Getting Our Voices Heard: Increasing Service-Learning Awareness Nationally

A key question for all of us in the Service-Learning field is how we can increase the visibility and national stature of service-learning as a viable educational methodology in an age of continuing federal cutbacks. We all know first-hand that service-learning works. We have seen the dramatic stories of fundamental change from students who have gone from at-risk, low-performing status to leadership and medium to high-performing status within the span of a single service-learning program. How do we get national attention for these dramatic stories?

The answer lies in awareness work. Our field has a tendency to shy away from the spotlight due to the inherent modesty of teachers who simply want to change the lives of students for the better and are not savvy about outreach to stakeholders such as school administrators, legislators, corporate sponsors and the general public. This is also due to the restrictions imposed on state-level coordinators on lobbying, and/or the limited amount of time and experience state-level coordinators have in this area. Further, it is also related to the fact that students do not vote, and students and teachers do not lobby. But to maintain or increase the strength of service-learning depends upon our ability to engage in this type of outreach. Without support from key decision-makers, especially legislators, there is no guarantee that service-learning support will be sustained now or in the future. It is critical that we make our voices heard now.

There are many ways to conduct outreach, ranging from focused campaigns conducted throughout the year to arranging direct visits with stakeholders to show dynamically how service-learning projects work. In Florida, we have had some success with an awareness and outreach approach based on an annual meeting where students and teachers visit the state capital to hold direct visits with their legislators. Now in its fourth year, this annual event has grown from 125 to 400 participants.

Student visits with legislators are not lobbying, as students focus on describing the service-learning efforts and do not mention specific legislation. The students are educating and providing information to legislators. Adhering to federal guidelines on lobbying does not mean legislative outreach efforts should not be conducted. Legislators need to be aware of the key issues which affect their constituents. Service-learning is a key methodology for addressing both academic needs for students and critical community needs. Legislators should be aware of Service-Learning as a strategy for fundamental change at the school level and at the community level. In addition, when students teach others about their service-learning efforts, they are both demonstrating what they have learned and also performing another level of service learning.

Our yearly awareness event, called the Raise Your Voice for Service-Learning Conference, is held at the state capital in Tallahassee and includes workshops (mostly presented by students), displays in the Capitol, student visits with legislators, a rally and press conference to celebrate Florida Service-Learning Month (April of each year), and recognize the new cadre of Florida Service-Learning Leader Schools. Nearly 400 people are planning to attend this year (to see the conference web link and flyer at Click here.). To underwrite the event, Florida Learn & Serve primarily uses returned funds from the previous grant year. Sub-grantees compete for amendments, following established program guidelines.

As part of the conference, students contact their legislators to make arrangements to meet with them both locally and when the students travel to Tallahassee. When/where sub-grantees are able to get legislators to visit their schools; long-lasting relationships can be developed between a school and its local legislator. There is nothing quite like a legislator seeing first-hand the dramatic advancements made by students and community impacts due to service-learning programs. Legislators are receptive to these stories. There is a chance that after such a visit, a legislator will maintain ties with the school and hold it up as a model to be replicated. Such relationships are exactly what our field needs nationally to foster the kind of long-term support for our practice that can eventually materialize as sustainable support through long-term funding.

The Florida Raise Your Voice Conference is held in March or April of each year, during the legislative session. It is also scheduled to avoid conflicts with spring break and state-level testing. The schedule, which is 24 hours from 1:00 p.m. on the first day until noon on the second day, is designed to reduce costs (most schools need only one night in a hotel) and limit the number of days of school that students will miss (usually two days).

Workshops, mostly student-led and focusing on student leadership, student voice, advocacy, working with media, and related topics, are held the first afternoon. For the past three years, a state legislator has participated and helped students prepare for presentations to legislators. Each year, FL&S staff secure a Florida Service-Learning Month proclamation from the Governor (please see the link below for the sample proclamation).
http://learnandserve.hhp.ufl.edu/resources/RYVSL/Proclomation%20Letter%20in%20Color.pdf

A sample agenda is below:

2010 RYVSL CONFERENCE AGENDA

Monday, April 25 (Conference Hotel, located withing walking distance of Capitol)

• 11 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Registration
• 1:00-1:45 p.m. Opening Plenary
• 2:00-3:15 p.m. Workshops I (8 choices)
• 3:30-4:45 p.m. Workshops II (8 choices)
• 4:45-5:00 p.m. Closing Plenary, instructions for next day
• 6:00-7:15 p.m. Service-Learning Leader School and State Farm Reception and Awards

Tuesday, April 26 (events at Florida Capitol)

• 8:00-8:45 a.m. Set up displays in Capitol
• 8:45-11 a.m. Students man displays, students and teachers visit legislators
• 11:15 a.m. Rally/press conference to recognize April as Service-Learning Month
• 11:45 a.m. End of Conference
  

Scheduling Visits with Legislators
Every group who comes to the RYVSL meeting plans to visit with one or more state Senators or Representatives on the morning of the second day (there is time for them to visit with multiple offices). At these visits, students educate their elected officials about service learning and their projects. Contact information for all members of the House and Senate members is provided by our staff as well as multiple resources to help them provide information about service-learning efforts to elected officials and the media: Click here for the media kit page. We encourage sub-grantee coordinators to have students take the lead, whenever possible, in communicating with legislators and related conference planning and logistics.

Lastly, it is important to emphasize that outreach and awareness are valid and important forms of service-learning. One of the key types of service-learning, and one which has strong documented research on impacts, is advocacy. By engaging with their legislators and other key stakeholders, students meet a real community need and can have improved academic outcomes, get career preparation, enhance social and speaking skills, and become civically engaged. Service-learning is a two-way street and by helping our legislators learn about our amazing work we help our students as well by allowing them become more involved, more proactive, more self-sufficient, and more knowledgeable citizens.

Helpful Resources

Download the FL&S Student Guide for Working with Legislators. Click Here.
See our page on Outreach and working with the Media.Click Here.

Submitted by Javier Betancourt, Florida Learn & Serve

Waiting for Superman

Although I’ve yet to see the film Waiting for Superman, I have many thoughts about it. Several of my friends and colleagues working in education have seen the film or talked about it and there have been a number of responses, some good, and some bad. In my opinion, the movie falls somewhere in between.

When a film gets people talking about the state of education in our country, I think it’s a good thing. Whether the conversation is good or bad, I believe bringing attention to such an important issue brings us, as a nation, one step closer to talking about solutions. Although I personally believe that too many people spend too much time talking about the problems and not enough time discussing and planning viable, sustainable solutions, I also think it provides an opportunity to change the way people address this issue.

In the New York Times article “Waiting for Somebody” written by Gail Collins, David Guggenheim, the director of the movie, said he’s not offering an answer: “It’s really not “pro” or “anti” anything. It’s really: “Why can’t we have enough great schools?” I couldn’t agree with David more. Why can’t we have more great schools in the wealthiest country in the nation? Why can’t we put more money into education? Why can’t we get rid of poor teachers and why can’t we reward good teachers with higher pay and better treatment? Why should innocent children, born into poverty, not be offered the opportunity to be educated by a highly qualified teacher in a safe environment? Why do so many people seem to assume that because an innocent child is born into wealth that their life is so much better? Why do we focus so much attention on numbers and not enough on actual, factual stories at our schools? Why aren’t we doing a better job supporting education in this country?

There are so many questions that I do not know the answers to but wish could be discussed in a forum that truly brings attention to the issues we face in the U.S. education system. I wish that every single household in our country was talking about education every single day. I wish that more time was spent discussing solutions and real change could happen.

Every single person old or young enough to work towards change in this country should be thinking and talking about educational issues each and every day and should not let up until we have transformed U.S. education into a system that truly works. I am frustrated with the many initiatives, living in silos that aren’t, in my opinion, truly fixing the educational issues in our country. I know there are many of you out there who care as much as I do and am as frustrated as I am but we need to ask ourselves how we can do more. We can’t settle with I’m doing my part and the best I can as an individual. None of us alone can save the world but if we did a better job coming together as a nation, maybe, just maybe we could make a real difference for the entire country and not just the children and families lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. It isn’t good enough and our children deserve better!

Submitted by Stephanie Hahn, M. Ed.
Arizona Department of Education

Stranger to Friend – SEANet Transforms Service-Learning Collaboration.

The “Stranger to Friend” transition is a phrase borrowed from Alan Peshkin’s study of Riverview and its high school (1991)

[i]. It provides a helpful framework for understanding diversity and perceptions of otherness, especially in education and in teacher professional development. At the multi-ethnic Riverview High School, Peshkin describes how “students [made] a passage [from the status of stranger] to the status of friend” (p.211). This is much like a passage among pre-service (and in-service) teachers in Service-Learning professional development.

SEANet’s Leadership Team is a working board enhancing and building the value and voice for academic service-learning throughout SEANet’s membership across the nation. SEANet is working for you and with you (friends versus strangers).

Through SEANets’ upgraded web page, regularly scheduled webinars (also archived), weekly blogs and special assignments, your service-learning colleagues communicate, add value, share an academic K-12 Service-Learning vision and press a key claim: without learning, service is less than half the point.

In 2010, your SEANet Leadership Team has worked with three main Activity priorities.

Activity 1 – “Build organizational capacity to sustain and grow SEANet as a national voice to advance high-quality academic service-learning.” Activities include developing capacity for potential investors in academic service-learning…

Activity 2 – “Build SEANet Executive Board capacity to better leverage the leadership within the SEANet membership.” Your colleagues are working for you and with you.

Activity 3 – “Provide a series of professional development opportunities for SEANet members to develop and enhance academic service-learning program development and sustainability knowledge and skills. “ This activity includes the following components:

Activity Goal #3.1 is “Provide leadership in developing a PK-20 system of professional development for pre- and in-service teachers.”

Stranger to Friend –-- Service-Learning Transforms Pre-Service Teacher Training.

A Modest Request: To those SEANet participants -- I am asking SEANet (you) to share (e-mail reply to this blog):

(1) your pre-service & in-service teacher professional development systems currently in place (plus your contact information) and

(2) your priority needs and questions.

· My commitment, as your current SEANet Secretary, is to share the information I receive with cluster leaders and with the SEANet Leadership Team. I’ll gather and forward your input, challenges and questions plus systems and approaches to pre-service and in-service teacher professional development and teacher T/TA.

· The SEANet Board can then review and include current practice, questions and needs in planning and implementing SEANet’s process for 2011.

A number of states effectively implement significant pre-service and in-service teacher professional development in Service-Learning. Most all states share some key challenges but the Board may not know your specifics. Please share your overview, challenges and plans by the end of January 2011.

A recent article, “From Stranger to Friend: The Effect of Service-Learning in Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Diverse Populations[ii]” portrays some elements of the need and important aspects of professional development that can help a teaching practice through Service-Learning.

Service learning teacher professional development can significantly influence participants’ view of cultures other than their own. Service learning affects pre-service teachers’ attitudes about working with students from diverse backgrounds.

SEANet’s core Professional Development and Training/Technical Assistance activities in 2010 will become even more crucial in 2011. There are many reasons for their increasing importance. Please stay (a friend) involved in SEANet. As an instructional practice, Service Learning can benefit from some “common core standards” and “new teacher induction” methods, plus integrated ways to disseminate best practice across the nation’s State Education Agencies.

SEANet, The State Education Network for Service Learning, has accomplished promising initial steps in these activity areas in 2010 and some positive announcements about plans and partnerships for 2011 will soon follow.

---

[i] Peshkin, A. (1991). The color of strangers – The color of friends: The play of ethnicity in school and community. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

[ii] Zeller, N., Griffith, R., Zhang, G., & Klenke, J. (2010). From stranger to friend: The effect of service learning on preservice teachers’ attitudes towards diverse populations. Journal of Language and Literacy Education [Online], 6(2), 34-50. Available http://www.coa.uga.edu/jolle/2010_2/Zeller_Stranger.pdf

Submitted by:

Pete Ready
Education Specialist
Office of Educational Improvement & Innovation
Oregon Department of Education
pete.ready@state.or.us