S-L Leadership Institute
Registration is now open for the 2008 California Service-Learning Leadership Institute. The Institute has become the home conference for service-learning practitioners, school administrators, and CBO folks who either partner with schools in service-learning projects or would like to do so.
Some tantalizing details about the Institute, not yet made public–yes, you’re reading it here first. Don Hill, of the YSCal staff, is going to address the participants on the state of service-learning in California. Known fondly as “the godfather of service-learning,” Don is probably in touch with more s-l practitioners in this state than anyone else. And he’s smart and has good insight, so I’m interested to hear what he has to say. Seems to me it’s time we took a few minutes and though about the state of s-l in CA. Where are we? Where are we going? How do we get there? Your thoughts welcomed….
We’re also talking with Joe Kahne and Joel Westheimer about addressing the Institute. You may know them as the authors of a whole series of articles on teaching for democracy and civic education. They made a big splash in the service-learning world in 1996, with an article in the Kappan entitled, In the Service of What? The Politics of Service-Learning. They examined the ideological and political underpinnings of service-learning, and not everyone was pleased with what they found. Read the article–it’s still worth your time. And hearing them talk about the opportunity gap (some kids have all kinds of opportunities that other kids don’t–and there are more consequences to that fact than we might think) will also be worth our time, I suspect. I hope they still know how to rouse some rabble.