INDEPENDENT

S CH OOL

PARENT

Independent School, Winter 2000

Community Service for adults and children

long with pushing for academic achievement and a sense of safety and self-esteem in students, schools need to focus on citizenship that is, teaching children how to get along with others and be productive members of the broader community. Research suggests that there is a clear connection between community service programs in schools and the later civic involvement of adults. In interviews, adults who were involved in service as youths, especially those active in the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties, say that they feel their involvement was critical in shaping their identity. Most also say they are still involved in their communities as adults. They feel that service increased their awareness of societys ills and offered them a chance to help alleviate problems. The involvement also gives them a chance to form connections with people and groups who were similarly committed to social reform. Its because of the later connection and commitment that many schools (including The Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, where I teach) are working hard to get students involved in community service even at the middle school level. Through community service at Bryn Mawr, for instance, instead of seeing Baltimores disadvantaged youth as a group of others (as many adults and politicians do), students are able to see for themselves how much they have in common with poor children. Equally important, the learning goes both ways. Two groups of people who have most likely heard less than lovely things about each other and may well are programmed to mistrust each other, have an opportunity to meet, interact, and get to know each other as fellow human beings. This interaction at an early age is vital. The inner-city kids and our kids who go to the PAL (Police Athletic League) centers together twice a week are the ones who will be leading the city in the future. Having a chance to meet and form their own opinions and friendship can make a real difference in shaping a better community. It is less likely for people to fear, and thus ignore the needs of, those whom they know and understand. It is the fear of the unknown that creates so many problems. Through community

service, schools seek to make the unknown known, to bring to light the common humanity in all people, so that we can promote understanding and caring. It is just as important, especially when dealing with adolescents, to get them involved at an early age in order to foster the habit of moral responsibility. Research suggests that youth struggle to figure out how they fit into the world beyond their own friends and family. Community service takes some of the struggle out of that journey. By empowering students to take responsibility, and at the same time expand their own social understanding, we are promoting moral growth. For parents who are asking how they can get more involved in their childrens education, community service offers a perfect opportunity. By getting involved in community service, parents can model their children the sort of behavior we all know leads to a better world and to happiness within this world. They have a perfect opportunity to work with their children for the benefits others, while helping their children discover who they are and they relate to the rest of the world. We need to instill in student a respect for, and responsibility with, people are from all areas of our society. We need them to understand that this responsibility is good for both of them to understand that is good for both them and the world around them. We have enough evidence from our own past about what terrible things can happen when people will not, do not, cannot, see the common ground, what it is that makes as human being. There is a good bit of evidence to make up believe that not teaching this behaviors and getting youth involved in community service can lead to the kind of commitment to social action in their later lives that we are after. There is a firm philosophical basis to believe that moral responsibility and action can be encouraged and achieved as a result of this kind of introduction into the lives of young people. We are teaching and raising future mayors and social workers, governors and presidents even teachers and the habits and attitudes they start now may well be with them forever. Donna Tuttle is the Latin teacher and coordinator of student activities at The Bryn Mawr School (Maryland).