Service Learning Commons^™

Involving Older Volunteers, In Public Schools, Kristen J. Amundson

Intergenerational

Each day, 5,000 Americans celebrate their sixty-fifth birthday. As this age group becomes larger, it will also become more powerful. As voters, seniors make up the most conscientious of the voting group in our society.

Service-Learning Advances School Improvement: A Position Paper From The International Service Learning Initiative, Barbara Gomez

Special Topics, General

The base on which the United States is built is participatory democracy -achieved only when all citizens are included in choice and decision-making. Nothing could be worse for our nation than to have our children feel alienated from the communities in which they attend school. For more than 200 years the rest of the world has been watching our progress, and as we have succeeded they have made efforts to emulate our sense of individual freedom and collective responsibility for governance.

Speaking Out For Youth Service: It's Not Just The Thought That Counts, Youth Service America, Nittional Association Of Service And Conservation Corps

Conference Proceedings

Welcome to the Youth Service America conference on national youth service issues and policy. We are gathering in Washington at a time when interest in youth service is high and Congressional action possible. Together, at this conference, we have an opportunity to play a central role in expanding the diversified field of youth service and translating successful youth service strategies into a national policy that will make the ethic of service an integral part of growing up in America.

Fostering Intergenerational Relatiollships For At-Risk Youth, Marc Freedman

Intergenerational

Many at-risk youth are growing up isolated from the range of caring and consistent adult relationships so important for navigating the treacherous course from adolescence to adulthood. An accumulation of research from the social sciences suggests that adult relationships-provided not only by parents. but by grandparents, neighbors and other interested elders-are a common factor among resilient children, who achieve success despite growing up under disadvantaged and stressful circumstances. An important. and not often addressed, question for social programs and policy is whether the circumstances of more at-risk youth could be improved through efforts designed to provide greater access to helping …

National Youth Service: The Proposed Legislation, Robert H. Atwell

Special Topics, General

I'm very happy to be back in sunny Arizona. I was here just a few weeks ago for another meeting, but this week I'm especially glad to be out of Washington, where the weather has been dreary and some of the political debate even drearier.

Because I work in Washington, everybody always wants to know what's really going on in the nation's capital, and why the government can't seem to get anything right. So I thought I'd begin by telling you about something you didn't read in the newspapers, and that's a meeting that took place the other day at …

"Person-To-Person": A Community Service Guide For Youth Groups Visiting Senior Residences, Susan Chandler

Intergenerational

The purpose of this guide is to assist you in the development and implementation of intergenerational projects in which youth groups visit senior adult residences. These "youth in service to elders" projects are designed to meet a variety of needs. Through them, young people learn to give of themselves and their time in a significant and positive way. With our mobile society, young people often do not have the opportunity to spend time with their elders; and as a result are deprived of an awareness of the aging process and of the wisdom which older people possess. Conversely, older people …

Youth Entering Service To America, Yes To America

Civic Engagement

George Bush announced today his proposal for the creation of Youth Entering Service to America, a challenge grant program designed to spur more young people to serve their communities as a continuing androutine part of their daily lives in high schools, college, and after graduation.

Service: Meeting Youth's Need To Be Needed, James C. Kielsmeier, Rich Willits

Special Topics, General

In April 1861, hours after the smoke cleared at Fort Sumpter, the first volunteer military units from the North were organized in preparation for the battle to preserve the Union. They were from Minnesota.

The North Star State is again mobilizing, capturing some of the fresh air of the service movement sweeping the nation, and adding its own populist brand of citizen involvement. Youth service is blooming in America's heartland, and community educators are leading the way.

Issues And Action In The Streams Of Service, Frank J. Slobig

Service Learning, General

The landscape across the country is sporadically spotted with an increasing number of locations where young people are engaged in sustained significant service. They are involved in part-time school-based programs in junior and senior high schools, in campus-based collegiate programs and in full-times corps.

The Impact Of Volunteer Experience On Adolescent Social Development: Evidence Of Program Effects, Stephen F. Hamilton, L. Mickey Fenzel

School K-12

The Social and Personal Responsibility Scale was employed in a study of the Youth Volunteers program, involving 44 adolescents in 12 projects, equally divided between child care and community service. Participants showed statistically significant gains on the Social Responsibility sub-scale. Girls gained more than boys and volunteers in community improvement projects gained more than those in child care. However, as in previous studies, gains were quite modest. Testimony from adolescents and adult participants was more strongly positive, volunteers citing improvement in their knowledge of themselves and others and the acquisition of new skills, adults seeing greater willingness to make decisions. …

The Roles Of Youth In Society: A Reconceptualization, Ruthanne Kurth-Schai

School K-12

The 1980s have been characterized as a decade of platforms for educational change. In 19S3 alone, five reports were released by national task forces and commissions, all expressing serious concern for the future of youth and society, and all proposing recommendations for ways in which educational policies and practices might be altered, to address such concerns.

Learning In The Community, John Formy-Duval, Ellen Voland

Service Learning, General

Community educators refer fondly to William Carr's words as "the drawbridge analogy." As community involvement specialists, they are committed to keeping the drawbridge down, so that adults from the mainland can both provide and use resources in the school, and so that young people from the school can go regularly to the mainland, learning to apply and understand-what they have read in their books.

Reclaiming A Needed Resource: Minnesota's Youth, Minnesota Task Force On Youth Service And Work

Special Topics, General

Report and plan of action to Governor Rudy Perpich

The Effects Of Service Activities On Adolescent Alienation, Raymond L. Calabrese, Harry Schumer

School K-12

This research evaluated the effects of involvement of adolescents in community service activities on levels of alienation. It was proposed that alienation could be reduced through the implementation of a model which utilized community service activities to facilitate adolescent access to adult society, development of responsibility, collaborative and cooperative work, and control over planning and outcomes. It is suggested that adolescent involvement in service activities can produce positive benefits, among which are reduced levels of alienation, improved school behavior, improved grade point average, and acceptance by the adult community. These findings also suggest that females respond more positively to school …

The Impact Of Experiential Education On Adolescent Development, Daniel Conrad, Diane Hedin

School K-12

This article summarizes the findings of a national study of 27 varied programs and concludes that experience-based educational programs can have a significant positive impact on the social, psychological, and intellectual development of adolescents.

Intergenerational School Projects: Examples And Guidelines, James P. Firman, Anita M. Stowell

Intergenerational

The residential, educational, and recreational patterns of modern American society tend to isolate the young from the old. Because there is little interaction between the age groups, each generation tends to stereotype the other. Educators must realize that these age-related stereotypes affect our interpersonal relationships, our self-images, and, consequently, our potential to live a full, rewarding life.

National Youth Service, Donald J. Eberly

Service Learning, General

A national youth service program could attack two of the most serious urban problems-the lack of needed services and the excessive levels of unemployment among restless young people.

Patterns Of Volunteer Service By Young People: 1965 & 1974, Donald J. Eberly

Service Learning, General

In November 1965 and again in April 1974 the Census Bureau conducted a nationwide survey of volunteers. The first was funded by the Department of Labor,l and the second by ACTION, a Federal agency established in 1971 to coordinate federally-supported volunteerism, and to operate volunteer programs such as VISTA and the Peace Corps.