with Katy Farber From real and relevant to what to do in the event of a mountain bike accident, the last predators in Middlesex, and the all-important question of who is responsible for the pizza at your exhibition of learning. That's right: librarian Jeanie Phillips talks all about service learning with author and educator Katy Farber.
A full transcript appears below.
Jeanie Phillips: I’m Jeanie Philips, and welcome to the 21st Century Classroom. We're here to talk books for educators, by educators, and with educators. Today, I’m here with Katy Farber. We’ll be talking about the book Real and Relevant: A Guide for Service and Project-Based Learning. Thanks for joining me Katy. Will you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Katy Farber: Hi, I’m excited to be here. I’m Katy Farber, I was a sixth-grade teacher for the past 17 years or so. Three years ago, I joined the Tarrant Institute as a professional development coordinator where I’ve had great opportunities to research, to write, to think, and to collaborate about how to make school engaging.
Jeanie: Great. I’m so glad you’re here to talk about this book. I really enjoyed it. I wish I had read it last year before I helped a team of teachers co-plan a service learning unit.
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I’m just going to start with your definition of service learning. You laid it out really clearly in the book and I wondered if you could just tell us what you think service learning is.
Katy: Absolutely. I really liked the KIDS Consortium definition of service learning which has students discovering the assets first, I would add. But the needs of their own community and then doing research about those needs. Then coming up with an action plan of how they can improve a condition and make a real difference in their communities. Reflecting along the way and then sharing their process out at the end. Jeanie: Could you talk more about what you mean by asset planning? Katy: Yes. In fact, when I first started the service learning work many, many years ago, I used this resource and it guided me to discover the needs and problems in the community. But then a couple of years ago I started to think about -- and learn about -- an assets-based approach. How can we go into communities as students or as teachers without really first looking at and learning from, the strengths in that community? And diving in, and getting to know people that live there? What makes the place they live special? Only then I feel, can teachers and students really explore what are the needs and the problems. Jeanie: That just makes me think about how you’re asking students and teachers to go into the community with the same lens we as educators use with students. That we’re not fixing them. We’re not saving them. That we’re really seeing where their strengths are? And helping them build skills where they have challenges.
Katy: Yes. I just went to AMLE in Florida and took teachers through an asset mapping process. It was very short, but you could replicate it in the classroom in a much more deliberate and intentional fashion. It seemed to set us up nicely to brainstorm about the assets of the community. Then brainstorm about the potential need.
Then look at the UN Global Goals. Try to prioritize needs based on those Goals, and then think of projects from there. Because then you’re grounding students in what is special and important in their communities and what they want to improve on.
Not solve but improve on.
Jeanie: Do you have an example of a school that’s done this kind of asset mapping that you could just briefly describe the process?
Katy: Yes. Thinking about Burke Town School, they have these amazing "Kingdom Trails", these mountain bike trails -- that’s the asset. This amazing outdoor opportunity that they have for residents and people that travel to this site to go mountain bikin...