Teaching Change through Service-Learning

By Janelle Jeter

I was drawn to Washington Global because of the school’s commitment to teaching students the importance of connecting to communities globally and locally. Service-learning is one of the primary examples of my school’s commitment to teaching local and global leadership. Though my students come from different backgrounds, I believe that it is important they all understand that they can make a difference in their communities. One of the ways I am working to acknowledge our students’ diverse backgrounds and empower them to feel good about their role in the community is through a service-learning project integrated into their social studies course.

In introducing the idea of service-learning to my students, the class began with a discussion of philanthropy and what it means to do something to support the “common good.” The students and I had many discussions about what it looks like to help other people and why it is important for them to be involved. We used the idea that “everybody has something to give” as the basis for many of these discussions. Through these conversations, students were empowered to determine areas of need in their own communities.

The students then developed a list of the issues that they strongly believe need to be addressed in order to improve their communities. Some of their concerns are violence in their communities, lack of safe space for teens, shortage of carbon monoxide detectors, absence of green space, lack of stop signs and traffic signals in their neighborhoods, and security cameras in their neighborhoods that don’t work. All of these are pretty big issues that, if tackled, would make a noticeable difference in the students’ communities.

After the students choose an issue to focus on, their next step will be to develop the service project to help to solve the target issue. This is the most challenging part of any service-learning experience – how can the students have a major impact in their own neighborhoods with limited resources? Most importantly, how can the students make the most systemic change through their proposed solution?

In the last stage, the students and I will go into the community to complete the project. I anticipate that this will be the part of the process that will have the greatest impact on my students and show them that they are able to make a tremendous contribution to their communities. Most importantly, since service-learning is integrated into Washington Global’s curriculum, the students will have the opportunity to build on and engage in new service-learning projects each year, showing them that they can indeed lead change. 

Janelle Jeter is a social studies teacher at Washington Global PCS.

Janelle Jeter, a social studies teacher at Washington Global PCS connects her students to local and global communities.