Tag: Service Learning

“The Children Are Our Future”

While many complain about teens, my problem-based learning elective class, which fostered service projects for the school and larger community, taught me that teens can and will make major contributions to their community. Right now, when so much education news keeps me awake at night, I loved reading about the high school senior in Olivia, Minnesota, who did just that.
 
The son of a military veteran and relative of others, Dominique Claseman grew dismayed that his small town didn’t have a veteran’s memorial. Although some residents of this farming community of 2500 people 90 miles from the Twin Cities had put up a few rocks and signs in recognition, that didn’t seem adequate to Claseman. He was ready to design and enact his Eagle Scout project, and his veteran father was his scoutmaster. Claseman and his parents toured war memorials in other towns. Then Claseman began his own PR campaign to raise funds. He sought interviews at local radio stations, handed out brochures, and went door-to-door to local businesses. He offered families the opportunity to sponsor stone pavers engraved with their veteran’s name. Although his initial goal was a modest $12,000 – 15,000 dollars, donations came not only from Olivia but from surrounding towns, hitting almost $77,000.
 
Claseman drew up a sketch inspired by memorials he’d seen. His contractor grandfather helped with the design. By May, the finalized blueprint showed “a long walkway leading to a stone monument and four granite benches in a 21-foot circle representing the 21 boot steps the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns walks. The memorial also would include flagpoles and Army helmet sculptures in honor of two local men who died in Iraq. A local crew volunteered to pour the concrete if Claseman would purchase the supplies. Then his dad walked across the wet cement in his Army boots to complete a walk of honor with 21 footprints” [washingtonpost.com].
 
Over three weekends, Claseman and his family, along with other members of his scout troop, installed the landscaping and 280 inscribed pavers. “’There were about 10,000 pounds of rock, so, yeah, it was a lot of work,’ Claseman said’ [Ibid.]. This past Memorial Day, two years after Claseman began fundraising and designing, the monument was dedicated. Jon Hawkinson, mayor of Olivia, said, “’Dom’s project proved to us that when creativity meets ambition, wonderful things can happen’” [Ibid.]. Several hundred people attended the dedication and grew quite emotional. 91-year-old Marjorie Barber came to honor her uncle who died in World War I at the age of 21 along with more than a dozen relatives who served during World War II, including her late husband. “’We have 17 members of my family on the memorial — almost all are gone, a few are still living…We never had a place to remember our veterans before, so what Dominique did is really wonderful and uplifting for our town’” [Ibid.]. Kim Wertish, whose 20-year-old son James was killed in a mortar attack in Iraq in 2009, bought markers for her son and some of his comrades. She called the Olivia memorial “extra special.”
 
Claseman expects his younger brothers to add to the memorial for their own Eagle Scout projects. He said he was thrilled to see his friends and neighbors paying their respects on the Fourth of July. “’Everyone came together for the veterans,’ Claseman said. ‘That’s what this is all about’” [Ibid.].
 
This heartwarming story feels remarkable, and Dominique Claseman is an admirable young man, but I feel confident that his story is not unique. While the news is full of grim updates about the concerning state of education, some young people continue to rise to the occasion and even to exceed anyone’s expectation. We should learn more of these stories. I find myself humming Whitney Houston’s song:
“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride
To make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.”

The Case for Service Learning

This quotation really resonates for me right now. Last night I submitted a section of my teaching memoir to my writing group about a class I created for my high school that involved service learning. Using the Problem-Based Learning approach developed in medical schools, my students learned to define a problem and the criteria for an effective solution. That guided their research and helped them to generate and evaluate solutions. They worked problems for the school and the larger community. One year my students even worked for a Chicago law firm on a problem in Toledo, Ohio! Each of these problems became a form of service to others as my students struggled to figure out how to provide the answers their “clients” sought.

For so many of my students, this service became transformational, changing their views about themselves and their place in the world. Some redesigned the gardens for a local historic site, some figured out strategies to promote the Post-Prom celebration to keep students safe after prom, and some helped redesign the eighth-grade orientation. One group not only redesigned a vandalized part of a local trail for the county, but they chose to do the hard physical work of rebuilding. And when vandals struck again, long after they’d received credit in class for their work, they repaired it on their own time. Time after time, I watched students discover the satisfaction of doing something helpful for others. For most of them, this was a new experience. This class showed them the enormous payback for their efforts.

I even saw that reaction among my creative writing students. When they wrote children’s books, we took field trips to local grade schools to read them to children. I’ll never forget my hulking football star sitting cross-legged on the floor of a second-grade classroom, reading his story to a rapt audience. Out of that grew a collaboration with classes from a grade school within walking distance. We visited them once, and they returned the favor. My students partnered with children to write children’s stories, which they sent home with the children. Having a real audience for their work fed their sense of satisfaction, but the gratitude of the children and their teachers, expressed in priceless, hand-drawn thank you notes delivered to the class, gave my students special satisfaction.

Dieter F. Uchtodorf wrote, “As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness.” And from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Live’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?” I watched students embrace those concepts because they had experienced them firsthand.

If I ruled the world [a phrase I used to use with my students], I would mandate service learning for all high school students. Only through experience can they discover the satisfaction and happiness that derive from doing for others. And if our young people understood that, wouldn’t that change our society for the better? As generations of graduates entered the world with a desire to help others, wouldn’t we all benefit?