Kids Project Learning Into Community

In a classroom at Ojai’s Topa Topa Elementary School, 11-year-old would-be reporter Libby Bradley asks Farmer John the tough questions.

“Do you use pesticides on your crops?” “Are they safe for humans?” “Have any of your workers gotten sick?”

Through the mock interview with fellow student Jonathan Bower, Libby dramatizes the debate over the use of pesticides on commercial farms, which is a concern for the Ventura County school surrounded by citrus and avocado ranches. The exercise is part of a program being implemented throughout the Ojai Unified School District called service learning--a teaching strategy that aims to merge classroom academics with projects that benefit the larger community.

The technique, once used mainly on college and high school campuses, is gaining popularity among public school students in the primary grades, beginning as early as kindergarten. Ojai has been one of the pioneers.

In the next two months, teacher Jeff Madrigal’s class will produce an educational pamphlet detailing the pros and cons of pesticide use and the ways in which crop pickers can protect themselves. Students will pass out the brochure, which they plan to write in English and Spanish, to farm workers and consumers throughout the Ojai Valley.

The classroom lessons are designed also to help the fifth- and sixth-graders fulfill state-required standards in language arts, science and social studies.

“What regular education often lacks is meaning,” said Chris Smithers, Ojai’s service learning coordinator. “We have seen that connecting the students with their community has so many positive effects.”

Education leaders predict that the national trend will continue to grow amid the spirit of service and volunteerism that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Kids learn best--and that really goes for younger kids--when they are engaged in hands-on projects,” said Susan Thompson, an administrator in the California Department of Education. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin has called for half of California’s schools to implement service learning programs in the next two years.

The movement is rooted in hands-on traditions, but goes further by tying assignments to a service. Projects are supposed to meet specific needs in a community, defined as anything from the school itself to the world.

Much different from community service assignments that require students to volunteer after school, service learning directly links projects to required curriculum and uses class time to get them done.

A new national study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that such an approach, when executed well, improved student attendance and achievement, resulting in higher grade-point averages.

Ten elementary schools in Encinitas in north San Diego County, where service learning has been active for a decade, were a part of that report.

Fourth-grade teacher Carol Kulminski said she thinks the projects have made the Encinitas community stronger.

“It’s not about test scores, it’s about creating people with a heart,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing that keeps me going.”

In Ojai, Madrigal’s students gushed about the program.

“You can learn while you help the community,” said sixth-grader Alina Downer. “It’s boring just sitting around with science books, memorizing facts.”

Classmate Grant Winfrey , 11, agreed. “If we’re just hearing it in class, it’s only us learning about it,” he said. “If we do a service learning project, we can teach a lot more people.”

Still, the strategy has generated criticism from Oakland to Chicago.

Parents have argued that exposing students to serious social issues such as homelessness could pose a safety threat or involve children in debatable political agendas.

One example in Moorpark had high school students interacting with AIDS patients in local hospices. After some parents complained, teachers scrambled for another project.

Other critics have said the projects could place teachers in roles that should be left to parents and distract kids from learning basics.

“This is government coercing people into doing good acts and kind deeds, and it loses its meaning,” said Wendy Leece, board member of Orange County’s Newport-Mesa Unified School District, where some classes participate in such projects.

“The government’s idea of community service is not necessarily the same as an individual family’s idea,” she added.

Supporters, however, insist that service learning enhances classroom lessons.

“They’re actually using the environment around them to learn,” said Dorothy Jackson, an administrator in Los Angeles Unified’s local district in North Hollywood, one of three local districts participating in service learning.

The programs have been so successful, she said, that L.A. Unified plans to make service learning a requirement for high school graduation starting in 2005.

Shaun Hirschl, director of youth services for the Orange County Volunteer Center, is another believer. For the last two years, he has worked with local school districts to develop service learning projects. Next month, 1,800 Orange County fourth-graders will glean an agriculture field and donate the vegetables to local food banks.

While helping feed the hungry, Hirschl said, the students will learn about the life of early migrant farm workers--part of their social studies curriculum.

“It makes lessons come alive, and it’s something that the kids will remember,” he said. “The beauty of it is that kids find themselves as being part of a solution to a problem, and a problem solver in our society. I think that’s extremely important.”

For the last two years in Ojai, grants totaling more than $100,000 have helped grade-schoolers plant oak trees, adopt a local canyon and lobby for a better public transportation system, Smithers said.

The money comes mostly from a private national initiative called Learn and Serve America, which doles out funding to districts through the state Education Department.

Ojai’s schools also were among many this year to receive boosts from a governor’s office program centered on Cesar Chavez’s birthday, which is March 31 and is being observed in some places on April 1 this year.

That connection to the late farm workers’ leader is partly why Madrigal’s class focused on agricultural pesticides for its project.

From the teacher’s perspective, the endeavor has strengthened students’ thirst for knowledge and their desire to help others.

“Will it actually change things in the short term? I don’t know,” he said. “But are you creating a group of people who are empowered to do things for the community? That’s for sure.”