Northbrook and Pace High School, an alternative school in Blue Island. What they have in common is active teaching and engaged learning.

Field Middle School has created a service-learning curriculum, that involves students researching older adults, particularly attitudes in the media about age. They conduct a needs assessment with seniors in a local middle school and develop a project to address the needs identified. One of the most popular projects was planning and teaching a computer course for seniors. The curriculum is designed to meet Illinois Learning Standards.

Pace High School is an alternative school for students with disruptive behaviors who have failed in traditional educational settings. Pace High School faculty and administrators have developed a service-learning program that is infused into all parts of their curriculum. For example, they have a construction-trades track with Habitat for Humanity. It isn't just how to hammer, how to saw, but how to compute the amount of concrete for a floor, or how much lumber to order. They work alongside adult volunteers and discover their capacity to give and the importance of giving to the community. They use communication skills to deal with suppliers and report on their progress to the class. Students who come to Pace have been repeatedly disruptive. After a semester in service learning, the students say they see a point to education, and many are headed to the community college. Before the service-learning experience they were considered educational dropouts with little potential.

2. Workforce Skills

Connecting service learning and workforce preparation is described by Samuel Halperin Co-Director of the American Youth Policy Forum. "Each movement's methodology asserts that the learner is not an object, a passive vessel, but, rather, a resource responsible for helping to shape his or her own learning, as well as a valuable contributor to the work of the community. When the resources and values of the larger community are mobilized -- employers, educators, labor, community-based organizations, parents and students--quantum leaps in results are achieved."

3. Citizenship and Responsibility

Paul Vallas, CEO of Chicago Public Schools says, "It takes a village to educate, which includes businesses, interfaith programs, community-partnership programs, and everyone to get involved as school partners. Service learning helps students become good citizens and to become more community oriented." The Search Institute in Minnesota, reports that "youth who help others as little as one hour per week have half the incidence of negative behaviors such as skipping school, vandalism, and frequent use of alcohol and other drugs." And they are more connected.

Students involved with service learning develop responsibility because it is a part of their curriculum and their educational experience. Teachers applaud their service-learning students who plan and develop programs to read with younger students in after-school programs, teach senior citizens about computers, mentor peers, and learn about their importance to the community. Service is not only a "learning experience but a protective factor in young people's lives. Young people who are given responsibilities behave responsibly" (Antonelli and Thompson, 1996, 163). The chart below shows the differences in Putnam Vocational School in Massachusetts after implementing service learning.