What is Service Learning?
A critical component of our new PACE initiative is the Community Engagement piece of the program, which seeks to introduce students to the concept of service learning and instill them with the knowledge and skills they need to build partnerships and implement meaningful change in the CSW community and beyond.
For this week’s PACE Pocket Change (which we kicked off earlier this month) Director of Student Programming for Equity and Inclusion Jordan Clark ’05 walks us through this important facet of the PACE initiative, teaching us what service learning looks like, and how it’s different from traditional community service as we know it.
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As forward-thinking educators at CSW, we have been grappling with a dilemma: how do we nurture and harness students’ individual passions while guiding them toward a deeper understanding of community that translates their desire for doing good in the world into long-term civic engagement?
It’s a generative time for us as an institution, as we are part of a national conversation about how to best serve students and families and continue to redefine what it means to be a progressive school. Through our PACE program, we are strategically embedding social-emotional learning, life skills, identity work, and wellness into our academic program. With that, comes the unique opportunity to address our goal of further aligning student interest with civic engagement. Enter the service learning portion of PACE — an intentional effort to engage each student in planned and purposeful learning in order to become active citizens of their larger community.
But what exactly does service learning mean? Let’s start by telling you what it isn’t.
It isn’t community service, which is an hours-based system that tracks students not by their efforts, passions, and explorations of need, but by how much time is spent at an organization helping out.
Example
Student volunteers 20 hours at a soup kitchen preparing food for meals.
Now, let’s tell you what service learning is.
Service learning is rooted in pragmatic, progressive learning experiences, which are project-based, lend themselves to experiences, and meet greater societal needs. Students develop a new skill set by tackling real issues facing their communities, both on campus and in the greater Boston area. These skills are honed through a learning cycle that includes research, ideation, collaboration, action, and reflection.
Example
Students design an irrigation system that can be built for $50 and partner with an urban gardening organization to teach constituents how to build and deploy their own as part of a larger sustainable, fresh foods project.
We use the phrase “skill set” intentionally — we strive to develop young people who excel both in their academics and in navigating the world. These two principles go hand in hand and are key in the success of our students. Growing their active listening skills, sparking their curiosity and exploration, developing their problem-solving and collaboration ability, allowing them the space to practice resiliency, and understanding the importance of self-reflection are all crucial to developing critically conscious, empathetic global citizens who want to affect meaningful change.
These skills are best developed through a comprehensive and intentional program. In the PACE program, each year, students will build on the previous year and continue their engagement through deeper understanding. For a window into what our students will be exploring, we encourage you to review the grade-by-grade descriptions on our website. We call these programs “studios,” because the relationship between the adult and student should mirror that of a mentor and an apprentice. The goal is for our students to drive the work and for our teachers to guide them.
As progressive educators, we strive for, and revel in, evolution and growth in our work, putting our students’ needs at the center of decision-making, and we look forward to challenging them to engage in their world in more meaningful ways going forward.
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.