Community service-Learning Program

The Community Service-Learning Program at the Fieldston School was designed to complement and extend the success we had experienced in our individual placement/internship Community Service Program. To our already existing model, we grafted an institutionally sanctioned service-learning component. In so doing we were able to profit from the outcomes offered by an engagement rather than merely an exposure model (Lee Levinson, 1986) of community service. In order to do this we began to offer a variety of courses within the Ethics Department during the regularly scheduled school day, which dovetailed and provided the theoretical foundation for students' service work. Besides informing students about the social justice issues inherent in their volunteer work, it also provided the necessary reflection time in order for them to share information and personal responses with their like-placed peers. Thus, the role of the Director of the program progressed to the next logical level— she now became a teacher/trainer in addition to a placement counselor.

The present Community Service-Learning Program at Fieldston takes a developmental approach with ever-increasing challenges presented to the participating student. The sequence begins in the ninth grade, with the elective, Introduction to Community Service (ICS) course, designed to acquaint the prospective volunteer to the wide-range of non-profit service placements available in the NYC Metropolitan area. In the tenth grade, through participation in the Community Service Advisory Board Seminar (CSABS), also elective, the student is given the opportunity to assume a leadership role in the design and execution of a CS project of group choice. The trained and empowered student is then able, in the eleventh and twelfth grades, to continue his/her involvement in the project developed during the CSABS year or to engage in an individualized CS project which permits him/her to serve in an intern or advocate role in the CS-L sequence. In addition, research can be pursued in a community service agency through electing to register for a Senior Seminar or an Independent Study.

In the ICS course each unit includes a preparation phase to acquaint students with the clients to be served (i.e. Children, Aged, Special Needs Populations, Homeless, Environment, etc.), followed by an action service project and culminates in a group reflection workshop. Although CSABS follows a similar pattern, the content is significantly different. Each unit includes a preparation phase to introduce students not only to the clients but also to the community agencies which provide services to these clients. In the process students master the skills and tasks required to work effectively within the agencies. Each unit therefore, in addition to providing information regarding the many needs of a client population, includes work in leadership, group process, communication, needs and site assessment, project management, grant writing and evaluation. Students in leadership roles then execute the service project while simultaneously supervising/mentoring his/her mentee (i.e. beginning ICS student) in the field, thereby ensuring a constant supply of trained and effective volunteers for future field work.