Blog Archives: June 2012
Get involved in the 2013 National Service-Learning Conference!
The National Youth Leadership Council would like to invite you to join us more than 1,000 educators and 800 young people from around the world for the 24th Annual National Service-Learning Conference® in Denver, Colo., which will take place March 13-15, 2013.
At the 2013 conference you will hear from national experts and leaders who will inspire you to make a difference in schools and communities. Previous conference speakers include President Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, urban educator Geoffrey Canada, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. NYLC believes, as you do, in the power of young people. With their passion, creativity, and innovation, young people can address world issues while strengthening academic and learning outcomes through service-learning. The National Service-Learning Conference is the largest annual gathering of youth and practitioners, foundation and non-profit leaders, corporate and government officials, and advocates who join together to showcase what they have accomplished in their schools and communities, share best practices, and enrichment through professional development opportunities.
Each year, hundreds of individuals – youth and adults – choose to get involved as presenters, planning committee members, emcees, and volunteers. The combination of energy and enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of leaders in the field distinguishes the unique opportunities afforded by the National Service-Learning Conference.
The 2012 conference drew more than 1,800 attendees from across the United States and a dozen other countries. Conference attendees participate in three days of plenary & thought leader sessions, showcases, and workshops. They also address local needs, both on-site and off-site, through service projects that range from tree-planting, to eyeglass restoration, to home and church renovation.
The 2013 conference in Denver will be inspiring, imaginative, and innovative. There are numerous ways for you to become involved today:
- Make a commitment to attend. Send a group of youth and adults from your organization. 69% of our conference participants attend as part of groups, which are most often intergenerational.
- Showcase your organization in the exhibit hall. The epicenter of the conference, the exhibit hall is the gathering place for meals, exhibitors, the service-learning showcase, as well as entertainment.
- Become an affiliate. Share information about the conference on you or your organization’s social media accounts, website, newsletters, and with your networks. Gain recognition of your organization or event with our conference audience.
- Submit a workshop proposal or showcase application. Ninety-minute workshops are at the heart of the conference. If hosting a 90-minute workshop isn’t for you, consider presenting a service-learning showcase — a great opportunity to share your successful, high-quality service-learning project with others.
- Join a planning committee. Volunteers from Denver and beyond participate in one of five volunteer committees that will assist in the planning of everything from entertainment, to youth room activities, to on-site staffing.
- Become a sponsor. The National Service-Learning Conference is seeking sponsorship for many activities. Your sponsorship of this premier event sets you apart from your competitors and offers an incomparable opportunity to connect with the education leaders of today and the emerging leaders of tomorrow.
This conference will be an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to grow as leaders and adults to expand their expertise. We encourage teachers, administrators, practitioners, students, or anyone who believes in the power of young people to attend this event and then return to your schools and communities with enriched leadership qualities and a renewed commitment to make positive change.
We look forward to seeing you in Denver!
To get a glimpse of what to expect this year, visit the NYLC Flickr page to see photos from the 2012 conference in Minneapolis, Minn.
Report on the End of Learn and Serve Funding: Impacts and Next Steps for the Field
The recently released “Service-Learning after Learn and Serve America” report, by the Education Commission of the States’ National Center for Learning and Citizenship, raises and informs vital questions as forward-funded Learn and Serve America (LSA) programs end this August. By interviewing lead service-learning staff at five state education departments (Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin), the report also collects and shares vital information shortly before these LSA-funded positions expire.
From a national perspective, the general themes extrapolated from these interviews ring true: the loss of LSA funding will end a vital infrastructure for supporting and expanding quality practice, that it raises questions about the direction of the field, that maintaining high standards for quality practice remains vital, and also that the field is mobilizing and adapting in response. Many of these same issues are echoed in Don Hill’s 1994 “Death of a Dream” essay, predicting the demise of service-learning as a national movement on a timeframe remarkably aligned with the end of funding for LSA.
Despite these setbacks, LSA funding was often thinly spread across states, schools and classrooms, as well as highly leveraged through other funding streams, both public and private. A formula-funded $40 million program can only go so far. While some of the explicit focus on service-learning is certainly at risk due to the end of LSA funding, many of these other funding sources remain. For example, State Farm’s Youth Advisory Board continues to deploy $5 million annually to youth-led service-learning projects, the Department of Labor’s YouthBuild program has seen its funding reduced but not eliminated, and the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program was even targeted for significant growth in the President’s budget for next year.
The report documents coalitions in Colorado and North Carolina who are coming together to maintain connections and relationships after the end of state-level leadership structures. In doing so, we should ensure that national connections are maintained as well, and that efficiencies like a single repository of service-learning information, such as the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, isn’t duplicated across state groups. For example, several state coalitions are making use of NYLC’s Generator School Network to stay connected and share resources, both within and across states. Beyond this, it behooves service-learning advocates to be inclusive, actively outreach, and find common cause with related organizations and groups who haven’t been traditional stakeholders in LSA, but whose work includes a strong emphasis on service-learning.
Digital Storytelling for Community Advocacy
Students at Edison High School in northeast Minneapolis are learning about the issue of poverty by creating digital stories about its effects in their own community. Their teacher Ina Ziegler created this service-learning project with the goal of having students learn about an issue, create a short film, and share their films with civic leaders who can take steps to address poverty in their community.
Students began by conducting research, which went beyond reading reference books to include hands-on volunteering at the Second Harvest Heartland food shelf and meeting representatives at the State Capitol. They then collected their own images, music, and interviews to create short videos that tell the stories of the people and experiences they learned about. Ms. Ziegler saw firsthand how the students took personal ownership in their projects. “Many students chose to focus on issues that are personally relevant to them—one group focused on dropping out of high school, while another group focused on teen parenting” said Ziegler. “This showed that students were finding ways to make the project relevant to their lives, as well as meaningful to themselves and their peers.”
The class brought their work to the 2012 National Service-Learning Conference, where they presented their projects to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi and met with Geoffrey Canada, whose writing provided part of their research and preparation. The final films were also shown on Global Youth Service Day — an event attended by their senator, city council and school board members, school administrators, and community members and families.
“The students felt very proud of their work and they report that they feel more aware of the resources in their community and more certain that they can make a difference,” Ziegler wrote in her project summary. “The students who attended [the conference] were especially impressed by Shirin Ebadi’s work with women and her message of hope and diplomacy. One of my favorite moments was hearing two girls discussing Dr. Ebadi’s comments about building civil society and relationships between the U.S. and Iran on the city bus on the way home from the conference!”
This project is one of hundreds you can browse in the Generator School Network website. Membership is free! GSN members have access to a wealth of resources from NYLC, including archived webinars, as well as discussions with top practitioners in the service-learning field.
Learn more about Ina Ziegler’s class project on the GSN.
The video summary of the student’s project is available online at www.msinamedia.wordpress.com.
Thank You to Educators
As the school year comes to an end, we at the National Youth Leadership Council want to thank teachers, administrators, coordinators, parents, community members, and mentors for their dedication, effort, and time working with youth. You show us every day that service-learning is an engaging teaching method that helps students grow academically and strengthens ties to their communities. You have inspired students to grow as leaders and citizens, and you have led them to opportunities to apply their skills and knowledge in service.
During the summer NYLC will continue to provide the tools, trainings, and resources you need to enhance your service-learning practice. Through the Generator School Network you can stay connected to others in the field, share ideas and resources, as well as participate in webinars and other professional development trainings. Summer also brings the National Youth Leadership Training — a life-changing experience for youth and adult teams that begins as an eight-day experiential training, and extends to a year of action in communities around the country. Furthermore, the Call for Proposals will open in mid-June for the 24th Annual National Service-Learning Conference®, which will take place March 13-16, 2013 in Denver, Colo. The conference promises to be inspiring, imaginative, and innovative.
As budget cuts and political challenges continue to pose a threat to thriving schools and communities across the nation, we encourage you to take advantage of grant opportunities like Project Ignition to provide the resources you need to implement successful projects with youth. Or take advantage of the many other resources we share bi-monthly in the Leader, on the NYLC Facebook page, and through the NYLC Twitter account.
Thank you again for making a positive difference in the lives of young people, your schools, and communities.
In Service,
The Staff of the National Youth Leadership Council
Project Ignition Invites You to Celebrate My Drive
We are so excited to see Project Ignition’s values and practices align with State Farm’s signature event and latest commitment to positively impact teen driver safety, Celebrate My Drive.
This fall, Project Ignition begins its ninth year of programming. In that time, we have accomplished so much and continue to build upon the idea that youth should and can own the issue of teen driver safety through service-learning. We know that there are new challenges to keeping youth safe on the road — including the issue of distracted driving due to web, phone and text use while driving — and we have taken on these new challenges with the same idea that youth can and will make a difference.
Celebrate My Drive does more than engage our youth, it asks them to celebrate! State Farm is rallying communities to promote teen driver safety by hosting events at 13 locations throughout the U.S. and Canada that celebrate new drivers. Each event will feature students and student organizations from schools in each community banding together to generate buzz and excitement around teen driver safety. We hope you will join Project Ignition leaders at one of these 13 events around the U.S. on September 15, 2012.
This event will celebrate the capacity for youth to make a difference, as well as their new responsibilities of being a knowledgeable and fully engaged safe driver. We at NYLC join State Farm in this celebration of our youth and are excited to see many youth and school leaders join us on September 15 where we will celebrate together.
Teens that participate will also have the chance to win a $100,000 grant for their school and one participating teen will win a major grand prize that will be determined via online voting this summer. Teens can join the planning team today by visiting www.facebook.com/CelebrateMyDrive .
For additional information, please visit www.celebratemydrive.com.
Conference Projects from New Foundations Charter School
The New Foundations Charter School conference teams had a great trip to Minneapolis filled with lots of fun and hard work. Check out some reflections for the three project teams below:
VIDEO TEAM: Hello from New Foundations Charter High School NSLC video group. As the video group of the conference we did many thing including video taping, editing, making videos for the whole conference to see, and many more things. To prepare for the conference we took classes with our wonderful teacher Ms. Shoshi so we could perform to the fullest during the conference. Each day we videotaped individually, and took clips from workshops, plenary sessions, and activities that happened throughout the day. The final video, after it was edited, was then shown at the plenary during the next day. These individual videos are on YouTube if you would like to watch them.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE TEAM: Our project was called Message in a Bottle. As a team, we researched and studied the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and put together basic facts and information regarding the Patch. At the conference, we replicated the Garbage Patch and used our project to educate those at the conference as well as those using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. We enjoyed the youth events held by the conference and the guest speakers, like Geoffrey Canada. Overall, the conference was not only fun and creative, but also inspirational, opening our eyes to many of the other problems people face around the world each and every day. We all hope to return to the conference next year, and each year after, spreading our message even further.
GARDENING TEAM: Overall we all had fun and enjoyed the trip. The trip was five days and all of that time we prepared and presented our gardening project to the people at the conference. People seemed interested in our booth! The booth itself had a map of the United States, which was divided into regions. In the divided regions there were pictures of crops that are grown in that specific region. Also there was a map key next to the map, which showed during what season the crops are grown. We also started a garden of our own in the schoolyard. When we got to Minneapolis, we had to shop for the items we couldn’t bring on the plane. Also we had some free time during the trip. There was a lot of youth activities such as dances and a videogame room. We also visited the Mall of America, which we all enjoyed the most. The teachers were great and in a way we can all agree on the fact that became one family, a Service-Learning Family of future leaders.
