Engaging middle school students in service-learning
Abstract
Service-learning helps students develop academic, workforce, and citizenship skills while helping to solve local problems. This effective practice highlights service-learning at McGehee School in New Orleans, Louisiana, where all 131 students participate in service-learning as part of the regular school curriculum during grades five through eight. McGehee School was profiled in the National Service News, Issue No.159, May 27, 2002, published by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Issue
How to make community service an integral part of a school's curriculum, so that students develop academic, workforce, and citizenship skills while helping to solve local problems.
Action
All 131 students at McGehee School in New Orleans (2002) participate in at least one yearlong service-learning project as part of the regular school day every year they attend middle school.
- Fifth graders join 11th graders in operating the school's recycling program. Students make recycled paper in science class, write original poems on the handmade paper in English class, calculate recycling rates for the school and county in math class, and are taught crafts using recycled material from the Louisiana Children's Museum. Additionally, students are making a recycling video to share with other schools.
- Sixth graders have a literacy partnership with a nearby public school where they read to and write with second graders.
- Seventh graders are partners with St. Anna's Home for Seniors. Since St. Anna's is just two blocks away from the school, seventh graders walk to the residence where they engage in activities with seniors who live there. For example, as part of their science curriculum, students learned about the effects of aging on the body. While studying ancient Greece, history students organized a Senior Olympics and created timelines of the residents' lives in the context of major historical events. Math students studied the demographics of aging, and are creating a fitness video with residents of St. Anna's.
- Eighth graders focus on environmental issues such as, monitoring Mississippi water quality, collecting data on non-native species, maintaining a native/edible/butterfly garden, and teaching environmental science to third graders at a local school.
Context
Louise S. McGehee founded the McGehee School in 1912 to provide young women with an outstanding education. The school's mission statement calls for "a rigorous college preparatory education" and "traditional and innovative teaching strategies to challenge students and foster...a commitment to lifelong learning." While McGehee enrolls students in kindergarten through 12th grade, the service-learning program concentrates on middle school students in grades five through eight.
McGehee has a tradition of student volunteer service in the community, having participated in food drives, fundraising for United Way, and a clothing drive for hurricane victims.
In 1998, a seventh grade history class was studying about refugees and wanted to help. They thought about what refugee children might need, and then organized the entire seventh grade to assemble more than 1,000 bags with school supplies, and arranged for the American Friends Service Committee to ship the bags to Kosovo. The next summer, three middle school teachers drew up a plan for a full service-learning program and presented the idea to the administration, students, and other teachers. McGehee School obtained a small grant to implement the plan.
According to a Corporation for National and Community Service News Press Release (April 2002), the United States Department of Education cites more than 46 percent of American high schools offering service-learning courses in 1999, up from 9 percent in 1984.
Outcome
- In 2002, McGehee School was one of 16 schools nationwide to be named a Service-Learning Leader School by The Corporation for National and Community Service.
- McGehee School is an example to other institutions that want to know how service-learning works.
- This commitment to service-learning creates lasting connections between McGehee students and the community.
Evidence
Since 1999 the program has grown from three grades and three partners to all four middle school grades (fifth through eighth) and nine main partners.
