Hello, I hope this Monday morning is treating you well. I apologize for
any cross-postings of this message but I'm hoping to reach both K-12
practitioners as well as college/university staff and faculty who study or
work with K-12 schools.
I am a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley's School of Education, and I am
currently working with Linking San Francisco on a project funded by the
Surdna Foundation to promote the development of active citizenship through
service-learning. The teams of teachers at three middle and high schools
have managed through their own ingenuity and overtime to pull off some
exciting initiatives to engage students in their schools and communities.
But we continue to struggle with time constraints in teaching course
content (academics), developing skills and knowledge for citizenship
(civics), and meeting real needs in the community (service).
Through this posting, the team at Linking San Francisco seeks resources
that *explicitly* connect service-learning with the development of active
citizenship both in theory and in practice. We are looking for:
* people to talk to who've done it (to give us ideas);
* curricula to offer the teachers;
* organizations that have developed materials for teachers to support this
concept; and
* any research on this topic of service-learning and citizenship development.
We are familiar with and using Constitutional Rights Foundation's materials
as well as John Minkler's Active Citizenship curricula. We have reviewed
the "Facing History, Facing Ourselves" curricula on citizenship. They have
all been helpful. The teachers have been creating their own curricula and
will continue to do so. But we hope to find more resources to continously
challenge our thinking and to improve our work.
One final note: Alexis de Tocqueville and republican/communitarian
conceptions of citizenship aside, it has been startlingly challenging to
reconcile service as an important dimension of citizenship, especially when
students in this diverse urban community belong to families and communities
whose members are not "citizens" or even legal immigrants, for that
matter. Proposition 187 and its anti-immigrant sentiments pervade
students' thinking about citizenship with its entitlements (such as access
to public education and health care services) and the importance of legal
designations of citizenship. This tension between citizenship as action
versus (and?) citizenship as designated status has been troubling and
fascinating. I'd appreciate any questions or thoughts that you may have.
Best,
Bernadette Chi
*******************
Bernadette Chi, Graduate student
Policy, Organizations, Measurement and Evaluation
Graduate School of Education, U.C. Berkeley
"Movement is what creates life. Stillness is what creates love. To be
still and still moving--this is everything." -- Do Hyun Choe