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Cutting-Edge Curriculum
St. Andrew’s was one of the first schools in the greater Washington, D.C., region to integrate service learning into its core curriculum. But how does service learning differ from community service?
BY MARY JANE MCKINVEN
Long before it was fashionable, before it was something college admission offices looked for in prospective students, St. Andrews began preparing students to serve others and tackle pressing social issues.
Whether it’s issues of homelessness, food insecurity or income inequality, understanding core problems of a contemporary world is an essential part of the St. Andrew’s experience.
Service Learning: Beyond Community Service
In 2004-2005, service learning was fully integrated into the ninth-grade curriculum. At the time, there was no model for the program as St. Andrew’s was the first of its kind in the greater Washington, D.C., area. Other schools were doing community service, but few were focused on service learning.
So how does service learning differ from community service?
Community service generally connects volunteers with organizations or projects that require help to accomplish specific tasks, often for the short term. For example, a park may hold a one-day clean-up in which youth and adults remove trash from a local creek; while the community benefits and the volunteers may feel good, the project was planned and organized by the park.
In contrast, service learning participants actively identify problems; research, plan, and implement solutions; and reflect on the process and outcomes. For example, students may observe trash along the creek; research its causes, brainstorm possible solutions, and work to both clean up the area and discourage future littering. They then reflect on the impact of their efforts and try to improve on their process for the future.
St. Andrew’s integrates service learning into the curriculum to engage students in solving problems within their schools and communities. Not only are academics brought to life through experiential learning, but students also learn how to apply their academic skills to solving real-world problems.
Math teacher Frank Wagner helps a student write on a chalkboard while on a service trip to the Christ Roi School in Haiti.
Design Thinking in Service Learning
St. Andrew’s research-based approach to education naturally extends to its service learning efforts. One of the results has been the explicit use of design thinking in the service program, in which students act as agents of their own learning. Design thinking is an instructional practice that links personal ingenuity and empathy to the solution of problems, human needs, social purpose, or simple enjoyment.
For example, what might seem like a straightforward service activity, a bake sale in support of our partner school in Haiti, becomes an exercise in design thinking for 5th grade students. According to Intermediate School Head Judy Kee, students take an active role in planning the sale, and must answer such questions as: What kind of treats do they think will sell? How should they be priced? How will they promote the sale? And when the sale is over, what worked, and what didn’t?
As a student progresses through St. Andrew’s, they are challenged to engage in design thinking about increasingly complex problems. “Tiering the design program, from kindergarten to 12th grade, gives the students a succession of small successes that grows their confidence, and builds and bolsters their toolkit of skills.”
ST. ANDREW’S DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AND THE CTTL
By the time they are seniors, St. Andrew’s students have the design thinking skills necessary to tackle real-world problems. In the Upper School course, “International Development and Social Enterprise,” seniors are challenged to develop sustainable social enterprise projects for St. Andrew’s international partners in Haiti and South
Africa. “Students get to use their skills of collaboration, creativity, and design thinking to bring together ingredients of business in an opportunistic and meaningful ways,” said course instructor Chuck James, science teacher and Co-Director of Service Learning. (See page 18 for more about this innovative course.)
The Brain Benefits of Service Learning
“We all intuitively know that service leads to growth,” Alexander said. “At its core, service invites us to redirect our gaze—even if only briefly—away from our own interests and desires. This, in turn, cannot help but expand our worldview. But does serving others shape not only students’ character but also their malleable brains?”
Alexander has found that the answer is “yes,” according to research on the effects of service on brain development. She cites the work of psychologist Daniel Goleman, best known for his work on “emotional intelligence.” By studying the brain scans of Buddhist monks during meditations de-signed to promote feelings of compassion, Goleman discovered what he refers to as a “brain shift” when compassion is generated, and concluded, “The very act of concern for others’ well-being creates a greater state of well-being within oneself.”
Photo courtesy of Grace Ashworth Katy Riechers ‘16 enjoys spending time with a child while on a service trip to South Africa in 2015.
“Clearly Goleman’s findings have important implications for schools,” Alexander said. “When the (part of the) brain associated with empathy, is active, ‘attention, working memory, motivation, and many other executive functions are improved.’ This underscores the value of placing students in situations in which they have an opportunity to experience feelings of empathy and compassion for others. By developing caring relationships through service, students reap significant neuroeducational benefits that impact their own learning.”
Strong emotional connections help imprint learning in the brain. It’s also clear that the brain thrives on new experiences and environments, which service learning opportunities outside the classroom provide.
“Research shows that when you are challenged, especially by something that interests you, then your intrinsic motivation increases and that the knowledge and skills are more likely to be imbedded in your long-term memory,” said Glenn Whitman, St. Andrew’s Director of Studies and the CTTL. “Challenge is not limited to the classroom. Challenge is identifying those problems or people in our community or the world that need help.”
Breaking the Wall of the “Other” through Relationships
“The relationships and connections formed in service are what are really important,” said Ginger Cobb, Head of the Upper School.
“In our service learning we want to be very sure we’re not talking about ‘those people over there’ who are different than us,” said Rodney Glasgow, Head of the Middle School and Chief Diversity Officer. “We have to be conscious of our language, and take that ‘other’ wall away.” Glasgow noted that service experiences can do damage if they only reinforce stereotypes, which is why relationships are so important: they explode preconceived notions.
Ninth grade students in the Service Learning class go to local charities such as Loaves and Fishes, where the homeless are fed at a church. Rather than having the students just serve food to the patrons, the idea is to have a “real conversation, to establish a real human connection,” according to Cobb, who also noted the strong bonds between students and their counterparts in the Haiti and South African partner projects.
“When Bokamoso students from South Africa visit St. Andrew’s, there is an implicit ‘othering’ that could happen, but it doesn’t,” said Glasgow. “Yes, they are visitors, but they are also a part of our community, part of our school. It’s important to talk about how much we get from our relationships with our international partners, whether from Honduras, South Africa, or Haiti.”
Students who visit our partner school Christ Roi in Civol, Haiti, each spring are deeply conscious of the needs of that community, and are motivated to help. Ethan Lockshin ’14 and Sean Hess ’14 formed the Lion Laborers to raise funds for Christ Roi, with impressive results that have garnered awards for community service and innovation. “They are so invested in these projects because they’ve seen the kids, and have bonded with the kids,” Cobb said.
The Importance of Reflection
The evidence-based standards established by the National Youth Leadership Council to ensure high-quality service learning include “reflection” as an essential component of that learning. The standards state that “Service learning incorporates multiple challenging reflection activities that are ongoing and that prompt deep thinking and analysis about oneself and one’s relationship to society.”
“We must give students a chance to reflect on their experiences in order to mine them for what they’ve learned,” Alexander said. “St. Andrew’s faculty offer such (moments) when students are asked to think about what and how they learn, all the time. Whether it is through journal exercises or class discussions, informal bus ride conversations or Chapel talks, students are challenged regularly to interpret and extract meaning from their service of others. This provides an opportunity to acknowledge any preconceived stereotypes or reservations they might have harbored, as well as to clarify their own struggles to make peace with a world still marked by social and economic disparity.”
Hearts for Haiti is a student-created organization with the goal of purchasing farmland around our partner school, Christ Roi, in Civol, Haiti
Service as a Lifelong Ethic
In January 2016, Harvard’s Graduate School of Education released a new report, “Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions,” endorsed by a coalition of college admissions deans and other stakeholders in higher education. Among its recommendations is a call for the college admissions process to encourage students to engage in meaningful, sustained service and get involved in causes that speak to them.
In response to concerns that some applicants may do community service only to “game” the process, the report states, “The admissions process should clearly convey that what counts is not whether service occurred locally or in some distant place, or whether students were leaders, but whether students immersed themselves in an experience and the emotional and ethical awareness and skills generated by that experience.”
St. Andrew’s emphasis upon service certainly predates this report, and has always been motivated by a more profound and far-reaching ambition: that St. Andrew’s graduates have a lifelong commitment to service.
“It’s our hope that service will impact and inform the lives of our graduates, whether they are the CEO of a corporation or working at a nonprofit group—that they will feel moved to not only give back to the community but also be a partner in that community,” Cobb said. “It all comes down to connecting with people.”
