CHARACTER COUNTS!: What have we learned – both good and bad – about service-learning?
Cathryn Berger Kaye: What I’ve learned is all good. Well-designed and implemented service-learning works for kids, students, teachers, parents, and communities. It infuses relevance, skill development, and concept knowledge across multiple curricular areas. And service-learning develops intrinsic knowledge rather than relying on extrinsic rewards, prizes, or competition.

What is exciting is how the service-learning experience can vary depending on student interests, subject matter, and community need – it’s continually fresh and purposeful. Whether students are visiting people with Alzheimer’s, restoring wetlands, developing a city bicycle policy, or writing children’s books for parents, service-learning let’s them become engaged citizens.

CC!: What are the most common myths about service-learning?
Kaye: My favorites are service-learning “takes too much time,” “interferes with academics,” and “is one more thing for teachers to do.” Certainly, it takes time to understand this pedagogy and adapt lessons and classroom processes. However, this is time well spent. With kids engaged, there’s often less acting out and more cooperation and learning is faster.

As for academic interference, the “How much does this assignment count toward my grade?” is replaced with “When can we get started?”

CC!: What are successful service-learning programs doing right?
Kaye: Schools, districts, and organizations that have quality staff development to learn and establish a common language for service-learning are on a strong course. Finding sustainable and higher-education partners also helps. And remember publicity. If you want good news about your school, service-learning stories make great local news items.

CC!: What’s the worst mistake a school can make with a service-learning project?
Kaye: Calling it a project. Service-learning is really an experience because it often doesn’t have a finite end. One idea well done can lead to the next and the next. Example: While organizing a food drive, students may learn more about hunger and want to help unemployed adults learn computer skills so they can write a resume and obtain a job. Real life isn’t about stopping points.

A key element of service-learning is also letting students develop ideas. Marva Collins said, “If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything.” When we replace “We can’t do that” with “How can we make that a reality?” how can that be a mistake? When we listen to students’ questions, invite their curiosity, and give them skills to take a nascent idea step-by-step toward fruition, how can that be a mistake? If the results are different than what we expected, what a learning opportunity!

I once ran a program in 29 Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. At the end, each student group presented what they’d achieved. I remember only one. They explained in earnest and funny detail how every single project they tried had failed. Then they concluded with: “But next year…” We cheered them for their honesty, insight, and most of all their perseverance.

The biggest mistake a school can make is to say “no” to service-learning when “yes” can create so much excitement and so many reasons for all of us to gather in this place called school.

CC!: What are the most common barriers to service-learning?
Kaye: Barriers? We have a President who made a loud call to service. We have a Secretary of Education who directed service-learning for the Chicago Public Schools. Dollars are tight; still, staff-development funds are available in civic engagement, literacy, health, and transitions. (Learn and Serve America provides funds for states to promote service-learning in schools.)

Laying a solid foundation does require buy-in, though. Everyone needs to understand what service-learning is, how it works, and why it will make their school and community better.

CC!: Are the demands of No Child Left Behind and renewed emphasis on reading and math curtailing service-learning?
Kaye: One of my favorite quotes is “Doing more of what doesn’t work won’t make it work any better.” With dropout rates on the rise and teacher morale low, educators need strategies beyond just getting kids to show up. We need to make our classrooms places where students want to be. Service-learning, when done well, gives kids a reason to read, write, and compute.

People always ask, “How do you motivate kids?” I say I can’t motivate anyone; motivation comes from within. However, if I engage them in meaningful experiences they care about, they’ll likely choose to be motivated.

Do some people avoid service-learning because of NCLB or testing? Certainly. However, those who know the value of student engagement – who’ve experienced kids researching laws governing convalescent homes, who’ve seen students make a hiking trail accessible to people with disabilities, who’ve observed autistic students assist animals in a wildlife rescue center – know that service-learning is a means to raise test scores, exceed prescribed academic standards, and create an environment where learning and kids and teachers thrive.

CC!: In what ways does service-learning affect student character?
Kaye: In a myriad of ways. Endless ways. Fabulous, profound ways. A few examples:

• Elementary students in Albion, New York, raised research funds for childhood leukemia and were rewarded with a pizza party. They unanimously refused the pizza, requesting that the cost be donated to the cause instead. Caring, selflessness, and generosity are best taught through experience.
• High school biology students in Galt, California, helped first-graders rescue duck eggs and care for them until they hatched and could be released into the wild. Afterward, two previously disinterested students revealed they wanted to teach biology. Learning suddenly had meaning and purpose.
• My daughter, while attending middle school in Santa Monica, California, spent time with adults with Alzheimer’s. Seeing a need to help students converse with people who struggle with memory, she wrote Conversation Starters as Easy as ABC 123, which led her to write a grant to teach other children about the topic. She learned to take risks and to take the initiative.

When students plant trees, they learn patience. When they tutor, they learn responsibility. When they document a veteran’s story, they learn respect. Service-learning makes abstract character concepts real and tangible.

CC!: Can service-learning alone turn around a school plagued by crime, drugs, and/or behavior problems?
Kaye: Wouldn’t that be fabulous? I would be suspicious of any single way to solve social ills or complex problems, but service-learning can be part of a response since the process helps students build relationships; shows they’re valued as contributing members within a caring school support system; and recognizes their interests, skills, and talents.

When we can help them apply their abilities to lift up our communities, we’re on the way to reducing and replacing those challenges – with youths being a part of the solution.

CC!: Why should service-learning work with a community rather than do something to it?
Kaye: One of the K-12 service-learning standards is reciprocal partnerships. Literature is often a great example. Paul Fleischman’s Seedfolks is about people working and struggling together to change a junk-filled abandoned lot into a community garden. By contrast, stories abound of people coming into a community saying “We’re making these changes” and the community resisting. Think Boston Tea Party.

How exciting for students to work with a city council or PTA or school board, lead a planning session with a Neighborhood Watch committee, or host a community meeting about what’s needed in a public park. Young people often think their voices go unnoticed. With service-learning, they learn every voice counts.

CC!: You recently published a series of workbooks for kids on how to take action on climate change, animal protection, hunger and homelessness, and reading and success. What do you say to children who think such problems are too immense?
Kaye: Adults typically say that. Kids think BIG! They want to stop everyone from smoking or save polar bears. I’m always excited by a student who wants to end hunger since this might be the very child to make it happen. What I do say to these children? “Which part of ending hunger will we start with today?”

CC!: Indira Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” What’s it like to see a student “find” himself or herself through service-learning?
Kaye: At Quest High School in Humble, Texas, high school seniors investigated complex social issues. “I had no idea how much real learning I would actually do,” one student wrote afterward. “So much of the understanding of something is not found in book or classroom. It was only when I could actually experience the learning that it held true understanding and meaning for me.”

At the American International School in Warsaw, Poland, students interviewed World War II survivors. The experience deeply affected one student: “It was amazing to think that some were the same age we are now when they were living in the war. It gave me a sense of personal history.”

At Tropical Elementary in Merritt Island, Florida, students gave behavior training to dogs at the local humane society. “The dog we trained [last] month is gone,” one student said happily. “You know it got adopted, which is awesome.”

When students see themselves as contributing members of their community, huge growth can occur. A teacher in one of my workshops once told me, “My students think about only themselves.” My response: “That’s about right! They’re figuring out who they are in the world.” From this starting point, service-learning provides them with a transformational opportunity.

As students decorate their school hallways with meaningful and inspiring quotes, they realize their influence extends to the edge of their campus. When they rebuild bus-stop benches destroyed in a hurricane, their influence extends to the edge of their community. When they write a book about their town and send copies to a remote Tanzanian village library, their influence is boundless.

Young people can participate in ways we have yet to manifest. Service-learning can re-engage high school students who, well before graduation, have a foot out the door. Most teachers enter their profession to make a difference in the lives of children. That’s the power and the promise of service-learning.