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From the Desk of Bill Cirone...
September 3, 1999
Community Service Important For Students
Recent studies show beyond the shadow of a doubt that students involved in community service tend to be more involved and better citizens, and they also improve their academic knowledge and skills. "Service learning" is the phrase used to describe the activities that blend community service with classroom learning in a way that enhances both.
Because I believe strongly in the concept of service learning I have recently joined the Compact for Learning (CLC) and I support the efforts the group is making to link community service to school curriculum and to organize schools in a way that will strengthen the contributions of community volunteers.
The CLC is an organization of state and district K-12 superintendents created in 1997 and housed at the Education Commission of the States. The CLC provides a public voice for educational leaders to express the vital role that service-learning plays in student academic and civic development.
The CLC is working to insure that teachers are provided with the formal opportunity to understand the principles and good practices of service learning, and that there are high-quality opportunities for citizens to volunteer in K-12 schools.
I am convinced that these are important efforts and I look forward to working with the CLC to support service-learning efforts in Santa Barbara County.
Those of us who work to benefit our communities are lucky. Somewhere we learned about that inner spark that comes from serving the public, just because it's the right thing to do.
Santa Barbara County is filled with individuals who work for community betterment, in large and small ways÷as volunteers or professionals, or even just here or there as a worthy issue arises. To maintain those worthy activities, we all need to light that inner spark in our young people. We need to give them the chance to feel it.
There are currently programs in place in colleges and public and private schools throughout the county. These programs all enable students to perform community service, and they are run in a variety of ways. Also, there are thousands of nonprofit organizations that could multiply the good they perform if they had access to more helping hands.
The key to service learning is to pair up these community service projects with academic efforts in a way that enhances both operations.
Young people tend to reflect the society that raised them and it can be argued that a major focus in current times has been self-fulfillment. But a community is merely the sum of its people. Problems arise when too small a portion of the population is willing to work toward the good of the community.
If we value participation÷if we feel strongly that people should vote, should serve on juries, should help the weakest among us, should teach the young, care for the sick÷we need to tell our young people that this is important. Then we need to give them a chance to feel the glow that comes from doing these things.
The bottom line for any of our efforts is that we must support and encourage programs that provide students with the chance to feel the spark that comes from serving÷for them, for us, and for our communities÷and we must use that enthusiasm and experience to supplement academic knowledge, drawing both together for a product that is greater than the sum of its parts. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve."
© Santa Barbara County Education Office
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