Principles
of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning
by Ellen Porter Honnet and Susan J. Poulsen, The
Johnson Foundation
These Principles result from extensive consultation
with more than 70 organizations interested in service
and learning. Those consultations were conducted by
the National Society for Internships and Experiential
Education (NSIEE, now known as National Society for
Experiential Education, NSEE).
In May, 1989, a small advisory group met at Wingspread
to compose the preamble and the language of the ten
Principles.
The Johnson Foundation recognizes and thanks all
of those who have had a hand in the development of
these ten Principles of Good Practice For Combining
Service and Learning.
PREAMBLE
We are a nation founded upon active citizenship and
participation in community life. We have always believed
that individuals can and should serve.
It is crucial that service toward the common good
be combined with reflective learning to assure that
service programs of high quality can be created and
sustained over time, and to help individuals appreciate
how service can be a significant and ongoing part
of life. Service, combined with learning, adds value
to each and transforms both.
Those who serve and those who are served are thus
able to develop the informed judgment, imagination,
and skills that lead to a greater capacity to contribute
to the common good.
The Principles that follow are a statement of what
we believe are essential components of good practice.
We invite you to use them in the context of your particular
needs and purposes.
Principles of Good
Practice for Combining Service and Learning
1. An effective program engages people in responsible
and challenging actions for the common good.
2. An effective program provides structured opportunities
for people to reflect critically on their service
experience.
3. An effective program articulates clear service
and learning goals for everyone involved.
4. An effective program allows for those with needs
to define those needs.
5. An effective program clarifies the responsibilities
of each person and organization involved.
6. An effective program matches service providers
and service needs through a process that recognizes
changing circumstances.
7. An effective program expects genuine, active,
and sustained organizational commitment.
8. An effective program includes training, supervision,
monitoring, support, recognition, and evaluation
to meet service and learning goals.
9. An effective program insures that the time commitment
for service and learning is flexible, appropriate,
and in the best interests of all involved.
10. An effective program is committed to program
participation by and with diverse populations.
INTRODUCTION
The level of interest and sense of urgency in community
and voluntary service grows greater every day. In
every community, programs are being designed for participants
from kindergartners to the elderly. Is there a set
of guiding principles by which service programs can
be designed and by which their effectiveness can be
judged? Is there a set if ideas which have the potential
for deepening and sustaining current movements?
The Principles described on these pages reflect the
grassroots experience and the thinking of thousands
of people, hundreds of programs and numerous national
organizations over the last several decades. They
are offered with the hope that current initiatives
to create service programs will benefit from a rich
recent history.
The combination of service and learning is powerful.
It creates potential benefits beyond what either service
or learning can offer separately. The frequent results
of the effective interplay of service and learning
are that participants:
- Develop
a habit of critical reflection on their experiences,
enabling them to learn more throughout life,
- Are
more curious and motivated to learn,
- Are
able to perform better service,
- Strengthen
their ethic of social and civic response,
- Feel
more committed to addressing the underlying problems
behind social issues,
- Understand
problems in a more complex way and can imagine alternative
solutions,
- Demonstrate
more sensitivity to how decisions are made and how
institutional decisions affect people's lives,
- Respect
other cultures more and are better able to learn
about cultural differences,
- Learn
how to work more collaboratively with other people
on real problems,
- Realize
that their lives can make a difference.
The emphasis on learning does not mean these Principles
are limited in any way to programs connected to schools.
They relate to programs and policies based in all
settings -- community organizations, K-12 schools,
colleges and universities, corporations, government
agencies, and research and policy organizations. They
relate to people of all ages in all walks of life.
1. An effective program
engages people in responsible and challenging actions
for the common good.
Participants in programs combining service and learning
should engage in tasks that they and society recognize
as important. These actions should require reaching
beyond one's range of previous knowledge or experience.
Active participation-not merely being a spectator
or visitor-requires accountability for one's actions,
involves the right to take risks, and gives participants
the opportunity to experience the consequences of
those actions for others and for themselves.
Some Examples:
College students from the United States helped create
a local primary school in Liberia; students in Ecuador
work with foster and abandoned children; students
in England care for mentally and physically handicapped
persons; and in Jamaica, they work at a Human Rights
Center and in literacy projects. In each of these
cases, students are matched up with professional staff
members of local agencies through the Partnership
for Service-Learning, New York City.
A program of the Anderson YMCA/YWCA in Stockton,
California, helped establish a relationship between
area university students and the local Cambodian community.
This enabled students to help respond to the needs
of the Southeast Asian community in the aftermath
of a sniper who killed nearly a dozen children. Students
acted as translators, attended funeral services, and
comforted grieving families.
At Grant High School in Los Angeles, in the Community
Service Leadership class, students assessed community
needs and helped develop projects. Additional students
were recruited from the Constitutional Rights Foundation's
(CRF) Youth Community Service group on campus. A child
care group initiated tutoring in a local elementary
school; a group working with the homeless organized
a collection and distribution of goods, as well as
serving food at homeless shelters; an environmental
committee worked on community beautification and tree
planting; a group working with senior citizens "adopted
grandparents" at a local convalescent home and
led aerobic classes for the elderly.
The Retiree Group of Mellon Volunteer Professionals
in Pittsburgh volunteers thousands of hours each year
doing mailings, bookkeeping and conference registration,
among other things for local charities and non-profit
organizations.
Youngsters in Addison County, Vermont, know where
to turn when they're in trouble, thanks to the efforts
of students and teachers at Middlebury Junior High
School. Under a SerVermont grant, the students produced
a valuable resource guide, "If You're In Trouble,
We're Here to Help."
A journalist came to the school to help the students
learn to interview; computer students taught their
peers how to do desktop publishing, word processing,
and graphics; students interviewed local service agencies
and published the information in a booklet created
especially for area middle school students.
In the Chestnut Ridge School District in Pennsylvania,
The National Honor Society requires that members earn
20 points per year in public service to remain in
the Society. Members may choose from tutoring programs,
programs to install emergency road signs, and plotting
of emergency call numbers for homes and businesses
to assist the local fire department, among other interesting
projects.
In the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program of the Golden
Triangle in Columbus, Mississippi, high school student
volunteers learn the value of service by working with
children in need of direction. Matched up with needy
youngsters, these high school students offer companionship,
attitude development, self-esteem, relationship skills,
recreational activities, school adjustment, male-female
role models, and improvement in family function.
2. An effective program
provides structured opportunities for people to reflect
critically on their service experience.
The service experience alone does not insure that
either significant learning or effective service will
occur. It is important that programs build in structured
opportunities for participants to think about their
experience and what they have learned. Through discussions
with others and individual reflection on moral questions
and relevant issues, participants can develop a better
sense of social responsibility, advocacy, and active
citizenship. This reflective component allows for
personal growth and ismost useful when it is intentional
and continuous throughout the experience, and when
opportunity for feedback is provided. Ideally, feedback
will come from those persons being served, as well
as from peers and program leaders.
Some Examples:
As part of "Project Motivation" at the
YMCA of the University of Minnesota, students are
paired with 4th and 6th graders in need of "big
buddies." Volunteers attend a retreat at the
beginning of the program, and meet bi-weekly throughout
the school year. They are assisted by school social
workers who help them learn more about issues related
to their work as a volunteer and lead them in discussions
of problems and successes they are having with their
"little buddies."
At San Francisco State's Community Involvement Center,
students working with outside agencies keep journals
on their community service and meet for two hours
a week in support sessions to discuss, evaluate, and
solve problems relating to their work. In other high
school and college level programs, students compile
annual reports of service experiences that reflect
different themes and personal growth. City-wide conferences
scheduled throughout the year provide opportunities
for high school level volunteers to exchange ideas,
interact with community representatives about pressing
ideas, and reflect on leadership, philanthropy, and
service.
Some school programs link reflection more formally
with the curriculum. In Indiana, Goshen College students
are required to submit extensive journals reporting
on their international service experiences. "Project
Community" at the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor complements field experience with an academic
program back on campus that includes reading and writing,
as well as a weekly seminar that helps students integrate
their experiences with their reading.
As part of the Center for Service-Learning's Vermont
Internship Program, students at the University of
Vermont participate in one of three courses which
provide structured reflection and articulation of
learning from theservice experience. Students may
earn from 1-18 credits and participate in weekly or
bi-weekly seminars with other students, keep journals,
and write critical essays on aspects of the service
experience. One course, the Field Studies Internship,
is portable, in that it provides a service curriculum
and reading material that can be taken to a service
assignment in a foreign country or other setting outside
Vermont.
3. An effective program
articulates clear service and learning goals for everyone
involved.
From the outset of the project, participants and
service recipients alike must have a clear sense of:
(1) what is to be accomplished and (2) what is to
be learned. These service and learning goals must
be agreed upon through negotiations with all parties,
and in the context of the traditions and cultures
of the local community. These goals should reflect
the creative and imaginative input of those providing
the service, as well as those receiving it. Attention
to this important factor of mutuality in the service-learning
exchange protects the "service" from becoming
patronizing charity.
Some Examples:
Students from Hinesburg, Vermont, in the Champlain
Valley Union High School DUO (Do Unto Others) service
program design a learning program with their school
supervisor and the agency in which they'll serve.
This is done during the student's interview for the
service opportunity. Activities and goals are agreed
upon by all parties at that time, and are used in
the evaluation process throughout the experience.
At-risk students in two San Antonio school districts
are identified as "valued youths" and trained
to tutor youngsters at nearby elementary schools.
The "valued youths" are given training in
communications skills, child development theory, and
economic opportunities. Volunteers meet their service
goals by tutoring the children; they meet their learning
goals by reinforcing their own academic skills as
well as those of the younger students. Participants
in this program have also been found to be much less
likely to drop out of high school, and they cite the
development of relationships with the children as
a key factor to staying in school. (Valued Youth Partnership
Program, Intercultural Development Research Association.)
The University of Minnesota YMCA conducts informational
meetings for nearly every program and requires an
interview for all program participants. Volunteers
in some programs are asked to sign learning contracts.
Stanford University's Ravenswood Tutoring Program,
serving a primarily minority and low-income population,
stipulates that tutors must make a minimum two-quarter
commitment to work with an individual student. Before
beginning tutoring, the Stanford student meets with
the pupil's teacher to discuss and outline a set of
learning goals and objectives for the sessions.
"Project Down East SERVE" in Lubec, Maine,
works with rural low-income community members to motivate
students who have limited educational and vocational
aspirations. The learning goal of the project is to
encourage students to complete high school and further
education and to move on to satisfying careers. Students
volunteer in clerical, health care, social services,
teaching, day care, and fundraising activities to
help local agencies as part of their service.
4. An effective program
allows for those with needs to define those needs.
The actual recipients of service, as well as the
community groups and constituencies to which they
belong, must have the primary role in defining their
own service needs. Community service programs, government
agencies, and private organizations can also be helpful
in defining what service tasks are needed and when
and how these tasks should be performed. This collaboration
to define needs will insure that service by participants
will: (1) not take jobs from the local community,
and (2) involve tasks that will otherwise go undone.
Some Examples:
In a successful student-generated community service
project sponsored by SerVermont in Chester, Vermont,
senior citizens were included as "SerVermont
Seniors." Students were required to include a
senior citizen and a teacher on each planning team.
The Murray State University YMCA in Murray, Kentucky,
held a college day for sixth graders. After a full
day of participating in classes, recreation, and meals,
the sixth grade guests were given a needs assessment
to identify what they felt to be critical needs and
issues of their peers. Together with college student
volunteers, they developed a plan for several program
activities.
Employee volunteers in one corporation's "Public
Affairs Action Committee" invite speakers from
local agencies to make presentations during monthly
lunch meetings to learn about service opportunities
and find innovative ways in which employees can be
involved in service work.
College students at Virginia Tech, through their
YMCA responded to a call for assistance in the small
community of Ivanhoe. During their spring break, students
helped renovate a community center. Community members
provided potluck meals, home stays, and evening social
activities for the students. Students continue to
travel the 40 miles to Ivanhoe on weekends and school
holidays to be of further help. A community organizer
from Ivanhoe now teaches a course in community development
at Virginia Tech.
The Atherton YMCA in Honolulu includes both student
volunteers and the developmentally delayed teens they
work with in the process of planning events and activities.
5. An effective program
clarifies the responsibilities of each person and
organization involved.
Several parties are potentially involved in any service
and learning program: participants (students and teachers,
volunteers of all ages), community leaders, service
supervisors, and sponsoring organizations, as well
as those individuals and groups receiving the services.
It is important to clarify roles and responsibilities
of these parties through a negotiation process as
the program is being developed. This negotiation should
include identifying and assigning responsibility for
the tasks to be done, while acknowledging the values
and principles important to all the parties involved.
Some Examples:
Agencies accepting students from San Francisco State's
Community Involvement Program are given written guidelines
on the agencies' responsibilities to volunteers, including
the requirement for supervision and evaluation of
students. They remind the agencies that students need
direct personal contact with clients, and that there
should be minimal, if any, clerical and clean-up work.
Students, in turn are given detailed requirements,
including number of hours required, the importance
of keeping a journal, and the need to attend support
sessions.
In programs sponsored by the Partnership for Service-Learning,
the student, the faculty, and agency personnel work
together to achieve the goals of service and learning.
Job descriptions and schedules are defined by the
agencies. Learning is matched to the individual service
experience, and all involved provide evaluation and
reflection on the value and achievements of the learning
and the service.
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Citicorp
in New York City work together to provide a mentorship
opportunity each year for one male and one female
entering freshman from each UNCF college. The students
must have demonstrated outstanding academic and leadership
potential, as well as community and school service.
A Citicorp executive volunteers as a mentor for each
selected student. Mentors are screened and assigned
for four years. They help students with academic and
personal problems, summer work, and internships.
Many community service agencies have found it useful
to have clear job descriptions, not only for staff,
but also for board members, student staff, and volunteers.
Ideally, the responsibilities and expectations of
the volunteers are reviewed during early orientation
sessions and periodically throughout the experience.
Some business people and lawyers, in cooperation
with a local Chicago youth agency (The Centre, Inc.),
helped a group of urban young people follow through
on their idea to organize a small storefront office
supply business. Clear divisions of responsibilities
were set out for all those involved. The business
people and lawyers consulted with agency staff and
advised the youth, who actually ran the business.
The young people involved gained valuable skills and
enhanced their sense of self-worth and alternatives
for their futures.
6. An effective program
matches service providers and service needs through
a process that recognizes changing circumstances.
Because people are often changed by the service and
learning experience, effective programs must build
in opportunities for continuous feedback about the
changing service needs and growing service skills
of those involved. Ideally, participation in the service
partnership affects personal development in areas
such as intellect, ethics, cross-cultural understanding,
empathy, leadership, and citizenship. In effective
service and learning programs, the relationships among
groups and individuals are dynamic and often create
dilemmas. Such dilemmas may lead to unintended outcomes.
They can require recognizing and dealing with differences.
Some Examples:
At the University of California-Berkeley's Student
Volunteer Clearinghouse (Cal Corps), a graduate student
has developed software that, within two or three minutes,
can provide a list of volunteer opportunities based
on the student's interests, preferred location, schedule,
and need for public transportation. To help spread
the knowledge of how to develop and use this kind
of resource, Operation Civic Serve in San Francisco
funded a trip for this student to participate in a
conference with students from other campuses in California.
The Lee Honors College at Western Michigan University
works with the local Voluntary Action Center in identifying
appropriate sites for students. To help broaden the
connections, the College hosted a Volunteer Opportunities
Fair involving many area service agencies.
The Literacy Council in Bedford County, Pennsylvania
is one of several programs run by students. The students
make most of the decisions, assist trainers, apply
for funding, produce television spots, do public relations,
and recruit adults to work as tutors. While this is
primarily a tutoring project, only a few of the students
actually tutor due to the difficulty of daytime scheduling,
students' safety concerns, and adult embarrassment
in admitting to a high school student that they can't
read.
High school students in Los Angeles help match their
interests to community service needs through a 60-Minute
Community Search Activity provided by the Constitutional
Rights Foundation. The students use the session to
go out into their communities, identify resources,
assess their own abilities and interests, and connect
with agencies and businesses in need of volunteers.
Recognizing that initial matching of volunteer to
service opportunity is only the beginning, Partnership
for Service-Learning programs incorporate ongoing
evaluations into all service experiences. These are
conducted jointly by the volunteer, the coordinating
agency, and the recipients of the service as a basis
for responding to changes and reshaping the program
for subsequent participants.
High school students in the Vermont DUO Program establish
a clear understanding of talents and skills as well
as goals for the volunteer experience through an initial
meeting involving a school staff member, agency supervisor,
and the student. After the student spends three days
at the site, the supervisor is called to check on
progress, and a site visit is made by the school staff
member. The student keeps a written journal of the
experience. Final evaluations are written by the student,
the agency supervisor, and the school staff member.
Hospital Auxiliary Aids in a midwestern community
conduct a review after the first two weeks of volunteer
service and monthly thereafter to be certain that
the volunteer is comfortable in that position and
is meeting the hospital's service expectations. In
some cases, volunteers who have been assigned to emergency
room admissions find that they would be more comfortable
working in the gift shop; after working with people
in the out-patient admissions area for several months,
a volunteer may discover a gift for consoling families
and may be placed in the hospice program.
7. An effective program
expects genuine, active, and sustained organizational
commitment.
In order for a program to be effective, it must have
a strong, ongoing commitment from both the sponsoring
and the receiving organizations. Ideally, the commitment
will take many forms, including reference to both
service and learning in the organization's mission
statement. Effective programs must receive administrative
support, become line items in the organization's budget,
be allocated appropriate physical space, equipment,
and transportation, and allow for scheduled release
time for participants and program leaders. In schools,
the most effective service and learning programs are
linked to the curriculum and require that the faculty
become committed to combining service and learning
as a valid part of teaching.
Some Examples:
Corporations across the country commit thousands
of hours of employee release time each year in the
United Way Loaned Executive Program. Employees are
given time away from their regular jobs to serve on
area campaigns, helping United Way raise needed funds
to operate a wide range of community service agencies.
The DUO high school program in Vermont has received
full finding from its school district for the past
17 years. An office, staff, funds for professional
growth, and transportation funds for students are
included in the school budget. Teachers, guidance
counselors, and administrators encourage students
to get involved.
Commitment to student service by the college or university
president is critical to the success of service programs
on campus. Campus Compact: The Project for Public
and Community Service, is a consortium or more than
200 college and university presidents who provide
leadership and visible institutional support for service
as a part of the educational experience on their many
campuses. Campus Compact, headquartered at Brown University,
provides coordination and support for a wide range
of service projects and opportunities for students,
including literacy programs and mentoring.
COOL (Campus Outreach Opportunity League) promotes
the creation of a "Green Dean" administrative
position on college campuses. Each college or university
involved hires an energetic recent graduate to organize
community/voluntary service programs for undergraduates.
The positions may be funded for one to two years,
or ideally, become permanent staff positions, as they
have at Carleton College and Fordham University.
Some colleges and universities integrate service
components in the educational structure and curriculum.
These programs are not "at risk" to budget
constraints; they remain central to the educational
mission of the school and are supported by the faculty.
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, University
of Massachusetts at Boston (College III especially),
Alverno College in Milwaukee, the Fielding Institute
in Santa Barbara, Goshen College, and Manchester College
in Indiana are good examples.
Other institutions provide resources for volunteer
programs. The University of San Francisco provides
university-owned vans to bring volunteer tutors to
community centers to meet with young members of the
Southeast Asian community and help them bring their
scholastic achievements up to grade level.
Nearly all college-affiliated YMCAs have at least
one full-time staff person who works with student
leadership groups and with volunteers. These staff
people must be trained in the YMCA Career Development
Program or be full-time members of the university
staff. The commitment to having a consistent staff
person ensures continuity of relationships with students,
university, and community. It also allows for programming
that goes beyond being a broker for students and the
service programs, to addressing the developmental
needs of students.
The Community Volunteer Center in Albion, Michigan,
provides clerical and computer support, a meeting
place, information, technical assistance, and training
to meet a wide range of needs for volunteer organizations.
Their program helps new volunteer organizations get
started, and encourages support and participation
within the community for both adult and student volunteers.
8. An effective program
includes training, supervision, monitoring, support,
recognition, and evaluation to meet service and learning
goals.
The most effective service and learning programs
are sensitive to the importance of training, supervision,
and monitoring of progress throughout the program.
This is a reciprocal responsibility and requires open
communication between those offering and those receiving
the service. In partnership, sponsoring and receiving
organizations should recognize the value of service
through appropriate celebrations, awards, and public
acknowledgment of individual and group service. Planned,
formalized, and ongoing evaluation of service and
learning projects should be part of every program
and should involve all participants.
Some Examples:
At Stanford University's Ravenswood tutoring project,
tutors are required to take a one-day training session.
Staff of the tutoring program provide students with
support and resources to plan effective tutorials.
Student tutor coordinators act as liaisons between
teachers and tutors in each school. Stanford's Education
Department offers a 2-4 unit course in tutor training;
teachers from the Ravenswood schools lead math and
reading workshops throughout the year; on campus there
is a Tutor Resource Center and a monthly newsletter
called Tutoring Times.
International service programs of the Partnership
for Service-Learning include pre-program academic
and cultural materials, a statement of expectations
of behavior and responsibility, a two-week introductory
orientation to the culture and what it means to serve,
and ongoing monitoring by academic and agency personnel.
Evaluation is comprehensive and includes academic
grading for demonstrated learning. It also includes
service agency reports on the behavior and value of
the student to the community.
The United Way of Minneapolis helped to fund a longitudinal
study of the impact of the "Big Buddy" program
on elementary school children.
Volunteers from Walker Manufacturing Company, Racine,
Wisconsin, "pitched in" to help clean up
the Root River. In recognition, the company provided
personalized tee shirts ("Jane Pitched In")
which the employee could then wear to other corporate
and voluntary functions. The event was prominently
pictured on the back cover of the company magazine,
and volunteers were recognized for their ongoing service
at an annual banquet hosted by the company president.
Hudson High School in Ohio gives each student who
contributes time to the service program a handsome
certificate. Many schools recognize service through
award ceremonies, banquets, presentations of award
pins, or other celebrations.
"Prompters" volunteer organization at SUNY-Purchase
in NewYork involves some 175 community members in
the process of linking the campus and its arts programs
with others in the community. After an extensive in-service
training for volunteers, community members become
"ambassadors" for the arts programs of the
college, speaking in schools and helping expose some
8,000 elementary and secondary school students to
the arts.
9. An effective program
insures that the time commitment for service and learning
is flexible, appropriate, and in the best interests
of all involved.
In order to be useful to all parties involved, some
service activities require longer participation and/or
a greater time commitment than others. The length
of the experience and the amount of time required
are determined by the service tasks involved and should
be negotiated by all the parties. Sometimes a program
can do more harm than good if a project is abandoned
after too short a time or given too little attention.
Where appropriate, a carefully planned succession
or combination of participants can provide the continuity
of service needed.
Some Examples:
Many successful programs arrange projects to accommodate
the busy schedules of student and professional participants.
A Stanford student, for example, whose heavy schedule
made her unable to volunteer during daytime hours,
answered calls for a crisis hotline in her dorm room
from midnight to 8:00 a.m.
Members of "New York Cares", a group of
600 professionals, can only volunteer on weekends
and in the evenings. The coordinator of the group
works closely with service agencies to arrange service
activities that fall within these time constraints.
For example, teams of volunteers plan, fund, and host
parties on weekends for children living in homeless
hotels.
Many academic programs that link service to the curriculum
design the time commitment based on two factors: what
is needed for legitimate recognition of academic credit,
and the length of service that agencies and their
clients define as necessary. In some cases, this may
require the commitment of a semester or even an entire
academic year, while others may be as short as a summer
or even a couple of weeks.
Many successful programs in high schools and colleges
organize activities to keep volunteers involved for
the entire school year. They conduct retreats, have
weekly or bi-weekly meetings, and use extensive communications
to keep track of volunteers. Others recruit student
volunteers on a rotating basis. These operate on the
philosophy that students should be afforded opportunities
to volunteer whenever they are ready. This gives more
flexibility for program entry and exit.
The Mellon Volunteer Professionals (MVP) Retiree
Group generally places people in short-term projects
without long-term, on-going commitments to a specific
task in order to accommodate participants' travel
and lifestyle schedules. Volunteers work on events
such as intergenerational fairs, special fundraising
events, and development campaigns for local non-profit
organizations.
10. An effective program
is committed to program participation by and with
diverse populations.
A good service and learning program promotes access
and removes disincentives and barriers to participation.
Those responsible for participation in a program should
make every effort to include and make welcome persons
from differing ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds,
as well as those of varied ages, genders, economic
levels, and those with disabilities. Less obvious,
but very important, is the need for sensitivity to
other barriers, such as lack of transportation, family,
work, and school responsibilities, concern for personal
safety, or uncertainty about one's ability to make
a contribution.
Some Examples:
The best school programs are designed specifically
to be open to all students. They meet students at
an appropriate place where they can learn, give, and
feel of value to the community. Release time is provided
(often as much as one day a week), and transportation
is available for students who do not have access to
an automobile. Students may also do projects after
school, on weekends, or during the summer.
"City Year," a service corps program in
Boston, in its original charter, proposed to include
a diverse group of participants and to have specific
recruitment efforts to create a balance of participants
that reflects the diverse population of Boston.
A group of largely Asian and Latino students in the
"Learning Through Service" program in seven
San Francisco area high schools perform after-school
community service in their own ethnic communities.
These students, many of whom were initially reluctant
to volunteer, noted at a recent recognition luncheon
that they had come to discover, in their own words,
"the great rewards of serving."
In many programs in which activities are culturally
integrated, students report that stereotypes break
down and that they learn to appreciate cultural differences,
and find out that they share similar goals and values.
The "Magic Me" program in Baltimore links
children with nursing home residents, specifically
enlisting students who are not doing well in school.
This allows both the youngsters and the elderly to
"serve" one another. It also makes it possible
for a group of persons confined to a nursing home,
who traditionally could not engage in service, to
make a difference to society.
Senior citizens are often among those most willing
to volunteer, yet least able because of logistical
barriers. One successful literacy program provides
transportation for senior citizens to the community
centers where they help others learn to read and write.
A high school in Steel Valley, Pennsylvania, has
adopted the elderly community. Youngsters visit with
residents one-on-one at a personal care facility,
helping with arts and crafts and performing concerts.
One important aspect of the program is that it involves
a wide range of students, not only those with high
academic achievement.
A Caveat
A caveat is called for in the presentation of examples:
clearly, not all examples of successful programs can
be presented in this limited space. Most of the examples
included are drawn from material submitted by organizations
that participated in the creation of a set of Principles
developed by the National Society for Internships
and Experiential Education (NSIEE). The early Principles
developed by NSIEE served as an essential starting
point for this final document. Many of the contributing
organizations are oriented toward school or educational
settings, hence so are the examples. In an effort,
however, to acknowledge the broader possibilities
for combining service and learning, others have been
included. Examples are meant merely to suggest possible
ways in which to implement the spirit of the Principles.
Wingspread Conference Participants:
Joan M. Braun
Cecilia I. Delve
Deborah Genzer
Barbara M. Gomez
Ellen Porter Honnet
Jane C. Kendall
Lee Levison
Janet Luce
Sally Migliore
Susan J. Poulsen
Catherine A. Rolzinski
Sharon Rubin
Robert Lee Sigmon
Timothy Stanton
Hal Woods
Allen Wutzdorff
Conference Sponsors:
American Association of Higher Education
Campus Compact
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Council of Chief State School Officers
The Johnson Foundation, Inc.
National Association of Independent Schools
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Society for Internships and Experiential
Education
Youth Service America
Special Thanks to Those
Organizations That Helped in the Development of These
Principles:
ACCESS: Networking in the Public Interest
American Association of State Colleges and Universities
American Sociological Association
Association for Experiential Education-University
of Colorado
Association of American Colleges
Association of Episcopal Colleges
Campus Compact
Campus Outreach Opportunity League-University of Minnesota
Center for Creative Community
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning
Council for the Advancement of Citizenship
Council of Chief State School Officers
Educators for Social Responsibility
Executive High School Internship Association-Birmingham
Public Schools
Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation,
Inc.
The William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Youth
Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, Hamline
University
Independent Sector
Intercultural Development Research Association
Thomas Jefferson Forum, Inc.
Charles F. Kettering Foundation
Maryland Student Service Alliance-Maryland Department
of Education
Michigan Campus Compact-Michigan State University
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Association of Service and Conservation Corps
National Association of Student Employment Administrators
National Civic League
National Community Education Association
National Crime Prevention Council
National Institute for Work and Learning, Academy
for Educational Development
National Service Secretariat
National Society for Internships and Experiential
Education
National Youth Leadership Council
North Carolina State Government Internship Program,
Youth Advocacy and Involvement Office, North Carolina
Department of Administration
Operation Civic Serve
Overseas Development Network
The Partnership for Service-Learning
PennSERVE
The Philadelphia Center Great Lakes Colleges Association
SerVermont
Service-Learning Center-Michigan State University
United Negro College Fund, Inc.
VISTA Student Community Service, ACTION
VOLUNTEER-The National Center
YMCA of the USA
Youth Policy Institute
Youth Service America
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