Service-learning & Mentoring in a Public Alternative High School "Service-learning integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strenthen communities . . . the result is a radically-effective transformative method of teaching students" (www.servicelearning.org). Campus-based instruction Students local people reciprocity UGA is mostly White students from comfortable levels of affluence. 70% of all teachers are women and 85% of all teachers are White (Guarino, Santibanez, and Daley, 2006). Yet the students end up doing their teaching in schools with increasingly high minority populations Nearly 40% of Georgia's high school graduates are Black, Latino, or Native American Athens, GA is the poorest city of its size in the United States. service learning The Service-Learning Class After multiple unsuccessful attempts to institute service-learning as an add-on to a class on teaching writing, Smagorinsky developed a whole course dedicated to service-learning. The course is an elective rather than a requirement. Much support was required to get the course off the ground: University-wide service learning grant that offered montly meetings for a cohort of 10 plus a stipend of $1500 for program development. Finding a site--one of the city's two alternative high schools. Establishing and maintaining relationships is a key part of the success of the program. History concept development Peter Smagorinsky & Lindy Johnson The University of Georgia Book Clubs Students enrolled in the PLC exhibit a range of races. They tend to come from lower socioeconomic classes. Many have their own young children. For the most part, they hate school. The Professional Learning Center PLC Projects Three types of assessements: 1. Write a case study 2. Report on experience through fiction, journals, or graphic forms. 3. Blogging about their PLC experiences Majority of class sesssions devoted to book club meetings. http://www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/SL/SLBookClubs.htm#Ideas Menu of readings represent a range of issues with attention to socioeconomics, race, culture, social class, immigration, bilingualism, gender, etc. Book reviews for each title (from students, as well). Each book club of 4-5 students discusses 3 books. Each book occupies them for 3 weeks. Students spend first session discussing the book, second session planning the for the third session. Third session they present their book through whatever means they think will be most informative and compelling for their classmates. The idea behind this approach is to put the selection of topics and the means of discussion in the hands of the students. The idea behind this approach is to put the selection of the topics and the means of discussion in the hands of the students. This approach allows students to discuss issues that they might resist without the problem of the professor directing their thinking. Preaching from the "podium" goes against goals for the course which are for the students to wrestle with difficult questions that are new to them and arrive at their conclusions of what is fair and effective in edcuation. Rationale 1. How to prepare students from exclusive deomgraphics to teach in diverse schools where they often faced dissonance with the cultural practices, literacy performances, and behavioral norms among their pupils in school? 2. How to invite a consideration of current and controversial educational issues without trampling on the students' prior beliefs? Questions that emerge . . . What the students say "I believe this class has helped me more for my career as an educator than any other education class I've take at the University. Most of the classes have a service component, but it's not very long nor gets much attention in the classroom. Since the service portion is the largest part of the class and dominates the classroom discussion of how to operate a classroom, what to expect from students, as well as how to motivate a student--I was encouraged and learned more about my future classroom than any other class." The service-learning class helps integrate 3 major strands of conduct expected of faculty: 1. Teaching 2. Research 3. Service