Service-Learning and Social Justice

Earlier this month, I attended the AchieveMpls annual Education Partners Luncheon, “High-Quality Public Schools for All: The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time.” The keynote speaker was former Minneapolis superintendent, Dr. Carol Johnson. Now the superintendent in Boston, Johnson spoke passionately and intelligently of the efforts to achieve equity in public education in the United States, and the causes and effects of persistent achievement disparities among different groups of students. She challenged the audience to do better by our young people, and outlined three key points:

1. An 80 percent graduation rate isn’t good enough.
2. One great teacher and a great principal won’t cut it—students need a team of caring adults working together.
3. Schools alone can’t overcome the disadvantages of poverty. We need a national debate about policies that perpetuate growing income disparities if we are ever going to serve all children well.

Johnson’s passionate speech moved me and others in the audience to tears at times, and for the past couple of weeks as I’ve gone about my work here at NYLC, her words have echoed in my thoughts. It seems to me that service-learning can be a strategy schools can use to connect with all three problems Johnson identified.

Service-learning has been correlated with both attendance and educational aspirations.  As an engaging educational strategy, it has the potential to help students see themselves as successful learners in new ways and perhaps help keep them in school as they discover ways to use their learning in the real world.

Service-learning has also been shown to connect students to caring adults in the community and at school. When adults see the contributions and investments young people are making through projects to solve problems in the community, they’re more likely to reach out and help children and youth when they struggle. And children and youth have more varied adults to turn to when they struggle.

And service-learning in its many guises often circles back to the issues of social justice Johnson brought forth. When students and teachers explore the root causes of why we have food shelves, the environmental effects of mining, or the consequences of unmanaged chronic diseases, they often find themselves pushing for civic action and change.

I don’t believe that service-learning is the magic elixir that can fix everything wrong in education today, but it has an important role to play in helping put young people in places where they can contribute in meaningful ways and connect to the wider world. We need their creativity and energy as our partners in making high-quality public education available to all comers.