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Spring 2002, Vol 9, No. 1 This issue of NETWORK explores how service learning can foster diversity in a multicultural society. CRF’s Executive Director Todd Clark presents our nation’s diversity as the true guardian of homeland security. Sacramento-based educator Lorie Hammond describes a teacher-training program where service learning becomes a tool to use immigrant cultures as community resources. Lynne Feldman, a New Jersey social-studies teacher offers a comprehensive outline for a school and community teach-in about the Middle East. An excerpt from CRF’s The Challenge of Diversity provides a lesson and sample projects designed to address hate crimes and diversity issues. Our Profiles section demonstrates three different projects that promote diversity in the classroom and the community while FYI offers an array of diversity resources from the Internet. Diversity in a Time of Global Crisis By Todd Clark During the recent crisis, we have heard a great deal about homeland security. We have a new federal office and laws designed to protect us from terrorism. Certainly homeland security means doing everything possible to protect Americans from harm. But it also means protecting our democracy. There is little doubt that both are threatened. Whenever we face a crisis, Americans are tempted to lose faith in the open society that has built this strong, democratic nation. History abounds with examples. During World War II, it was fear of the Japanese. Japanese-Americans living among us were loyal but suspect all the same, leading us to curtail the most basic rights granted to native-born Americans—the right to freedom. Today the threat to our safety comes from extremists in the Islamic world. The threat to our democracy comes from our fear of anyone Middle-Eastern. One of our nation’s great strengths is that our people hail from many countries but have become one nation. The recent Winter Olympics saw medals won by a Mexican, a Cuban, a Chinese, a Japanese and an African, all of whom are Americans by birth or naturalization. The richness of our differences—of culture, ethnicity, and perspective—have created a society unlike any the world has seen before. No other nation thrives on such diversity. Still, there are those who object. They would use the tragedy of September 11 as an excuse to deny our rights, close our borders, and isolate one ethnic group from another. In this time of crisis, our differences can unite us around the issue of homeland security. Service is a powerful bonding agent. There is no substitute for working together to solve community problems. Collaboration across diverse groups for the greater good of a community represents the most powerful kind of homeland security because it builds the bonds we need to maintain a vibrant democracy. By celebrating a commitment to community, we illustrate how different groups can—and must—work together to build a stronger democracy. Only within a strong democracy can we really have a secure homeland. Todd Clark is Executive Director of Constitutional Rights Foundation. Fostering Diversity Through Community Service Learning By Lorie Hammond and Sue Heredia Being Hmong, if people did not know about our culture and our ways of living, they would probably call us one of the most illiterate people in America. . . . But what I discovered from my grandmother and other old people is that their minds are filled with experiences and knowledge that you can never find in a book or a television show. . . . —Hmong student teacher Generally, service-learning programs that affect culturally diverse, low-income communities involve people volunteering “to help.” At a university level, teacher-education students most often participate in service learning by tutoring “at risk” students. Educators who work with immigrants try to prepare them to interact with contemporary American society. Within these objectives, however, the knowledge possessed by diverse, immigrant communities is often discredited or ignored. In a climate where the most valued knowledge leads to high scores on standardized tests, “non-standard” knowledge is often discounted, placing minority families in a deficit position. How can a school share and legitimize the knowledge that minority communities hold while it introduces the skills and knowledge necessary for success in a modern, technological society? Community service-learning projects may offer one solution. Celebrating Diversity and Meeting Standards The Equity Network is a Title II-funded partnership between 12 teacher-education centers at CSU Sacramento and K–12 schools in West Sacramento’s Washington Unified School District. Washington Unified has large immigrant populations from Mexico, Southeast and Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union. The Equity Network program is designed to show student teachers how to work in classrooms and communities. This goal is supported by a community-development model of service learning in which diverse communities identify resources they can share and goals they want to accomplish together. In this context, community service learning becomes a tool for sharing and recording knowledge between generations and among cultures. Immigrant families are seen as talented people who have overcome great obstacles to get to this country. They are looked upon as teachers who possess a wealth of folktales and historical and practical knowledge about gardening, cooking, sewing, house building, and more. They are recognized as intelligent people who can quickly learn school-based literacies. When academic concepts are contextualized within the knowledge base of their culture, immigrant parents are empowered to contribute to their children’s education. In this context, student teachers and teachers play a variety of roles: as teachers of school literacies, as cultural brokers who can bridge worlds, and as learners who can benefit in profound ways from the wisdom of other cultures. K–12 students, parents, student teachers, and district teachers alternate as learners and mentors. Student and veteran teachers learn how to develop lessons that blend skill and content standards with community-relevant experiences and contexts. All projects incorporate and foster standards-based skills development—in English, literacy, and math—and standards-based content knowledge in science, social studies, and literature. The following case studies from Sacramento’s Washington Unified School District reveal the interesting possibilities that evolve when minority community knowledge is celebrated as a foundation for building school standards and literacies. Creating a School and Community Garden In the spring of 2001, Westfield, a K—6 elementary school in West Sacramento allocated property for a new half-acre garden. Forty Mexican and Southeast-Asian parents, eager to receive a garden plot for family use, agreed to help maintain the school gardens in exchange for a plot of their own. Students, assisted by student teachers and parents, planted fruit trees and grapes around the perimeter of the plot and laid out an ornamental garden with lawn and flower beds. Plots were created for multidisciplinary projects: a butterfly garden for insect studies by second graders and a rainbow flower garden designed for kindergartners to identify colors. Mexican parents planted a milpa, a traditional corn and bean garden, to share with the school. Teachers and student teachers connected the gardening activities generated by minority participants to curriculum standards in science, language, math, and social studies. The garden has become a learning laboratory. Writing—an important language-building activity—is a favorite link. Children write poetry and stories about the garden and learn field science by recording and drawing what they see in the parent and classroom gardens. Third-grade students plant a pioneer garden to match their studies of westward migration. Sixth-graders plant ancient world perennials—grapes, olives, and pomegranates—as a legacy for future students to harvest and process. Two-Way Family Math We come from a place where pencils and paper don’t exist. . . . I do not remember a time when the science teachers ever asked for ideas related to our cultural background. —Hmong student teacher At Westfield School, Mexican and Southeast-Asian parents participate in an after-school activity in which student teachers present parents with lessons on how to teach math concepts to their children at home. The student teachers—who speak Spanish, Hmong, Mien, and Farsi—work with the parents in small groups. The student teachers also know the home culture of their clients and incorporate that knowledge into their lessons. One day, the lesson is about teaching fractions, a concept that Hmong parents do not use in their country. The student teachers bring out the ingredients for a familiar stir-fry and discuss measuring the proper proportions for use. They compare traditional ways of transmitting knowledge about recipes, and then show how fractions are applied to written recipes in English. Together, parents and student teachers write recipes in English for traditional foods. The recipes are then published in a multicultural cookbook to be sold as a fundraiser for the school garden. In another activity, student teachers introduce parents to a fractions game that they can use at home to reinforce their children’s math skills. The fraction lessons are coordinated with an English family-literacy class that meets after school twice weekly. It is well attended by immigrant parents. Student teachers learn about lesson-planning in this real context and must reflect upon and modify their lessons after they see them in action. Parents who attend these classes must also link school to community—they prepare lessons and games to use with their own children at home and to share with other children and parents in classrooms. The multicultural cookbook serves as a school fundraising resource and a method for parents to practice English. Some parents are being trained to teach traditional cooking in classrooms. These lessons will combine their cooking knowledge with school skills such as presenting written recipes and talking about fractions. In this way, the parents’ English class becomes a learning laboratory where parents can be trained to assist in classrooms and expand the repertoire of skills they can teach their children at home. The Mustard Green Festival Mustard greens saved our lives many times in Asia, because they grow when other crops fail. This is why we must give thanks to them by teaching our children to grow and eat them. —Mien grandmother At Evergreen School, more than 500 children, many of whom are Southeast Asian refugees, eat a free breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria each day. A school-community garden project enables immigrant families to grow their own food and cook ethnic recipes for the school. In preparation, parents participate in community service by growing crops for children to eat. They then partner with the cafeteria staff to produce ethnic lunches. To ensure the educational component of this service project, teachers organize a garden-learning day before the ethnic lunch to teach students about the crop they helped grow, harvest, and eat. On the first day of the Mustard Green Festival, a group of Mien sixth graders provided 20–minute garden tours for younger students. The sixth-grade mentors used a chart prepared by teachers and parents to describe the life cycle of the mustard green. Using mustard greens from the garden, they identified each stage of growth from seedling to mature, drying adults. They described how mustard greens can be prepared and eaten at each stage and harvested as seed for the next crop. Students were invited to taste the spicy leaves of the mustard greens and sample hot peppers, lemon grass, and other garden plants. The sixth graders also conducted a tour of a Mien garden house built by parents and explained how such houses were used in Mien mountain gardens. Finally the younger students met with Mien parents who provided them with seeds and demonstrated how to start their own mustard green seedlings. The next day, the mustard greens were prepared in the cafeteria and served to the students. While some teachers had feared that non-Mien children would resist eating mustard greens, the link to the garden tour created new popularity for this healthful, spicy vegetable. School-community events like the Mustard Green Festival demonstrate how everyone teaches and learns when diverse cultures are treated as a resource. At an age where they are under peer and media pressure to reject their culture, Mien students find themselves valued for their traditional knowledge gained by gardening and cooking with their parents. Dual roles as teachers and tour guides also challenge Mien students to organize ideas and speak publicly in English. Often quiet in class, Mien immigrant students had a lot to say during the Mustard Green Festival. Mien parents, serving as experts on plants and planting, also learn teaching skills in the process. As content for standards-based literacy in math and science, they see their knowledge in a new context. As a bonus, immigrant parents who work in the cafeteria at ethnic food days receive commercial-kitchen cooking certificates, a possible first step toward future employment. Conclusion This has been the first time I have been able to establish trust and friendship with another culture. . . . The common medium is the garden. It was our universal language. Hmong parents gained trust and wanted to share their knowledge…They were the experts. —Teacher at Sacramento’s International Studies Project Community service learning can be used as a tool to liberate learning—not only from the four walls of the classroom but from the limited cultural perspective of teachers and books alone. With community service learning, cultures teach each other. People of all ages and cultures work together and re-value what they know by teaching it. Families alienated by war and immigration share vegetables and stories. A community rebuilds itself by learning together. This is community service learning at its best.
Lorie Hammond is Assistant Professor, Dept. of Teacher Education, CSU Sacramento. Sue Heredia is Associate Professor, Dept. of Bilingual/ Multicultural Education, CSU Sacramento. For more information, Diversity Resources: A Middle-East Teach-In In the aftermath of September 11, Lynn Feldman, a New Jersey social-studies teacher, organized a Middle-East teach-in. To get the job done, she enlisted her students, the entire social-studies department, and CRF’s online resource “America Responds to Terrorism.” Below is a content outline for a Middle-East teach-in:
Feldman, her students, and colleagues first presented their findings to the school. Next they conducted a teach-in to the larger community. “I just cannot express strongly enough how grateful the community was that we provided this evening,” said Feldman. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Northern Highlands Regional HS, Allendale, NJ 07458, (201) 825-1549. New Lessons Available Online: America Responds to Terrorism Constitutional Rights Foundation has prepared “America Responds to Terrorism,” a series of online lessons and resources designed to help teachers and their students explore and analyze critical national and international issues raised by the events of September 11. The CRF web site includes the following:
CRF is developing additional lessons and resources about terrorism. We hope you will return frequently to "America Responds to Terrorism” as we continue to augment and update this growing site. Outlawing Hate: Reading, Lesson, Projects Outlawing Hate—Reading
All of these brutal murders had one thing in common: They were motivated by hate. These individual incidents and the events of September 11 have drawn increased attention to the problem of crimes motivated by prejudice, or so-called hate crimes. Currently 45 states have hate-crime laws. These laws have involved controversy and even court challenges. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of hate crime laws for sentencing. These laws add extra penalties for any crime committed out of hate. Some of these laws define a hate crime as any crime committed against a person or a person’s property motivated because of the person’s race, religion, nationality, or ethnicity. Others also include bias against gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Hate Crimes Laws Pro and Con Since September 11, more states and the federal government are considering adopting hate crime laws. Supporters see these laws as extremely important in our diverse society. They believe hate crimes deeply hurt all levels of the community—individuals, families, groups, and society at large. Hate crimes intentionally send a message that minorities are unwelcome and unsafe. Supporters argue that hate-crime laws will help prevent violence and convey our society’s intolerance for these crimes. Opponents view hate-crime legislation as well-meaning but unnecessary and even counterproductive. They argue that anyone who commits a serious crime is already punishable under current laws. These laws protect everyone equally. They see no reason to pass laws that set up special classes of victims. In addition, they see no need for federal intervention into an area of law that states have traditionally handled. Further, they contend that hate-crime laws will primarily affect those who commit lesser crimes. They believe that sending someone into our overburdened and racist-filled prison system is likely to make them more racist. Thus the law may actually increase hate crimes. Discussion Questions
Outlawing Hate—Lesson Overview In this lesson, students examine issues surrounding hate crimes. First, students read and discuss an article on hate crimes. Then in small groups, students role play state legislators and supporters and opponents of hate-crime legislation. Procedure Focus Discussion: Ask students: “If a person murders another person because of his race, culture, or sexual orientation, do you think the person should be punished more severely than other murderers?” Hold a brief discussion. Reading and Discussion: See opposite page. Small-Group Activity: Hate-Crime Bill Step 1. Remind students that many states are considering adopting hate-crime legislation. Tell students they are going to role play a legislative session on a proposed hate-crime law. Write the following proposed law on the board:
Step 2. Divide the class into groups of three. Assign each student in each triad one of these three roles: state legislator, supporter of the bill, opponent of the bill. Step 3. Have all the legislators, supporters, and opponents meet separately to prepare for the role play. Tell the supporters and opponents to think up their best arguments and tell the legislators to think of questions to ask each side. Tell everyone to refer to the reading. Step 4. Regroup into triads and begin the role play. The legislator should let the supporter speak first and then have the opponent speak. The legislator should ask questions of both. After both sides present, have the legislators move to the front of the room, discuss the proposed law, and vote. Each legislator should individually state his or her opinion on the bill. Step 5. Debrief by asking what were the strongest arguments on each side. Project Ideas for Promoting Diversity A community needs to find ways to promote diversity. Here are a few project ideas to get you started. Keep in mind that often, the most effective projects are those you create yourself.
“Lessons and Projects: Outlawing Hate” was adapted from CRF’s The Challenge of Diversity. For more information, contact Constitutional Rights Foundation, (800) 488-4CRF. PROGRAM PROFILES
Building Sustainable Communities By Joseph Kulhanek SAN ANTONIO—Sandra Day O’Connor High is located in a school district that serves a population of more than 60,000 students. The student population of O’Connor High hovers around 3,000 students. Although it is an ethnically a diverse population, O’Connor is a traditional suburban high school, having a socio-economic mix that tends toward middle to upper in class identity. Much of the area’s housing is relatively new. The one exception is Helotes, where O’Connor High is located. This small, ethnic community has been absorbed by the suburban sprawl that has occurred over the past 20 years. About three years ago, while teaching a sociology class, I presented prompts that centered on student definitions of community. I asked them to (1) illustrate their own communities and (2) define communities they would like to live in when they turned “thirty something.” The discussion grew to embrace topics such as gentrification, neighborhood life cycles, suburban versus urban development, school size, and the spontaneous formation of social groupings. These simple prompts led to innovative ideas. Students took a series of field trips to collect data from different socioeconomic areas within San Antonio. They developed a PowerPoint report on their findings and presented it to a local journalist, a local developer, school district representatives, and school administrators. The mayor of Helotes attended. As a result of their findings, the students decided to develop a partnership with an inner-city school. The partnership would be based on an exchange of ideas regarding the notion of community. Brackenridge High School resides in the San Antonio Independent School District and serves 2,100 students in grades 9–12. In sharp contrast to O’Connor’s largely Anglo makeup, Brackenridge’s student population is 88 percent Hispanic and 6 percent African American. The school is surrounded by old neighborhoods where housing is turn-of-the 20th century and older. In this context, topics such as neighborhood lifecycles and gentrification come alive. O’Connor and Brackenridge students shared future community designs. Discussions centered on the “whys” and “hows” of each community. Why did you choose to design your future community with the following components: stores, churches, schools, malls, etc? How do you get around in your community? Sidewalks? Cars? Buses? From these preliminary exchanges, students from Brackenridge and O’Connor embarked on a joint service project they called “Building Sustainable Communities.” With the help of outside resource people, the students planned a series of service activities that also enhanced student citizenship and academic achievement. They decided to:
These community-building activities provide knowledge that I am unable to replicate in a classroom. They help students achieve ongoing curriculum objectives regarding community development and preservation. Students explore socioeconomic factors and the public perception of and the role of class in our society. Teachers, students, and community members work together. Kids that would not normally meet are given a forum to discuss issues. In turn, these first-hand experiences enable students to escape their classroom and interact with a larger world. Suburban kids interact with inner city kids to create projects aimed at improving their communities. They are able to see, feel, and hopefully understand what it means to live in a community. This CHESP Community Higher-Ed School Partnership Project is funded by the Corporation for National Service. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (210) 695-4800 x2227.
Liberty and Justice For All! By Melissa Skahan CUMBERLAND, MAINE—As we headed home from the National Youth Leadership Council’s annual service-learning conference, we found our flight cancelled and travel delayed. Held hostage in the airport but inspired by the conference, a team of innovative educational leaders from Maine School District 51 began to plan the next service-learning adventure for their school, the community, and beyond. In District 51, community stakeholders are surveyed as part of a Performance Indicators Study—our district’s continuous improvement plan. Recent stakeholder surveys had revealed that district graduates did not feel prepared to interact comfortably with people of culturally diverse backgrounds. Camped out in the Denver airport, we began to develop “Liberty and Justice for All,” an integrated service-learning plan deeply embedded in our standards, the Maine State Learning Results. The premise was to partner with an ESL classroom at Riverton School, located in nearby Portland, Maine. Middle-school students from District 51 would serve as literacy mentors for Riverton ESL students—most of whom had recently arrived in America. Through shared reading experiences delivered by computer technology, periodic meetings with a literacy focus, and by developing literacy materials related to units of study, they would present “Liberty and Justice for All!” This course of learning would focus on the American Revolution and the journey to freedom that our country made in colonial times—and that ESL students at Riverton are making today. Students from a suburban, homogeneous school population would gain greater appreciation of diverse cultures while working in teams to help newly arrived fourth- and fifth-grade students strengthen their literacy skills. The proposed framework for “Liberty and Justice For All!” was presented to District 51 students and parents in early August at an open house. A multi-age fifth- and sixth-grade team would use service learning as a vehicle to deliver a curriculum that deeply engages parent and community volunteers as coaches and facilitators. Students would work in teams and use decision-making matrices to ensure that everyone was allowed to participate. Students participated in a day-long diversity-training workshop. Assisted by a Robinson Mini-Grant administered by Constitutional Rights Foundation (see sidebar, page 1) they planned a kick-off celebration and literacy inventory to assess interests and reading levels. They scheduled an October-to-June series of lesson plans, site visits, and exchange via computer. Quilt exchanges and an international potluck ran side-by-side with student reflection, benchmark assessments, teacher observation, and teacher reflection. Improvement in literacy skills would be assessed through an evaluative software system. Then came the September 11th terrorist attacks. While writing opinion essays on U.S. immigration policy, District 51 students had a difficult time separating the concepts of immigration and terrorism. September 11th also magnified the fears of the Riverton ESL children—for many, it was a reenactment of the horrors they had fled from. “Liberty and Justice for All!” took on a new level of importance. We began to focus on similarities between children as they searched for peace in their worlds. What began in a Denver airport, has developed into a fully realized service-learning program. Our children have developed an awareness of the importance of understanding other cultures and working towards living harmoniously. “Liberty and Justice For All!” allowed both school communities to find solace and purpose in an uncertain time. The project closed a gap between cultures, urban and suburban settings, and different socio-economic situations, helping to build communities with skills and knowledge to seek liberty and justice for all. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Director of Volunteer Services, Maine School Administrative District 51, Cumberland, Maine, (207) 829-4805 ext 235. Promoting Diversity for Teachers-in-Training and Junior High School Youth By Val Middleton FORT COLLINS, COLORADO—The junior high school involved in this project serves a high-minority, migrant population in a low socio-economic bracket. In an effort to increase the academic skills, retention rates, and achievement levels of its students, the school is transforming its delivery system to an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP). Community service is an important part of the delivery system in relating classroom learning to the real world and in developing intercultural awareness. In their roles as future teachers and service-learning mentors, teacher candidates at Colorado State University identify student interests and contact local organizations that connect to community needs, student interest, and content standards. Most recently, teacher candidate teams addressed a school-wide theme of hunger in this way: Candidates presented introductory, fact-based lessons on hunger to small groups of students. They identified a local food bank as a community agency addressing hunger. They then facilitated activities where students created promotional posters in various languages, picked and delivered vegetables from a community garden, and trick-or-treated for nonperishable items for the food bank instead of candy for themselves. In the classroom, teachers and teacher candidates connected thematic content to the various student activities. “When we talked about weight and measurement, we used the food products students brought in for the food-drive,” one math teacher explained. “We estimated, weighed, and measured cans of beans and boxes of macaroni and cheese. We discussed geometric figures and volume with tangible objects. We used facts and figures from presentations on local issues of hunger. The possibilities were endless.” As a follow-up to the collection and classroom activities, teams of students and teacher candidates sorted and stacked food at the food bank. Other teams read books and wrote stories about hunger (Language Arts), created posters to hang in local businesses displaying hunger facts and promoting donations to the food bank and the Humane Society (Language Arts, Math, Art), created new labels for products (Art), used the Internet to find and distribute information about hunger projects (Technology), and translated forms and signs into other languages for community businesses (Language Arts). Infusing service learning into our teacher-education program has been a powerful mechanism for addressing diversity issues that relate to the needs of the student population and the content curriculum. We are beginning to see a positive impact on prospective teachers’ ability to understand and acquire knowledge and skills for addressing diversity in the student population and the community. Real-world situations help them examine bias and create positive action that is supportive of the diverse needs of others. Most important, all students have been included in these teacher-candidate actions, regardless of ability, socio-economic status, cultural background, or language. This union of diversity and service learning is contributing enormously to promoting tolerance in our schools and community. CSU is a member of the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER). School/University partners in the NNER share a commitment to John I. Goodlad’s 19 postulates, described in Educational Renewal (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994). For more information regarding the four functions of a partner school, see the NNER Compact for Educational Renewal by Richard Clark, available from the Center for Educational Renewal, University of Washington, Seattle. For more information contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. at (970) 491-5160. REVIEW CORNER
Soul of a Citizen In Soul of a Citizen, author Paul Rogat Loeb sets about to convince the reader that public and personal problems are shared by all and can be solved through common effort. He argues that we can lead lives worthy of our convictions. The key, according to Loeb, is to address the twin scourges of modern life—powerlessness and cynicism. Through his own commentary and with stories of ordinary Americans who have found fulfillment in social involvement, Loeb looks at how people get involved in larger social issues. He discusses what makes activists able to maintain their commitment for the long haul or burn out with exhaustion. He demonstrates how civic involvement fosters a sense of connection and purpose that he believes is hard to find in a “purely personal life.” Soul of a Citizen is generating favorable response “at all levels. . . from students who’ve never considered civic involvement to activists and scholars who’ve been dealing with these issues for years.” Some schools assign the book as required reading for service-learning courses. Soul of a Citizen also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide that includes an extensive activist’s bibliography, a list of civic-action organizations and web sites, and ways to get involved. Loeb and the publisher offer Soul of a Citizen free of charge to teachers. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , (206) 935-9132; or visit his web site.
Service Learning Through Themes in Literature
Joey Hoffman In 1992, Maryland became the first state in the nation to require participation in service-learning for all public school students. Service Learning Through Themes in Literature is one of eight replicable models developed by the Maryland State Department of Education to meet all seven of the state’s best practices. Each model program includes essentials of preparation, action, and reflection and provides opportunities for performance-based assessment, which are modifiable to different grade levels and can be infused into the system over a sustained period. Service Learning Through Themes in Literature can be used in grades nine through 12. It focuses on tolerance as a teacher-selected theme in literature. The theme unifies the teaching of content and skills. The service project is developed through collaboration with students, teachers, and community partners in response to a need identified by the community partner. The partnership and service is ongoing and can be continued by students in subsequent classes. The primary bibliography includes: • The Contender, by Robert Lipsyte, a 1960s novel about teens in Harlem. • The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, the drama of Helen Keller’s struggle with disability. • Night, by Elie Wiesel, an autobiography of a Jewish boy’s Holocaust experience. • Romeo and Juliet. Students prepare for service through readings, discussion, presentations by speakers, simulation activities, and planning with community partners. Individual students pair up with participants with the partnering group (in this case, a school for children with severe physical and mental challenges). They plan and implement joint activities, participate in reflection through discussion and writing, and create final project displays. For more information about this and seven other replicable curriculum models, contact Maryland Student Service Alliance, (410) 767-0358. FYI Diversity Resources Online Southern Poverty Law Center Teaching Tolerance. Founded in 1991 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance aids educators and K–12 teachers in their quest to promote respect for differences and appreciation of diversity. Teaching Tolerance’s web site features anti-bias programs and free resources and materials for all grade levels and disciplines. 101 Tools for Tolerance: Simple Ideas for Promoting Equity and Diversity. Designed to foster tolerance in the home, workplace, school, and community, this comprehensive Teaching Tolerance resource can be found the web site. Rethinking Schools Online. The current issue of Rethinking Schools features “War, Terrorism, and America’s Classrooms: Teaching in the Aftermath of the September 11th Tragedy.” This special report offers articles, teaching ideas, and a range of perspectives that will help students and teachers come to grips with the events of September 11. Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit, independent publisher of educational materials. Teaching About Culture. This Peace Corps sponsored web page offers resources and materials designed to promote understanding of other cultures, broaden perspectives, and help students appreciate how they are connected to the larger world. Teaching About Culture gives educators access to resources ranging from a Trainer’s Guide to Culture Matters to a workbook for students titled “Looking at Ourselves and Others.” Diversity/Service Learning Publications. The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse has compiled a list of publications for teaching about diversity using service-learning. On the web site follow the left-hand column to Pages, click on FAQs, and then on Diversity.
This issue of Service-Learning Network is made possible by Jerome Coben, President; Todd Clark, Executive Director; Marshall Croddy, Director of Program and Materials Development; Kathleen Kirby, Senior Consultant; Charles Degelman, Editor; Sal Arrona, Program Assistant; Andrew Costly, Production Manager. ©2002, Constitutional Rights Foundation, 601 South Kingsley Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90005 (213) 487-5590 Fax (213) 386-0459 www.crf-usa.org |
